12 Days of Christmas with Todd Martin

12 Days of Christmas Extravaganza is being brought to you by Peggy at Pawing Through Books, Jennifer at Books and Barks, and myself. 
Each day for the next 12 days each of our blogs will feature a different author. There will be guest posts, interviews and giveaways! So be sure to stop at each blog to join in the fun!


A special thank you to all the authors who are participating and those who have donated prizes!

Merry Christmas!

Today's guest is:

 Todd Martin 
   

 While Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday (that honor belongs to Halloween, surprise, surprise) I still enjoy it. Christmas means a lot of things to me, one of them being that it is a time to get together with family and friends to celebrate (and getting gifts). While it may be cliché as hell to say it, Christmas is a time for creating memories that last an entire lifetime (and getting gifts). I have an extraordinary memory and can remember each and every Christmas that I have had since around the age of four or so down to the smallest detail. I have a ton of Christmas memories, both good ones (such as countless times making Christmas cookies with my mother, my first Christmas with Trish, etc) and bad ones (visiting my grandfather in the hospital on Christmas Eve when I was in the 10 grade or the following Christmas which was the first one after his death).  I could go on and on about all the memoires that I have stored in my head that are related to Christmas, but instead I think I will just pick one that really stands out for me.  Come back in time with me if you would, to Christmas of 1984, the year that I got the greatest Christmas gift ever.

                I was ten-years-old and didn’t believe in Santa Claus anymore, so instead of making lists my older sister and I would just tell our parents what we wanted for Christmas. In most cases we would go to K-Mart and whichever other store my parents were shopping at and pick out what we wanted. My mom (who usually did the shopping) would buy what we wanted, wrap it in X-mas paper and stick it under the tree for us to open on Christmas morning. Basically we knew every single thing that we were getting each year (with the exception of one or two things that my mom picked up when we weren’t with her) and there was something very special that I wanted that year.

                Like with horror films, I have been a comic book/super hero geek pretty much from day one. I used to rush home every day from fifth grade to watch the DC Super Friends cartoon on WGN (and would always be incredibly pissed off when it was preempted by Cubs baseball, which happened quite regularly to my dismay during baseball season). I loved the cartoon and it was pretty much the highlight of my day at the time. Aquaman was my favorite (hey, stop laughing! I thought he was cool! I was just ten and didn’t know any better!) but I thought that Batman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Superman were awesome too (see, I was smart enough to know that Robin sucked at  an early age which makes up for being an Aquaman fan).  When I wasn’t watching the cartoon my best friend Dusty and I were pretending that we were Aquaman and Superman and we were saving the day from the likes of the Joker, Lex Luthor, and Brainiac. I was totally and completely into these characters so you can imagine how happy and excited I was when I was watching the show one chilly October day and they showed a commercial for the action figure line based on my favorite super heroes (believe it or not I wasn’t into Spider-Man until years later. I know that is hard for some of the people who know me to believe since I am so fanatical about Spidey now, but I swear it is the truth).

                Did I say I was excited? That is an understatement as I think I came close to having a heart attack and wetting myself simultaneously. After I got over my initial excitement and caught my breath I ran into the kitchen to tell my mother about what I’d just seen.  Speaking at around 200 words per minute I told my poor confused mom that I wanted all of the action figures for Christmas (yes, even Robin. I mean if I didn’t have him who was Batman going to save all the time?).  The main thing that I’d seen in the commercial that I wanted though was the Hall of Justice.

                For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Super Friends, the Hall of Justice was the home base for Superman and the others (it wasn’t a court house where a judge heard cases concerning issues such as child support and gave a ruling in case you were wondering as that would make for a pretty lame toy). Supes, Bats, and the others lived there, devised plans to thwart countless evil plots, and presumably ate, slept, and used the bathroom there. The plays set version had a working elevator, a jail cell with a trap door (so the Penguin would have a place to hang out after Batman kicked the crap out of him yet again), a landing pad for Superman’s Supermobile (why did Superman need a craft for fly around in when he could fly? I don’t know.), and a computer desk that had four little chairs in front of it. Without a doubt it was the most awesome toy I had ever seen up until that point, and I had to have it.

