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Community Corner

Local Author Publishes Mystery-Thriller Novel Featuring Parts of Broadneck

"Greek Fire" is available as an eBook through Amazon.

A Broadneck resident just published her first novel, a sleuthing tale that takes the reader on a journey from London, to Italy and even parts of Arnold and Annapolis.

Gabe Penn, the penname of the Broadneck resident, put finishing touches on her first novel, Greek Fire, in December. But she’s already jotting concepts for the book’s sequel.

“It was always a personal goal of mine to write a novel," Penn said. "I would tell my husband I’d do it someday, and kept putting it off. But then one day I decided to finally do it."

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Protagonist Andrew Unger is a solitary owner of an out-of-the-way camera shop in London before his adventure begins in Greek Fire. Soon, he is chased across the globe by unknown forces as he seeks to uncover a century-old secret hidden in a lost photograph.

Among the locales featured in the book are in Annapolis and also a certain area of the Broadneck Peninsula.

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There’s an archaeological edge to the fiction that stems from Penn’s own experience as a historian and archaeologist. She said the locales featured in the book were those that resonated with her travels throughout the world.

“Basically all of these areas are places that I was familiar with, and it just so happened that there was something in each area that fit into the story,” Penn said.

Writing Greek Fire took Penn a little more than a year, which included a massive rewrite and also overcoming the occasional writer’s block. She said grappling with these challenges was made easier by befriending another writer, and drawing from her writing experiences in college.

“It was a very involved process of over about a year of writing things down, tearing those up and starting over again,” she said. “Sometimes you write something down that you think is perfect, and you come back the next day and wonder what you were thinking.”

Greek Fire is available on Amazon as an eBook. On the site you can also read a free sample, including the prologue and the first three chapters.

Penn said she is also planning to publish the novel in paperback sometime next year. She’s already begun work on a sequel, with plans to write a third in the series before considering other directions for the world she’s created.

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