06 May, 2010

Finding Emmaus’ Great Success!

“It was an honor and a pleasure,” said author Pamela Glasner, when she spoke of her remarkable opportunity to present her new novel, Finding Emmaus, at the prestigious Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center in New York City.

“The year is 2008. I am, as I have been for the past two hundred and fifty-one years, ninety-eight years old.”

Those are the opening lines of Finding Emmaus, book one of The Lodestarre Series, and that, in part, is what Ms. Glasner shared with her audience on Monday evening, April 26th 2010, in their beautiful Event Room on the third floor.

Despite the day’s persistent downpours, the event was well-attended and both Ms. Glasner and her book were well-received. After a fifteen-minute presentation, which included the reading of two short excerpts, the floor was opened to the audience to ask questions if they wished. And ask questions they did … for 20 minutes.

“I've so much to be grateful for, so much to look forward to, and wonderful people in my life to depend on and celebrate with. And all I can say is Thank God.

“There’s no reason for any of this to have happened,” says Glasner of her new career. “Outside of my degree, which says I’m an English teacher, I've no formal training to be a writer. I had no résumé with which to wow a potential agent or publisher, nor did I have an office wall-papered with rejection slips or a bookshelf full of unwanted manuscripts.

“All I did was spend three days in a monastery at a silent retreat and, in the absence of external noise, I dug deep down inside myself and found the voice that’s apparently been clamoring for my attention for fifty-something years.”


Copyright © 2010, All Rights Reserved

05 May, 2010

Review of 'FINDING EMMAUS' by filmmaker and author Peter Thomas Senese


A Timeless Masterpiece of Writing


Pamela Glasner’s ‘Finding Emmaus’ is an extraordinarily thoughtful, provocative, and brilliantly written futuristic novel built on deep historical information and insight that readers will unquestionably delight in both the story’s depths and spires. As an author and avid reader, I have become particularly discriminating when reviewing other writer’s written works and have purposefully not publicly written a review in two years. However, I thought that Pamela Glasner’s masterfully written story was worth breaking my current trend since I was so enraptured with the subject matter and Ms. Glasner’s writing style, and I think many will benefit from reading this story the way I have.


Finding Emmaus’ is in fact one of the most enjoyable and fascinating novels I have EVER read, and I simply cannot recommend or endorse enough Pamela Glasner’s delightfully marvelously written story of the human spirit, the pharmaceutical industry, and what appears to be dead-on accuracy about how we, as a society, have chosen not to celebrate our differences, but have tried to classify individualism as peculiar traits that must be brought into line.


In ‘Finding Emmaus’, which I want to point out is a clever title because biblically, ‘Emmaus’ is an alleged ‘home’ town of a biblical figure during the time of Christ, yet there is no historical data that demonstrates the town ‘Emmaus’ ever existed. However, Pamela Glasner’s metaphor of ‘Finding Emmaus’ or “Finding Home” is one I think mankind continues to search for. Regardless of one’s religious or philosophical beliefs, attaining an enlightened state is what we all seek, isn’t it? But what is ‘home’? Could it possibly be a peaceful celebration of our unique honesties and perspectives? Brilliant!


The story’s two main characters are Empaths possessing what society considers to be abnormal personality traits. Francis Nettleton and Katherine Spencer live three hundred years apart, yet their stories intertwine in this groundbreaking novel as they uncover a multibillion dollar conspiracy in which millions of Americans are being misdiagnosed and drugged so that the capitalistic engines greased by greed and narcissism that is the pharmaceutical industry will continue to earn fortunes.


Finding Emmaus, book one of The Lodestarre series, is writing at its best, and I believe we have amongst us in Pamela Glasner a rare author possessing dynamic insight into society’s complex social complacency matched by this literary maestro’s ability to weave a complex and complicated story built on brilliant character development and impeccable research. ‘Finding Emmaus’ is a story that needs to be heard as it is a call-to-arms against mankind’s tendency for complacency and desire for uniformity as much as it is a soaring endorsement of the celebrations found in the individualism of the human spirit.


After reading ‘Finding Emmaus’, for several days I sat and thought about the messages and storyline in Pamela Glasner’s sharply written story. At times I found myself thinking about ‘The Jungle’, about ‘The Brave New World’, and even some films that address the issue of conformity. In Pamela Glasner’s ‘Finding Emmaus’, readers everywhere have been given a rarity: a wonderful, can’t-put-down story so light and so heavy, so joyful yet so sad, so celebratory yet so frustrating, so current yet a call of what may be. Pamela Glasner’s ‘Finding Emmaus’ is a very special book that readers everywhere will delight in. I cannot endorse ‘Finding Emmaus’ enough, and I look forward to reading the next book in The Lodestarre series. This is writing at its best!


And, of course, please don’t forget to visit my website to read the previews of ‘Finding Emmaus’, book one of The Lodestarre Series.


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