                Mom agreed to get it for me and told me that when the Sears Christmas catalog came that we would order the Hall of Justice) and I could have it for X-mas. I checked the mail every single day for what seemed like an eternity until if finally arrived one Saturday morning. As soon as I got it I opened it up and found my beloved Hall of Justice and made my mom order it right then and there (there was a number in the catalog that you could call and place an order with until noon on Saturdays and I am sure my mother was thanking God for this because it didn’t mean that she had to hear me talk about it all weekend). Because I was a spoiled rotten little brat my mom went ahead and ordered the Aquaman and Green Lantern action figures for me as well.

                After what seemed like several years the Hall of Justice play set finally arrived. I begged my mom to let me open the box and look at it and after getting tired of hearing me whine about it she gave in and let me do so. I wasn’t satisfied with just opening the box (of course) so I asked if I could put the play set together and Mom said that it was fine (I assume she was too tired to argue with me about it). My sister helped me put it together and I actually played with it for an hour or so before I bid a sad farewell to it and put it back in the box, knowing that I wouldn’t see it again until Christmas morning (which was over a month away).

                After spending many school days that consisted of sitting in class imagining what I was going to do with the Hall of Justice and all the action figures Christmas Eve finally arrived. We went to my grandparents that night like we always did and while I had a great time and got some awesome gifts I was still eager for Christmas morning to get there so I could open up the Hall of Justice and give it a whirl. 

                When we got back home that night and went to bed I had a lot of trouble sleeping. I was excited that I was going to get the Hall of Justice and a ton of other gifts in the morning, but I was also a little scared too. My uncle had shared some very creepy ghost stories with me and my mom and as I lay in bed that night I just couldn’t stop thinking about them. In addition, I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie “Silent Night, Deadly Night” which had just been released (and quickly pulled from theaters due to the angry mobs protesting its content) and while I hadn’t seen it yet I was still pretty freaked out by the idea of being visited by an ax-welding Santa.

                I lay there for several hours with my thoughts alternating between the adventures I was going to have with the Super Friends and being decapitated by a homicidal Santa. I tossed. I turned. I actually got up at one point and drew on a Magic Slate that was decorated with pictures of Gizmo, Stripe, and the other Gremlins on the sides of it at one point, but nothing seemed to help me sleep. It was around one in the morning that I thought I heard footsteps on the roof and pictured Santa crashing through my bedroom window at any minute to stab me to death with an icicle that I got up and ran to my parents’ room.

                Long story short, I made them (and my sister) get up so we could go ahead and open Christmas gifts. We always did it on Christmas morning (which it was, technically, as I kept reminding my parents) but once my family realized that there was no way I was going back to sleep (which meant that none of them would be able to do so either) they gave in and reluctantly agreed that it would just be best to open the gifts then.

                I almost cried when I opened my beloved Hall of Justice. I had gotten most of the action figures to go with it (except for Wonder Woman, who was impossible to find anywhere) and spent hours upon hours playing with them all together.  My parents and sister went back to bed at one point after opening all of their gifts, but I didn’t. I stayed up all night playing with my new toys and having a blast. My mom had a basket of little Andes mints that had green wrappers on them and I remember pretending that they were bars of Kryptonite that Lex and Brainiac were using to weaken Superman until the Flash ran in and saved him (by quickly taking off with the Kryptonite and allowing Supes to get his powers back).

                Over the years I had many wonderful times with the Hall of Justice and the action figures that went with it. I still have it, and while it is missing a few parts (like the landing pad, which I never really used anyway) it is still in pretty good shape. I still have most of the action figures too (Flash was involved in a unfortunate BB gun assassination that blew his head off and Robin disappeared somewhere-no one really cared except for Batman though) and there are still times that I actually take them all out of the closet at my parent’s house and look at all of them with a smile on my face when I think back to how happy they made me.

