Off the Bookshelf: THE SODA POP WARS, Iggy & Oz, by J.J. Johnson

 

Middle Grade

Fun, silly, tongue-in-cheek adventures with two brothers in a slightly strange neighborhood -- complicated by their efforts to save the world without their parents finding out and grounding them.

At least, that's my interpretation of the fast-moving adventure. I've read J.J. Johnson before, more adult, still tongue-in-cheek -- with a hero (Mercury) who is mentioned by the brothers in the course of the story. 

The brothers are still recovering from their previous adventure dealing with toy dinosaurs that came to life. This time, the same strange old house that delivered the first problem has dumped something new on the neighborhood -- a soda pop machine that dispenses bottles with bizarre flavors and temporary superpowers. Some are kinda gross, and some unfortunately let the neighborhood bully be even meaner to the smaller kids at school. Well, what are our heroes going to do, when they find out their arch nemesis has access to his own soda pop superpowers? They have to get the bottles away from him. Easier said than done, when the girl of Iggy's dreams seems to be about to have a date with the bully, and they have to keep their parents from finding out that the world is in danger once again.

Lots of fun and a fast read. Take a break from the current nastiness, stupidity and angst in the so-called real world, and visit with Iggy and Oz and their friends.

New Release Sample: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished)

 "It's not like you can't handle something like that with your sports reporting and copy editing," Harry offered.

"Someone else is doing the sports reporting. Big-shot new owner has a whole staff to cover four counties, so he doesn't want to inconvenience poor little me. Make me go to sporting events where I might be so depressed, seeing all those athletes in action while confined to my wheelchair. Can we say Tiny Tim syndrome?"

"So… Are we going to get any new material about the boss from h-e-double-hockey-sticks?" he murmured, and very carefully didn't look at me.

"You might. If I don't invest in voodoo dolls or a Mafia contract, first." I caught sight of the Golden Arches too late to get into the curb lane to pull in. The guys didn't seem to notice.

"So the bozo took away your sports column. Not a smart move. Having you write romantic advice is like—" Pete snickered and slid over in his seat, to protect his knees.

"Like having me for a track coach? I've been a track coach. And even though I haven't had a date since… Okay, longer than I want to remember. I can still give advice to idiots who think a stranger can help them when they can't seem to find their common sense with both hands!" I narrowly missed pounding the horn, sparing the guy in the rustbucket Ford in front of us a heart attack.

"So tell us what you really think." Harry dug in his pocket for his phone. "Mancuso's for pickup?"

"You got it. The usual, please."

Now that I had gotten the bad news out in the open, and the guys gave me their usual teasing sympathy, my appetite was coming back. Extra-thick pizza, onions, olives, marinara sauce and garlic, with cheesecake on the side. It might not give me a good night's sleep, but it would go a long way toward soothing the ache in my soul.

I had a good record on the track and on the basketball court in high school and college, and had proven myself as a part-time sports stringer for the Tattler. It hadn't been pity that prompted Conrad Severidge to give me the sports beat. Or let me keep it after I turned my back into modern art. I had proven myself. (Okay, it also helped that I introduced him to his wife. And let him marry her. Hey, she was my college roommate.) So why did it look like pity in Daniel Sheridan's eyes, when he gave me my unwanted new assignment?

I wanted to strangle someone. I wanted to leave tire tracks up the back of his designer suit and skid marks across his too-handsome face. I entertained myself with thoughts of what Felicity and Kurt could do to make Sheridan's life miserable, once they found out about this afternoon's development. A certain rich boy might soon find himself in some pretty unhappy, peculiar, embarrassing situations. It was good to have friends who knew what would make me happy, even though I didn't have the guts to defy how my parents raised me and do it for myself.

Amazing what having friends and a good pizza could do to make the world a friendlier place.

