Tween the Weekends: Favorite Christmas Story Ever…

“Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge’s name was good upon ’change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.”

Love those first lines in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Dead as a doornail really sticks out in my mind. Dickens sure had a way with words! And believe it or not, Charles Dickens wrote the classic Christmas tale as a novella—something I never knew. In fact, I decided to read A Christmas Carol for the first time a few years ago. I knew the story like the back of my hand, and most movies based on the book were true to form. But there’s nothing like reading the actual script written by an author’s hand. Though the language was a little archaic, it still didn’t take away from the magic of the story.

For many historians, the success of A Christmas Carol directly redefined the modern Western conception of Christmas and its sentiments, in effect creating the modern version of the holiday itself. Charles Dickens wrote four more novellas with a Christmas theme after the great success of A Christmas Carol, which was published in 1843: The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. Hey, when you’re on a roll, you don’t want to disappoint your readers!

As this is a Tween the Weekends post, I thought I’d share the movie trailer of one of the most recent family oriented versions of A Christmas Carol produced by Disney in 2009. Love Jim Carrey’s take on Ebenezer Scrooge!

Since it’s Christmas Day, and the Ghost of Christmas Present is probably hanging around, I thought I’d share that I have a free short story available for download only through Musa Publishing until the end of December. It’s called The Terrible, Mighty Crystal and features a teenage portrayal of Shu-Tu, the old, cross-eyed seer from the prequel of The Last Timekeepers series, Legend of the Timekeepers. Here’s the tagline and blurb:

There is the known and the unknown. And then there is the unknowable.

A rumor around Atlantis whispers that the mighty crystal has the power of resurrection. Fourteen-year-old Shu-Tu believes this to be true and will do whatever it takes to bring her father back from the dead. Recruiting two trustworthy classmates, and with the help of her beloved teacher Thoth, Shu-Tu sets out to change her father’s fate, and right a wrong.

Instructed to meet Thoth at his grotto, Shu-Tu and her friends are forced to flee underground, and must follow the maze of passages to find another way out. There, they come across a baboon-headed human hybrid possessing a rare firestone—one of six harvested from the mighty crystal—which has the power to restore life. Shu-Tu agrees to play the hybrid’s bizarre game to win the firestone, knowing that if she loses, she loses her father forever.

Wishing you and your families a very safe and happy holiday season, and a prosperous 2014! I thought I’d leave you with Charles Dickens’s preface to A Christmas Carol:

“I have endeavoured in this ghostly little book, to raise the ghost of an idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.”

Their faithful friend and servant,

Charles Dickens
December 1843

Look Who the Cat Dragged In…

Recently, I wrote a post that showcased books featuring dogs as one of the central characters. If you happened to miss it, please click HERE. Today, I thought it would be only fair if I turn the tables and talk about felines who have made appearances in books and movies. Growing up, I was a huge fan of Disney’s Aristocats, and must have seen it at least a half dozen times. And those dastardly Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp turned me against the breed for a long time until my mom decided to get a Siamese kitten. I guess I couldn’t resist those blue eyes after all!

In my new yet-to-be released book, Legend of the Timekeepers I introduce my readers to a lion-human hybrid named Etan, who aids14-year-old Lilith and her newfound friends with the very first Timekeeper mission. In another YA series I’ve created, my book Lost and Found: Mysterious Tales of Fairy spotlights Whiskey, a cantankerous, old calico cat who helps 15-year-old animal communicator Meagan Walsh find her true path. So, keeping with the theme of this post, I thought I gather together a group of authors who have made it a point to have cats in their books. Let the purring begin:

Lisa Orchard: The Supers Spies and the Cat Lady Killer

In a small town in Michigan, fifteen-year-old Sarah Cole is stuck spending the summer at her Aunt and Uncle’s with her sister, Lacey. She’s not happy with the situation until she befriends a girl named Jackie. The three girls stumble upon the ruthless murder of a reclusive neighborhood woman and what's worse? One of the officers investigating the crime believes the girls are responsible for her death.

Fearing that this officer will frame them for the murder, the girls organize their own detective squad. They become the Super Spies and start their own investigation. The Super Spies can’t understand why anyone would want to murder the “Cat Lady” until they start digging into her past and discover a horrible crime that happened thirty years ago. They uncover a connection between the two crimes and attempt to bring this information to the police, only to be reprimanded for meddling in the investigation. Not only are the girls upset by the admonition, but they also struggle with the fact that their exuberant investigating could provide a legal loophole allowing the killer to go free. Frustrated by this turn of events, the Super Spies realize it’s up to them to snare the Cat Lady killer.

Or die trying...


Linda Benson: Six Degrees of Lost, featuring a cat named Rags owned by protagonist Olive.
Sometimes you have to take a journey to find out where you really belong.

Olive’s mother is headed to jail and her brother to join the Army, so thirteen-year-old Olive is uprooted from sunny California and dumped in Washington State like a stray. That's exactly what she feels like surrounded by her aunt’s collection of homeless dogs, cats, and horses.

Fourteen-year-old David’s future is already carved in stone. From a military family with two brothers serving overseas, he’s been pointed towards the Air Force Academy his entire life - but a rafting trip gone awry might ruin his chances.

When a runaway dog is almost hit by a car, the search for its owner leads Olive and David, two kids from entirely different backgrounds, to an unlikely bond. Will their growing attraction to each other be enough to keep Olive from a foolhardy journey to find her mother? Will David risk his family’s plans to save her?

PM Griffin: The Bastet Trilogy

Three cats, three incarnations of great potential, but terrible peril lies before each of them.

The Goddess Bastet has granted three cats the potential of greatness and happiness in their new incarnations, but each must face terrible peril to gain it:

Bast’s Gift is just accustoming himself to his new life when a deadly intruder threatens his assigned human. What can he, a small cat, do to defend her?

Firecat and his beloved Partner Eva are suddenly confronted with the overwhelming horror of a raging firestorm. Can human and feline, working together, manage to survive?

Pennyroyal returns to the time of her previous death to help save not only her chosen human but the better part of the human race. Can she and Flavia defeat a demon’s malice?

Eva Scott: The Reluctant Wedding Planner, featuring a cat named Manouche who has his own facebook page!
Not only flowers bloom...

Dr Camden James is a rural vet, not a wedding planner, so he quickly feels out of his depth when, in a fit of generosity, he offers to glam up his sister's budget wedding in a secret move designed to surprise her. With only six weeks to make this the wedding of his sister's dreams he needs to move fast.

Stumbling around in the largely female world of weddings he gets a lead on the go-to girl for wedding flowers - Georgiana Mac Intyre. Georgi, reeling from a very public breakup, is not interested in men in anyway shape or form. Not even super-cute vets - even when they are clearly interested in her.

Cam shamelessly uses his story to get her to help. It has all the elements; romance against the odds, true love, orphans (you can't have good story without an orphan or two), and a bride.

I thought we’d finish this post with an appropriate musical slide show, sung by none other than that rockabilly group, the Stray Cats. Enjoy!