Hi, lovelies! It gives me great pleasure today to host Mark M.
Even and his new book, “The Wonders of the Peculiar Parasol”! For other stops on his Goddess Fish
Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in
this post.
Be sure to make it to the
end of this post to enter to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble Gift Card!! Also, come back daily to interact with Mark
and to increase your chances of winning!
This eBook is on SALE
for ONLY $0.99 during the book tour!!!
See below for more details.
The Wonders of
the Peculiar Parasol
by Mark M. Even
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GENRE: Young Adult
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BLURB:
The
Wonders of the Peculiar Parasol is an outstanding fantasy
that shows how Mandy discovers her magic under strange circumstances. It
focuses on how Mandy will get home and how she'll discover her real purpose in
coming to this land, providing the basics of how this new world operates in a
manner that elementary-level readers can readily understand: "The parasol
and the dragonstone work together to sense the presence, or lack of presence,
of the inner magic of the person holding the parasol. The dragonstone uses the
infinite power of the sun to tap or channel or access that magic. And one way
it does that is to transport an individual to Storyworld.”
As
Mandy harbors a secret, puzzles out how to use the dragonstone, and interacts
with her family while battling lizards and building an army, young readers will
relish the blend of real-world family dilemmas and fantasy world encounters.
~
D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review
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EXCERPT TWO:
Mickey
smiled at everyone and said, “OK! Here we go!” and started twirling the
parasol. Instantly the dragonstone flashed a bright purple light, and Mickey
was frozen still—with a big grin on his face.
After
about ten minutes, during which time the parents, as they always did, checked
their watches about a hundred times, Mickey popped back to life and said,
“Neato!”
Everyone
else applauded and clamored for his story. Not one to easily cede being the center
of attention, Mickey entertained everyone with a story of being a
high-performance race car driver in a sort of “Olympics of Racing.”
“It
was amazing!” he said. “I got to be in several different races in one day. One
event was drag racing. And I got to drive a big purple car with extra-large
black rear tires, a tiny steering wheel, a jet engine—and a parachute to stop
the car at the end of each race. Totally cool!
“Then
I was also in an Indy-style race of one hundred laps around a huge red brick
track. Then I did an off-road endurance race in a cool purple dune buggy with
oversize tires with ‘MICKEY’ in white letters six inches high on each tire. I
won two of three races with my buggy!” He rolled his eyes and continued, “I
only lost once to a yellow dune buggy in the cool endurance race event. And you
know what? That yellow dune buggy was driven by a girl I thought I knew. She
was wearing a red and yellow jacket and a silver helmet with blue and green
lightning symbols on it. She looked so… familiar!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GUEST POST:
Some of My Favorite Items in My Office:
I’m a collector of sort – I have many collections of items that
I’ve owned or obtained or inherited.
My
primary collection is coins – not necessarily currency, although I do have some
currency, but I collect what I call “souvenir coins” --- coins I’ve collected
from the places I’ve been or the things I’ve seen. My very first coin that I bought was in 1976,
the year of our country’s bicentennial.
The Freedom Train was travelling all across the country, containing
historical items from the Smithsonian, allowing the American citizens who
didn’t have the chance to travel to Washington, DC to see the Constitution and
the Bill of Rights and other great pieces of our country’s history. The train pulled multiple cars with a moving
sidewalk that allowed you to just stand and look at the items as you passed by
them. Naturally, there was a “gift shop”
at the end of the tour and I bought a commemorative coin, pictured below. I now own over 650 coins, displayed in a
special case in my office. If you read
the short story on my website about the background of Phef the Wizard, you’ll
find that a gold coin plays a significant part of the story.
I
also have a set of model cars, of various styles. My dad owned a Pontiac dealership when I was
growing up. In the 50s through the 70s,
the dealers had plastic model cars that they would give out if you bought a new
car – something for the kids. Naturally,
there would be models left over each year and these would come home for us to
play with. I’ve got a few of those cars
now on my shelf and I’ve bought toy cars from various travels (like a
double-decker bus from London or a safari car from my trip to Tanzania). But it’s the old Pontiac models that are my
favorite. One of the characters in the
book (a dragon) is named Paction, an anagram of Pontiac.
One
more (and I have even more yet) collection that I have is a bunch of
hand-carved elephants. My great-aunt
Tillie, who lived just 2 houses down from mine when I was growing up, was like
a grand-mother to me. She lived in the
house that she and my grandpa grew up in, a big 3 story house on the corner lot
of the block. She had never been married
and treated me and my siblings like we were her grandchildren. When she passed away, I inherited a few small
items from her estate. One was a wooden
toy car that I had played with whenever I was at her house (also part of my car
collection) and another was a set of carved, ivory elephants (she had gotten
them when it wasn’t illegal to own ivory).
I’ve since picked up carved elephants from other countries that I’ve
visited, made from indigenous stones from those regions of the world, and
display them in a tall display case that used to be my mother’s. But, it was Tillie’s house that was the
inspiration for Gigi’s house in the book (and the drawing of Gigi’s house in
chapter 1 is also based on a real picture of the house).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR BIO:
I
retired from almost 40 years working for IBM in Mar, 2017. I’ve been married for 43 years to my wife,
Joyce and have 3 children and 8 grand-children.
I enjoy golfing, fishing, bird-watching and travel.
Shortly
after retiring from IBM in 2017, I was at a small-town celebration in northern
Wisconsin and noticed that a number of the little vendor booths were people
selling children’s books that they created and self-published. I looked at these and told myself that I
could write something like that. And I
did, but these were the type of books that were targeted at small kids and
needed vibrant pictures and artwork.
In
the spring of 2018, I was visiting my niece and her family, and she told me of
this wonderful idea for a story for a children’s book and after talking with
her about it, we agreed to collaborate and I took on the task of writing the
story. After many iterations, The
Wonders of the Peculiar Parasol became a reality.
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CONNECT WITH MARK:
Author Website:
Author Newsletter:
Cresting Wave Publishing Website:
Facebook:
Goodreads Author Page:
Goodreads Book Page:
Amazon Author Page:
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BOOK BUY LINKS & BOOK SALE INFO:
**The Wonders of the Peculiar Parasol eBook is on SALE for ONLY $0.99 during the book tour!!!**
Amazon Kindle eBook:
Amazon Paperback:
Barnes and Noble Paperback:
The Book Depository Paperback:
BAM! Books-A-Million Paperback:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GIVEAWAY INFO:
Mark will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to
a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase is made, I may receive a small commission to help support this
blog. This does not cost you anything,
it just helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
Mark ~ Good morning! Welcome to FAB! It is so great to have you here! Congrats on your new book and good luck on the book tour! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking time to share your book with us and it's always a pleasure in our family to learn about a new one.
ReplyDeleteI liked the excerpt, thank you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteNew author for me.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get a chance to sign on yesterday when the tour "opened", but I'm checking in now. Thanks to Fab & Brunette for hosting. Hope everyone had a great Labor Day holiday.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to ask any questions. And be sure to check out my website for additional short stories about some of the characters of the book.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for hosting --- the 2nd book of my series, The Power of the Emerald Ring is due out this month -- I'll be sure to post when it is available
ReplyDelete