New Release Sample: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished)

 

The problem with living in a small town like Neighborlee (besides the rotten name for the high school sports teams, because who really wants to win when you're named after a fish?) is that chances were good you worked with relatives. Harry's contract to pick up papers from the big printing plant over in Valleyview meant he was in and out of the office a dozen times a week. He was there when Conrad raved about my story on the Neighborlee Pikes and announced it had already been picked up on the wire by a few national magazines.

He wasn't there when Mrs. Sloane and Sheridan invaded the office and rearranged our lives.

"You're looking at the new writer of the Talk to Terry column." I concentrated on pulling out of the parking lot into the dwindling traffic around the club. "You guys want to stop at Mac's on the way home?"

"Uh oh. It's the junk food defense," Pete sing-songed. He ducked before I could consider reaching back between the seats to slap him, so I didn't try. Besides, I was driving.

"So that's not a good thing? Never heard of it, but it sounds like a gossip column or something. Conrad's adding it to the paper?" Harry said.

"The column runs in four papers and is being added to eight, including ours. We have a new owner." No way was I going to say the name of the Evil Overlord and pollute the interior of my beloved Jeep. "We're getting lumped together with all the other papers he just bought, and a bunch of the columns are getting picked up in all the papers."

"So, Terry, what do you write about?" Harry leaned into the door on his side of the Jeep and turned sideways to grin at me as we reached a red light.

"It's mostly an advice column." I swallowed hard and wished I had a big can of ginger ale to wash the bad taste out of my mouth and settle my stomach. "Mostly lovelorn junk."

"Ick. Gross. Mental deterioration of the—" Pete ended on a yelp as my fist connected with his knee. My radar worked as faithfully as always, letting me swing back between the seats without looking. His leg jerked, hitting the back of Harry's seat. Two birds with one wallop.

Off the Bookshelf: FORSAKEN ISLAND, by Sharon Hinck

 

The Dancing Realms, Book 2

Ever feel sometimes like life itself conspires to keep you from getting back to a book you really, really want to read? <G>

That's what happened with this book. So many projects, so many deadlines, and when I keep promising myself I will spend Sundays just reading, nothing else ... *sigh* ... projects pop up or I'm wiped out and spend the afternoon snoozing.

As always, Sharon delivers an engrossing, utterly believable slice of fantasy. Her worldbuilding is incredible, and I just want to sit down with her and listen to her talk about how she came up with the Dancing Realms, what research she did, how she figured out the physics of this world of sweet, citrus sea water and floating islands and starshowers and ... wow.

On the heels of the monumental task of essentially remaking the society of their world of Meriel, Carya and Brantley have a new challenge -- another floating island/world has appeared on the horizon. With the people of Meriel desperately in need of food as they repair the damages done by the Order, the two cross the water to explore and obtain supplies and make contact with whoever might be living there. Before they know it, they are trapped -- the plants themselves have closed up and formed a wall to keep them from getting back to the water. 

As they explore and meet the people and navigate the disturbing patterns and rules and expectations of the different colored villages, each one named for a different color of starshower, Carya and Brantley learn the awful truth, the deception and enslavement that have overtaken the people. It could cost them their lives, and their growing love for each other, if their faith in the Maker falters.

Read this slowly, to savor every detail -- but make sure you have big chunks of time, so life doesn't keep getting in the way and stopping you from reading.  Congratulations on the 2020 Christy Award, Visionary, for Hidden Current (Book 1) Sharon!

New Release Sample: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished)

 "Yeah, problem," Pete said, as he gave the windshield wiper blades one last thud to clear ice off them. He stuck his tongue out at me for good measure.

I sighed for the good old days, when I could talk him into putting his tongue on icy metal.

"What makes you guys think—"

"You can't lie to us," Harry said. "Something was off when you picked us up to head here, but we both thought it was just you gearing up for tonight. What let the air out of your tires?"

"Yeah, and don't try giving us some fake story," Pete added as he got into the back seat. "We aren't living lie detectors like you—"

"That's on the fritz, remember?" I crossed my eyes at him in the rearview mirror.

