Midnight Pictures (2007)
Not only does the reader find an intriguing premise in this book they find enough twists and turns to more than fill a book twice the size. In 140 some pages this author packs romance, secrets, adventure and dilemmas galore all built around a village that is held prisoner by a dusting of snow. Snow you ask what’s the big deal? Well this isn’t the snow we recognize. This “snow” is worse than having flypaper coating every surface that might hold it. One touch and the object, person etc is permanently adhered to the spot. On top of it all the stuff refuses to melt even a smidge so the only escape from its grasp once it has you is to cut away whatever has become caught in its supergluish grip.
Mr Sloan introduces us to a small, somewhat sleepy village atmosphere by dropping us amidst the students in a Jr High school who are just discovering along with their faculty that no one can leave the building and its only mid morning. Students and staff who were counting the minutes till the dismissal bell begin to realize that bells are meaningless and the only moments to count anymore are those until the food supply is depleted and hope is no longer even a vague memory. Our main glimpses come through Jamie an upper grade student and one who somehow manages to maintain his own hope against the odds while formulating a method of getting his friend Tara out of this mess before it’s too late. She doesn’t know he cares for her as more than a friend and he won’t tell her because he knows a secret that he thinks has already numbered his own days and doesn’t want to leave her grieving a love that will never be.
Will anyone escape the prison of what appears to be a freak winter storm only until the world as they know it is paralyzed? Can Jamie and Tara recognize and enjoy their moments of Puppy Love or has Jamie’s unspoken secret ruined any opportunity they might have? With God’s help can Jamie’s escape/rescue attempt succeed or is it too risky to count on Faith to see them through the impossible?
Read Chion to find out these answers and many more all while enjoying a story of young love and the adventure of unexplainable phenomena.
(ISBN#0954311612, 140pp, $7.99 plus S/H)
Purchase from the Author’s Website or download a Free E-book. You can visit his site by clicking the previous link or the bookcover. If you then click the Chion tab you will find the links for purchasing or downloading the book as well as the link for a short audio excerpt about midway down the page.
Be sure and visit the other CFRB Blogs this week and leave a comment for a chance to win a copy from the author.
Other posts can be found at the main blog (banner at top of post will take you there) daily from Aug 3-9 and at least once during those dates on each of the other sites below – including a multi-segment audio conversation with Grace Bridges spread throughout the week at her blog.
Excellent teaser review. You set up the reader with just enough to make them wonder what the rest is about. It’s hard not to give plot points away, but you managed to avoid that and whet the viewers appetite as well. Well done.