Celebrating This Special Moment with You
As many of you know, I retired from Phoenix Helix in 2024. I’ve kept the website up as a resource for people with autoimmune disease, and I’m so glad to know that it continues to help people!
When I left, I mentioned that I had a lifelong dream to write a novel. I’m back today to celebrate its publication! Each of you in the Phoenix Helix community have always felt like friends. I couldn’t let this milestone pass without sharing it with you.
Today’s blog post is also a podcast, so you can read or listen, whichever you prefer. The same is true for my book: It’s available in paperback, kindle, and audiobook.
My Novel: Celestial River
A town that chooses to be an internet-free oasis.
A social media billionaire determined to change it.
And one socially awkward software engineer, caught in the middle.
When Suzy is literally knocked down by a pig when she arrives in Celestial River, she thinks her life can’t get any worse. She already lost her home and high-tech career, and now, apparently, her dignity. As a familiar sense of panic arises, she gets to her feet. So begins Suzy’s summer, stranded in the Blue Ridge Mountains in a tiny town without internet.
More comfortable with computers than people, Suzy can’t keep the quirky townspeople at a distance. Soon, she’s trying everything from goat yoga to fly fishing, making friends she never knew she needed, and feeling something that’s scarily close to falling in love.
When a social media billionaire arrives on vacation and offers her a dream job, she would normally be thrilled. But there’s a catch. His business plans threaten everything that makes Celestial River special. As the town mobilizes to stop him, he wants Suzy’s help to make sure his plans succeed. Unwilling to betray her new friends, she refuses. That’s when she learns billionaires don’t take no for an answer. When charm doesn’t work, he turns to blackmail…but there’s one thing he doesn’t yet know about Suzy. She’s not as meek as she appears. Keeping secrets from everyone, she’s determined to save herself and the town at the same time.
Buy It Here:
Listen to the Podcast Interview:
For those of you who have been missing my podcast, I have a new episode for you! I take you behind the scenes of writing my novel, including some moments in the book that you may especially love. (There are “easter eggs” for Phoenix Helix friends to find!)
At the end of the episode, I also share a clip from the audiobook recording.
My friend Joanna Frankham joined me in this conversation, a fellow autoimmune warrior who many of you know already. She’s been featured on the Phoenix Helix Podcast in episodes 18, 77, and 206! You’ll recognize her voice instantly because she’s from New Zealand, so her voice sounds like music.
Listen through your favorite podcast app: iTunes, TuneIn, Spotify, Amazon, etc. Or you can also listen to the episode right here through the player below:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Read the Interview:
The theme of your novel feels very timely. What made you decide to make the internet central to your plot?
With Phoenix Helix, I worked online for 11 years. It was my “office.” SO many gifts came from it — this podcast, this community, and a career I never imagined was possible that I absolutely loved!
And yet…that’s a lot of time online. We all know there are negatives to the internet as well, and they seem to be getting worse: smartphone addiction, changes to the brain and our ability to focus, mental health consequences, misinformation, harm being done on social media, and billionaires who do not care.
When I retired from Phoenix Helix, I was really thinking about the push/pull of the online world. How it supports us in some ways and harms us in others. So, in my novel, I created a town that chooses to keep the internet out. That would be very hard to achieve in modern life, and it would create a place unlike any other. It let me explore this push/pull through a fun story.
Why is it called Celestial River?
This is a fun element of the book! Celestial River has a Dark Sky Preserve — a place protected from light pollution where the Milky Way can still be seen. Dark Sky Preserves exist in real life too, but they’re rare. I love the night sky. I still remember seeing the Milky Way at age 14 in a remote part of the wilderness. It was awe-inspiring! I wish we could all see that every night.
How would you describe the book’s genre?
UpLit fiction is my favorite genre. Here’s a description from a website called the Novelry:
“UpLit novels focus on life-affirming aspects of the world to leave you feeling inspired and generally glad to be alive, but they still explore themes that might be darker or more complex. It’s an interesting genre which – despite its joyfulness – preserves realism. It allows writers to explore real-life issues and current events, while keeping a light touch and leaving us with hope for the future.”
During the podcast, Joanna said this could also describe all of my writing on Phoenix Helix. I didn’t think of it that way, but it’s true: I’m an UpLit Girl! Here’s how it applies to this novel: Celestial River has a quirky cast of characters, a whimsical plot, and a lot of humor, but the characters also face real-life challenges and there are some sad scenes too. If I did my job right as the author, it will be a book that makes you laugh, cry, and wish you could visit Celestial River.
Before we go behind the scenes of writing it, where can people get the book if they know they want to read or listen to it right now?
The book is available in paperback, kindle, and audiobook. I also have a new website, EileenLaird.com, where you can sign up for my free monthly newsletter: Book Dreams.
What are some fun parts of the novel that people who listen to this podcast will especially love?
While the book isn’t about autoimmune disease, I cannot write a book without that showing up somewhere. So, there’s a wonderful 7-year-old character named Sitara who has celiac disease.
Also, a central setting of the book is an inn called The Purple Pig, and all meals at the inn are 100% gluten-free, so Sitara can eat everything on the menu. They also cater to dietary restrictions of guests. It’s my fantasy vacation experience!
Lastly, one of the characters in the book has a tattoo of a phoenix, which is a secret hello for the Phoenix Helix community.
What behind-the-scenes moments would you like to share from your journey to publication?
Novels may have one author, but there are many people who help it reach its finished form. It truly does take a village!
- Chelsey Luther is the talented woman who designed my cover. She designed the covers of my nonfiction books too, so many of you are familiar with her work. But this is her first novel cover, so it was a debut journey for both of us. If you’d like to see the evolution of the cover from first to finished draft, I wrote a newsletter about that process earlier this year, which you can view here.
- Brittany Goodwin is my amazing audiobook narrator. For nonfiction books, it’s common for authors to do the recording, and I did narrate the audiobook version of A Simple Guide to the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol. But for fiction, you need someone who can act: there’s a lot of emotion to express, and the narrator also needs to differentiate character voices. Brittany truly brought the book to life! I wrote a newsletter about how I chose Brittany as my narrator, which you can read here.
- I also want to give a shoutout to my beta readers and authenticity readers. After writing the best book I could on my own, I asked others to read it and give me feedback. For the beta readers, I sent them my novel draft along with a list of questions about plot, character, and pacing. For the authenticity readers, I reached out to people who shared similar life experiences to specific characters, to make sure my portrayal was realistic. All of their feedback helped make my book better!
- Last, but not least, I want to thank my book launch team, who are writing reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and Audible right now! There are LOTS of novels out there and it can be hard to break though. I think Celestial River is a very special book, and I’d love to reach as many readers as possible. If you read the book and love it, it would mean the world to me if you wrote a review too!
- And a big shoutout to Joanna Frankham for cohosting this podcast with me today! She has a wonderful newsletter as well! It’s called Stuff & Nonsense, and I love reading it every month. It’s like a virtual trip to New Zealand.
My New Website & Book Dreams Newsletter
Thank you so much for celebrating this moment with me! I would love to stay in touch with you. I have a new website dedicated to my books: EileenLaird.com. I also have a monthly newsletter called Book Dreams. In it, I share sneak peeks into my writing life (and my personal life). It’s free and goes out once a month. If you’d like to stay in touch, please subscribe.
As always, I wish you abundant health and happiness in every way!
