Sometimes it can be a long time between the idea for a novel and its completion. That is the case with the second novel by Eureka Springs resident Harrie Farrow, Finding Bonita.
“The initial idea came to me on a merry-go-round at Silver Dollar City back in the late 1990s,” Farrow, who a Carroll County Justice of the Peace, said. “I’ve worked on the book on and off for twenty-five years.”
Farrow’s book was released Nov. 13 and is already showing up on Amazon’s top 100 best sellers for Caribbean and Latin American Fiction (as high as #49 at one point). In the Caribbean and Latin American Fiction New Releases category, it even hit #1 at one point and has continued to hover between #2 to #7.
Covid restrictions have made life harder in many ways, but Farrow said the isolation gave her the time to finish the novel.
Farrow’s first novel, Love, Sex, and Understanding the Universe, was released as an eBook in 2013 and paperback in 2014, and is also available on Amazon. Both novels will soon be available in hardcover, as well. The novels have LGBTQ characters and are also categorized under literary fiction.
Farrow spent her entire childhood and a few of her adult years in the Virgin Islands. The novel takes place largely on a fictional Caribbean island molded after the islands she loves so much.
Farrow will be available at the Writers’ Colony “Meet Your Maker” event on Dec. 4 at the Eureka Springs Community Center for signed copies of both books. Check her Facebook page for days and times when she will be at Brews selling copies.
The book blurb for Finding Bonita says, “Will Bonnie ever discover the secret behind the mysterious Man With The Camera, and why she’s always felt that something fundamental has been missing from her life? Impactful childhood experiences form intriguing adults whose paths cross in life-altering ways. Their fates entangle in San Francisco and a tiny Caribbean island through sexual and existential obsessions, profound love, and epic loss.
“Ted gets passionate about every new concept that comes his way. Jill just wants to be normal, but what’s normal keeps changing. Rachel craves emotional connection and healing from compounding tragedies. When their lives collide in the 1970s, joy abounds until Ted’s next infatuation. Meanwhile, a child has been born.
“Living in their periphery, with no small consequence, is Ivan, who would be happy to fish, grow ganja, and praise Jah if only he didn’t have to keep fighting off the devil. This frolicking novel takes readers on an insightfully explicit adventure sprinkled with natural beauty, culinary delights, and confounding homicides.”
A recent review on Amazon from a reader who gave the book five stars wrote: “This was a great read from start to finish! Highly recommended!”
Currently there is an effort to ban LGBTQ books from school libraries. Farrow says that her novels are not appropriate for children because they are quite sexually graphic at times. But she strongly condemns the current efforts at limiting children’s abilities to access needed information.
“I feel this is like another witch hunt and just one more effort heading us on a scary road towards fascism,” Farrow said. She is a political activist with Indivisible and other groups and has been involved in numerous protests in Washington D.C. with the Center for Popular Democracy.
“It is important to tell stories with LGBTQ characters because when people don’t see who they are represented in books/movies, they think they are alone. When they feel they are somehow not acceptable and shameful, and they don’t see any role models for how to be who they are, all this can weigh heavily on mental health.”