Brain Injury Survivor Recovers, Releases Novel on Atlantis, 2012 and the Mayan Calendar

    SONOMA COUNTY, July 24, 2009 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Laura Bruno always wanted to write novels, but the path to fiction brought a shocking detour. In May 1998, just before starting Northwestern University's PhD program in English Literature, Bruno suffered a brain injury that left her unable to read or write without vertigo and migraine headaches. Forfeiting her graduate school fellowship, she devoted the next six years to recovery. Along the way, she began to study the very methods that helped her heal. She became a Reiki Master Teacher and Intuitive Life Coach. Now she specializes in helping people find blessings in times of trauma. Bruno has written two non-fiction books -- If I Only Had a Brain Injury and The Lazy Raw Foodist's Guide - but her first novel, Schizandra and the Gates of Mu, brings "the greatest sense of triumph."

Bruno says she could not have written this novel without her own brain injury experience. Schizandra and the Gates of Mu explores consciousness through each character's expanding Awareness. The main character, Schizandra, is a 13-year-old orphan with a cosmic destiny. She faints in class and appears unconscious to everyone "in the real world." Set in Sedona in 2001, the story flows through time and alternate realities, as Schizandra journeys to an underground kingdom and reclaims forgotten memories of the human race. Through her own healing, she begins to heal the world. This healing must come fast, as 2012 and Mayan prophecies loom large.

Bruno's novel offers fresh takes on old archetypes, along with many firsts: raw cacao, a vegan midwife grandmother, and an insider's view of natural healing. She says she designed this book "to heal as well as entertain." Schizandra and the Gates of Mu is available in bookstores and online in the US and UK. For more information, please see http://laurabruno.wordpress.com or call 775-750-9140.

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