Allow me to introduce a bit of fun, brought to you by Dan O'Brien's overactive imagination and Steve Ferchaud's incredible sketching. It's a bit out of what I ordinarily post, but that's what you get for giving a writer a computer and free wi-fi!
Enjoy!
You’re never too old to have
one more adventure
Brought to life by Steve Ferchaud’s
vibrant drawings, this story for all ages by Dan O’Brien lets us know that it
is never too late to have one more
adventure.
An Excerpt:
Robert
Pendleton opened one eye as the light of a passing car flashed over the window,
shattering the darkness into prisms. He rolled onto his back on the beat-up
couch and yawned as he reached his hands up and rubbed his eyes
unceremoniously.
He
looked out over the darkness at the digital clock. The red digits spelled out a
quarter ‘til midnight––nearly fourteen hours of sleep. He smiled and grabbed
one of the cushions of the couch, burying his head in it. Just enough sleep, he
reminded himself. Robert felt that anything less than twelve hours of sleep was
very nearly too little.
He
grasped blindly for the TV remote.
Groaning
as he lifted his head, he looked at the empty table––his eyes drawn by another
flash of a passing car. He couldn’t see clearly, but he knew that the remote
had been there before he had fallen asleep nearly half a day
ago.
“Could
have sworn….” he mumbled as he pushed himself up and brushed his hand around
the top of the table, finding nothing. “Where did….”
Another
groan escaped his lips as he lifted his body to a sitting position and threw
aside the cluster of pillows that he had gathered around himself. He reached
out for the lamp, but instead knocked it to the floor with a resounding
thud.
Robert
muttered as he stood up from the couch, and then sank to his knees to search
around in the darkness for the fallen lamp. Reaching around on the shadowed
floor, shards of the broken lamp scattered like pieces of
light.
He
turned his head, peering beneath the large space underneath the couch and saw
the reflection of the buttons on the remote. The off-gray piece of machinery
was underneath the couch––only darkness lingered beyond it. He reached out as
he spoke again.
“How
did it get all the way down there?”
Robert
flexed his hand and strained as he twisted his back to reach farther; yet, the
remote remained just out of reach. He pulled his arm away with a huff and
craned his neck to the side, staring underneath into the darkness below the
couch.
His
eyes widened as he saw the impossible: there was something beyond the remote.
He shook his head and closed his eyes, whispering to himself that he didn’t see
what he thought he had.
“I
saw a little man,” he whispered to himself as he opened his eyes once more and
nearly gasped as he did so.
The
figure was closer now and he could make out the outline clearly. A tiny man
rested just beyond the remote.
“What
in the name of…?”
“Not
here in the name of nobody, laddie. I be a friend though,” crooned the
miniscule figure as he interrupted Robert and stepped forward, placing a hand
on the darkened and slick surface of the remote.
A
tam-o’-shanter crested his bright red hair, the shaggy mane blending perfectly
into his equally crimson, neatly trimmed, beard.
A
billow of whitish smoke drifted from the long-stemmed pipe that he held
clenched between his lips.
Robert
fell back and knocked aside the adjacent table. Rubbing his eyes, he spoke a
single word: “Leprechaun.”
About the Author:
Dan
O’Brien, founder and editor-in-chief of The Northern California
Perspective, has written over 20 books––including the bestselling
Bitten, which was featured on Conversations Book Club’s Top
100 novels of 2012. Before starting Amalgam, he was the senior editor and
marketing director for an international magazine. In addition, he has spent
over a decade in the publishing industry as a freelance editor. You can learn
more about his literary and publishing consulting business by visiting his
website at: www.amalgamconsulting.com.
Contact him today to order copies of the book or have them stocked at your
local bookstore. He can he reached by email at amalgamconsulting@gmail.com.
Would you like to win a remarked copy
of Conspirators of the Lost Sock Army and Loose Change Collection
Agency signed by the author and
illustrator?
