Friday, October 31, 2014

Month9Books Second Birthday Bash: Ty Drago's The Undertakers:Secret of the Corpse Eater Chapter 1 + GIVEAWAY!



Welcome to Month9Books Birthday Bash! We’re so excited you’re all stopping by!

This is going to be an awesome event with many tour stops featuring our authors! The full schedule is below and make sure to stick around for the EPIC Giveaway taking place!


Here’s a quick note from Georgia McBride, owner of Month9Books!

“Month9Books is turning 2 this year and I could not be happier. We are living proof that if you have a dream to write, create and inspire, you should follow that dream and let nothing keep you from realizing it. Thank you to all the readers, writers, agents, partners and friends who have made this possible. We write for you. 

--Georgia McBride, Publisher and Owner of Month9Books”

While all of the posts are from our authors that have books out already we also want to look forward to some of the 2015 titles we can’t wait to share with you!

Here’s a slide show of some our 2015 books!




We have a ton of sequels coming as well as new books from awesome debut authors and we’re so excited to share them all with you! We have something for everyine from every genre from Sci-Fi to Fantasy to Paranormal and Horror!

We have the pleasure of hosting Ty Drago today, author of The Undertakers: Secret of the Corpse Eater! Ty's book came out this past March, and is the third book in the popular The Undertakers series. As part of the celebration, we've got the first chapter of the book for you, and we hope that you love it as much as we do!

About the Book

Title: THE UNDERTAKERS: SECRET OF THE CORPSE EATER
Author: Ty Drago
Release Date: March 25, 2014
Pages: 383
Publisher: Month9Books
Formats: Paperback, eBook


The Corpses are up to something.

U.S. Senator Lindsay Micha has been kidnapped and replaced with a “dead” ringer, the sister to Lilith Cavanaugh, the Queen of the Dead. Now Will Ritter must go undercover in our nation’s capitol to ferret out the truth and try to stop this ambitious deader. But his mission becomes even more dangerous when he learns of a mysterious ten-legged monster that prowls the halls of the Capitol Building — a lethal monster with a taste for Corpse flesh.

The Undertakers: Secret of the Corpse Eater is book three in the wildly popular The Undertakers series from Ty Drago.


About the Author

In addition to the first two books in UNDERTAKERS series, RISE OF THE CORSPES and QUEEN
OF THE DEAD, Ty Drago is the author of PHOBOS, a Science Fiction whodunit and THE FRANKLIN AFFAIR, an historical/mystery about Benjamin Franklin. His short fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the 2009 anthology YESTERDAY, I WILL …, and he has written articles for WRITERS DIGEST.  His first UNDERTAKERS novelette, NIGHT OF MONSTERS, is currently available for FREE on Smashwords.com and barnesandnoble.com.



Chapter 1

A Morning's Stalk

This is my life. 

I remember thinking those words as the three of us stood on that South Street rooftop, looking down into the lifeless, upturned faces of hundreds of the walking dead. Many of them were smiling. There‘s nothing worse than a smug Corpse.

They knew, as we knew, that they had us trapped.

Um … I‘d better back up a little.

It started with the poster.

Harvey's Open Air Tours!
Knowledgeable Guides!
Custom-Made Open-Air Limos!
Leaving PROMPTLY at the Top of Every Hour!
See Philadelphia in Comfort!
Just $15 per Person!

I read it—memorized it, really—but not because I cared about some Philly tourist trap.

You see, when the target you‘re stalking looks your way, it‘s important to not just appear innocent, but to be innocent. Suddenly, I wasn‘t Will Ritter, Undertaker. Instead, I was just a thirteen-year-old kid in jeans, with my face buried under a hoodie and my attention glued to some random poster slapped onto the window of a closed shop.

So I read the poster. Then I read it again. And again. Until my peripheral vision told me the target had turned away. Only then did I let out the breath I‘d been holding.

If I got caught now, I was dead.

Tracking prey through city streets is hard enough at night, but it‘s way worse in the daytime.

My target moved along South Street, heading east, with me about a half block behind. It was a little before eleven a.m., not a prime stalking hour.

South Street‘s a pretty big deal in Philly. With its clubs and bars and stores, it‘s a major nighttime hot spot. In twelve hours, these sidewalks would be choked with people. There‘d be lights and music and drunken laughter.

But now, blanketed under a gray, April-morning sky, there were few enough shoppers that I‘d be noticed if my tracking got too obvious—and yet too few to use as camouflage.

My target abruptly crossed the street and continued along on the other side. Not exactly hurrying, but with definite purpose.

I crossed the street too. Tracking 101. A newbie might think it better to stay on my side of South and follow catty-corner. Mistake. People look around while they walk. It‘s safer to stay behind them, where you can react fast if they pull what Sharyn Jefferson, co-chief of the Undertakers, calls a ―Crazy Ivan. That‘s when your target pauses without warning and looks back—like mine just did.

I think it‘s a movie reference.

My target stopped. So I stopped too, ready to play innocent again. Then she knocked on the door of Quaker City Comics. I didn‘t know the place.

A few seconds later the door opened and she went in.

A few seconds after that, I peeked through the glass frontage. A sign said the place wouldn‘t open for another ten minutes, which explained why the target had knocked.

It was hard to see much inside: a cashier‘s counter, a little snack shop on the left, and shelves upon shelves of comics. A pretty cool place. I tried to remember the last time I‘d read a comic book—and couldn‘t, though my roommate back at Haven, the Undertakers‘ HQ, kept a bunch of them.
I just had no time for stuff like that anymore: X-Men, Batman, The Avengers, Green Lantern.

My old life.

I spotted my target swapping words with a twenty-something dude dressed all in black and sporting a nose ring. He smiled and pointed toward the rear of the store. She nodded and headed back there, disappearing from view.

I tugged on the door handle.

Locked.

Normally, this wouldn‘t have slowed me down much. I carry a tricked-out pocketknife, which can pretty much pick any lock. But before I could even reach for it, the nose ring guy was there. He yelled, “Not open yet!” Through the glass, his voice muffled but understandable.

I faked confusion and pointed at my ear.

With a visible sigh, he unlocked the door and cracked it about six inches. “We‘re not open yet.”

I stuck my sneaker in the gap. “I need to come in for a minute.”

“Look, kid”

I shoved the door with my shoulder. The guy wasn‘t real big, but then neither am I. If my roommate had done this, he‘d have sent the dude flying. But the best I could manage to do was force him back a step, and that was more about his surprise than my muscle.

“What do you think you‘re doing?” He demanded as I stepped into his shop. The place smelled of crisp, new paper—a musty but not unpleasant odor.

“Sorry,” I said, meaning it. “This‘ll only take a sec …” Then I sidestepped him and headed toward the back of the store.

He grabbed my forearm. “Look kid, I don‘t know what you‘re trying to pull. But get out now before I call the cops.”

I put my hand on his, found his pinky and yanked it the wrong way. He yelped and let go. I didn‘t. Instead, I forced his wrist back until he dropped to one knee, grimacing in pain. “Call whoever you want,” I told him. “Like I said, I won‘t be long.”

