"A great book for readers of all ages. [...] Donald Firesmith created a story that has humor, sadness, love and realistic characters. All this combines for a spectacular reading experience." Ann, Goodreads
Description:
Matt's life changes forever when a family of druids moves into the dilapidated Victorian mansion next door. The story of an unlikely friendship, the clash of two completely different cultures, secret magic, and a search for the lost Hawthorne treasure.
Fifteen-year-old Matt Mitchell was having the worst summer imaginable. Matt’s misery started when a drunk driver killed his mother. Then his father moved him and his twin sister to the small town of Hawthorne in rural Indiana, as far as his grieving father could take from the ocean that Matt's mother had loved. At the new high school, three bullies are determined to make Matt miserable. And to top it off, Matt learns that the recluse who lives in the 'haunted house" next door is none other than Old Lady Hawthorne, the town’s infamous witch and murderer. Matt’s terrible summer is turning into an awful autumn when something quite unexpected happens. Old Lady Hawthorne’s niece and her three children arrive, and Matt meets Gerallt.
EXCERPT
Halloween
By the final week of October, the tall oaks lining
Hawthorne Drive had reached the peak of their colors, and the first yellow
leaves slowly tumbled down to lie on lawns and sidewalks. All along Hawthorne
Drive, the modest one- and two-story houses had been turned into happy
Halloween haunts. Throughout the neighborhood, bright orange lights framed
windows and doors, and small fluttering ghosts hung from the branches of many
of the smaller trees in peoples’ yards. Black plastic spiders sat on the
cottony cobwebs that shrouded every bush, while jolly Jack-O-Lanterns stood
silent guard at every porch. Front yards had become grave yards, and the
occasional inept witch hung where she’d crashed headlong into a tree or the
side of a house.
Yet the morning of Halloween had arrived with no
change to Hawthorne House, making it appear decidedly underdressed with no sign
of Halloween decorations.
“So Gerallt, doesn’t your family celebrate
Halloween?” Matt asked as the Hawthorne children joined Tina and him at the bus
stop. “You haven’t put up any decorations, and I haven’t heard you mention it
all month.”
“Of course we observe Halloween, only we call it
Samhain,” Gerallt said, exchanging cautious glances with his sister. Unlike
Wiccans, who pronounce the holiday as Sow-in,
Gerallt pronounced the Gaelic word meaning the end of summer as Sahm-wan. “It’s just that for us, the
holiday doesn’t start until dusk and we always wait until then tah decorate.”
“Tonight is very special tah us,” Gwyneth added
solemnly.
“It’s our new year,” Gerallt continued. “We have a
feast tah welcome the spirits of those who will be born in the comin’ year and
tah celebrate the lives of those who have passed in the previous year. Tonight,
we’ll celebrate the life of our fathah and welcome his spirit when he visits us
from the Spirit World…”
Before Matt could decide how to respond to Gerallt’s
unexpected expectation that his father’s ghost was going to visit him, Gareth
said, “Samhain ‘s my favorite holiday. I love trick-or-treatin’ and all the
candy. Can I go with you and Gerallt tonight? Please? I promise not tah be a
bothah or anything. Please, Matt?”
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About the author:
A geek by day, Donald Firesmith works as a system and software engineer helping the US Government acquire large, complex software-intensive systems. In this guise, he has authored seven technical books, written numerous software- and system-related articles and papers, and spoken at more conferences than he can possibly remember. He's also proud to have been named a Distinguished Engineer by the Association of Computing Machinery, although his pride is tempered somewhat by his fear that the term "distinguished" makes him sound like a graybeard academic rather than an active engineer whose beard is still slightly more red than gray.
By night and on weekends, his alter ego writes modern paranormal fantasy, apocalyptic science fiction, action and adventure novels and relaxes by handcrafting magic wands from various magical woods and mystical gemstones. His first foray into fiction is the book Magical Wands: A Cornucopia of Wand Lore written under the pen name Wolfrick Ignatius Feuerschmied. He lives in Crafton, Pennsylvania with his wife Becky, and his son Dane, and varying numbers of dogs, cats, and birds.
6 comments:
This book sounds super awesome.
I enjoy spooky house stories and already have this one on my wish list.
Stephanie and Laura, Great. Enjoy! P.S., please leave an Amazon review when you're done. I guarantee it will make my day.
Interesting cover
I really like the book cover! This sounds like a great fantasy story with characters I will like.
Cool. Hope you like it. Please leave an honest review when you're done; it will make my day.
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