Celluloid Peach

Auteur

Foreword Indies BOOK AWARD Finalist: 2018 GODS' Warrior (Fantasy) 2017 GODS' Fool (Fantasy) 2016 GODS' Enemy (Fantasy) 2016 Star Weaver (Science Fiction) Derek E Pearson is a UK-based author and illustrator with more than a dozen published novels in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Since gaining his bachelor's degree from Norwich School of Art in the late 1970s, Pearson has mainly worked as a children's book illustrator, including titles such as Tulsi the Tiger. Since the late 1980s, Pearson has also worked in publishing and journalism, specialising in the dental industry with his online magazine Dental Review. Celluloid Peach, Pearson's latest novel, is a grand, romantic and adventuresome departure from his usual writings, but brings with it the dark twist familiar to fans of fantasy and sci-fi. Pearson says, "When someone dies it has to matter. You have to believe a life has been lost. An author learns to love the people he lives with in his mind. They become real."

Texte du rabat

Not long after the 20thcentury arrived, camera-frenzy was rife, and 'models' for amateur photographers could make a living. Among them, in Brooklyn, is young, beautiful, Melia Nord. Answering an advertisement for people to appear before a movie camera she is asked to dance briefly as if a girl in a Wild West bar. Melia takes off - a high-kicker with no inhibitions. The novice film crew are mesmerised: 'Keep the camera rolling' the director commands. A star of the silver screen is born. So begins another movie career, like all the others - untrained, untried people are initially gathered into innocent scenes - producer, director, script writer, costume maker, set designer, and so on, are all characters worth watching as they learn their tricks and trade, in this entrancing and frequently humorous depiction of what was to become one of the world's biggest industries. Steeped in well-researched and vivid early 20th century details, peppered with Pearson's crackling dialogue and non-stop action, Celluloid Peach becomes compulsive reading. The 'ideas' discussions about a villain chasing a girl over plane wings is as hilarious as a debate about rescuing an actress swallowed by a whale - a plank wedged in the mouth would prevent her from drowning - yes? Melia's ascent is to be as swift as her fall. The narrator, stuntman-turned-director, Lance Murdoch was also Melia's first cameraman. His attentiveness leads her to trust him. Their marriage is fun-packed until an idiotic on-set prank, by an unknown crew member, turns Melia towards self-destruction and a dreadful fate.