He nodded feverishly.

“Don‘t worry. Everything‘s cool,” I said, wondering if that was true. Well, I‘d know in about a minute.

I released his hand and went on my way. He muttered something after me, but I didn‘t catch it. Just as well.

I found a narrow hallway leading to a small mudroom that had been turned into storage. Boxes lined one wall. On the opposite wall stood shelves of graphic novels— obscure anime, according to their spines.

At the rear was a blue door with the word EXIT painted on it. And on a box right beside it sat Helene Boettcher. She clutched a sheet of paper in her hands and was reading it so intently that she didn‘t notice me right away.

Helene was also an Undertaker. In fact, it was this thin, brown-haired girl who‘d first brought me to Haven, having come to my rescue during an eighth-grade math class early last fall. That had been the day I‘d found out monsters were real.

Another story.

Helene was one of my best friends. Except she was a bit more than that, too. I knew it but, so far, hadn‘t done anything with the knowledge.

Frankly, I hadn‘t yet figured out what I should do.

Helene, however, met my eyes and, as usual, knew exactly what to do.

She got up and took a swing at me.

I ducked.

She threw another punch. I blocked it. Then she pivoted and jabbed me in the chest, near my left shoulder. It hurt, but I knew from experience that it wasn‘t half as hard as she was able to hit.

“What‘re you doing here?” She demanded. Her cheeks were red, and I noticed for the first time that there were tears in her eyes.

“Ow!” I yelped, rubbing the spot where she‘d punched me. “I … followed you from Haven.”

“You what?

“You‘ve been doing this a lot!”  I snapped. "Sneaking out on Saturday mornings. You think nobody noticed?”

Alarm flashed in her eyes. “Who else knows?”

“Well … just me.”

Her visible relief did nothing to help in the anger department. “You‘ve got no right to be … spying … on me!”

I started to say something—maybe argue, maybe apologize—but I didn‘t get the chance.

Both of us jumped as someone pounded on the comic shop‘s back door. Then the knob jiggled, loud and urgent. But of course it was locked.

Helene and I swapped looks.

A morning delivery, maybe? I glanced over my shoulder toward the front of the store, but I couldn‘t see Nose Ring Dude. Maybe he was calling the cops. Maybe he was in the bathroom running cold water over his hand. Either way, he didn‘t seem to have heard a thing.

A moment later, the pounding returned, though this time it sounded farther away. Whoever-it-was was running along the alley, trying each door in turn.

I stepped around Helene and pushed the blue door open.

At first I saw nothing but the cracked pavement of your typical alley. Then someone yanked on the other side, tearing the knob out of my hands with tremendous strength—and I found myself face-to-face with a dead man.


The Giveaway!

(1) New Kindle with touchscreen (US only) loaded with all our Month9Books titles. US Only.
(1) Paperback prize pack of 5 Month9Books Titles. US ONLY.
(2) eBook Prize Packs of 5 Month9Books titles. International



Meet the Authors and amazing host Blogs!


All posts will be live on October 31st!

Sarah Bromley will be hosted by A Book and A Latte
Steve Bryant will be hosted by Jump Into Books
Brynn Chapman will be hosted by A Backwards Story
Scott Craven will be hosted by Books and Ashes
Ty Drago will be hosted by The A P Book Club
Jennifer M. Eaton will be hosted by Book Briefs
Kit Forbes will be hosted by Book Lovers Life
Amanda Gray will be hosted by Aspiring Joy
Nicola Marsh will be hosted by ReadWriteLove28
Georgia McBride will be hosted by YA Sisterhood
Pab Sungenis will be hosted by Classy Cat Books
Rachel Tafoya will be hosted by Jessabella Reads


Month9Books 4 For Friday Blitz: Predator by Janice Gable Bashman, Into the Fire by Ashelyn Drake, Bonseeker by Brynn Chapman, The Emissary by Kristal Shaff + GIVEAWAY!

4-for-Friday-Oct-Banner

Welcome to the 4 for Friday Blitz for Predator by Janice Gable Bashman, Into the Fire by Ashelyn Drake, Boneseeker by Brynn Chapman, and The Emissary by Kristal Shaff, presented by Month9Books!

Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post.

Predator-Cover

“Predator is a fast-paced, creepy page-turner! Bashman had me at the opening sentence and she’s still got me. I want more!”
Nancy Holder, New York Times Bestselling Author, The Rules 
The hunt is on! 
Sixteen-year-old Bree Sunderland must inject herself with an untested version of her father’s gene therapy to become a werewolf in order to stop a corrupt group of mercenaries from creating a team of unstoppable lycanthrope soldiers. 
When Bree went with her scientist father to Ireland, she thought it would be a vacation to study bog bodies. She never expected to fall in love with a mysterious young Irishman and certainly never expected to become the kind of monster her father said only existed in nightmares. Dr. Sunderland discovers that lycanthropy was not a supernatural curse but rather a genetic mutation. When they return home, her dad continues his research, but the military wants to turn that research into a bio weapons program and rogue soldiers want to steal the research to turn themselves into unstoppable killing machines. 
Bree’s boyfriend Liam surprises her with a visit to the United States, but there are darker surprises in store for both of them. As evil forces hunt those she loves, Bree must become an even more dangerous hunter to save them all. 
Predator gives the werewolf legend a couple of new spins by introducing the Benandanti (an actual folkloric belief that certain families of Italy and Livonia were werewolves who fought against evil), as well as a modern scientific approach to mutation and the science of transgenics.
add to goodreads

Chapter-by-Chapter-header---About-the-Author

Janice Gable Bashman
Janice Gable Bashman is the Bram Stoker nominated author of Wanted Undead or Alive and Predator. She is managing editor of the The Big Thrill (International Thriller Writers’ ezine). Janice lives with her family in the Philadelphia area, where she at work on her next novel. Visit her at janicegablebashman.com.
Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads



ITF-Cover
Seventeen-year-old Cara Tillman’s life is a perfectly normal one until Logan Schmidt moves to Ashlan Falls. Cara is inexplicably drawn to him, but she’s not exactly complaining. Logan’s like no boy she’s ever met, and he brings out a side of Cara that she isn’t used to. As the two get closer, everything is nearly perfect, and Cara looks forward to the future. 
But Cara isn’t a normal girl. She’s a member of a small group of people descended from the mythical phoenix bird, and her time is running out. Rebirth is nearing, which means she’ll forget her life up to this point—she’ll forget Logan and everything they mean to one another.. But that may be the least of Cara’s problems. 
A phoenix hunter is on the loose, and he’s determined to put an end to the lives of people like Cara and her family, once and for all.
add to goodreads

Chapter-by-Chapter-header---About-the-Author
Ashelyn Drake
Ashelyn Drake is a New Adult and Young Adult romance author. While it’s rare for her not to have either a book in hand or her fingers flying across a laptop, she also enjoys spending time with her family. She believes you are never too old to enjoy a good swing set and there’s never a bad time for some dark chocolate. She is represented by Sarah Negovetich of Corvisiero Literary Agency.
Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads


