Press release from Jason Forbis:
After seven years of work, former Henderson County broadcaster and Etowah native Jason Forbis proudly announced his novel release. The book entitled “Charlie’s Awakening” has been published by Florida based publisher World Castle Publishing. The full-length novel is available in paperback and e-formats on Amazon, iBooks, Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and most other ebook outlets.
The New Adult novel tells the story of 23-year-old Charlie Davenport. Charlie has always been a reserved person. Always seemingly on the edge of most things, barely involved, shy and withdrawn. As he enters young-adulthood, Charlie has a need to be more. He wants to be more involved, more active, more aware, just more, but he is unsure how to do it. That was until a fateful day on a Charlotte, NC street when he was beckoned into a dank and cobwebbed basement by a mysterious old man with the words “Charlie, you are troubled.” The old man’s words spoke volumes to him. Charlie left that unusual meeting with an enigmatic blue stone that had been described as “his.” Charlie took the stone and rushed from the spot. In the following weeks, Charlie started to change. Raising the question, was it the stone or Charlie’s Awakening?
The novel took seven years to complete and ended, totaling nearly seventy-four thousand words (217 pages). It features cover art by renowned Asheville area artist Brent Brown.
Jason Forbis spent over 20 years in radio and television broadcasting across North Carolina and Tennessee, primarily working in news departments and hosting talk shows. Throughout his life and career, Jason was a writer. He received his first accolade for his writing after winning a poetry contest in the 8th grade while attending (then) Rugby Junior High School. Since then, Jason has written hundreds of articles, short stories, and novel-length manuscripts. He turned his attention to more serious devotion to writing after his wife’s passing in 2008, noting that she had pressed him to write more.
Work on Charlie’s Awakening began in 2014 with an idea and a single line. “I wish I could fly.” Jason expanded on the initial idea that many young people, upon finishing college and taking their first tentative steps into adulthood, find themselves lacking a particular direction or motivation. It is often at those beginning moments when young people let themselves be defined and even held back by childhood events, rather than treating those times as learning experiences. Charlie was one of those people. Events and the people in his life force him to face that fact and decide what to do about it.
World Castle Publishing contracted Jason’s book in early 2020. Several months of edits and unavoidable delays due to the pandemic, “Charlie’s Awakening” is finally here!
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