                There you have it. That is what Christmas means to me. I know it may sound selfish that I didn’t say that it meant peace, love, and things of that nature, but I had to be honest.  I have to disagree with those of you who argue that Christmas is too materialistic (these are usually the people who complain the loudest when they don’t get what they wanted for Christmas in my experience) or with those who think that kids are greedy and selfish just because they ask for a certain Christmas gift. I think that if these people got to experience the happiness I did when I got my Hall of Justice (or the warm, fuzzy feeling that I get now when I think about it) they would change their tune very fast. I am all for good will toward man, peace on earth and all that, but to me Christmas is also about gifts.  

Here are Todd's Links:

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000228736199

Gardener Link: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-gardener/16314369

Nightmare Tales Link: http://www.publishamerica.net/product6001.html

Thadd Presley Presents Horror Link (I have 3 stories published in it): http://www.amazon.com/Thadd-Presley-Presents-Nate-Burleigh/dp/1617061522

Horrornews.net Link (I do book and movie reviews here): http://horrornews.net/

Short N Scary Site (I have several stories published here) http://www.shortnscarystories.com/author/toddm316/

My IMDB page (which only has a couple of things on it): http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1378524/

When you finished here please stop by and see Jenn at http://www.booksandbarks.com/and Peggy at http://www.pawingthroughbooks.com


And be sure to enter the Rafflecopter Form to be in the big Giveaway!  ENTER HERE

Comments Always Welcome!

12 Days of Christmas Kick Off with Susan Case

12 Days of Christmas Extravaganza is being brought to you by Peggy at Pawing Through Books, Jennifer at Books and Barks, and myself. 
Each day for the next 12 days each of our blogs will feature a different author. There will be guest posts, interviews and giveaways! So be sure to stop at each blog to join in the fun!


A special thank you to all the authors who are participating and those who have donated prizes!


Merry Christmas!




CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN WITH BOOKS
Susan Case

I stole this idea and I don’t even know who to thank. Yes, being naughty at Christmas time is not a good idea. But someone, somewhere out there in cyberspace – perhaps living closer to the North Pole, found this idea on Pinterest, wrote about it, and I stole borrowed it. I confess: My name is Susan and I am a blogaholic. I have no idea where to look for it because I like to blog hop. Could be worse, right?

Going in my favor (Santa, are you reading this?) is that I love to read! So here is the “original” idea: Wrap up 25 children’s Christmas books and unwrap one a night and read it together as a family. Here’s my spin:  If you can’t find 25 Christmas books at the used books store or garage sales, especially with snow already blanketing some areas, then wrap up any children’s books – used, new, different genre; it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you are reading books with your children every night.

If you are really pressed for time, and can’t even fathom wrapping 25 more things, just put a Countdown Till Christmas stash of books in a basket and pat yourself on the back for teaching math: 25, 24, 23… Counting backwards helps children learn subtraction. If you’re out of bows, perhaps you could put Post-it-Notes with numbers on the books. I opted for not wrapping the books, but wrote numbers on the backs of the bows going 1 through 25. Children can put the bows in numerical order—backwards or forwards. Whatever works, as long as you’re reading.

You may be able to find children’s Christmas books greatly discounted just before and right after Christmas. Buy them and wrap them with the scraps of wrapping paper you’ve saved after opening your gifts and you’ll be ready for next year.

This looks so enticing! - Cristi

SNUGGLING, CUDDLING, AND READING PROMOTE:

• Bonding, security, consistency, stability, routine, self-esteem
• Literacy - a love of reading
• Helping children learn about their world through nature and science books
• The 3 Rs: Rhyming, Rhythm, and Repetition to enhance reading skills  

MY NEW YEAR’S CHALLENGE TO YOU

I have a simple challenge and it does not involve weighing yourself. Make a New Year’s Resolution to read at least one book a month—just for yourself. It is fun to blog hop, surf, tweet, text, stumble around upon, connect with Facebook, and join in the increasing number of cyberspace adventures (myself included), but please let your children see you enjoying good books. Something about anything can be learned from reading. But, of course, you wouldn’t be on this wonderful blog if you didn’t already love books. I wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS as you COUNTDOWN TILL CHRISTMAS WITH BOOKS!

Susan is the author of Kindergarten: Tattle-Tales, Tools, Tactics, Triumphs and Tasty Treats for Teachers and Parents. You can visit her blog at Kindergarten for Teachers and Parents.

