Plot Consultant

Turtle Rock and Venus,
a 100,000-word eco-magical realism novel,
will appeal to anyone who wants to believe
it’s never too late for a last chance at love, and at life,
especially if they’re helped along by an ancient goddess
on an epic mission of her own.

Goddess Venus, well aware of the conflict raging between Earth and mankind’s exploitations and destruction, travels to Turtle Rock to guide and protect her mortal lover Cap, the reclusive caretaker of the mystic sanctuary Venus wove ages ago as a place for broken individuals to heal and return to the world.

Each character in the small community of Turtle Rock is on an individual path of discovering insights needed to transform their pain into beauty and purpose. The chapters shift through their perspectives.

  • Surfer, a young athlete who has lost a limb and his purpose
  • Urchin Hunter, numb and immobilized with grief and unable to stop crying
  • Justice, an exploited immigrant blocked by her past
  • Fisher, unable to tap his own blocked capacity to love
  • Silversmith, rendered down to unstoppable cursing at wrongs
  • Her Daughter, rendered down to mute
  • Cap, reclusive caretaker of Turtle Rock quiet as the fog and Venus‘ lover when she returns every eleven years
  • Among those to discover insights needed to transform their pain into beauty is Forager, the love of Cap’s youth who struggles against the emotions binding her to an abusive husband and who, having returned to Turtle Rock after fifty years, is just as determined to reclaim Cap’s love and heal their past traumas for one last chance at a life together.

Over the six days of the Dark Moon on a sacred outcropping where giant redwoods meet the ocean’s colossal kelp forests, a second chance love story plays out with the enchantment in James Redfield’s Celestine Prophecy, the redemption in Playground by Richard Powers, and Madeline Miller’s humanizing of the gods in Circe.

At its heart, Turtle Rock and Venus is a last chance love story between Forager and Cap played out against the primal backdrop of a mythic battle, asking if, and how, love can heal relationships … and the earth.