Book Lovers Party!

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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?"

Superheroes, Anyone?

Digital Preorders Now Available! Our third volume of short stories is coming your way March 28, and you can preorder your digital edition now and save some cash. Purchase a digital edition today, and we'll email you your copy of this incredible collection on release day! Some pursue heroism, others are thrust into it.

Superheroes. They live among us, some hidden in plain sight, others as well-known celebrities. All carry a burden and a purpose: to destroy the evils of this world and keep the common man safe from harm. 

But evil is a strong thread that refuses to be cut. How much sacrifice will be demanded to destroy that which seeks to destroy us, and are there enough heroes to do the job? 

Experience a collection of short stories brimming with the struggles of heroism and the dark side of villainy, where real-world content merges with Christian fiction to produce a unique storytelling atmosphere.

Includes:

The Bald Man by Timothy G. Huguenin

The Last Call by Kristin L. Norman

sinEater by D.A. Williams

Hierro by Jen Finelli

Living Proof by Michelle Levigne

Airfoil: Hotspots by Steve Rzasa

Someone Is Aiming For You by JD Cowan

Without Blemish: A Philosophy of Preaching by Nathan James Norman

The Trojan Initiative by Clayton Webb

Fly Like A Bird by Rosemary E. Johnson

Chronostream’s Father by Adam David Collings

PREORDER!!!

Taste the Book: GROWING UP NEIGHBORLEE

April release from Uncial Press.

Thanks to that we've-got-a-secret smile from Angela, I decided I needed to practice my kinda-sorta flying, to show her what I could do next time we met up. I found a sheltered spot at the far end of the field where the older kids played baseball and soccer, in the thick clump of trees enclosed by the fence encircling the orphanage grounds. My practicing consisted of rising up as high as I could get before I got scared and then hanging there until the ground started to look a little fuzzy before I came back down. At five years old, twenty feet off the ground was the equivalent of Mount Everest. I had just worked up the nerve to try some sideways shifting when Kurt walked into the little clearing where I was practicing, and looked up at me. Fortunately, I was wearing shorts, rather than a skirt. Skirts were for church and school.

"You hum really loud." He was grinning at me.

"No I'm not." I was rather indignant, because I knew enough to keep quiet while I was practicing, so the bullies and bigger kids who might make fun of me wouldn't see me.

"Yeah, you do, but it's not the kind of humming that people can hear."

"That's stupid. How can you hear it if people can't hear it?" I came down a little faster than I intended and my knees wobbled when I hit. Kurt caught hold of me, and a funny buzzing sensation kind of shocked me where his hand touched my bare arm.

"Like that." He grinned wider, gray eyes sparkling, and rubbed the hand that had touched me on the front of his t-shirt. "It's okay, I hum too."

"Are you laughing at me?" I had already run into the two chief bullies who reigned during my time at NCH. They had overheard Miss Abby talking with another houseparent, so delighted with my reading ability, and came running to inflict their new nickname on me: Lanie Brainy.

"Nope. We're superheroes."

"Huh?"

That was my introduction to the amazing world of comic books and superheroes and mutants and super powers and saving the world.