Kindergarten: Tattle-Tales, Tools, Tactics, Triumphs and Tasty Treats for Teachers and Parents is an awesome gift for Preschool, Kindergarten teachers and parents. I have purchased it to give as a thank you for one of Junior's DSP's. The woman who was working with us on his community living skills is also going to school to become a teacher. This book was a warmly received gift. I have a few others who work with us I plan to give this book to. 

When your thinking about something different to give to the teacher from your child please do consider this book. I have always given books to the teachers of my children and it was always appreciated. 

You can even win a copy of the book, if not for you, then to give as a gift to the teacher, parent or student  in your life! All you need to do is leave a comment telling us about a teacher you remember, (can be yours or one of your children's), and why. For me I remember all my teachers but a few teachers stand out. Ms Driscoll who taught me the hated subject of math for 6-8 grades. Oh what a time she had! Mrs Smith who taught me 4-5 grade and encouraged me in art, (even though I have ZERO talent). Mr Forrest who taught history 7-8 grades and brought the horror of the holocaust vividly to me. Mr McCormick who taught my honors history class in high school and never stopped believing in me and encouraging me. Finally Mrs Mohair who taught me 2nd grade and let me write out a play based on Little Red Riding Hood, then let me choose actors, encouraged me in directing the play and then let me not only entertain my classroom but also talked other teachers into letting me bring the play to their classrooms. It was an awesome experience! I thank all of these wonderful men and women who really did make a difference. 


Please be sure to leave a comment and include your email address so we can contact you if you win!


When you finished here please stop by and see Jenn at http://www.booksandbarks.com/and Peggy at http://www.pawingthroughbooks.com


And be sure to enter the Rafflecopter Form to be in the big Giveaway! ENTER HERE

Guest Post with Deborah McCarragher

Faith As A Mustard Seed

There will be times in your spiritually mismatched marriage when you’ll be challenged to look full face at your faith level.  Do you really think your husband will embrace Christianity and become a new creature in Christ?  Below is a wonderful example of “faith in action” in the Bible.

In New Testament biblical times, a centurion was the commander of one-hundred soldiers in the Roman army.  This particular centurion lived in Capernaum, a thriving town on the Sea of Galilee, and had been instrumental in building a synagogue for the Jews there.  Though he was a gentile, he had a great affinity for the people of Capernaum, and was a godly man, well respected by all.

Luke 7:2-10 tells us the story of the Roman centurion.  This centurion was endeared to his servant, who was sick with the palsy (paralysis).  The local physicians were unable to help him.  This particular servant was very valuable, which is perhaps why he was compelled to seek out the infamous “Great Physician” to heal him.  He even had the elders of the Jews intercede for his servant – recognizing that he was unworthy to approach Jesus with his request in person.

As Jesus neared the centurion’s household, his friends relayed his message to Him, saying, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof. Therefore I did not even think myself worthy to come to You. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me.  And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

He showed the Lord great respect, recognizing His authority was from God. He assumed a position of humility as he voiced his concerns and request.  Haughtiness never earned favor with anyone.  He trusted the Lord to perform all that was necessary for his servant’s healing.  He recognized that Jesus, in His physical form, wasn’t needed to heal his beloved servant.

Verse 9 is the key verse in this story.  Jesus marveled at the centurion’s great faith!  He admonished the crowd as He said, “I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”  Lastly, we see the centurion’s servant healed, by the Word of the Lord, at the very hour it was proclaimed.

Below is an excerpt from MISSION POSSIBLE – Chapter 3 – Faith as a Mustard Seed.  

Jesus said, “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God?  Or with what parable shall we picture it?  It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on the earth; but  when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade” (Mark  4:30-32).    When we have faith so small it seems insignificant, God can grow it into something sturdy and supportive that even others can “nest in”.   In  Matthew 17:20  Jesus again said, “… for assuredly, I say to you, if you have  faith  as a  mustard seed , you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move;  andnothing will be impossible for you.”  All things are possible with God!

