Adrienne’s Awakening
Adrienne’s Awakening is book one of The Mind Duology. The release date is March 24, 2020.
Availability
If you’re a reader, check your local independent bookstore first. Most independent bookstores should be able to order the book for any customers who seek it. The softcover will be available for purchase and distribution throughout the United States. The ebook will be available on Amazon.
Mindy is offering the book on consignment to independent bookstores. Copies will also be available to book retailers through IngramSpark.
Retail price for the softcover is $17.99. The ISBN is 978-1-952130-00-7.
Genres
Fiction, Science Fiction, Psychic Suspense, Metaphysical Fiction, New Adult, Metaphysical & Visionary Fiction.
It’s a little bit sci-fi, sort of supernatural, and definitely new adult.” — Mindy Schoeneman, Author of Adrienne’s Awakening
Contact Info
Mindy Schoeneman
info@mindyschoeneman.com
Mindy is currently booking events and accepting interview requests.
Long Summary of Adrienne’s Awakening
Adrienne’s Awakening is a story about secrets, loss, growing through difficult circumstances, and facing danger. Adrienne Adams, the main character, discovers her and her family are telepaths—and everyone around her has been keeping it from her for her whole life. They’re not the only ones in the world with this ability, either. No, there are communities of telepaths around the globe.
Almost simultaneous to this discovery is another more sinister revelation—someone has been watching Adrienne, and that person seems to want to do her harm. She’s taken to a telepath community compound for safety. While there, she works to develop her dormant abilities, but the loss of someone she loves changes everything.
Adrienne’s Awakening is set in Arnold, Missouri and Franklin County, Missouri. It’s a contemporary work of genre fiction. It’s the first of two books in The Mind Duology and both books were written for those interested in stories about characters finding their place in the world after high school in the midst of impossible circumstances.
Short Summary
Adrienne Adams learns she comes from a long line of people with supernatural abilities—specifically, telepathic abilities. This discovery comes with dangerous complications that puts her life and that of those she loves most on the line. No one is safe in this new adult science-fiction, supernatural tale. Adrienne’s Awakening is book one in the Mind Duology and author Mindy Schoeneman’s debut in fiction.
Official Blurb
Secrets are dangerous—but in this story, the mind that harbors them is more dangerous. When twenty-year-old Adrienne Adams pictured her life after high school, she didn’t anticipate her grandmother’s strange revelation that Adrienne comes from a long line of people with supernatural abilities. She is a mind reader.
Adrienne’s life is turned upside down by this revelation, but she doesn’t have time to contemplate what being a mind reader means for her future before she’s sucked into a perilous game of cat-and-mouse. Rocked by more discoveries and faced with a sudden loss, she is tired of waiting for answers. So she decides to go after the bad guy herself. The trouble is, she isn’t certain who the bad guy is.
Will she be able to awaken her telepathic abilities? Will she get the answers she’s seeking? Or will she be too late?
No one is safe in this new adult science-fiction, supernatural tale. Adrienne’s Awakening is book one in the Mind Duology and author Mindy Schoeneman’s debut in fiction.
Excerpt
Take a peek at the first three chapters.
Mindy Schoeneman’s Long Bio
Mindy Schoeneman was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She grew up in rural Missouri outside of St. Clair. While she has lived in other nearby communities, it never lasted long. St. Clair has and continues to be her home. She started writing shortly after she learned to read, which was much later than most children. She was around seven-years-old when she finally stopped resisting her mother’s attempts to teach her to read. And yes, she was homeschooled. Her mother read a book, Better Late Than Early by Dr. Robert and Dorothy Moore, that convinced her to follow her children’s lead in learning because it would make them more interested learners. Her unconventional approach meant that Mindy learned to read late, but she’s never stopped since.
Mindy wrote my first poems around the age of nine. Her first short story was a collaborative work she completed with her pen pal (Monica Pels, if you’re out there, Mindy would sincerely love to catch up). Her second short story was quick to follow. But she never tried writing anything novel-length until she was an adult. That was the worst, most directionless story she has ever read. It was bad enough to convince her to stay away from novel-writing for another ten years.
Mindy began writing Adrienne’s Awakening in 2016. She managed to write 40,000 words from June, 2016 to October, 2017. And in November, 2017, she participated in her very first National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
Medium Bio
Mindy Schoeneman has worked with horses and people, zeros and ones. She’s been an adventurer in the Philippines and across the United States. She’s survived a divorce, given birth to three children, and made it through two home purchases without going through a second divorce.
She’s always had stories to tell, and Adrienne’s Awakening is her first official leap into telling fictional stories publicly. The novel is set in Missouri which is where Mindy and her family reside. Mindy writes sci-fi, supernatural tales infused with real-life experiences, people, and emotions. Visit her on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or at mindyschoeneman.com.