Boneseeker
Arabella Holmes was born different and raised different. After it became apparent she wouldn’t fit the role of a proper 1900′s lady, her father, Sherlock, called in some lingering favors, and landed her a position at the Mutter Museum. The museum was Arabella’s dream; she was to become a purveyor of abnormal science. What her father called a BoneSeeker. 
Henry Watson arrives at the Mutter Museum with a double assignment–to become a finder of abnormal antiquities and to watch over and keep Arabella Holmes. An easy task, if he could only get her to speak to him instead of throwing knives in his general direction. 
But this is no time for child’s play. The two teens are assigned to a most secret exploration, when the hand of a Nephilim is unearthed in upstate New York. Soon, Arabella and Henry are caught in a fight for their lives as scientific debate swirls around them. Are the bones from a Neanderthal … or are they living proof of fallen angels, who supposedly mated with humans according to ancient scrolls? 
Sent to recover the skeleton, they discover they are the second team to have been deployed and the entire first team is dead. And now they must trust their instincts and rely on one another in order to survive and uncover the truth.
add to goodreads


Chapter-by-Chapter-header---About-the-Author
Brynn Chapman
Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, Brynn Chapman is the daughter of two teachers. Her writing reflects her passions: science, history and love—not necessarily in that order. In real life, the geek gene runs strong in her family, as does the Asperger’s syndrome. Her writing reflects her experience as a pediatric therapist and her interactions with society’s downtrodden. In fiction, she’s a strong believer in underdogs and happily-ever-afters. She also writes non-fiction and lectures on the subjects of autism and sensory integration and is a medical contributor to online journal The Age of Autism.
Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads



The-Emissary-Cover

For hundreds of years, dark clouds covered the skies of Adamah, and an ageless king ruled. Those who emerged with one of six extraordinary Shay powers were forced into the king’s army, an unmatched force with inhuman Strength, Speed, Accuracy, Perception, Empathy, and Healing. With the army behind him, the king—a man who wields all six abilities—was invincible and unquestioned in his rule. To most, serving the king was an honor. But for others, it was a fate worse than death. 
When seventeen-year-old Nolan Trividar witnesses the transformation of his brother from kind to cruel after entering the king’s army, he vows never to follow the same path.
So when his own power—the Shay of Accuracy—comes upon him at the Tournament of Awakening, Nolan conceals his emergence instead of joining the king’s ranks. For years, he traitorously hides his power, pretending to be only a gifted scribe. But when Nolan comes face -to-face with a deserter, the man discovers his secret. 
To evade detection and a death sentence, Nolan escapes with the deserter and flees into a night filled with dark creatures who steal both powers and souls. He joins a resistance, a village hidden deep in the forest, filled with others who secretly wield a Shay. But his peace is short-lived when they discover that the dark clouds, undead creatures, their own decreasing powers, and even the king, are all connected. 
add to goodreads



Chapter-by-Chapter-header---About-the-Author
Kristal Shaff

Kristal Shaff grew up with books (and used to drive her mom crazy when she wouldn’t leave the library); her first job was even shelving books at the library. She loves anything creative, and you can often find her exploring strange and fantastical worlds in her choices of movies and fantasy fiction. Kristal resides in Iowa with her farmer husband, numerous pets, and 3 awesome kids (plus one more on the way though the journey of adoption). When she isn’t writing, she is a professional face painter who enjoys making children smile.

Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Chapter-by-Chapter-header---Giveaway
Complete the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win!


Thursday, October 30, 2014

BOOK BLAST: Ennara and the Book of Shadows (Ennara #2) by Angela Myron + GIVEAWAY!



This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Angela will be awarding a the winners choice of one of the following prizes (international giveaway -- All photos used from Etsy shops that she plans to purchase the gifts from. Actual gift will be sourced from winner's country and will likely look different for international winners):

1.  Dragon earcuff. A tiny dragon that wraps around your ear just like Ennara's wraps around her wrist! Ennara would not approve.

2. Potions master decal kit: Trick out your Kitchenaid with this decal kit! Ennara approved.

3. Emergency Potion Necklace: Potion/necklace dependent on winner's location. Ennara approved.

Or the winner may choose something from Ennara Swag (if they live in the US).







Title: Ennara and the Book of Shadows (Ennara #2)
Author: Angela Myron
Publication Date: October 31, 2014

Synopsis: When strange accidents start happening around thirteen year-old necromancer Ennara and her friends, she must search for the mysterious stolen artifacts causing the attacks while learning the highest form of magic--the spells that could prevent the fruition of a terrible prophecy.




Now enjoy an excerpt!


Ennara looked at the pansy. Still dead. Then at her teacher, who was staring at her, waiting. The class remained silent. Didn’t he see the plant wasn’t alive at all? His expression remained questioning. Did she want to admit she couldn’t do this, and be separated from the rest to re-learn how to do a blessing?

She took a deep breath. A sideways glance at Kithe showed him smiling at the end of the desk. He shot her a secret thumbs-up under the table. Failure was not an option. Healing spells were a major part of light magic and she had to master the path of light. Fulfilling the good part of the prophecy demanded it.

“No, I can do this.”

The greenish glow filtering through the classroom’s life tree, an ancient, knotted maple, darkened as a cloud passed over the room’s large sun-dome. Outside, the wind picked up. The life tree’s broad leaves shivered. A breeze whistled through the castle corridor on the other side of the heavy wood door.

Ennara focused on the delicate head of purple petals and yellow stamen. She lifted a delicate indigo-stained pine wand lying next to her scribbled notes on healing incantations.

“Mag koil.” Make unharmed.

Nothing happened.

Darsys and her friends at the front of the room giggled. Inunsolus folded his arms, his white beard pulling the creases in his face into several versions of a scowl.

Ennara bit her lip. How was she supposed to rely on holy magic if it didn’t work?

“Mag koil.” She glared at the plant, imagining its stiff little cells burning with potent life force. A brief indigo shimmer fell onto a limp purple petal.

Her teacher inhaled sharply and took a step away from the bench. The pansy, lifeless only moments earlier, slowly curled and relaxed a leaf. Ennara had seen that shimmer once before. Last summer, when she and Kithe traveled aboard the Cissonius to the sunken city of Ililsa. And just before a cabinet of curios, including a severed hand, came to life.

The bloom slowly straightened, its violet color deepening to black. A faint hissing sound tickled Ennara’s ear. She bent toward the little plant, squinting. Suddenly the pansy lunged, revealing a row of crystalline teeth under its bed of stamens.

“Eeep!” Ennara bashed the little flower with the thick end of her wand. Green slime sizzled the end of the stick.


About the Author


Angela Myron was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1973. She grew up in the piney forests of southern British Columbia, studying tiny blue bells, dodging hidden cacti, and creating fantasy worlds in her back yard. She loved to imagine lands of fairies and goblins, then invite friends over to introduce them.

Angela studied biology and professional writing at university, starting her degree at the University of Victoria in Canada and finishing it at San Francisco State University. She wrote grant proposals for nonprofits, technical manuals for software, and freelance journalism before writing fiction.



Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest



The Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

RELEASE DAY BLITZ: Dueling Moons (Pat Wyatt #2) by Laura Del

 Duelingmoonsbanner



dmsynopsis

Freelance writer Pat Wyatt is at it again in this darkly comedic novel about supernatural love, horrible bosses, and the occasional bloodthirsty monster.

In an attempt to escape her abusive vampire husband, Pat moves to a small Louisiana town with her werewolf lover, Mike.Any hopes at a quieter life are soon dashed as Pat must wrangle with a tyrannical new boss while trying to convince Mike to go to his pack for desperately needed financial
help—an idea that seems good in theory, until Pat is sucked into the chaotic world of werewolf drama.

Meanwhile, a mysterious monster unlike anything anyone has ever seen circles closer.

Can Pat discover the creature’s true nature before it’s too late?



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Book 1



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Laura Del has her bachelor’s degree in radio, television, and film from Rowan University. She currently lives in New Jersey, where she runs the blogging website www.thefictionwriters.net.

You can also find Laura on Facebook.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

BLOG TOUR: Dorianna by Catherine Stine - TOP TEN + GIVEAWAY!


A Picture of Dorian Gray was on of Ashley's favorite books that she had to read in high school, so we're really excited to be a part of the blog tour for Catherine Stine's Dorianna, a new take on the classic for the Internet generation! It's one of those stories that doesn't have very many retellings out there, so this is really neat. As part of the blog tour, we have Catherine's Top Ten Classic novels, which is a fantastic list.

Also be sure to stop by the rest of the stops on this tour! You can see the tour schedule by clicking on the banner above.

About the Book


Title: Dorianna
Author: Catherine Stine
Genre: YA paranormal/horror
Publisher: Evernight Teen
Date of Publication: October 24, 2014

Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

Synopsis: Internet followers, beauty, power. It all sounded good.

Until it transformed into a terrifying reality Dorianna couldn’t stop

Dorianna is a dark twist for the Internet generation on A Picture of Dorian Gray.

When her father is jailed, her mother ships lonely, plain Dorianna to her aunt’s. There, Dorianna yearns to build a new identity, but the popular Lacey bullies her—mostly for getting attention from her ex, Ander.

Ander takes Dorianna to Coney Island where Wilson, a videographer, creates a stunning compilation of her. She dreams of being an online sensation, as she’s never even had a birthday party, and vows she’d give anything to go viral. Wilson claims he’s the Prince of Darkness and warns her the pledge has downsides.

Dorianna thinks he’s joking. She has no idea of how dire the consequences might be.


About the Author


Catherine Stine’s novels span the range from science fiction to paranormal to contemporary. Her futuristic thriller, Fireseed One won finalist spots in YA and Sci-Fi in the 2013 USA News International Book Awards and an Indie Reader Approved notable seal. Its companion novel, Ruby’s Fire was a finalist in the 2014 Next Generation Indie Awards. Her paranormal YA, Dorianna launches with Evernight Teen in October. She also writes new adult fiction as Kitsy Clare. Her new adult Art of Love series includes Model Position and Private Internship. She loves all things spooky, exotic and edgy, including travel to unusual locations. She also loves hearing from readers.



Catherine Stine's Top Ten Classic Novels That Blew Me Away and Deepened My Worldview


Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Rich, exquisite fantasy, colorful characters and humor

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lingren
Discovering a little girl could be that brave, that colorful, that creatively mad


The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Made me empathic of, and fascinated by all things witchy


Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Martian exploration narrated in a poetic, heartfelt voice

1984 by George Orwell
His stark vision of the world was so prescient


Jesus’s Son by Denis Johnson
An incorrigible addict’s journey to sobriety told in a brash, poetic voice

The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Such a wise observer of human nature in medieval times


Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
A brilliant professor makes a deal with the devil

A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
A man longs to be young and handsome forever-clever twist on Faustus


Point Omega by Don DeLillo
“Anti-novel” modern novel about art, sight, plasticity of time



The Giveaway!



Thanks for stopping by!


--Ashley & Paul

Friday, October 24, 2014

BLOG TOUR: Shadows of Ghosts by Stefan Haucke - Excerpt, Author Interview, + GIVEAWAY!


Hello, and welcome to our stop on the blog tour for Stefan Haucke's Shadow of Ghosts! We have an excerpt, an interview, and a giveaway for you, so be sure to enter to win a $50 giftcard to Amazon or Barnes & Noble via the Rafflecopter form at the end of this post!

Also, don't forget to stop by all of the other fantastic stops on this blog tour. You can find the schedule by clicking on the banner above. The more stops you visit and comment on, the better your chances of winning!

About the Book

Title: Shadows of Ghosts  
Author: Stefan Haucke

Synopsis: Shadows of Ghosts carries readers to Enara, a kingdom at war with itself, where for centuries centaurs have been treated like animals because of their horse-like lower bodies; they've been forced to work as slaves in the southern agricultural provinces, and have been bought and sold like livestock. But a strong abolitionist faction has convinced many that centaurs' human torsos, heads, and intellectual abilities make them humans, who should be liberated from slavery and granted the same rights as any other person.

After four years of being forced to live in a remote village and having to keep his real identity a secret, Cal Lanshire, days away from his thirteenth birthday, is given the best birthday present he can imagine. He is told the war is almost over and he will soon be allowed to return home.

But then an old acquaintance unexpectedly arrives with news that changes everything. Cal's father, the king, has been assassinated.

Suddenly the outcome of the war and the very fate of the kingdom depend upon Cal being able to reach the capital where he will take his father's place.

With only his crafty best friend by his side and an escaped centaur slave to guide him, can Cal make it through an enchanted, hostile wilderness, past the assassins sent to kill him, and back to the capital before it's too late?




Excerpt

Cal walked on the bridge. With each step he took, he could feel the wooden planks under his feet gently bow from his weight, and he could feel the bridge casually sway like a dance partner each time he moved. The wind that was keeping the mosquitoes away seemed stronger now that he was on the bridge. Somehow he felt both afraid and overwhelmingly calm.

“Hurry up, slowpoke!” Mont shouted.

A beam of sunlight pushed through the clouds, and at the same moment Cal felt the planks disappear from under his feet, he felt himself being thrown to his right. One of the bridge’s rope handrails had suddenly snapped, and this caused the bridge to violently twist to one side. Cal had the strangest sensation that he was flying. He felt as if he was ascending to the sky, not tumbling downward.

The water slapped him, stinging his face, and then quickly engulfed him. He was blinded by the water’s murkiness; he could barely see the filtered light from above. His clothes absorbed the water and made him heavy. He felt as if invisible hands were reaching out in the darkness, grabbing his clothes, pulling him down. He was tempted to relax, to allow himself to sink. But no, he wasn’t ready for the darkness. Cal kicked his legs, bringing himself up toward the light.

When his head broke through the surface of the water, he inhaled and blinked the dampness from his eyes. Ellsben was waving wildly at him and shouting, “Swim! Cal, swim, swim, swim!” Mont was running toward the river, but Ellsben grabbed him by the back of the shirt, stopping him. Mont screamed Cal’s name.

