Viki Scholten

As Penelope Thaws Viki Scholten

As Penelope Thaws, by Viki Scholten, is a small town alcoholic tragedy, laced with smut, and redemption. While the title implies a campy horror story, and on a certain level it delivers just that, the pages bring the reader deeper, into an introspective place, reflective of love and loss, and the vices we embrace. The scenery is often visually breathtaking, and sometimes viscerally stunning, heartbreaking and horrific. As it should be. The reader is the sole witness of death, and of the truth, in the end. As Penelope Thaws is set within the Catskill Mountains of NY. Evergreen offers the familiarity of a common place, a small town people call home. Yet its proximity to the neighboring community of Woodstock imbues Evergreen with a unique flavor all it's own. The locals fall somewhere between redneck and rebel, hunter and poet, and music still fills the air. Naomi Servacz is a single mother who runs a small store in Evergreen called the Eagle's Nest. She is a local, born and raised there. For Naomi, Joel was a summertime thing. It started at the annual pig roast over at the Hotel, as the sparks flew up from the barbeque. Maybe it was the music, sultry as the summer night. But the fire it ignited was real. Without any notion of who they were, or what they were doing, it was reckless love from the start. Joel Hoskin, is a DEP Officer, originally from the Adirondacks. Through Joel's eyes, the reader sees the Catskills themselves. A crumbling landscape, crisscrossed with endless rivulets, ledges and hollows, the woodsy scent of the trail, the squeeze of the trigger, the taste of desire and alcohol. Then a flood comes through Evergreen, and as they teeter on the brittle alcoholic edge, it sets in motion a series of situations that shake the foundation of their very existence. The first page of As Penelope Thaws opens with the portal, a conduit for water to pass under the mountains and empty into the Cannon Creek. The story begins with the discovery of a car in the water there, then unfolds from the summer before, where it all began, at Penelope. Penelope is a cottage, set within the boundaries of State Land, beyond the trailhead... distant and remote. As Penelope Thaws is a good summer read on a beach or in a hammock. With a cocktail or two... or not.