Truthfully, that particular talent usually meant getting an image in my head that contradicted what the person said, and always needed interpretation. I would have preferred to be invincible. Flying and the ability to bounce off walls and have bullets bounce off me just sort of seemed to belong together. Obviously, given my permanent four-wheel-drive situation, God hadn't made me bulletproof. There was a reason. There had to be a reason. I just hadn't discovered it yet.

Such thoughts didn't help me now, when my brothers were gearing up to grill me on why I wasn't still high on satisfaction after my successful comedy gig. That, and the relief of escaping the horrors of the after-Thanksgiving shopping crush with Felicity.

"I thought you were happy the Pikes smeared the Bulldogs," Harry added. "When I stopped in the office this afternoon, Conrad said your take on the whole season was the best thing you've ever written. So what happened at work after I left?"

New Release Sample: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished)

 

The high of a successful gig stayed with me for nearly an hour. Ramon paid me and asked me to come back on alternating Friday and Saturday nights starting in January. That was good. When I hesitated, thinking of my wheelchair basketball schedule, he added a share of the entry fee to the pot. When I explained that I might have basketball games on Friday and Saturday nights, he got that stunned, jaw-dropping look on his face that I loved to inspire in people. Why did they find it so hard to visualize a woman playing basketball in a wheelchair? The Ezekiel's Wheels, my team, wasn't as popular as the Cavaliers, and we certainly didn't make the money they did, but we had a loyal following. We got in the papers. Not the front page, though. I wondered if I would have to bring my scrapbook or one of our league trophies to my next gig, to prove my athletic tendencies. Then Ramon shrugged and said we could schedule around my games. As long as I got on stage by nine, that was fine with him. That worked for me.

Too bad the comedy scene in northern Ohio was almost as depressed as I felt after getting my sports beat taken away. Otherwise, I might have been tempted to quit my day job and pursue comedy.

Remembering the bomb that hit me that afternoon succeeded in dragging my spirits down as the boys and I crossed the slushy back parking lot to my Jeep. I got into the front seat while Pete took care of cleaning the windows of the crusty slush that had accumulated while we were indoors. Harry got my chair into the back of the Jeep.

"Okay, Lanie, what's the problem?" Harry's demand was accented by the thud of the hatch closing.

"Problem?" I fluttered my eyelashes at him as he slid into the front passenger seat. Anybody who didn’t know us might have thought I was flirting with this gorgeous Latina guy—who was seven years younger than me. Harry was my brother. Didn’t matter if all three of us were adopted, we were tighter than blood.

Goodreads Giveaway!!!

 Want to win a FREE book?

In anticipation of the release of HERE THERE WERE DRAGONS, AFV Defender Book 2, you can now enter a giveaway on Goodreads for Book 1: FRIENDLY FIRE.

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/314954-friendly-fire-afv-defender-book-1

#1 Friendly Fire

Captain Genys Arroyan has a problem with her shiny new command -- the dregs of the universe are laughing.

While the Defender is in spacedock, getting upgrades, Genys has to deal with mind-hunters and farting fur balls, merchants-of-insanity and diplomatic intrigue. Her Chief of Talents is hiding from forced matrimony and her new crewmembers aren't too happy to be

transferred to the Nanny Ship.

Then she finds out that the insectoid Hivers have a taste for the brains of the children of her crew. Falling through a Chute to another galaxy might turn out to be a good thing, even if dangerous.

A rescue mission turns into a battle to save a race of miniature dragons from genocide. They might just be sentient -- but more important, dracs could turn out to be the defensive weapon the Alliance needs against the Hiver threat. Genys and her crew could end up breaking dozens of regulations in the quest to save dracs and maybe the Human race.  Just how much trouble could teleporting, fire-breathing creatures with the personalities of four-year-olds cause on board a military vessel?

The misfit luck of the AFV Defender might finally be running out.

#2 Here There Were Dragons 

Dracs: the gift that keeps giving. And making life very interesting for the crew of the AFV Defender.