Several long, black snakes slithered into the river. Once the snakes were in the water, Cal could no longer see them, but he knew they were coming toward him. On the other side of the river, behind him, he knew snakes were also slithering into the water.




About the Author

Stefan Haucke, driven by the desire to learn about other cultures and the need for adventure, has traveled to over twenty nations. He rode a camel near the pyramids in Egypt, swam with sea lions in the waters of the Galapagos Islands, climbed the Great Wall of China, hiked near the Acropolis in Athens, went dog sledding in northern Michigan, and photographed polar bears in Canada.

Along his many travels, Stefan has successfully worked as a deckhand, a shepherd, a dispatcher for an emergency services unit, an electric meter reader, and an office manger. He has also found the time to study the literature and history of ancient Greece, Russia, and the United States, and loves reading folktales, fairytales, and urban legends. He also enjoys astronomy, and on clear nights can be found gazing at the stars and planets with his telescope.



The Interview

What do you think you're really good at?
I'm good at writing stories. And I'm adaptable to new situations. I've traveled to many different countries and I found I was able to fairly easily adapt to different cultures and new situations.

What do you think you're really bad at?
I'm not good with math.  I have no problem with adding, subtracting, multiplying and basic division. But anything past basic algebra is a struggle for me. I went to school with a guy who could compute numbers in his mind faster than I could get the answer from a calculator. I was amazed and really admired his skill. It's a skill I wish I possessed.

Is your life anything like it was two years ago?
A little more than two years ago, I was living on an island off of the coast of Massachusetts.  Now I'm living in Colorado near the Rocky Mountains. It was quite a change going from living on a rural island, surrounded by water, to living in a city next to the Rockies.

Have you ever had an imaginary friend?
Even though I've always had an active imagination, I've never had an imaginary friend.


The Giveaway!

• One randomly chosen winner will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card.


a Rafflecopter giveaway



Thanks for stopping by! 


--Ashley & Paul

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Month9Books FRIDAY REVEAL: Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show by Steve Bryant - Chapter 1 + GIVEAWAY!

M9B-Friday-Reveal

Welcome to this week’s M9B Friday Reveal!
This week, we are revealing the first chapter for

Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show by Steve Bryant

presented by Month9Books!
Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!

Lucas MacKenzie eBook Final
Lucas Mackenzie has got the best job of any 10 year old boy. He travels from city-to-city as part of the London Midnight Ghost Show, scaring unsuspecting show-goers year round. Performing comes naturally to Lucas and the rest of the troupe, who’ve been doing it for as long as Lucas can remember. 
But there’s something Lucas doesn’t know. 
Like the rest of Lucas’s friends, he’s dead. And for some reason, Lucas can’t remember his former life, his parents or friends. Did he go to school? Have a dog? Brothers and sisters?  
If only he could recall his former life, maybe even reach out to his parents, haunt them.
When a ghost hunter determines to shut the show down, Lucas realizes the life he has might soon be over. And without a connection to his family, he will have nothing. 
There’s little time and Lucas has much to do. Can he win the love of Columbine, the show’s enchanting fifteen-year-old mystic? Can he outwit the forces of life and death that thwart his efforts to find his family? 
Keep the lights on! Lucas Mackenzie’s coming to town.

add to goodreads

Title: Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show
Publication date: November 18, 2014
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Steve Bryant

