Summer, 1964, and for Bobby Slater, 1 of those rich summer kids up on Baker Lake, it's idyllic - swimming, fishing, baseball, hiking the mountains around the lake, camping on the islands, but what Bobby wants is a girlfriend.
Be careful what you wish for, Bobby
Bobby gets his girl, a local Indian cutie and it's 1 soda, 2 straws, foreheads touching, eyes lost in love. It's bliss except the girl is fickle. Sometimes she's sweet and funny, sometimes not, and it's because she's living with a 150 year old curse.
Bobby will lead the fight against the curse and he'll have help from people living and dead. He'll have his sisters and his loyal sidekick, best friend-cousin Joe, who spends summers with the family, and Bobby will have a grumpy Indian war chief and the local gypsy fortune teller and from the other side there's the Indian girl's mom, dead 10 years, a victim of the curse. Mostly, though, it's on Bobby Slater. Can he break down the barrier that divides the summer people from the locals? Can he bring them all together to save the girl?
Hugh Centerville lives in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York State. He is the author of the Christian theology fantasy novel, The Denouement, and 2 books of paranormal boomer fiction, Bobby Slater's World, and Lottie Barrett Lives (Again.).
★
It’s Halloween night, 1966. Thirteen-year-old Lottie has been dead a hundred years and the kids go up to the graveyard with the book of spells Charlene Pendergrass swiped from Miss Robespierre. The kids are going to have some fun scaring themselves, bringing Lottie back, but it turns out Miss Robespierre isn’t the faker everyone says she is and there’s nothing fake about her book either and now there’s a ghost-girl walking the streets of Hope Mountain and what to do with her?
Maybe nothing.
Lottie’s no zombie ax-murderer. She’s just a peculiar kid who wants to be a teenager, something she missed the first time. What else she wants is Bobby Clyde, cutest boy in the freshman class, and how can Bobby resist? Lottie is cute and sweet and funny, or are those things illusory, a witch’s spell on Bobby? And what’s Bobby going to do when it’s time for Lottie to go back up onto the hill? Bobby is determined to go with her. Lottie doesn’t think he should go but she doesn’t think she could live (or die) without him. Only Bobby’s mom and big sister can save him and before they can save him, they have to convince themselves it really is true, and there isn’t much time.
Satan very nearly conquered The Father at The Great War. For one “brief, astounding moment,” it appeared as if Satan’s rebellion would succeed but Michael the Archangel rallied the Legions of The Heavens, and Satan and his followers were cast out. Marooned in a world that was “cold and dark and empty,” Satan vowed to one day succeed where he had previously failed. Through the Ages, the Dark Times, Satan has labored to build the Kingdom of Hell and out of the nothingness has come a kingdom that, for all its misery and treachery, rivals the might of The Heavens. Satan has an army that is battle tested, the indomitable Black Legions, and a corps of wizards that, Satan believes, has raised him to the level of a god more powerful than The Father.
While Satan has built his kingdom, The Father has become more and more reclusive,the reclusivness the source of intense angelic speculation. Does The Father love Satan more than He loves the faithful hosts? Is that why The Father allowed Satan to survive The Great War? Did The Father intend for Satan to emerge triumphant at Armageddon? Does The Father need it to happen, to attain His own perfection?
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