Pages Feature | “Off My Feet” by Rachel Tremblay

“All we are is intelligent dirt.”

Lone wolf coffee-slinger and accidental oneironaut Edie Stacks has her life turned upside down by reality-altering lucid dreams, and space invaders!

Off My Feet is a Neverwhere-meets-Inception psychedelic chronicle of female experience where trust is learned the hard way, the hard knocks of life are explored, and love and friendship are pushed to their limits. Watch Edie make a mess of everything! Sh*t gets weird!

Edie is a broke but happy thirty-year-old with too many one-dollar Phil Collins records, a perfect circadian rhythm, and big trust issues. She lives on her own terms, keeping everyone at an emotional arm’s length.

Plagued with insomnolence after having relocated into a new home, strange circumstances provide her the sleep she yearns for, but also vivid dreams that meddle with her waking life.

Using her dreamscapades to create a situation that appeals to her, she realizes that she does not have the control she wants. In fact, she’s making a mess of everything.

To make matters worse, she’s adopted aliens and they have no intention of leaving.

Somehow Edie is stuck with the mission to save Earth from extraterrestrial world domination. And here she thought she was just minding her own business. Surprise!

I should mention that I first met the author Rachel Tremblay as @racheltremblaybooks from the bookstagram community. Rachel is one of the sweetest, kindest people I’ve ever met online. She is always very entertaining in her posts without losing her authenticity. When she began sharing her artworks and her novels in addition to her gorgeous book photography I immediately became a fan. I chose Off My Feet as my first read from her titles simply because it was so easy for me to feel a connection with the main character Edie.

“For a while, my mundane life is transformed into something much more interesting, where the ticking of invisible clocks doesn’t loom behind my thoughts, reminding me constantly that this is it. I’m thirty years old and this is my life.”

Edie is a coffee drinking / sun + plant loving / cat hoarding / music addict that will charm you with her tough cookie attitude. She has a lot of trust issues, and is happiest when she is left alone. But her quiet existence will be turned upside-down by noisy neighbors, weird coffee drinkers, magical pink pills, and fluffy cats. ⁣This is a book about a poor girl’s dream come true until her new life turns out to be a nightmare after all… Plus cats! Lots and lots of cats!

“We live out our days in a narrow corridor decked with curated information, curated people, recycled knowledge and regurgitated opinions.”

Aside from the epic oneiric adventures, it is also a thoughtful portrayal of a broke 30 yr-old’s life lived day-to-day and hand-to-mouth. It’s an exploration of what’s really important in life. It shows that money can buy you happiness, especially if you’ve lived your life in the poor end of the economic spectrum. What it can’t give you is true peace of mind, trust, and love. It can’t buy you any of the things that will make you feel like the richest person in the world. It can’t give you contentment. ⁣

“And love, well, that’s a rare thing I think no one really comes across in their life unless they’ve sold some part of themselves to the devil. Which is why they cling onto the other person, since they are no longer complete, and need to fill the void to feel whole.”

It was thrilling to see Edie save the world (and stranded space aliens!) but what makes me truly happy is to see her save herself in the process, too. There’s some cute romance as well, but I was just really there for the cats. ⁣

It’s a lot of fun, especially if you’re like me who loves the concept of lucid dreaming. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves magical realism and fun sci-fi à la Douglas Adams. Did I mention there would be cute cats?? ⁣

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About the Author

Rachel Tremblay is a Canadian artist, musician and writer. Working on poetry, songs and hip-hop lyrics in her young adult life, she also spent a lot of time drawing. This led her to study fine arts in Matane, Quebec and then Kelowna, British Columbia. Without abandoning her other artistic endeavors, she wrote her first music album, under the band name August Elliot, upon returning to Quebec. During this time she married and had her first child. She spent a good part of the next decade honing her craft as a classical / surrealist painter under the wing of an Argentinian mentor, all while writing music for her second album, gigging, working as a graphic designer, and giving life to a second child. Painting, music and poetry led her to finally write novels doused in magic and fantasy. A homeschooling mother, vegan and straight-edge, she lives against the grain as a spiritual warrior who believes in the innate goodness of the human heart. You can find her in her native Montreal or in the Laurentian woods making art in some form or other.

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Book Details

Off My Feet by Rachel Tremblay
Paperback, 362 pages
Published June 16th 2020 by GrindSpark Press
ISBN0969017278 (ISBN13: 9780969017271)
Edition Language English
Genre: Fantasy | Humor | Science Fiction | Magical Realism

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Buy Links

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | ABEBOOKS | BOOK DEPOSITORY | ALIBRIS | BETTER WORLD BOOKS | INDIEBOUND

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