Chapter-by-Chapter-header---Excerpt

Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show
By Steve Bryant
Chapter One
Ghost Story
It was a chill, gooseflesh evening, thanks to the damp ocean air and to ghostly expectations. Thin black clouds scuttled past the moon like witches on broomsticks.
Far below, on an eerily empty California street, a delta wing Buick Electra neared a little theater. The four high school girls in the car shivered, surprised to find themselves so alone at this late hour. A line of empty cars stretched down the block to the black Pacific, and streetlamps glowed faintly in the mist. This was the San Diego community of Ocean Beach, a few heart palpitations shy of midnight.
“Sweet Mary,” said the Ponytail at the wheel. “The show must have started already. Who would have thought ghosts were so punctual?”
“Shut up!” said the French Braids seated beside her. “Ghost stories give me the heebie-jeebies. I can’t believe we came down here tonight to see dead people.”
The car entered the oasis of light cast by the theater itself. Although The Strand’s daytime fare ran to Elvis Presley and surfing movies, its illuminated marquee on this ghost story evening promised far more than Love Me Tender and Sandra Dee.
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
PROFESSOR MCDUFF AND HIS LONDON MIDNIGHT GHOST SHOW
SPOOKS RUN WILD IN AUDIENCE
PLUS
ALL-STAR CREATURE FEATURE
“Creepy!” said the Toni Home Perm in the back seat. “I think that skeleton in the window just looked at me.”
“Drive on by!” said the Poodle Cut beside her. “Let’s go home. I have a feeling. I think something is wrong with this show.”
* * *
Inside the little movie house, in the tiny projection booth at the top of the narrow winding stairs, a little boy peered through the small square window. His name was Lucas Mackenzie, and he was ten years old. Lucas felt as though he had been ten forever, and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it.
On stage at that moment, a magician in a smart black tuxedo and a red turban stood still as death, his dexterous hands moving only as his mysteries required. Professor Ambrose McDuff, as pale as storybook vampires in the glow of a single spotlight, showed both the fronts and backs of his hands to be empty, then plucked fans of playing cards from the air. Individual cards fell from his fingertips like rose petals falling upon a grave.
But despite the Professor’s eerie mastery of nineteenth-century card manipulation, this was 1959, and audiences demanded more. Lucas knew that the couples on hand were impatient for the theater to be plunged into total darkness, that the teenage boys on hand were hoping for something more dramatic than snatching jacks and aces from the air. This was supposed to be a ghost show, and the crowd—if the pockets of teenagers scattered about the theater at this late hour could be called a crowd—was tiring of card tricks.
“Come on, Pops,” someone shouted. “Let’s see some ghosts!”
A narrow cylinder of light sliced through the darkness as a young usher aimed his flashlight beam at the outburst. “Quiet! I’m warning you!”
“Aw, who’s gonna make me?”
On stage, a royal flush appeared at the magician’s fingertips.
Beautiful magic is not to be rushed, the Professor always said. There would be time soon enough for so-called ghosts.
Nevertheless, Lucas rolled his dark eyes in response to the outburst below—a shame, he felt, as he loved the Professor’s card tricks—and concluded that it was time to move the show along.
He wore a set of large black metal headphones, and he spoke into the grille of a gray bullet microphone. “Bravo, Professor. Nice work. Yorick is set to go on, and then Alexandra. This crowd should love the Juan Escadero number.”
As Lucas knew, Professor McDuff, could hear him perfectly thanks to earphones concealed beneath his red turban. Lucas had designed the show’s secret radio network—the entire theater was wired with microphones and receivers—and was very proud of it. It had been his first contribution to the show. Before Lucas’s time, electronic communication relied on copper plates in the bottoms of the Professor’s shoes, and on long copper wires hidden under the runway carpet, a holdover from the Second Sight mind-reading acts from the thirties.
No one would suspect the simple arrangement of the Professor’s next exhibit of using hidden electronics or secret mechanisms. He placed a glass shelf across the backs of two chairs, and atop this innocent platform he placed the centerpiece of the demonstration, an oversized human skull in a red sombrero.
The reaction was immediate. As Lucas expected, the agitators in the audience fell silent. At least this skull in the red hat looked as if it belonged in a spook show. Its eye sockets and nose cavity were dark hollows, its teeth a fixed, mocking grin.
The Professor tossed decks of cards into the audience and instructed three boys to stand and take a card. Could this “Juan Escadero,” proclaimed by the Professor to be the “floating, talking head of one of Mexico’s most notorious card cheats,” look into their minds and identify their cards? Could anyone?
The ivory-hued head on the glass platform twisted from one boy to the other.
“Ay, amigos,” it said, in a voice that sounded like Speedy Gonzales. “My Inner Eye sees all. No one keeps secrets from Juan Escadero. Could you be thinking of the king of hearts? And you the two of spades? And the ace of diamonds for the muchacho in the middle? Please be seated if I am correct.”
Instantly the three spectators sat down, and the audience rewarded the disembodied card sharp with applause and whistles.
As always, uncertainty rippled through the theater.
A wise guy in row 4 voiced his solution. “It’s a hidden microphone,” he said. “Someone behind the curtain is speaking into it.”
Another boy said, “It’s the old man. He’s doing it. It’s nothing but card manipulation and ventriloquism.”
A third shouted, “Hey, Pancho. What about the floating?”
The audience gasped as the skull suddenly turned, ever so slightly, in the direction of the challenge. For the first time the thing appeared to be genuinely alive, as though it had heard the comment.
“Ay, mi cabeza,” the skull said. “I feel so light-headed.” At which point the talking skull rose two feet in the air above its glass shelf. The ghastly thing bobbed in space, its red sombrero at a jaunty angle, its mouth open in a gaping grin. Lucas grinned too as the audience again broke into appreciative applause.
“Threads,” said a worried voice in row 10. “It’s gotta be threads.”
Lucas hoped for a similarly warm reception to Professor McDuff’s next magical presentation, the Houdini Metamorphosis Trunk. As the Professor introduced a wooden packing case large enough to conceal a dead body, Lucas cued Alexandra, one of the lovely Gilbert triplets. Though the three Gilbert girls were only twenty-two, they treated Lucas as though they were his mom. Tonight, it was Alexandra’s turn to do the box trick.
“Thanks, kiddo,” she said from a communication console in the wings. “I’m set. I love these California kids. They think I’m the ginchiest.”
The teenagers whooped and whistled as the beautiful Miss Gilbert strutted onto the stage in a black crepe dress. A red bow adorned her long blond hair, and her movie-star figure was breathtaking. She threw kisses to the audience and winked at Lucas in his booth.
The trunk, Lucas observed with pride, was old and creepy, weather-beaten, and just too darn real—like something that might have been found at night on a dock. This was no glitzy magic shop prop. The Professor locked the lovely Alexandra inside, the lock snapping shut with a heavy clunk.
The magic itself was spooky, like a dissolve in a monster movie when a man turns into a werewolf. Lucas loved the movie I Was a Teenage Werewolf and wondered what it would feel like to change. What if your muscles bulged until they ripped your shirt, if the fur of a wolf sprouted from your face, if your teeth became deadly fangs, all in a matter of seconds? Would teenage girls be frightened, or would they admire you?
The Professor made it look so easy. One moment he was standing on the box, hidden behind a large cloth. After a mere flicker, the cloth fell away and revealed a liberated Alexandra standing in his place. She then wiggled off the box, opened the formidable padlock, and produced the Professor from within.
The cast was proud that magical insiders would swear the exchange could not take place so quickly. It must be a new invention. According to reports in the leading conjuring magazines, the great Blackstone himself had seen the show in Cleveland and had left the theater shaken.
“It’s just the old switcheroo,” a boy in row 8 rationalized. “It’s a sliding panel. They all do it.”
But now it was Lucas’s turn to tremble, high in his aerie. His favorite part of the show was coming up. With both hands he adjusted the headphones, and he faced the microphone, paralyzed. Seconds ticked by.
He forced her name out at last. “Uh, Columbine?” His voice squeaked. “Ready? You’re up next.”
“Of course I am, Lucas.” The words danced in Lucas’s headphones. He had said her name. She had said his. It was the highlight of every performance. “I’m a mystic after all, a seer. And, Lucas, I think you should look behind—”
Just then something cleared its throat behind Lucas.
