EDITOR'S NOTES

Colin Curtis’s second novel, A Slightly Less Ordinary Life, compliments his first, The Scallywags Highway, by similarly exposing the author’s colorful personal experiences as participant and narrator.

The author invites the reader to behold and gently swipe the most finely-sanded plank of his personality, Mr. Curtis one of a rare breed happiest when helping others, particularly the forgotten. A proud individualist who unfailingly senses something better than himself in others, his gift to mankind is to make people feel valued.

In relative terms, Colin Curtis has lived life on the outside, where he’s mingled with varietal cultures and personalities in real time. By resisting the easy route of sipping unfamiliarity through the sterilized straw of the media’s flow of synthetic entertainment, the author accumulated a wealth of personal folklore in which he stars in the leading role of tall-tale chef serving and indulging in a banquet of humanity’s tastings.

A Slightly Less Ordinary Life is a personal story, engaging start to finish with rich, heartfelt confessions and transcriptions, beginning with his childhood home near sooty mills in Scotland, where he learned to put up or shut up as the youngest of five brothers. A bully and practical joker who hated school, Mr. Curtis grew to impart lessons of respect and humility learned under conscientious parentage, and from an experienced military career that included encounters with the Royal family, clashes with Irish Republican Army members, and the defense of a centuries-old conflict in Central America.

The author relates actual experiences with purist intentions. There are no academic credentials at play, no goals for literary celebrity, no pretensions for economic reward, and no artificial ingredients in A Slightly Less Ordinary Life. This work is as much an accompaniment for those who don’t take life for granted as it is a story for those who don’t want to waste time trying to figure it out. That’s the Colin Curtis way…a look at life through his multicolored kaleidoscope.