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You’re never too old to have one more adventure 

Brought to life by Steve Ferchaud’s vibrant drawings, this story for all ages by Dan O’Brien lets us know that it is never too late to have one more adventure. 

An Excerpt:

Robert Pendleton opened one eye as the light of a passing car flashed over the window, shattering the darkness into prisms. He rolled onto his back on the beat-up couch and yawned as he reached his hands up and rubbed his eyes unceremoniously. 

He looked out over the darkness at the digital clock. The red digits spelled out a quarter ‘til midnight––nearly fourteen hours of sleep. He smiled and grabbed one of the cushions of the couch, burying his head in it. Just enough sleep, he reminded himself. Robert felt that anything less than twelve hours of sleep was very nearly too little. 

He grasped blindly for the TV remote. 

Groaning as he lifted his head, he looked at the empty table––his eyes drawn by another flash of a passing car. He couldn’t see clearly, but he knew that the remote had been there before he had fallen asleep nearly half a day ago. 

“Could have sworn….” he mumbled as he pushed himself up and brushed his hand around the top of the table, finding nothing. “Where did….”

Another groan escaped his lips as he lifted his body to a sitting position and threw aside the cluster of pillows that he had gathered around himself. He reached out for the lamp, but instead knocked it to the floor with a resounding thud. 

Robert muttered as he stood up from the couch, and then sank to his knees to search around in the darkness for the fallen lamp. Reaching around on the shadowed floor, shards of the broken lamp scattered like pieces of light. 

He turned his head, peering beneath the large space underneath the couch and saw the reflection of the buttons on the remote. The off-gray piece of machinery was underneath the couch––only darkness lingered beyond it. He reached out as he spoke again. 

“How did it get all the way down there?” 

Robert flexed his hand and strained as he twisted his back to reach farther; yet, the remote remained just out of reach. He pulled his arm away with a huff and craned his neck to the side, staring underneath into the darkness below the couch. 

His eyes widened as he saw the impossible: there was something beyond the remote. He shook his head and closed his eyes, whispering to himself that he didn’t see what he thought he had.

“I saw a little man,” he whispered to himself as he opened his eyes once more and nearly gasped as he did so. 

The figure was closer now and he could make out the outline clearly. A tiny man rested just beyond the remote. 

“What in the name of…?”

“Not here in the name of nobody, laddie. I be a friend though,” crooned the miniscule figure as he interrupted Robert and stepped forward, placing a hand on the darkened and slick surface of the remote. 

A tam-o’-shanter crested his bright red hair, the shaggy mane blending perfectly into his equally crimson, neatly trimmed, beard. 

A billow of whitish smoke drifted from the long-stemmed pipe that he held clenched between his lips. 

Robert fell back and knocked aside the adjacent table. Rubbing his eyes, he spoke a single word: “Leprechaun.”

About the Author:

Dan O’Brien, founder and editor-in-chief of The Northern California Perspective, has written over 20 books––including the bestselling Bitten, which was featured on Conversations Book Club’s Top 100 novels of 2012. Before starting Amalgam, he was the senior editor and marketing director for an international magazine. In addition, he has spent over a decade in the publishing industry as a freelance editor. You can learn more about his literary and publishing consulting business by visiting his website at: www.amalgamconsulting.com. Contact him today to order copies of the book or have them stocked at your local bookstore. He can he reached by email at amalgamconsulting@gmail.com. 

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Would you like to win a remarked copy of Conspirators of the Lost Sock Army and Loose Change Collection Agency signed by the author and illustrator?

Simply follow the author here and here and a few winners will be randomly selected on March 20th!

Maid for Mee, Too by Kat Lieu

Wow! Its been a while since I have read Maid for Me by Kat Lieu (a copy that I got from the famous author herself, yay!), and I never knew that there was going to be a second book entitled Maid for Me, Too. And so I searched online for any clues and stories with regards to its release since I received a comment asking me the same thing. According to some sources online, its supposed to be released this 2012, sometime during Fall (which I have no idea btw since we only have sunny and rainy season here.) But then again, people have been complaining because 2012 will end soon and still, there is no sign of the second book yet :( 

I know right? But hey, if we look at it on the bright side, that would just mean that many people are already awaiting the release of the second book. I'm sure it would be as beautiful and as hit as the first one, so lets all just wait patiently :)

Anyhoo, here's a book trailer vid that I found on youtube. Enjoy!~

Wish List: The Shadow Vampire Series by Allegra Skye

Saved (Book #1 of the Shadow Vampires) by Allegra Skye

Keira and Amanda, twins, move with their family to a new town, and start their senior year at a new high school. But though they are twins, the girls have different fates. Amanda, beautiful, popular, is sought out by everyone. Keira, who has always lived in Amanda’s shadow, is smaller, awkward, different. Even her mother, who is so close to Amanda, doesn’t know what to make of her other daughter. Keira turns to books, and to her journal, for solace, and to find out about other worlds. Amanda makes friends easily at the new school, and quickly finds a boyfriend, while Keira is left alone, an outsider. But very quickly, it is clear that something strange is going on in Everstock. The town and the school are very divided. The popular, rich kids act as if they own the school and have nothing to do with the other kids, who are poorer and live in a different part of town. Not only are the kids meaner here, but an unknown infection has gripped the town, with more and more people going to the hospital. Something here is terribly wrong. But things change suddenly, as there is a terrible accident involving the twins. Not only are Keira and Amanda’s lives changed forever, but a new dimension of life begins to open to Keira. As Keira recovers, she begins to change in ways she can’t expect, receiving new and mysterious powers that no one can possibly understand. At the same time, a gorgeous, mysterious new boy, Cooper, appears at the school, who grips her imagination, and who refuses to tell her what secret he is hiding. As Keira and Cooper grow closer to each other, it soon becomes apparent that destiny has brought them together—and that they may each have to sacrifice it all if they want to stay together…

Touched (Book #2 of the Shadow Vampires) by Allegra Skye

Keira Blaine is on the run with her new love, Cooper. Having just finished vanquishing the first wave of Shadow Vampires, the small town of Everstock is no longer a safe place for them. They have to flee, and search for a safe haven together. Keira can’t return home anyway, especially after running away from her parents to be with Cooper. As they embark on their journey together, Cooper tells Keira about his long-lost mother and her tribe, The Torches, a race of positive vampires, rival enemies to the Shadow Vampires. Separated from her at birth, Cooper is determined to find his mother, and to follow the clues—and his magical ring—that will lead him to her. Keira is determined to find out more about who she is becoming, too, and where her new powers are coming from—mysterious powers that are growing by the day. Is she a vampire, too? Where is her strength coming from? What is her destiny? Keira and Cooper continue on their fantastical journey to mysterious islands in Lake Michigan. They manage to find Cooper’s mother and her tribe—but once there, Keira has to confront a beautiful young Torch woman, Tua, who falls in love with Cooper and is determined to make him her own. Keira is forced to face danger alone at a club in Chicago, and to go back home and face her family and her old high school—where she realizes that she is no longer welcome. Worse, the Shadow Vampires won’t let them rest. They hunt them down, and enlist their most gorgeous soldier—the teenage Percy—to seduce Keira’s sister, Amanda, and have her lead them to her. Amanda, despite herself, falls deeply in love, and Percy finds himself feeling unexpected feelings of his own. Will he have to betray his tribe? Keira and Cooper, too, are falling more deeply in love with each other—but life circumstances seem determined to pry them apart. Will their love withstand the test? Will Keira find out who she really is? And will the Shadows hunt them down before they can each fulfill their mission?