IF A BUTTERFLY SERIES:
BOOK 1 – CHRYSALIS
BOOK 2 – EMERGENCE
by
MICHAEL SIROIS
Genre: Mainstream / Literary Fiction
Publisher: Flio Widdix Publishing
Date of Publication: December 11, 2021
Scroll down for Giveaway!
Nine Characters + One Butterfly = Chaos Theory.
The series, If a Butterfly, is a bit like Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon (if Kevin just happened to be a butterfly). A Monarch butterfly, during its epic migration from Canada to Mexico, intersects the paths of a few people, and their lives and the lives of others are altered forever.
In Chrysalis, the first book in the series, nine different characters embark on a variety of journeys, some of distance, and others while staying right where they are. What do a scientist, a married couple on a vacation, a woman who hears voices no one else hears, a grad student, a quilter, a radio deejay, a teacher, and an astronaut all have in common? A butterfly, of course. All of these characters want what most people want, “to earn a decent living, be respected for the work we do, have a good time, and get along with everybody.” Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn’t.
In the second book, Emergence, the journeys continue, with a different focus for some of the characters because of what happened in Chrysalis; but the continuation of their stories show how each of our lives can touch another life, and what effect a chance encounter can have on everyone around us.
Book 1 – Chrysalis
Amazon
Book 2 – Emergence
Amazon
Get the back story on the characters you will find in these two books, it is always nice to know the players.
Robert Meyers (Scientist at Rice University)
He loves blues music, runs for exercise, met his wife, Dee, at a Baker 13 run.
Dee Meyers (Astronaut)
An athlete in college, she always wanted to be an astronaut. She’s currently 250 miles above the Earth, stuck with a pesky Russian cosmonaut for the next two months.
Dick and Jane Jarvis (Techie/Actress)
He is 35, she is 32. He is six-foot-two, she is barely over five feet. He likes his coffee overly sweet and heavily creamed; she likes hers hot and black and plentiful. He sleeps soundly and wakes up easily, she sleeps lightly and restlessly, but isn’t an easy riser. Somehow their relationship works. It’s a mystery.
Rock Jackson (Radio Deejay)
He hasn’t had a relationship since his previous girlfriend dumped him two years ago. He’s on a downward spiral and can’t seem to pull out of it. Rock isn’t his real name, of course.
Billie Crowder (Private Person)
She is not in the path of the butterfly. She lives in Phoenix and hears voices and sees things that no one else sees or hears. She is single, partly because she avoids other people out of necessity. How does she fit into the story, you ask? She does, trust me.
Laura Benson (6th Grade Science Teacher)
She has had a lifelong interest in Monarch butterflies, and that interest has led her to a career teaching science. She is also the first human contact our butterfly experienced, and she gave the butterfly its name.
CXY938 (our Butterfly)
Our butterfly, a female Monarch, was tagged by Laura in the grove behind her house. The tag number, CXY938, will allow anyone who finds her during her journey, alive or dead, to report that information to a group called Monarch Watch. Scientists (like Robert) will use that information to better understand the yearly Monarch migration. If she makes it the whole way, CXY938, a tiny, fragile creature who weighs less than a gram, will have traveled over 2,500 miles from north of Lake Ontario to some mountainous regions near Mexico City.
Stella Lambert (Quilter)
Recently widowed, she moved to southeastern Pennsylvania from Dallas, thinking she could make a living there because that’s where the “real quilters,” the Amish, live. She soon finds herself in a Catch-22 of sorts.
Jasmine “Jas” Calder (Grad Student)
She has degrees in computer science and biology from Southampton University (in England) and is touring the United States looking for the right place to do her advanced degrees. She also has a tattoo of a monarch butterfly on her lower back. Is that her only connection to the story? Hardly.
Michael Sirois, after graduating from the University of Houston with degrees in drama and English, taught writing, drama, and technology in a Texas middle school for two decades. He still wrote, though, placing well in competitions like the Writer’s Digest Short Story contest and the HBO Project Greenlight series. He has published two books prior to this series. A novel, The Jagged Man, is temporarily out of print; but Aggravated, a non-fiction book about unjust incarceration, is still available.
An excerpt from If a Butterfly was chosen for publication in the Rice University’s Continuing Studies Writer’s Gallery in 2006, and a different excerpt from it won second place in the Gutsy Great Novelist’s Page One Prize in 2020.
Michael does know his characters. He has either done the jobs of his main characters (teacher, actor, radio deejay, tech geek); had direct connections to others (quilter, scientist, grad student); or wished he could have been one (astronaut). He has, however, never experienced some of the things that at least two of the characters had to go through in this novel. He won’t name names, but he’s very happy about not having to do any of that personally.
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GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!
THREE WINNERS:
1st: autographed copies of both books in the If a Butterfly series;
2nd & 3rd: autographed copy of Book One, Chrysalis.
(US only; ends midnight, CST, 12/13/2021).
Visit the Lone Star Literary Life Tour Page
For direct links to each post on this tour, updated daily,
or visit the blogs directly:
| 12/6/21 | Series Spotlight | Book Bustle |
| 12/6/21 | Notable Quotable | Chapter Break Book Blog |
| 12/6/21 | BONUS Promo | Hall Ways Blog |
| 12/7/21 | Author Interview | The Clueless Gent |
| 12/7/21 | Notable Quotable | KayBee’s Book Shelf |
| 12/7/21 | BONUS Promo | LSBBT Blog |
| 12/8/21 | Excerpt | It’s Not All Gravy |
| 12/8/21 | Notable Quotable | Forgotten Winds |
| 12/9/21 | Playlist | All the Ups and Downs |
| 12/9/21 | Notable Quotable | The Plain-Spoken Pen |
| 12/10/21 | Character Spotlights | StoreyBook Reviews |
| 12/10/21 | Notable Quotable | Book Fidelity |
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