One of my daily devotionals, “Streams in the Desert” by L.B. Cowman, has an entry by an unknown author named   C.H.P.   He talks about a passage written by Paul in the book of Galatians: “Before this faith came, we were held prisoners … locked up until faith should be revealed”  (Gal. 3:23  NIV).   We are set aside  for a time to learn a more excellent way of faith. 

Moses, Joseph, Paul, Silas, and even John all learned about being “put aside” for a season to be locked-up to faith.   Commit your circumstances to God.  praise Him, and claim  Romans 8:28 that “He will  work all things to good for those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose.”  Isaiah  64:4  promises that God  “acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.”    Others will receive insight and blessings because you were “locked-up” to learn  the way of faith.

Deborah's book is: 

It can be purchased at http://www.alabasterboxpublishing.com/

Deborah's Links:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3116220.Deborah_L_McCarragher

http://www.facebook.com/GodMissionPossible 

http://twitter.com/#!/debitsdeb

Guest Post - Aaron L.

CAN THE WORST OF TIMES MAKE FOR THE BEST OF LINES?

I think I heard somewhere that "life is pain". I beg to differ. Life is the
ability to survive the pain.

When I began my journey into creating my novel, "Light Under the House" I
only had a germ of a plot and not much else. I was a college drop out at the
time and didn't have much going for me. I had also sown a lot of seeds into
endeavors that turned out to be useless. I had a mountain of wasted
opportunity and regrets piled up. I wasn't trained expert in any field. What
did I know? Then again, I did know a few things.  I knew about rejection. I
knew about the loss friendship. I knew about living with frustration, anger,
and fear. I knew those things. I knew I had a story to tell.

So I asked myself, what does it look like to overcome the wounds I've been
dealt? What does it look like to fail and come back again? What does faith
in action look like? As I started to ask myself these questions, the novel
grew and so did I.  In the process I learned some key things:

If you want to challenge the reader you have to challenge yourself. "Light
Under the House" is a novel about character. I knew I wanted to be better. A
better brother. Son. Friend. A better man. If I didn't find it challenging I
was certain no one else would.

Don't be afraid to be open and generous. I've learned not be afraid to talk
about issues through my story and its characters that are personal to me
and my struggles. Our scars are just proof that we're still alive, we can
show them.

Everyone has a strength, let yours shine. Don't get me wrong, it's not all
pain. I've lived a very blessed life. While it was true that I didn't have
any technical expertise, I did have life experience. By the time fifteen I
had lived in numerous places in the U.S. and abroad. I had been around the
world. I had diverse experiences to draw upon in dealing with people and
life. It also helped to hone a unique perspective. What are your strengths?

So can the worst of times make for the best of lines? I think it can. If
not, I'm sure I'll survive it.


Aaron is the author of:

Light Under The House by Aaron L.

Paperback, 362 pages

Kindle and EBook

Ravensbrook Press

Good Reads Summary:

"Sarai Ravensbrook has never known power. She has never been in control of anything in her world. She has lived in the shadow of her step father and uncle's abuses to both her mind and body. All she has ever wanted was to have what was hers, to control her own destiny. But when a beautiful and mysterious woman comes into her life, Sarai is guided down a strange path....a path that will lead her to a queen from the ancient past and to a destiny that is finally her own....or is it?" 

Sarai Ravensbrook, the sly John Quince, the wise Dr. Levi and Tanis. All are characters involved with the Levi family and the secret lying just beneath their house that could potentially ruin them. A secret that an ancient evil will stop at nothing to uncover. Light Under the House by Aaron L. and Donna Dawson, chronicles the lives of the Levi family for a generation, taking readers on an exciting and thought-provoking journey. 

This page-turning story is set in the late 1960s during a period of cultural rebellion, with a flashback to Biblical times, as well as a flash-forward to the 1980s and the present (2005). The events of this allegoric novel are interwoven within several themes that create cohesion for the story. Messages of courage, forgiveness, faith, the power of consequence, and the hope of redemption are all found within the pages of Light Under the House.

Light Under The House is currently a Good Reads Giveaway! To enter please go to http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/17519-light-under-the-house

Giveaway ends March 2,2012

Aaron is a Good Reads author: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4967287.Aaron_L_

Comments Always Welcome!

