A new book has cropped up from Houston, with the author using his own home as a backdrop and inspiration to one of his stories.
The book titled “Palpably Exciting”, authored by Leonard C. West, has three stories, An Alien’s Guest, Bigfoot Challenge of the Century and Twins of Mayhem.
West, 90, immigrated to Canada with his wife and son in 1969 and had a daughter later. Later in 1977, West lost his wife to cancer and continued to raise his two kids alone. West then remarried and his wife Donna, has been his partner for over 20 years, as well as has been the editor for his books.
The first story he wrote, Bigfoot Challenge of the Century, was using his property as the backdrop. This is where he said he first met the Bigfoot and befriended him. Bigfoot later took him to his home on the rock face behind his acreage where the Bigfoot’s cave/home was.
“I certainly believe in the Bigfoot. I was on Highway 16 just outside Houston when I saw a creature across the road, staring at me. He was nothing like I had seen before, he was huge, and was walking and he crossed the street and went off into the trees. That’s when I decided to write the first book on Bigfoot,” said West.
He published the story Bigfoot Challenge of the Century as a book, back in 2014 and has ever since kept an eye out because “you never know what’s out there”.
He then wrote the other two stories, An Alien’s Guest and Twins of Mayhem and said that “something always bothered me about the aliens” which is how he got to researching and writing about them.
West, who appears as one of the characters in all three of his books, has done so to make them more personal and believable, according to him.
“I am the 007 in the book and the stories are in the first person,” he said. “The difference in my writing and others is that I acknowledge the reader at the end of every book. Without the reader I am not going to sell anything, or it won’t get talked about, or anything at all.”
West has lived in Houston on and off for roughly 53 years now.
When he first moved to Houston, he worked at the old Bulkley Valley Forest Mill for four years. During that time he bought a section of raw land on the Buck Flats Road. At that time there was no hydro and it was just a logging mud road with several dangerous corners. West was very much involved in getting hydro on the road that was also gradually upgraded.
His life, his experiences and the his plot of land have served as an inspiration for writing and imagining up these stories.
West has no background of writing but he said he has been an inventor all his life and that has made him questions the status quo, go deeper in research and try and understand the things that go around, better.
“All my years I have always had ideas to make things better and I guess I have the tendency to go deep in the thought and plus, I enjoy writing,” he said.
West believes his stories are what movies are made of.
The book is now available to purchase on Amazon as a paperback and is even available as an ebook.
Priyanka Ketkar
Multimedia journalist
@PriyankaKetkar
priyanka.ketkar@ldnews.net
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