The Blurb
Well there’s this talking monkey who won me in a game of Othello in a coffee shop in Amsterdam. He came back to Cornwall with me and has become a prolific reader and dabbler in magic. He also has past life flash backs – the most prominent of which are the Nam special forces ones. We have partially deceased girlfriends who apparently eat dead bodies. The Monkey created a sort of black hole in the spare bedroom and now we have a team of nerds investigating it and trying to stop ‘things’ coming out of it. A bunch of Oriental hit men who appear to believe he is a god attempted to steal The Monkey’s magic lolly pop sticks, but he managed to blow them up in their caravan. We are off to Cambodia in search of a temple from which came a monkey faced pendant with glowing eyes and we seem to have upset an international cabal who are out to get us. Oh, and did I mention that The Monkey likes a cigar and we regularly get very drunk on Jack Daniels…
Me and The Monkey is published by Bad Press Ink and was released on 10th July 2021.
Purchase Link
http://getbook.at/MeandTheMonkey
My Review
I chose this book because the blurb sounded out-there bat shit bonkers, and who doesn't need a bit of that? Particularly at the moment. And you know what? This book absolutely delivers. I spent much of the time giggling and shaking my head in disbelief.
The blurb gives you a good idea of what to expect - it's hard to expand on that information without giving things away. It's insane, in a good way. A cigar smoking, hard drinking, talking, intelligent Monkey, a slightly bemused but easy going guy (the unnamed Me), a couple of nerds, some undead girlfriends, a black hole in the spare room floor, Eastern assasins, shamen, sourcerers, Cambodia, Scotland and Wales all feature. And Cornwall. And Jack Daniels. Lots of Jack... And it's all told in a series of diary entries/blog posts I told you, it's madness!
To give you a little flavour of it, this is the first time we meet The Monkey...
'At the moment The Monkey is sitting on the back of the sofa wearing a mask made of ham - he looks strangely like Justin Bieber...'
Darby had me with that line. Laughed out loud. And below is one of my favourite diary entries...
'The Monkey wants to know why they buried Richard III in a car park. He thinks it may be because he didn't return his supermarket trolley but just left it in one of the bays, so they killed him and buried him there as a warning to others. Ah drugs...'
As I mostly read crime and psychological thrillers, normally when I wonder what it's like in the mind of those authors it's because their subject matter is so dark. With Andy Darby, I can't even begin to imagine where these wild ideas came from! I 'm assuming they were fuelled by copious amounts of Jack Daniels...
Me and The Monkey is crude in places, violent in places, bloody in places, original and absolutely hilarious. I laughed out loud loads and quoted random lines at folk. Bonkers and brilliant, the work of a crazy genius, and I loved it. Can't wait for the follow up.
The Author
Andy Darby, would-be Viking, and lover of the bizarre. Mission – infest the world with his strange creations. He is the author of Me and The Monkey.
Son of a WW2 Commando, growing up in 1970s Birmingham, as a teenager Andy became a fan of heavy metal, fronting several metal bands over the years. His passion for martial arts also began in the 70s and has continued to the present. Competing as a bodybuilder and playing American Football for the Birmingham Bulls took up much of his 20s.
Following a mixed career involving working in a jewellery factory, spraying cars, and office work, he finally managed to follow his other passion, art, and began a career as a designer. A marketing department honed his skills, and he became aware of the world of designing for live events, joining a small production company, and eventually becoming creative director of their larger parent company. Moving to Cornwall he decided it was time to go freelance setting up his own business focusing on motion graphic design.
In the late 1990s he began to get the urge to write and his laptop drive is littered with the unformed creations that have popped into his head. Me and The Monkey is his first novel, coming to life as an experiment in having the discipline to write something every day during a period when he was travelling extensively for work. The story was written during train journeys, flights, backstage at events, 2am in hotel rooms, even during stops at motorway service stations, and was often written on his phone or iPad.
Andy lives on the north coast of Cornwall with his artist wife, teenage daughter, cat, two ponies, and constantly growing library. He still secretly thinks he could be a big wave surfer regardless of what reality tells him.
My Book Post
Son of a WW2 Commando, growing up in 1970s Birmingham, as a teenager Andy became a fan of heavy metal, fronting several metal bands over the years. His passion for martial arts also began in the 70s and has continued to the present. Competing as a bodybuilder and playing American Football for the Birmingham Bulls took up much of his 20s.
Following a mixed career involving working in a jewellery factory, spraying cars, and office work, he finally managed to follow his other passion, art, and began a career as a designer. A marketing department honed his skills, and he became aware of the world of designing for live events, joining a small production company, and eventually becoming creative director of their larger parent company. Moving to Cornwall he decided it was time to go freelance setting up his own business focusing on motion graphic design.
In the late 1990s he began to get the urge to write and his laptop drive is littered with the unformed creations that have popped into his head. Me and The Monkey is his first novel, coming to life as an experiment in having the discipline to write something every day during a period when he was travelling extensively for work. The story was written during train journeys, flights, backstage at events, 2am in hotel rooms, even during stops at motorway service stations, and was often written on his phone or iPad.
Andy lives on the north coast of Cornwall with his artist wife, teenage daughter, cat, two ponies, and constantly growing library. He still secretly thinks he could be a big wave surfer regardless of what reality tells him.
My Book Post
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