A spatial anomaly near the drac homeworld, a forbidden island, and signs of a civilization that self-destructed are just the tip of the iceberg. When spoiled brat Ambassador Vitiarre's plot to get his hands on dracs is foiled, he sets out to make trouble for the Defender, and especially Chief of Talents M'kar. His long-standing feud with her father, Ashrock, just makes everything worse.

Then a new Chute opens up near the drac homeworld, leading to a planet with dragons in its legends. Despite no dragons present on the planet now, Vitiarre breaks regulations to invade and claim his own dragon. His schemes lead to the Defender being sent to mend the trouble he made with the matriarchal society of Castitarus.

The misfit luck of the Defender is hard at work. Male crew are kidnapped. The dracs develop allergies. Female officers are offered diplomatic gifts of men. And the crew race to find a cure for a disease that turns grown men into children -- starting with Security Chief Decker, and Ashrock.

A typical mission for the crew of the AFV Defender.

New Release Sample: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished)

 The comedy club audience inhaled on cue, a packed house, with the suction power that rivaled my super-duper-deluxe vacuum cleaner when it was brand new. Too bad I couldn't harness all that sucking power and turn it into profit. I needed some extra money, with Christmas approaching. And wanting to quit my job.

The guys fumbled and stammered and basically got in my way as I climbed back into my chair. Thank goodness for upper-body strength developed from years of pushing my own chair everywhere in town. The boys were useless, thanks to stage fright.

In those few seconds when my misspent life flashed before my eyes, the most dominant thought was, "Someone is definitely out to get me." In the last couple of weeks, I'd had two flat tires, a dozen prank calls at the office, and just as many middle-of-the-night hang-up calls on my cell phone and the landline at home. And now someone had stolen the ramp up onto the stage. What else was I supposed to think?

Someone was out to get me!

The silence, once the guys stepped out of the spotlight, was profound enough to hear a pin drop from across the street. Without super hearing. This was the type of moment in a struggling performer's career when you either called it a night, permanently, or you took the equivalent of a bloodbath on the next smart-alec line that popped out between your teeth. I flashed those bug-eyed, horrified people my best Pac-Man grin, buying a few seconds to think.

I swear, the only inspiration that came to me was Kermit's line from The Muppet Movie.

"I hope you all appreciate the fact that I do my own stunts."

Silence.

Oh…heck. What I wouldn't give for the power of invisibility, or to turn time backwards a whole day.

New Release Sample: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished)

 So Harry and Pete lifted me, wheelchair and all.

Halfway through what should have been a smooth maneuver, I saw this swirling flash of a dozen tiny sparks of light, circling my head. My fingers tingled, just for a second. It was how Kurt described the sensation he always got when he felt other Lost Kids use their semi-pseudo-superhero powers.

All that fled my brain, because for a split second, I could have sworn I saw Sylvia Grandstone standing in the doorway, glaring at me. She pointed at me. There was something in her hand. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it turned out to be a gun. The darkness behind her took on a dull sheen like a dirty oil slick, and it spun counterclockwise.

That tingle turned painful, like wintertime dry air static, cubed in intensity. The sparks darted across the seating area, toward the door. Sylvia vanished—if that was Sylvia, because honestly, what would she be doing back in town after all these years?

And my loving brothers dropped me.

Have you ever seen a wheelchair-bound woman fall out of her chair from nearly five feet up in the air (two-and-a-half feet from the floor and another two-plus feet between the bottom of the wheels and the seat, for those who are counting) going sideways, with a "Take me now, Lord!" look on her face?

Ain't pretty.

Off the Bookshelf: HOLLOWPOX, The Hunt for Morrigan Crow, by Jessica Townsend

 

Narrated by Gemma Whelan

Nevermore series

audiobook

DEVOURED this book. Got a lot more exercise, walking, just so I could keep listening.

LOVE the Nevermore series. The worldbuilding is incredible. The characters are such fun.

