Book Lovers Party!

Are you coming?

It's time for the SPRING EDITION of the Buckeye Christian Fiction Book Lovers Facebook party.

Lots of book talk, real-time communication with REAL authors -- you can ask questions, get samples of the books featured, and maybe even win some cool prizes. Who knows?

TONIGHT

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Taste the Book: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

April release from Uncial Press.

"Well it's like--" Kurt scowled and I could almost hear humming, he was thinking so hard. "There was this one TV show where this guy had to learn how to do it and the guy who was teaching him said to think about his power like an extra hand."

"What does that mean?"

"Just think really hard about what you want the superguy power to do, and... I don't know, just think really hard."

Simple enough, right?

Wrong?

I'm still not sure to this day how I made the mental connection, and how I switched over from kinda-sorta flying to grabbing all the trash the bullies had been throwing at us, and with the power of my mind flinging it back at them. With interest. All that really mattered right then was that I did it.

While the bullies ran away screaming and whining and then tried to claim that Kurt and a whole bunch of the big boys ganged up on them, I curled up with my first superpower-induced sick headache, and a nosebleed. That taught me and Kurt a huge lesson that day.

Actually, a number of lessons. We were too young and inexperienced to put it all into words or separate the factors and different variables. The important part was that we shouldn't try too much or work too hard, when it came to using our superhero powers. Fortunately, Kurt had already figured out another important rule: fuel! He ran to the concession stand and bought two creamsicles and three packages of cookies. He had already learned that using his gizmo talent made him achy-hungry, and if he didn't eat something right away, it turned into a killer headache like I had.

I inhaled the treats, leaving just the one creamsicle for Kurt. By the time Mrs. S blew her whistle to round us all up to climb back on the bus to go back to NCH, I was feeling almost normal. Almost, because once my headache went away and the nosebleed stopped, I felt like I was floating about four inches off the ground. It was a heady feeling of power, to know I had beaten the bullies at just five years of age.

Off the Bookshelf: WIRES AND NERVE by Marissa Meyer

Glory! Another book in the Lunar Chronicles series.

What's really cool?
Iko, the snarky, fashionista android is the heroine.

Even more cool, and stepping slightly outside of my usual reading zone ....
It's a GRAPHIC NOVEL.
That's grown-up geek speak for comic book, but a huge comic book. As in, the whole story is there in one volume, instead of having to wait a month in between each measly chapter.

The story takes place after Book 4, WINTER, so if you haven't read the book yet (like me, because I'm trying to read down my electronic "stack" of to-be-reads before I can justify buying a new ebook -- and yeah, I'm cheap and waiting for the price to drop a few more bucks ... and I got this book using my Amazon reward points, so technically I didn't spend any money ...), this one might be kind of a spoiler. But you knew our heroines, Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Winter and their assorted heroes were going to triumph, didn't you?

Anyway, Iko is now in the curvaceous and pretty tough, strong body of an escort android and hunting the wolf-hybrid Lunar soldiers who are skulking about on Earth and making everybody scared and sort of miserable. Life ain't easy for an independent-minded android, even though she has a lot of friends who consider her a person. There are the android manufacturers who keep offering to "fix" her personality chip, and the wolf-hybrid soldiers and the people who won't admit she's a person and oh, yeah, the wolf-hybrid soldiers. They kind of get in the way of figuring out if she's just malfunctioning, or she might have genuine feelings after all.

Love it -- so will you.

Off the Bookshelf: TURBO TWENTY-THREE, by Janet Evanovich

Yeah, I love Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books.

Sometimes it's really, really hard to make myself wait until the paper edition comes out. (With all the books waiting to be read in my to-be-read bookshelf, plus e-readers) Which is why I love being able to borrow electronic editions from the library -- or in the case of this book, find them for sale used.

Who'd'a thunk I'd find a 2016 book in a stall at an antique mall near Hocking Hills, Ohio?

Okay, these books are over-the-top fun, and can get silly, and it's just not a genuine Stephanie Plum unless she gets messy and embarrassed and Grandma Mazur makes Stephanie's mother reach for the bottle in the cupboard and at least one of Stephanie's cars gets totaled. But Ranger makes an interesting comment that kind of supports why Stephanie kinda-sorta succeeds despite her flailing around and having Lula for a sidekick (love Lula, but she lost her grip on reality centuries ago) -- Stephanie pays attention to details. She notices things. She might not put them together in a usable way, but she ends up being very useful for others. Which is why Ranger keeps her around. Among other reasons, of course.

One mishap after another, resulting from chasing totally stupid, sloppy, single-digit-I.Q. crooks who don't understand why they have to show up for court after committing a crime, gets Stephanie and her friends involved in solving a murder. Yeah, things get kind of serious. In fact, the series is getting more serious as time goes on. Stephanie gets hurt, she's in danger, real crooks with real guns and some competence -- or at least efficient henchmen -- threaten her. From the dead body found turned into an over-sized ice cream treat at the beginning, Stephanie comes close to being turned into another ice cream bar at the end. That's enough to make you scared of the Good Humor man ...

Love the series. I don't know how Janet Evanovich does it, book after book.

Taste the Book: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

April release from Uncial Press.

Kurt just looked at me. Then he grinned. I liked that grin. It was nasty and it was like laughter was going to explode out of him and he knew something wonderful.

"If you can lift yourself up in the air, maybe you can lift other stuff?" he finally said.

"But I don't know how."

"Come on, don't be a girl!"

"But I am a girl."

He stared at me for a few seconds, then he grinned, but it was a different kind of grin.

"Can any of the superheroes in your comic books do it?"

"Yeah." He yelped as a pinecone got him right in the eye, and slid back farther under the table, rubbing at his eye. "Hold on, I gotta think."

The problem with the comic books Kurt had read was that they showed but didn't explain. Later, he gave me all the comic books where a superhero had telekinetic power, not that either of us knew that particular word at the time. Usually the only instructions we got consisted of a kind of greenish ray shooting out of someone's head, and blasting a car or tearing a wall apart.

"I don't know," he finally said. "It's kind of like... You know how on TV they show people with superpowers."

"No. We don't get to stay up that late."

"Well it's like--" Kurt scowled and I could almost hear humming, he was thinking so hard. "There was this one TV show where this guy had to learn how to do it and the guy who was teaching him said to think about his power like an extra hand."

"What does that mean?"