“AAUGH!” the boy yelled, startled to realize he wasn’t alone. Lucas turned to find a behemoth of a man standing behind him. The man might have been a stunt double from a Frankenstein movie, except that he was too tall and, perhaps, too green. His short black hair carpeted a flat head, and he wore a loose fitting brown suit with a brown bow tie. The two of them barely fit in the room.
“Oh, it’s you,” Lucas said. “For a moment you gave me quite a start.”
They both laughed. It was a private joke between the two of them, a riff on a favorite Charles Addams cartoon. Lucas felt the fellow, whose name was Oliver, looked a little too much like the servant in Mr. Addams’ spooky cartoons.
“Greetings, Master Lucas,” said Oliver. “I thought I should drop in to ascertain that you hadn’t swooned from love. I wouldn’t want to find you incapable of performing your duties.”
“You’re soooo funny,” Lucas said. And then he slapped his forehead and turned back to the microphone.
“Uh, sorry, Columbine. Good luck. Just follow the Professor’s lead.”
Lucas looked through his little window with concern. The theater was musty, a consequence of being so close to the ocean. “It’s such a small house tonight,” he said. “I hope she doesn’t take it personally.”
“What’s the count?” Oliver asked.
“I’m thinking only 150 or so,” Lucas said. “And this theater seats 800.”
“My, my,” his large friend said. “A pity. Goodness, we drew 3100 at the El Capitan in San Francisco, back in ’42. And 4000 a year later at the Bijou in Cincinnati. That’s a lot of screams.”
Audience numbers had been dwindling for some time, and night after night Lucas became more disheartened. Could the show actually come to an end some day if people quit coming? If the cast dispersed, where would he go? To be adrift, alone, was unthinkable, like stepping into a black abyss. And more importantly: where would she go?
But at that moment she was about to take the stage, and the teenagers who were on hand welcomed her warmly when the Professor introduced her as “the Teenage Telepath, the Diva of Destiny, the Psychic of the Century—the sensational Columbine.”
She strode onto the stage, this tall, thin, stargazing girl of fifteen years, with midnight black hair. She wore a plain white shift, and her skin was fair and moonbeam pale. The only color on stage was the girl’s lips, afire with red lipstick. Most would judge her to be six feet tall, though she would insist she was no more than five eleven. Her dark eyes turned to the crystal ball resting in the palm of her right hand.
The audience suddenly became very quiet. One boy coughed, apologetically.
“Okay, Eddie, let’s sell this,” Lucas said into his microphone.
The theater suffered from an ancient wiring system and a shaky bank of lights, but they were not a problem for Eddie, the Lighting Guy, hunched in the back of the building. Lucas watched as Eddie bathed Columbine in a blue spot. She looked ethereal. A Columbine performance was like a religious experience.
“This girl is like putty in my hands,” Eddie said into his microphone.
Lucas hated it that Eddie thought he had Columbine wrapped around his little finger. Ever since she had joined the cast, over two years ago now, Eddie had strutted about as though he were her boyfriend. Columbine herself seldom seemed to notice him, but Eddie just passed this off as her distant personality. “That’s just my girl,” he would say. “We have an understanding.” Lately she spent most of her private time listening to Buddy Holly records and consulting her astrological charts.
Oliver and Lucas leaned their heads together as both attempted to see through the little window at the same time.
“What’s that I hear?” said Oliver. “That unearthly tapping? I’d call it a rhythmic tapping, but it keeps skipping beats. Certainly it couldn’t be, oh, your heart?”
“Quiet, you big goofus,” Lucas said, “or I’m cutting your minutes.”
In the audience, hands exploded into the air, vying for the pale seer’s attention. All the teens wanted their fortunes told.
Columbine turned her lovely face from one longing soul to another. Her gazing-glass visions began.
To one girl, she said, “There is a jukebox, at a place near the beach. The moon has just risen, and the lights are dim. Johnny Mathis is singing ‘Chances Are.’ You will dance with one boy, but another will cut in. He’s the one!
To a boy, she said, “You are in a roller skating rink, and there is organ music. It’s a couples skate, and the song is ‘Volare.’ There is a girl who shows up on Saturdays, with a long blond ponytail. This time you won’t be too shy to ask her to skate.”
And then, “Oh, dear,” she said. “In the third row. I am sorry. Your girlfriend will see the scary movie The Blob with another boy. They will sit through it twice.”
A whispered argument broke out in the third row.
“Big deal,” said a boy in row 12. “That ball is probably just one of those Magic 8 Balls.”
“Or she could have looked this stuff up in this morning’s horoscope,” said another. “In the paper.”
“Yeah, but I’d sure like to take her to the prom,” said still another.
Lucas sat with his mouth open as this astral Miss Lonely Hearts spun out her prophecies. The crystal in Columbine’s hand turned slowly, casting streaks of ice blue across her enchanting face. To look at her was to believe her, to not look at her was impossible.
“My public awaits,” said Oliver. He passed a large hand back and forth before Lucas’s goggled eyes, but the boy didn’t blink. “You’re a lost cause, Master Lucas.”
The big fellow left, closing the door behind him.
“I don’t know what to say to her,” Lucas said, his eyes still drinking in this witch-girl vision in blue. “I never know what to say.”
He adjusted the microphone and reverted to his professional voice. What Lucas lacked in adult vocal register he made up for in authority. “Okay, everybody. Let’s wrap it up for Columbine. Flowers, please, Professor. Oliver is up, and then into the blackout. Stations, everyone. It’s ghost story time.”
Professor McDuff returned and made a big to-do of presenting Columbine a bouquet of blood-red roses, then escorted her offstage to continued applause and whistling.
At the edge of the stage, with the girl safely in the wings, the Professor turned again and explained the rules of the blackout to the audience. “One: remain seated. Two: no flash photographs—our ghosts are bashful. And three: if something cold and dead should put its hands around your throat, you can always scream. And now,” the Professor added over the audience’s nervous laughter, “I give you the Curse of Frankenstein!”
Fog oozed across the stage floor, lightning flashed, thunder rumbled. Lucas gave birth to all three effects: a thick white cloud issued from his Vapor-250 Atomizer, simulated lightning exploded from a bank of flashbulbs, and thunder from his Hollywood Sound Effects phonograph record erupted from speakers the size of refrigerators. With a deft replacement of the phonograph needle, he threw in one more extended rumble for good measure.
“Ka-booooooom!”
On this note, Oliver lurched out, doing his best to look like the Frankenstein monster from the movies. His green hue, some last-minute Hollywood stitches, and a pair of sparking neck electrodes constituted special effects that rivaled those of the best Hollywood monsters. The teenagers granted him full attention as the hulking actor grimaced, spread his arms, and began his recitations.
Oliver’s low voice gave life to a selection of spooky rhymes. James Whitcomb Riley’s famous orphan told her witch tales, Edgar Allan Poe’s black bird perched ominously, Shakespeare’s witches issued their dire portents.
But as entertaining as the actor’s recitations were, and despite his looking like someone to avoid in an old castle on a rainy night, his welcome began to wear on his young audience.
“This isn’t the ‘Curse’ of Frankenstein,” an anguished voice said. “It’s the ‘Verse’ of Frankenstein.”
The teens in the front rows began to throw things at the stage. Milk Duds, Chuckles, Tootsie Roll segments, and a hailstorm of popcorn filled the air. The “monster” waved these trifles aside as he continued his soliloquy.
“That should do it,” Lucas said into the mike. “Cue the McClatter boys.”
In military formation, six life-sized skeletons marched onto the stage. Two of them wheeled out an enormous guillotine as the others restrained Oliver.
“Cool,” said a boy near the front of the theater. “Marionettes.”
The skeletons dragged Oliver to the guillotine and forced his head through the opening. The device’s steel blade loomed eight feet above.
“Murder most foul,” Oliver cried.
With a smiling glance at the audience, one of the skeletons pulled a lever, and the heavy metal blade dropped with a sickening thunk.
The audience gasped.
At first, nothing happened, as though the blade had passed through Oliver’s neck without harming him—the old magician’s trick. Then gravity set in, and Oliver’s head slid down the face of the thing, leaving a bloody red stain, and fell to the floor. It rolled toward the audience, wobbling this way or that as an ear or nose went round.
“EEEEEEEK!” the girls in the audience screamed as one.
The oversized green head stopped just at the edge of the little stage. Its eyes were open and looking about wildly.
The headless remainder of Oliver himself lumbered to its feet and began swinging its huge arms, knocking two of the skeletal McClatters aside in the process. On a quest for its head, it began walking toward the audience, with its arms held straight out, like a sleepwalker‘s. Just as it was about to step off the stage into the audience, Lucas directed Eddie to plunge the theater into total darkness. Even the blue illuminated exit sign faded from view.