Morrigan's life is finally settling down and she's finally getting lessons on using her power as a Wundersmith ... but then terror slips into Nevermore. A dreadful disease is spreading through the Free State, and threatens to destroy the society from within because it pits Humans against Wunnimals. The disease is turning Wunnimals into Unnimals -- ordinary, beastly animals. What can be done to stop it?

Of course, it's bad enough Morrigan and her friends feel helpless and useless, as mere students in the Wundrous Society, but then the Society itself comes up against criticism and helplessness and feeling useless, when they can't seem to stop the Hollowpox. Things get worse when the evil, renegade Wundersmith, Ezra Squall makes contact with Morrigan. He will cure the Hollowpox if she agrees to be his apprentice.

Can she do it? Will the cure come too late for Morrigan, and perhaps too late to save her friends?

READ. THIS. BOOK.

Lovely, delicious series. Fun, thrilling, with lots of "No, Morrigan, don't do it!" moments.

More, please?

New Release Sample: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished)

 Then I looked out through the flimsy curtains that separated the negligible backstage area from the tables, and realized we had a new problem.

"Where's my ramp?"

"It was there ten minutes ago." Ramon, the owner, looked about as relaxed as a 300-pound former bouncer could look with a full house just before the first show of the night.

He didn't look so relaxed five minutes later, when his two go-fers verified the ramp to let my wheelchair get up onto the stage had evaporated into thin air. We had exactly five more minutes until I had to get out there and do my routine. It took us three minutes to decide we couldn't get a board in time that was long enough, thick enough, and wide enough to improvise a ramp. It wasn't like I could back out at the last minute. This was my fifth performance at Ramon's club, and I had worked my way up to actually having my name on the mobile marquee out front. Chances were good at least a dozen of the people out there had come specifically to see me perform. And anyway, the understanding was that after five or six return performances, Ramon offered a contract of some kind. I needed that ego boost after the wretched day I had.

That left the only other option: roadies.

Honestly, I had been joking when I referred to Pete and Harry as my roadies, because I was mobile enough to get myself in and out of my Jeep, even without my telekinesis. But tonight, there was no way in the world I could get myself up onto that stage without visible, physical help. I was here to do a comedy routine and that contract for regular performances and some steady money was close enough I could taste it. Very attractive, now that I wanted badly to bail on my job at the Tattler. I certainly wasn't there to audition for a revival of the X-Files.

New Print Release: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished) Neighborlee Book 4

Living Proof (That No Good Deed Goes Unpunished)

Neighborlee, Ohio

Book 4

From Ye Olde Dragon Books

 

Lanie saved her student's life on Senior Prank Night, but broke her back and blunted some of her semi-pseudo-superhero powers.

Now it's four years later, and Lanie's orderly life is starting to fall apart.

Her brothers are living with her while their parents are out of the country on another book research trip.

Not so bad, but their parents have missed two check-in phone calls already.

The newspaper where Lanie works has been taken over by a conglomerate she now refers to as the Evil Empire -- and she loses her beloved school sports beat, to write the (gag) lovelorn column.

Then Col. Hayward shows up to say their parents have vanished ... near the Bermuda Triangle.

A series of increasingly nasty pranks lead her to believe someone is out to get her.

But worst of all, Christmas is only a few weeks away and she hasn't started her Christmas shopping or her holiday baking spree.

 

It's enough to make a semi-pseudo-superhero hang up her cape!

Oh, yeah, she never had one to begin with ...

 

Book Launch TODAY: LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes unpunished) Neighborlee Book 4

 

Today is the print release day for LIVING PROOF (that no good deed goes punished).

I hope you're coming to the book launch party over at Ye Olde Dragon Fiction Fan Group on Facebook.

From 2-5pm today, EST.

Come on and check it out. It'll be fun. Chatter, questions, thank-you-for-coming gifts. You can get started on your Christmas shopping!

Plus some fantastic (well, at least I think it's fantastic) news about a new Neighborlee project.

Come join us!!