The Awakening
I belong to SCBWI – Society of Children's Book Writers and
Illustrators, and the other day, another of the members posted on FB that she
would appreciate it if some of us would post the blurb and cover photo on our
blog. Since I know that many of you like YA stories, and even more of you have
YA people on your gift-giving list, I thought it would be nice to give you yet
another idea for your shopping list.
The Awakening, by Dorine White will be available 2 December
2014. Here is the cover blurb, and the cover:
"Nightmares really do come true, and for fifteen-year-old
Kyler Birkwood, they are just beginning. Raised on a farm by his Aunt Martha,
Kyler has no clue about the magical heritage swimming through his blood. When
he discovers evidence of a mythical creature, a terrifying beast thought only
to exist in fairy tales, his safe world shatters.
"Left at a school of magic to hunt for clues, he is
overwhelmed and disbelieved. As loved ones begin disappearing and Orcs roam the
land, Kyler must undergo a journey that takes him from the High Courts of the
King to the unknown forests of the East. His magic just awakening, Kyler is the
lone hope for a world that will not listen."
This looks like a fascinating read. That's a hint, in case any
of you missed it ;-)
Now, back to our regularly scheduled blogging and
Soldiers of Fortune
When I was a freshman in High School, my mother married my stepfather.
That was a heck of a shock to me. I mean, I knew him, sort of liked him, but
Mom and I had lived alone for several years, and we had a more or less truce
between us. Then she brought a man into the mix. Yuck.
Anyhow, we moved from Portland, Oregon (where I was a
Freshman in High School!) to Seattle, Washington, where I was immediately
demoted to a ninth grader in JUNIOR high. I felt like I'd been tossed back into
kindergarten, and needless to say, I was not a happy camper, no matter how one
looked at it. There were no rose colored glasses through which to view my then
miserable life.
School got out at 3.30 and if I took the bus, I'd get home
sometime around 4.15-4.30. But, if I walked, and walked really, really fast
(would you believe a 12 minute mile?) I could be home by 4.00. I walked.
Really, really fast. Because, you see, at 4.00 was the one escape I had — a tv
show, Soldiers of Fortune starring
John Russell and Chick Chandler. I loved that show. The fact my hormones were
waking up probably helped, too. I was in lust with both actors.
Anyhow, I would come home, watch the show, and then do my
homework and go traipsing about the woods down the hill. Home still wasn't
great, but it was bearable, and some day I, too, would grow up to be a Soldier
of Fortune. Or a Mountain Man. Or maybe Sacajawea reincarnated.
Every couple of years, for the past few, I've looked to see
if the old series had been made available, and the other day, I found it. All
52 episodes, on 5 discs, for a price I could afford. Can you guess what I'm now
watching? I've now seen 5 episodes, and yes, they are as bad and as wonderful
as I remember them. The fun thing is, they are all new. I remembered the show
and the actors but can't for the life of me remember any of the stories. They
were all filmed on a Hollywood lot, but they used a lot of travel footage and
cut it in. This was the first show to do that.
John Russell went on to do the series, Lawman. I know I
watched it, but it didn't have the impact that Soldiers of Fortune did. At
least not for me. I'm not at all sure what Chick Chandler did after the series.
But I did discover that his first name was Fehmer, not Chick. And the hero of
one of my as yet unpublished short stories is Russell Fehmer, in my attempt to
do homage to my all-time favorite tv show from my high school years. (If you
check out the filmographies of both Chick Chandler and John Russell at IMDb.com you will see they both had lots of work during their careers.)
If you like adventure, b/w tv, and aren't really picky about
the quality (the studio who bought and remastered them did a pretty darned good
job) you might enjoy this bit of nostalgia from 1955-57, check it out. The
plots are simple, there are no commercials, the acting is OK, but, heck, it's
still a lot of fun!
Chick Chandler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Chandler
No comments:
Post a Comment