Vesper is a scientific-minded young woman living in the kingdom of Malland. When she finds a detached talking penis in the woods, her sheltered life with its wistful fantasies of change explodes into chaos as the penis chases her home, wrecks her sister's engagement party, and causes a scandal so costly that it results in Vesper's forced engagement to a wart-faced widower who agrees to pay her family's debt.
Vesper flees her engagement, hoping for a reward when she returns the penis to his owner-the royal prince, no less. But she discovers that the penis isn't the only talking body part flying around the kingdom. People everywhere are falling victim to a magical disease that causes body parts to fall off and animate, and Vesper finds herself fighting an evil plot to create an army of body parts and a society of denial and control, one that deals with all problems by severing them.
Uplifting, humorous, and full of wisdom, Dysmorphic Kingdom is high fantasy with a philosophical bouquet, raising questions about conquering both our insecurities with ourselves and our differences with others, all in a polarity-ridden world.
"Edgy, original. It's inventive, funny, and sly. The characters come alive, and you can't help but lose yourself in this world. Great writing makes you think of the world in a different way-and Chen does exactly that."
Ori Brafman, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Chaos Imperative and Sway
"Warning: addictive. Side effects may include e-stalking Colleen Chen to locate more of her writing, sitting on a sunlit patio for several hours to devour a book that's outside of the genres you normally read or compulsively visiting a surprising world in which none of the tedious old rules apply."
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, author of Collateral Damage: A Triptych
About the Author: Colleen Chen is a speculative fiction writer and a bodyworker living in the Twin Cities. She received her B.A. in PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) from Pomona College in Claremont, CA, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. Colleen's stories have been published in a number of venues online and in print in several anthologies, and she is the author of a growing list of choose-your-own-erotic-adventure novellas at www.hotpinkbooks.com. She blogs online at www.colleenchen.com and is a reviewer for the speculative fiction review site Tangent Online. Dysmorphic Kingdom is her first novel.
