Slightly Off the Mark

 Five teens who otherwise have little in common bond over a shared tragedy: Five years earlier a steel mill exploded in Splendor, Ohio, leaving the surviving townspeople grieving.

Now Franny and her brother Arthur join Sofia, Remy, Levi, and Nick in filming a mockumentary web series they call "Ghost Hunters". It's all for fun and distraction--until they witness the crash of a disk-shaped object that engulfs them in light ... and gives them supernatural powers.

Soon they're being chased by the government, threatened by the recluse accused of causing the steel mill accident, and discovering their unusual abilities are anything but a gift. Their attempts to solve the mystery and escape detection make up the plot, but the heart of the story is with the teens, as they try to deal with their grief and sense of loss from an all too natural tragedy.

 Emily Henry's 2019 novel manages to balance the two, giving us real characters adjusting to an unreal situation that may include Franny being possessed by an alien. There's plenty of action and some twists I didn't see coming, but I was most impressed with Henry's ability to portray her damaged teenage characters. I noticed there was a high school activity book related to the novel, so it appears I wasn't the only one struck by her grasp of story and characters.

It's certainly worth giving Emily Henry's other books a look.

• Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
• Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
• Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
• Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
• Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
• Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter
• Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember, authors who don't get enough reviews often get abducted by published aliens.

 The No-Campfire Girls is featured today on The Fussy Librarian newsletter, which is a great way to see free and bargain books. Check out their website:

https://www.thefussylibrarian.com/

But The No-Campfire Girls is always 99 cents as an e-book and just five bucks in paperback, which is pretty darned good. There's a nice article about the book and how it came to be written (complete with a picture of our dog!) here:

https://www.kpcnews.com/news/latest/newssun/article_3353901e-ff14-5d01-a815-e78667f481be.html

 Good publicity is ... well, good. As usual the book and all our books can be found on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K3OS35C

Or on our website:

http://www.markrhunter.com/books.html

 After all, no one ever got hurt by reading a book. Um, except maybe The Anarchist Cookbook.

Get the whole set!

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

I’m a little late passing it on, but I did indeed get a review this month of The No-Campfire Girls. As all fourteen of my regular readers know, half the proceeds from sales of this YA humor-adventure story go to support Girl Scout Camp Latonka in Missouri.

Spoiler alert: I think they liked it.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1592531371

Today my blog tour goes to the dogs with Bae, Sir Poops and Hair Ball on Shelly Arkon’s blog: 

http://shellysnovicewritings.blogspot.com/2014/05/sir-poops-and-hair-ball-napping-on-book.html 

Bae announces, in his own way, that we have print copies of The No-Campfire Girls on the way … and that the mailman who brings them is his.

            While the “official” announcement won’t come until next week, it seems once we got the technical glitches worked out Amazon was quick to put The No-Campfire Girls up as an e-book:

http://www.amazon.com/No-Campfire-Girls-Mark-Hunter-ebook/dp/B00K3OS35C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1399148095&sr=8-2&keywords=the+no-campfire+girls

            In fact, we got our first sale before I knew it was available! The print version should be for sale there before the end of the weekend, if it’s not already, and we’ll have the website at www.markrhunter.com ready soon to show the various ways to buy the book.

            Don’t forget, 30% of The No-Campfire Girls proceeds go toward Friends of Camp Latonka, to help with costs for the camp in southeast Missouri, which Emily attended and worked at. You can see the book’s description and dedication, and read chapter one, on Amazon.com.