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Book details

  • Genre:fiction
  • Sub-genre:Women
  • Language:English
  • Pages:536
  • Hardcover ISBN:9798317826468

Beebox

A Novel

By CA Nobens

Overview

It's 1976; struggling artist, Roxanne Peplinjak, is haunted by ghosts of the dead and just plain gone. When her new place to live turns out to have been a good place to die for the last tenant (whose lingering spirit seems determined to lure Roxanne into suicide), she must turn to her uncommon abilities—creative and extrasensory—in order to save herself, spark her livelihood, and look to the future of love with hope.
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Description

In this compelling, character-driven, poignantly funny, sexy, scary and finally uplifting story, we look back to an era just past the Vietnam war—of free love, sex-drugs-rock-and-roll, and the Women's Movement. It's 1976; Roxanne Peplinjak's fledgling illustration/graphic design business and her broken heart are limping along. Her first love has left her—for the fourth time—lonely in Minneapolis. Unexpectedly, she meets a musician and falls head-over-heels. A new apartment next door to a former work mate revives a girlfriendship. Some better work brightens her outlook. But Roxanne's romance hits a snag and she snaps—starts partying hard and missing deadlines. When her new place to live turns out to have been a good place to die for the last tenant (whose lingering spirit seems determined to lure Roxanne into suicide), she must turn to her uncommon abilities—creative and extrasensory—in order to survive being haunted by ghosts of the dead and just plain gone, spark her livelihood, and look to the future of love with hope.
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About The Author

Working as a professional children's book author and illustrator, CA Nobens has either illustrated, or written and illustrated, over eighty published titles. Beebox is her first novel.
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Book Reviews

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Jeff
BeeBox - A Great Book about finding yourself set in late 1970s Minneapolis So a few years back, my friend and art mentor, Cheryl Nobens, sent me a manuscript to read as a Beta Reader. It was a story called “Beebox”. This book was a 256,000+ word book that was so cleanly written, so wonderfully paced, it flew by as I read it. I sent her some notes, then we had a brief chat, etc., and she went back to more edits, etc. Today, I got in the mail, a copy of the finished product. It’s a georgeous book with incredible artistic details (love that bee on the cover - Cheryl used to draw the Honeynut Cheerios Bee for work!). It even included a nice note from Cheryl, which I treasure. Anyways, this book is a fantastic read. A cross between a post college coming of age/to grips with yourself story, and a ghost tale, this book is set in the late 1970s Minneapolis art and music scene. You can almost smell the cigarettes being smoked in every bar, hear the clink of ice in cheap drinks, and hear the origins of the Minneapolis sound. It is the story of Roxanne Peplinjak, an up and coming commercial artist, who is trying to make her rent payments each month, navigate the dating scene, and deal with being haunted. It’s frankly a fantastic read. It’s made better by the incredible depth of detail CA put into the areas her character visits. If you know Minnesota, you know where her character travels south in the state to a small town where you could still find an old house to sit and drink beer while the bats fly about on a summer evening. You know the roads travelled up north to the iron range, with a mandatory stop at Tobie’s along the way. You know the downtown bar scene, or the area her apartment is in, or the references to the businesses that made Minneapolis the only town that could be a genesis for the up and coming Music scene. Frankly, I enjoyed every word. The book was a cracking good read before her edits. I have to imagine it is ever better with her renewed efforts. Who is this for? Anyone who wants a strong female character. Anyone who wants a ghost story. Anyone who ever once wondered about their place in the world, and how they were going to make it. It surprised me how much you care about Roxanne, and how unflinching CA was at not having her character make all the right choices. I hit Minneapolis in 1984, about 7 years after the setting of this book. So much of what she wrote brought me back to that era more than a Time Machine ever would. Living with no safety net, making foolish decisions while thinking they were smart, being with friends yet feeling alone… just… reveling in “the big city” and its love affair with music. Read more