Press Release: J. Mark Boliek Featured on "The Bookworms: Young Adult Book Reviews" Blog

To discuss the songs on his new book’s soundtrack CD

August 19, 2011 -- J. Mark Boliek, the author of The Mahogany Door and composer of the book’s accompanying all-original soundtrack CD, was the featured guest on "The Bookworms: Young Adult Book Reviews” blog.

The Mahogany Door is a 353-page urban fantasy-adventure novel about three friends – JT, Michael and Kali -- who have been separated for years by a tragedy, but who must reunite to return to the fantasy land of Bruindeur beyond the mahogany door to fulfill a destiny before that world collapses. The journey back to the world behind the door leads to self-discovery and to the realization that things in life are not always as they seem. The songs on the CD capture themes and emotions from the book.

For The Bookworms blog, Boliek focused on his three favorite songs from the CD: “All Alone,” “In The Afternoon,” and “Goodbyes.”

“All Alone” is the theme song of the book, he said. The main characters “find themselves alone in their own little space in the world, and it is not until they are able to reunite will they be able to face the demons from their past and conquer them.”

The song also speaks to the reason he wrote the book: “Many bad things have happened in my life, and along the way I have felt very much alone. It is when I started to find my true inner self that I could move forward, in some cases dealing with the mundane of everyday life.”

“In The Afternoon” addresses the way a single event can drastically change one’s life in just a few hours. “For JT in the book,” Boliek said, “he wakes up on his farm bee-bopping around, and by the afternoon his whole world has been turned upside down by a little boy who comes to him and tells a crazy story about his past.”

Boliek told The Bookworms that “Goodbyes”, however, is the most special song on the CD to him, yet it’s also the most difficult for him to listen to even today.

“I wrote it during one of the worst times in my life. It is so hard to say goodbye to the ones you love, but sometimes it is closure that humans need to move on,” he said. His character Kali “wants closure to everything that has happened to her, but it will not be easy for her to find.”

The Bookworms blog provides audio files for listening to the three songs from the CD. To see the entire post, go to http://thebookworms.org and click on “Guest Post: J. Mark Boliek” under Recent posts.

The Mahogany Door is currently available at The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC, on the author’s website, and in e-book versions at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. For more information on the book and the accompanying CD, visit www.jmarkboliek.com.

The Mahogany Door Now Available at The Regulator Bookshop

August 15, 2011 (Durham, NC) – “The Mahogany Door,” a new fantasy-adventure novel for young and young adult readers by Durham-based author J. Mark Boliek, is now available at the Regulator Bookshop in Durham.

Published by Split Rail Books, “The Mahogany Door” is the first of a trilogy of books entitled The Bruindeur Narrative and it comes with an all-original-music soundtrack CD created by the author and other musicians.

“The Mahogany Door” tells the story of three 20-something friends, separated years earlier by a tragic event, who must reunite to return to the fantasy world of Bruindeur to fulfill a destiny before that world collapses. As they pass through the mahogany door in the basement of an old coastal mansion that leads to Bruindeur, they become children again and a series of fast-paced adventures begin.

Boliek worked on the book off and on for nearly 10 years. During that time he found California artist Lauren Gallegos, who provided the full-color cover illustrations and the black-and-white interior illustrations.

“The Mahogany Door” book and CD have been available on the author’s website, www.jmarkboliek.com since May. The e-book versions, both regular and enhanced with embedded music, were more recently released via a host of online sources. But The Regulator Bookshop is the first brick-and-mortar bookstore to carry it.

Boliek delivered the books and CDs to the store this week, along with a handcrafted, limited edition wooden box that contains the book, CD, and bookmarks behind a “mahogany door.”

The Regulator Bookshop is a 35-year-old independent bookstore, located at 720 Ninth Street in downtown Durham, that “contributes to the cultural life of our community by creating a space for authors -- from the Triangle, from North Carolina, from around the country and from around the world -- to meet with their readers,” according to the store’s website.

“This is a dream come true for me, as it would be for any first-time author,” Boliek said. “To actually see your book on the shelves of an actual bookstore is beyond exciting. I can’t thank the folks at the Regulator enough for giving me this opportunity.”

For more information on The Regulator Bookshop, go to www.regulatorbookshop.com.

For more information on “The Mahogany Door,” visit www.jmarkboliek.com or the book’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/JMarkBoliek.