Waiting on Wednesday - Melanie Milburn

I am selecting a book that is already out but we are waiting for our review copy. We are very excited about it. It looks like it will be a fun book for us. I think it would be a great gift so I decided to show it to you now with gift giving holidays upon us.

I LOVE YOU MORE THAN CHOCOLATE by Melanie Milburn

ISBN: 978-1604587203

I Love You More Than Chocolate by Melanie Milburn uses the theme of chocolate to acquaint children with the meaning of love.

Milburn, a self-avowed chocoholic, has whipped up a book about a mom's love for her daughter and her love for chocolate that will melt readers' hearts. It's a rhyming book with beautiful illustrations on scrapbooking paper by Cindy Coleman.

A CD of Melanie singing I Love You More Than Chocolate is included in the book. This easy-to-memorize song is sweet and allows children to follow along with the text, giving them the impression that they are reading the book themselves. 

A nightly rhyming game after bedtime reading with her young daughter led Melanie to first produce the song. A year later she had the idea to make it into a fully illustrated children's book. Their "I Love You More" game had only two rules. It had to be something that rhymed and it had to be about something they both loved. One verse included in the book goes like this: 

I love you more than the color blue.

I love you more than a day at the zoo.

I love you more no matter what you do.

I love you more than chocolate!

Melanie has learned much about life and love from her many years working with preschoolers, where she is truly in her element. Kids gravitate toward her big heart, sense of fun, and her music. Many of her songs are inspired by her real life experiences with children in the classroom. No wonder her husband calls her a "kid magnet!"  She has been writing songs for over 20 years and has produced two CDs for children.

  

For more on Melanie Milburn, her book and music, please visit www.melaniemilburn.com.

Comments Always Welcome!            

Guest Post with Katharine A. Russell

Guest Post with Katharine A. Russell

a part of Pump Up Your Books Virtual Tours

Now I Get Why My Parents Seem, Well, So Weird...

When I started writing DEED SO, I didn't think of my book as historical fiction. I wanted to write a coming-of-age novel that touched on all the themes that were important to Boomers as they entered their teens. In psychological terms, we are who we were at about age fifteen, so my plan was to write a book that foreshadowed what the Boomers would become as they journeyed toward adulthood and were shaped by the tumultuous events of the Sixties. I set the story in what I call the last year of innocence, the year before President Kennedy was assassinated. In DEED SO, all the seeds are in place for the conflicts that blossomed in the later part of the decade. The readers knows this, but the characters in the book, of course, are clueless about the changes that are just over the horizon. And yet they sense the tremors.

In a few weeks 2012 will be upon us and the setting of DEED SO will be exactly fifty years in the past, the earliest threshold for a novel to be considered historical fiction under most circumstances. Although I did not start out with this as a goal, I believe I have created an authentic snapshot of the early Sixties -- the feel and the pace of the times, what was important to people, the language, occupations and hobbies, the constraints and the freedoms. At one point in the book, the main character, Haddie Bashford, has to wait through the night to learn the fate of a loved one. She had to wait until the news cycle caught up with events. Since she lived in a very small town, her problem was compounded. In those days, only big city news made the front page in a day. Now cell phones and the internet have destroyed the news cycle for the most part. People in remote rural areas can stream the image of a tornado to a news outlet in seconds. Technological change over the past fifty years has been an eye popper. So has social change. In the early Sixties, women chose among a limited number of career opportunities -- nursing, teaching and secretarial work. Now girls can aspire to be astronauts. African Americans had very limited opportunities not only in terms of careers, but schools, neighborhoods, restaurants and even seats on the bus. We have come a long, long way.

I was very pleased when one reviewer said I had helped her understand her mother. She felt she had a better feel for why her mom reacts in certain ways and why her priorities are the way they are. I hope DEED SO does this for lots of readers. To know what makes a Boomer tick, you need to see what happened to them in their teen years.

