Surf City Source Media Group
for general distribution, October 2023

Media release:
Deirdre, the Wanderer; A Modern Picaresque,
Sixth edition (2023)
by Jonnie Comet.

–Colin Bunge, for Surf City Source Media Group.

‘… it made me want to run away, just for a little while’ –from TeenReviews
‘Deirdre is one gutsy teenaged girl’ –from Literary R&R
‘… ‘just the right combination of street smart/naïve/immortal/stupid teenaged girl’ –Let’s Book It

A picaresque is an episodic story, usually not short, in which a solitary character, usually not of the highest repute, makes headway against a world in which fate, or the character’s own foibles, tends to foul or foil every attempt.  Questions are raised about motives, means and morality; and the character must rely on associations and decisions quickly made and quickly discarded.  But ultimately, the character is revealed as the most virtuous and most successful figure in the story.

Jonnie Comet’s Deirdre, the Wanderer (Surf City Source Media Group) fulfils this definition perfectly.  The first-person narrator, a teenaged runaway from a family who have neglected her, sets off with only self-centred motives and through the course of the book gradually evolves into a heroine embodying noblesse oblige: the unselfish ability to serve others’ best interests at substantial cost to herself.  That’s a heady recipe for any story, let alone one so full of realism and detail that it can transport the reader right into Deirdre’s own point of view.

Some may cheer her on; and the author maintains that ‘female adventurers are always good fiction— men read their exploits with salacious voyeurism and parental protection; and all women respect bold, independent, yet feminine protagonists.’  Using humour, candour, native cleverness and always her best manners, the appropriately-flawed Deirdre elicits concern, even fear, as would anyone’s child lost out in the greater world with no-one to turn to for guidance and protection.  Wanderer is lush with tropical scenery, sailing, bikinis and rum cocktails, and also rife with the seedy underlife of hot places, especially Nassau, to jar a complacent reader watching Deirdre alter her adolescent worldviews to survive.  Enduring sexual and racial discrimination, physical and emotional abuse, exposure to detrimental substances, unfair working conditions and living arrangements, and the constant anxiety about being found out as an underaged illegal alien and being sent back to where she came from, the narrator earns substantial wages, forms lasting friendships, and even falls in love, emerging from a self-conscious, self-effacing teenager into an independent young woman whom a reader can admire.  ‘If you’re going to care for her,’ says the Author, ‘the book has got to give you enough to wince at, weep at and worry about… as well as reason to cheer for her when she prevails.’

At the end of the book, nothing is permanent; the Author promises that, over the course of several sequels, Deirdre will cover a good half of the world in search of a place she can call home.

Cleverly crafted and well-written, Deirdre, the Wanderer may be, above all, escapist fiction of the highest order.  It is a beach book, a bus-trip book, a bring-it-along book that will transport the reader to a surreal reality enchanted by the narration of an engaging and sympathetic heroine who may be one of literature’s most lovable heroines.

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Author’s web presence:
Amazon presence:
For review copies, printed materials, supplemental texts: jonniecomet@yahoo.com
Author’s v-mail: 01 609 4247050


Surf City Source Media Group.    Text ©Jonnie Comet Productions; used by permission.  