This time, everyone in the audience screamed. The blackness was terrifying.
Lucas’s fingers played over the keys and toggles on his control panel, creating further screams, moans, and thunderclaps.
The phonograph needle settled into a recording of “Zombie Jamboree” by the Kingston Trio. The McClatter boys, being phosphorescent and therefore visible in the dark, lined up like a Las Vegas chorus line at the edge of the stage and began dancing a frightening mountain jig. “NOOOOOOO!” More panicked teenagers screamed.
“Launch the aerials,” Lucas commanded.
Flying in formation, three glow-in-the-dark female ghosts soared low in the darkness, just above the audience’s heads, their arms trailing alongside their bodies. At first the boys in the theater oohed and aahed over their pretty faces and their scandalously loose shirts and their pale green glow.
“Hey!” a girl shouted angrily. “I thought you came here to kiss me!”
“It’s a slide projector,” said a boy in row 10. “They’re shining it onto the ceiling.”
“Cheesecloth,” said another ghost show pundit. “I’ve read about this. They just treat it with luminous paint and wave it about.”
Lucas loved the idea of gliding over the heads of the audience and wished he could do that. Surely Columbine couldn’t ignore a boy who could fly.
But then the situation turned from romantic to revolting. The youthful faces that fueled the boys’ imaginations began to age at an alarming rate, decades falling away in a flash, until they became the faces of wrinkled hags. Their eyes glowed red. The gentle drift of the ghosts’ initial flight pattern gave way to a whirlwind of rocketing ectoplasm. The ghosts banked and swooped and buzzed their trapped victims. One of the phantoms shot straight up to the roof of the tiny theater, paused, and then dive-bombed back toward the audience. The teens in her flight path leaped from their seats to avoid being struck. Another plunged to the floor and zoomed along beneath the theater seats themselves, in that crusty netherworld of old popcorn and chewing gum. The excited teens leaped up onto their armrests as the spirit light flashed beneath their feet. The third ghost, to the shock of everyone who saw in the dim glow, lifted a boy into the air, planted a slobbery old grandmotherly kiss right on his lips, and dropped him back to earth.
Lucas chose this moment of collective panic, when the entire assembly was on the verge of rushing to the exits—and perfectly timed to coincide with the finale of the skeleton song and dance number—to liberate the crowd from its fears. “Lights, Eddie,” he said into the microphone.
“Got it, Squirt.”
A single bright spotlight, so bright that some had to shield their eyes to look, revealed Professor McDuff standing center stage, smiling. The skeletons, frozen in their final configurations like characters in an anatomy class, drifted backward into the shadows.
The Professor thanked the audience for attending, explained that the goings on had been “our little way of saying boo,” and introduced the feature film, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, starring Lon Chaney Jr., Glenn Strange, and Bela Lugosi, in their classic roles as The Wolfman, Frankenstein’s monster, and Count Dracula. It was one of Lucas’s favorites, one he often fantasized about watching with Columbine.
“And for any of you asking the question, ‘Do the dead return?’ our answer is, ‘Of course! We’ll see you next year.’ Pleasant nightmares.”
The California high schoolers responded with enthusiastic applause.
It was the same every night, wherever the show played across America. Part of it, Lucas figured, was that the teens enjoyed the show. Part of it was that the clapping masked the fact that many were still shaking from the strange goings on. And part of it, of course, was that the movie would give the lovebirds in the audience time to nuzzle with their sweeties in the dark, well after midnight, with no more fear of being interrupted by spooks that had seemed just a little too real. It was best, Lucas knew, that they not think too much about card skills no one could acquire in a single lifetime, about a floating skull that could steal thoughts, about an impossibly fast Houdini Trunk escape, about a beautiful girl who could see into tomorrow, about a decapitated giant, dancing skeletons, or floating ladies.
Lucas flipped a switch and the film began. The projector lamp gave off a pleasantly familiar burning smell, and the filmstrip ratcheted noisily through the mechanism, casting the movie’s opening black and white images of London at night onto The Strand’s little screen.
Later, there was to be a cast party in the theater manager’s office. Perhaps at the party, among the manager’s framed movie posters of King Kong, Godzilla, and Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, amid the hubbub of post-show chitchat, Lucas might muster the courage to tell Columbine how wonderful she had been this evening, or to invite her for a stroll along the dark beach, only a block away. In his fantasy they walked barefoot in the sand, the black waves slapping the beach, alone beneath a silver moon and a spray of stars.
Right, he thought. As if that were going to happen. Why would the flattery of a ten-year-old boy make the slightest impression on a girl who was already fifteen? Why would his beach-walk invitation hold the slightest interest to a girl who no doubt liked boys on the beach to be taller, with muscles? And what if he were older, more her age? Would she reject him anyway, prefer Eddie over him, or prefer someone else entirely?
And so, once again, Lucas knew that he wouldn’t even speak to her. Rather, just before retiring, at sunup along with the rest of the cast, he would extract his diary from his little traveling suitcase, and he would draw, for the day’s date next to her name, in his small neat hand, his evaluation of her performance: four perfect stars. Lucas Mackenzie—boy critic.
* * *
Meanwhile, none of the teenagers settling in for the movie, the munchies, or the smooching opportunity seemed to notice the scratching noise coming from the back row.
Gleefully entering notes into a little journal, and the only one of the audience who had pointedly not joined in the applause, was an adult named Harlan H. Hull. Mr. Hull—Doctor Hull to his colleagues and students—was ecstatic over his findings. He salivated over a possible book advance, a research grant, a guest appearance on television.
Dr. Hull chaired the Paranormal Studies Department at Bradbury College, a distinguished liberal arts institution in upstate Illinois. From the moment he had entered the theater, armed with a battery of electronic sensors that the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover himself might have envied, Dr. Hull had been monitoring various energy fields.
At first there were only hints. The needle on his Graviton Flux Indicator had registered surprising variations in body mass. If a stage show cutie could lower her body density that far, she could pass right through solid objects. Could the trunk have been normal? The spinning mirror on his Extensible Luminosity Gauge had picked up abnormally low dermal reflectivities. Could the psychic girl have been that pale?
But then came conviction. Dr. Hull’s Remote Thermal Scanner 360 had provided the proof he had been chasing. With a pistol grip, a cross-hair gun sight, and a readout with glowing red numbers, the device resembled a hand-held Flash Gordon ray gun. The RTS 360 could measure body temperatures across a room to an accuracy of one tenth of one degree, and what Dr. Hull had determined was still making him shiver.
If his readings were correct, he knew what he had feared to know.
He now knew the talking skull had housed no hidden microphone, the trunk no secret panel, the guillotine no trick-shop blade. He knew the gyrating skeletons were not string puppets, the soaring phantoms neither magic lantern show nor chemically treated gauze.
For every member of the show—from Professor McDuff to the yakking skull to the pale girl to the big green guy to the dancing skeletons to those floating hussies—had a body temperature of exactly fifty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature of the grave. The room temperature of Eternity. In a word, everyone in this show was dead. There was no other way to say it.
They had no business gallivanting around on stage before children. They belonged under the dirt, under the sod, under the feet of the living. And he was the one to put them there.
“I’ve got you, my pretties,” Dr. Hull said aloud, twisting one of his long strands of white hair in his fingers. “At last, truth in advertising.”
The London Midnight Ghost Show?
Spooks run wild in the audience?
Do the dead return?
Yes, indeedy!
And he had the proof!

Chapter-by-Chapter-header---About-the-Author

Steve Bryant is a new novelist, but a veteran author of books of card tricks. He founded a 40+ page monthly internet magazine for magicians containing news, reviews, magic tricks, humor, and fiction; and he frequently contributes biographical cover articles to the country’s two leading magic journals (his most recent article was about the séance at Hollywood’s Magic Castle).

Connect with the Author: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
Chapter-by-Chapter-header---Giveaway
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