Charlotte author Darin Kennedy is both a physician and a novelist, and as such, he has excellent company. Other physicians who have published novels include Kimmery Martin (another Charlotte author who has written The Queen of Hearts and several other medical novels), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories), Michael Crichton (the author of Jurassic Park), and Khaled Hosseini (the author of The Kite Runner).
Some physicians-turned-novelists draw extensively on their medical background in their fiction, but Darin tends to draw more on his avocations than his vocation in his novels. Darin’s interests include chess, classical music, and popular culture, and these interests all figure in his novels. For example, his latest series, collectively titled Songs of the Ascendant, is steeped in the pop music of the 1980s. I recently contacted Darin and asked him for more information about his latest series. Here is what he sent to me:
Thank you to Mark West for including me and my new series of books in his Storied Charlotte blog this week!
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Darin Kennedy. By day, I work as a family physician with Atrium Health, taking care of patients and training the next generation of young physicians, while at night, I keep myself busy writing fantasy novels based in various interests of mine. Thus far, my works include the following: The Pawn Stratagem trilogy, where ordinary people become pieces in a magical chess game to decide the fate of the world; my Fugue & Fable trilogy, a paranormal thriller set right here in Charlotte based on the works of various Russian composers; and Carol, a modern-day gender-flipped young adult reworking of A Christmas Carol I bill as Scrooge meets Mean Girls.
My new series, Songs of the Ascendant, again has a musical slant, but this time I channeled my love of 80s pop music from my formative years into an ongoing contemporary fantasy epic. I built the mythology of this new fantasy world from the titles, themes, lyrics, and performers of my favorite decade of music. In this story, you might actually meet the Angel of the Morning; Earth, Wind, and Fire; or Pat Benatar’s literal Shadows of the Night. As for the story itself, my world falls firmly at the intersection of X-Men and Highlander with a significant nod to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The story begins when a quartet of shadow-dealing mystical mercenaries attempt to kidnap the number one pop star in the world, Persephone Snow. Danielle Delacroix, the latest in a line of warrior women who defend the world from darkness, along with her daughter, Rosemary, arrive to rescue Persephone along with Ethan Harkreader, a stage tech who doesn’t have the first clue as to what is happening. Together, our heroes fight off the shadowy assassins, but the leader of the mercenary Ravens rallies and strikes down Danielle with a surprise attack. At the moment of her death, two millennia of passed down mystical power is supposed to flow from mother to daughter and bring Rosemary her destiny. However, as Danielle breathes her last, Ethan is performing CPR. When he lowers his mouth over hers to attempt to save her, the mystical power flows into him instead. Now, an untrained and unprepared Ethan and a grieving Rosemary must team up to defend Persephone as the forces gathering to take her away are only getting started.
If you’d like to hear more, I will be at Park Road Books in Charlotte, NC, from 2-4 pm on 21 Sep 2024 in conversation with my friend, publisher, and fellow author, John G. Hartness from Falstaff Books. I will have copies of all my books available and will be happy to sign and answer any questions you might have! Come on out! I’d love to see you there!
I thank Darin not only for sharing this information about his latest fantasy series but also for establishing a link between Charlotte’s medical community and our Storied Charlotte community of readers and writers.