DEED SO actually unpacks two generations, the idealistic and materially favored Boomers and their parents, the Greatest Generation, who came of age during the Depression and were victorious in World War II. This generation wanted to build and preserve a safe and predictable world, so they could get back to the business of raising a family and enjoying a close knit community. They wanted to warm their hands around the hearth. The Boomers were bored with the hearth; they want to see the world, the bright lights and the big city. The GGs had seen the big city at 30,000 feet or in house-to-house firefights. They didn't think the city was all that alluring. When you think about it, these two generations were destined for conflict. If Vietnam hadn't come along to set the whole suspicion and mistrust thing in motion, somebody would have had to invent it.

In 1970, my father threatened to disown me for listening to an antiwar speaker at Northwestern University. I threatened back that he would never see his grandchildren. We made our peace long ago, but during the emotional days after Kent State, parents and their college age kids often found themselves on the opposing sides of issues. A quiet family dinner could go ballistic.

DEED SO is a complete story, with a beginning, middle and end, but it also is a stepping stone. Reading it is like watching a generation put a communal foot on the road to maturity. We know that road passed through some pretty treacherous territory, but a lot of good came out of the journey. For me, it is a bit like watching Harry Potter get his wand.

Katharine is the author of DEED SO - Smashwords Link.

It is 1962, and Agnes Hayden Bashford, Haddie, a brainy Southern teen from a tradition-bound family, dreams of breaking free from suffocating expectations placed on girls and from Wicomico Corners. She vows to escape to the exhilarating world beyond its narrow borders, like her handsome, older friend Gideon Albright who is going to Vietnam. A series of shocking incidents brings the outside world crashing down on her peaceful village, exposing long-buried family secrets and setting Haddie on a collision course with an unstable firebrand who will have to silence her to protect his identity. Haddie witnesses the fatal shooting of a black teen by a white down-on-his-luck farmer trying to protect his retarded son. The resulting murder trial attracts outside agitators and political aspirants, and pits townspeople against each other. Excited about being a witness in the trial, Haddie sees her moment of notoriety dissolve into frustration and discomfort and tragedy claim the people around her. The racially-charged case exposes civic fault lines and secrets within Haddie's own family, shattering her comfortable home life, and unleashes an arsonist who terrorizes the community by night. In Deed So, a young girl and an entire town lose their innocence in the last year of innocence, the year before the Kennedy assassination, the civil rights struggle, feminist activism and the Vietnam War changed America forever.

She is also the author of Buddy's Tail. I do not have a cover to share but I do have a book trailer. Very cute for children. It is sold through Smashwords - Buddy's Tail. 

Comments Always Welcome!

The Taste by Alan Orloff as Zak Allen

The Taste by Alan Orloff as Zak Allen

From Good Reads:

After his mother dies, Jake Wheeler returns to his birthplace of Dark Springs, West Virginia, seeking solace among his kin. But his family’s unique comfort food includes some ingredients Jake's not sure he can stomach.
They eat dead people.
Discovering that skeleton in the pantry and adjusting to a new diet turn out to be the least of Jake’s worries. Storm clouds have gathered over Dark Springs, threatening the family’s peaceful existence. Ax-wielding clan patriarch Dallas Pike and his band of renegade followers have decided upon a violent plan to increase the dwindling food supply. Why wait for your next meal to die naturally if you can hunt it down instead?
With the survival of the entire clan at stake, Jake wages war against madman Pike.
He also battles an even more terrifying opponent.
Himself.
After all, Jake has THE TASTE.

My Turn:

I must admit I was fascinated by this book, ( and a little sick). The characters were well written and despite my turning stomach I found myself caring about several of them. The story line absolutely held my interest. I would say this is an Indie book that lets you know just how good Indie Authors can be. It is a horror story that has family loyalty, family feud, love and suspense mixed in. It was a different read for me - most of the books I read lately where someone is eating someone deal with zombies - which made it refreshing. I really enjoyed this authors style of writing. I think you will too, if you are into horror stories. 

  

Currently there is a giveaway on Good Reads for Deadly Campaign. This giveaway ends January 8, 2012 and you can enter it here: http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/15656-deadly-campaign

Alan has a website here: http://www.alanorloff.com

He is a Good Reads Author: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3314049.Alan_Orloff

He is on FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/alanorloff

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/alanorloff

Comments Always Welcome!