Short Bio
Mindy Schoeneman has worked with horses and people, zeros and ones. She’s been an adventurer in the Philippines and across the United States. She’s always had stories to tell, and Adrienne’s Awakening is her first official leap into telling fictional stories publicly. The novel is set in Missouri which is where Mindy and her family reside.
Fun Facts from Mindy Schoeneman
- There are scenes in Adrienne’s Awakening that I borrowed from real life. They’ve been changed quite a bit to fit Adrienne and her story, of course, but there are situations that also happened to me.
- Adrienne’s story started with a thought: What if our dreams aren’t always dreams? It evolved greatly from that point, but it was the first question that spurred the rest.
- In all things not related to writing, I’m a hardcore planner and plotter. There’s something about telling a story, though, that turns me into a pantser. All my outlines have ultimately failed.
- I chose new adult as the age range for my main characters because it’s a messy time of life when almost every decision sets the direction of a person’s life.
Why did you choose to become an indie author?
I didn’t query a single agent or publisher. I’m not against traditional publishing, but I’m for being the one in charge of my own destiny. It was tempting to start the querying process for that validation of being chosen as good enough for an agent and then again by a publisher who wants to invest money into my work. But it wasn’t tempting enough.
I also understand that indie authors are often blind to their own failings, and I don’t want to publish something that is awful (who does?!). So I compensated by putting my story through the paces with beta readers, an editor, more beta readers, another editor, and trusted friends who know a thing or two about writing a good book.
I choose to be an indie author because I want to set my own path. It helps that I own a marketing company and I’ve been a business owner since 2015. Because ultimately, being an indie author is like running a business. Having been the owner of a marketing company in particular is definitely helpful. The marketing portion of being an indie author calls on the skills and expertise I’ve been building since 2012.
What advice would you give others who are dreaming of becoming an author?
Read. Shut the TV off. Unsubscribe from streaming services for a year. Get all of your entertainment from books. Read in a way you’ve never read before. Analyze the stories you like. Figure out what was done well and what isn’t by your favorite authors. And read as much as you can in the genre you want to write in, but make sure you sneak something else in from time to time.
If you’re having a hard time coming up with story ideas, read a newspaper or two. Better yet, subscribe to something like Morning Brief by New York Times. All the headlines and a synopsis of the stories (as well as their expert’s analysis on some) are delivered straight to my inbox every morning.
If the news doesn’t inspire you, then maybe you’re meant to write a memoir.
Write often and write bad. Let it stink. Accept that you’re not going to write well for a long time. Then keep writing anyway. Make friends with other authors, aspiring or published. You’ll help each other grow. You’ll be able to talk about all things writing. Maybe join a local writers’ group even.
Understand that your first draft is called a first draft for a reason. It will need to be rewritten. You will need space from your story and first draft before you begin working on the second draft.
How did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Have you ever had feelings so big you didn’t know what to do with them? Or so many feelings at once, it left you feeling like you might burst? I have, and those too-big feelings were the reasons I first started writing as a child.
It all started with poems around age nine, short stories a few years later, and half of a middle grade novel as a young adult. Somewhere in the midst of this I thought, I’d like to be a writer. And so I started as an English major at college.
My career as an English major didn’t last long. I realized quickly that it was much less about writing and much more about general education than I had anticipated. Always the pragmatist, I wanted to make sure the money I was investing was being well spent. So I took a look at what the average writer made. The answer was not enough to live on.
Discouraged, I took a break from writing and college. At this point, I was done with writing. It was time to be an adult and follow a more practical career path. Writing was a child’s dream that would never pay my bills, right? (Wrong, but that’s a different story for a different day)
Eventually, I turned back to writing when I realized I was drowning in all the things I was thinking and feeling—or rather in my efforts to escape all that I was thinking and feeling. I was running as hard as I could away from writing, grief, stress, and more. I was adrift, bereft. Then I started writing again. It started in the form of a letter I never sent, and it grew bigger, bigger, and bigger again. Fiction to nonfiction to a career built on words. Slowly, painfully, with the help of words, I shed who I had been trying to become. And I’ll be forever grateful to God and writing for that.
Advance Praise for Adrienne’s Awakening
“Adrienne basically has to play a life and death game blindfolded. At least that’s what it feels like. It’s exciting and fast-paced and mysterious, and because it’s mysterious I don’t really know how to say more than that without giving something away. It’s kind of like Bourne Identity—and in the same way that Bourne doesn’t know about the moving parts around him at the opening scene, Adrienne finds herself in the same quandary. Why does she have this mysterious power, and are the people around her pursuing her to help or harm her? Moving, unidentifiable, mysterious pieces make up a complex puzzle that you hope the MC solves in time to save her life.”
—Marisa Grace Porter, Author of “A Calisbury Christmas”
