Well, The Protected is out for proofreading and should appear on
Bookshare soon. The next time you talk to Rowena you might mention it.
Looking at the Good Reads page for that book I see that she has written
several others. I don't think I will scan any of them though. I disliked
this one too much.
On 11/16/2016 1:01 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Yes. Rowena Portch actually lives on the Kitsap Peninsula, in
Bremerton I believe. We've talked several times on the phone, always
promising to get together, but never quite getting there. An
interesting person, but some removed from the "blind community". As
far as the size, the Olympic Peninsula is vast. And many people
include all the area West of Puget Sound as being the Olympic
Peninsula. But the land between Puget Sound and Hoods Canal is
actually the Kitsap Peninsula. Kitsap county includes Kingston,
Poulsbo, Silverdale, Bremerton, Port Orchard and a few small towns
I've forgotten, as well as Bainbridge Island. The Olympic Peninsula
consists of Jefferson, Clallam, Mason and Grays Harbor counties. This
very large area contains the entire Olympic mountain range, nicknamed
America's Alps. The climate is as varied as it can be. From the rain
forest along the West Coast, including the town of Forks...Land of the
Vampires, to the rain shadow where irrigation is required in order to
grow crops. Sequim is the central town in this dry region. We live
on the Eastern slopes of the Olympics, near the Olympic National
Forest. Our climate is moderate, about like Seattle's. Heavy
underbrush, huge evergreen trees, lots of deer, black bear, coyotes,
elk, cougars and raccoons along with a multitude of birds. Port
Townsend is the only incorporated town in the very rural Jefferson
County. Quilcene, the closest town to us, claims about 3,000 people.
I think they count some folks twice. Highway 101 is two and a half
miles away, so we never hear any road noise. Snow Creek Road is just
a quarter mile down our private road, and is a gravel road with very
little traffic.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/15/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I just finished scanning a book for Bookshare entitled The Protected by
Rowena Portch. I ordered this from PaperbackSwap.com without having the
slightest idea what it was about. I ordered it on the sole basis that it
was a self published book and it was classified as science fiction. I
rather like the idea of promoting indy science fiction, so lately I have
been scanning a number of them for Bookshare. It turns out that it is
not science fiction at all. It is a fantasy and of the subgenre urban
fantasy. Unfortunately a lot of people don't seem to be able to tell the
difference between science fiction and fantasy, so a lot of books,
especially indy books, get misclassified. Also unfortunately, I didn't
like the book because its main purpose seemed to be to push religion.
Anyway, the main character turns out to be a woman with very limited
vision, legally blind, who lives on the Olympic Peninsula. She has
retinitis pigmentosa. Now that I have finished the book I found some
biographical information about the author at the very end. It turns out
that Rowena Portch based the main character on herself and she is
actually blind due to retinitis pigmentosa and she lives on the Olympic
Peninsula. She runs a wellness clinic there with her husband and if she
is that identical with her character she is a massage therapist.
Now, I don't know how large the Olympic Peninsula is and I don't know
what the population is, so I don't know what degree of unlikeliness this
is. But whatever the population might be I do know that wherever you go
the population of blind people is considerably less. I also know that
you, Carl, know a lot of blind people on the Olympic Peninsula. So, I am
curious. Carl, do you know a Rowena Portch?
