Release Day!

On which I ship what I hope will be your next great read

Today, the Ides of March, March 15, 2023, my novel, The Good Death of Kate Montclair, launches from Chrism Press. You can buy the book here at the Chrism Press website or here on Amazon.

Thank you all, here at The Comic Muse, for supporting my work! If the premise of The Good Death of Kate Montclair grabs your fancy, I hope you will give the book a try.

If you do read the book, I would appreciate if you would consider leaving a review on Amazon. As you may know, Amazon reviews are hugely important when it comes to sales on their site. Reviews basically help a book come more quickly to the attention of folks browsing Amazon looking for something new to read.

And keep in mind: a review doesn’t have to be an essay! It can be a single sentence, or a very short paragraph.

And, of course, I ask only for your sincere estimate of the book. This is not a plea for a “sweetheart” review.

But if you do find The Good Death of Kate Montclair of interest, I hope you will also consider telling a friend about it. Word-of-mouth is still perhaps the most effective means for a book to gain attention. We typically trust a friend’s recommendation far more than we trust a review online.

In case you haven’t seen the synopsis for The Good Death of Kate Montclair, here it is…

The Good Death of Kate Montclair: Synopsis

Kate Montclair is dying.

She has arrived at late middle age loveless, childless, and having failed to achieve the career dreams of her youth. Now diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, she sees the next fourteen months of suffering as an as an intolerable prospect. Kate is desperate—not only for a miracle cure, but for some sense that her life, and life itself, amounts to something more than catastrophe.

When she sees an advertisement for the Washington, D.C. Death Symposium, Kate investigates and learns that the monthly discussion group is led by none other than an old friend, the imperious and inimitable Adele Schraeder, whom Kate has not seen since their teaching days in Rome. On Adele’s advice, Kate is soon secretly planning her “deathday,” at which she will break Virginia law with an assisted suicide.

But Adele Schraeder is not the only person Kate reconnects with at the Death Symposium. Also present is Benedict Aquila, another friend from Rome, who has been living in D.C. while nursing his mother through her final illness. And then there is the strange, mentally ill street woman in her 30s, sitting in the corner, drawing pad in hand. Who is she? She is the Ariadne’s thread that will eventually lead Kate on a journey back through the years to her youth in Rome, to the love affair Kate had with a married man named Michael Cody, and to the calamity that took his life.

As Kate, with Benedict’s help, delves into the mystery of this strange woman, she discovers that Michael Cody’s death is a story that is not yet finished—even while she and Benedict discover insidious evidence that Adele’s deathdays are not always what they seem.

With time running out before her own scheduled deathday, Kate has to decide whether she will trust Adele and take her own life, or whether she will endure her illness in order to repair what she can of her past, a choice that means undergoing the excruciating suffering she has been so desperate to avoid.

Discussion Questions Now Available

If you or your book club is looking for discussion questions related to The Good Death of Kate Montclair, you can find some here.

But please also always feel free to ask me questions about the book via the Comments here on The Comic Muse or via danielmcinerny@proton.me.

Thank You All So Much Again for Being a Part of The Comic Muse!

I really appreciate it!