Welcome, dear reader!
I am Irinel-Ramona Florescu, the owner of this website and author of the book King’s Host. I was born and grew up in Bucharest, where I still reside, although as a child I spent many summer vacations in the countryside, whence my fondness for wandering the woods and hills came. I’m very partial to beautiful things, whether useful or not, fluffy animals—cats are the best, handicrafts, Japanese anime and manga and romance, so long as it does not give me diabetes. But ever since graduating from university my obsession has been with interior design. Until around this time last year, I was busy decorating people’s homes and sharpening up my CGI skills. Weaving dreams and stories through images. I have never written anything besides school assignments before, not even a diary, nor have had any desire to do so. Writing has never been my cup of tea. Quite the opposite.
So, what happened? Well, a nice vacation in Crete happened. A few amusing episodes and some short posts on social media about them. I very much enjoy talking to people, even when we speak different languages, and it was quite entertaining to reproduce some of the more comic conversations. And isn’t finding pleasant sides to it a good way to overcome a dislike? ‘Why not write a short story’, my husband suggested, ‘as an exercise? You have no problem talking for hours, try to put some of that in writing. Don’t fret about it being something original, just write whatever makes you feel good.’ So, what makes me feel good? Talking to people, bantering, having a good laugh.
There is a lot of dialogue in King’s Host. I have not checked that, but it is quite possibly in excess of the narration. It could not be helped, I had too much fun writing it. It was with dialogue that the whole exercise started, although I was already five or six chapters into it before I realized it was turning into something bigger and more serious than I had originally intended. And that I was enjoying it in ways I never expected. Around chapter twelve I realized there would be a second book. For a whole year I did nothing but write and I was not done yet! Clearly I was losing my mind.
I am offering you this book for free* because writing it has been an incredible experience and I feel I should give something in return for all the things I learned from those sharing their knowledge, whatever their discipline. Writing has not become much easier than before, but it surely is growing on me with every sentence. I hope this book will bring a smile to your face and make you forget, even if only for a while, your daily worries. And leave you wanting for more.
*Amazon pricing:
Amazon has a default minimum acceptable price of $0.99 + taxes.