An unlikely bunch of misfits concoct a plan called "Pay the Piper" to save Planet Earth--and the human race--from extinction. Bursting with fantastical characters and comical situations that mirror Carl Hiaasen's "weird Florida" vision, Mags at The Genius House grounds its serious warning about human-induced climate change in a real-world setting--Central Florida's east coast. Mags, the voice of the novel, takes each zany revelation in stride while little suspecting that an ancient book about Irish Fairies, passed on to her by her father, holds within its stories the key to humanity's fate. From the icy rivers of Pittsburgh to the sunny shores of Daytona Beach, this debut novel is a wild ride, ranging from quirky to other-worldly--especially when Mags takes us behind the doors of the Genius House, an old haunted beach-front mansion in Ponce Inlet. A self-professed Nancy Drew, she loves nothing more than an intriguing mystery, and she's aided and abetted in her quest by sidekicks including an opinionated invisible trickster cat and people-size talking mushrooms.
Like my alter ego "Mags"--the "voice" of all my fiction--I'm crazy about science fiction and opera, as well as strong black coffee, single malt Scotch, and MoonPies (not necessarily in that order). Also like Mags, I generally wear black (blacks always match and they don't show ketchup stains). Unlike Mags, however, I do not talk to cats. (S. O'Duinn Magee, a.k.a. Mags)