The Secrets of Hawthorne House by Donald Firesmith is on virtual book tour. The teen paranormal mystery stops at Readeropol...
The Secrets of Hawthorne House by Donald Firesmith is on virtual book tour.
The teen paranormal mystery stops at Readeropolis with an excerpt.
Be sure to enter for a chance to win the giveaway for a signed copy of The Secrets of Hawthorne House or a $25 Amazon GC (1 winner each) and follow the Silver Dagger book tour (for other dates see the link at the bottom of the post).
The
Secrets of Hawthorne House
by
Donald Firesmith
Genre:
Teen Paranormal Mystery
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.
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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.
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.
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?”
I love the cover.
ReplyDeleteneat cover.
ReplyDeleteThe cover is really cool.
ReplyDeleteI love the cover! Great graphics!
ReplyDeleteabfantom at yahoo dot com
I like the cover a lot. As a kid and as an adult, I'd definitely pick the book up based on the cover alone, but (sorry, I'm being honest) as a teen I'd probably give it a miss because it looks like a book for tweens. The kid walking down the street with a backpack looks younger than the target audience for the book and kids that age aren't likely to read books they think are intended for elementary schoolers.
ReplyDeleteI think it looks mysterious
ReplyDeleteAddictedtorodeo at gmail dot com
Ashley c
The cover looks great!
ReplyDeleteThe cover really gives a spooky feeling.
ReplyDeleteThe cover is terrifically spooky! I love it!
ReplyDeleteI like the creepyness! Thank you
ReplyDeleteI like book cover.
ReplyDeleteThe Hawthorne house looks creepy.
ReplyDeleteThe Secrets of Hawthorne House is showing a person in the window with a background light on....is this person the mystery or is he/she looking at something of interest outside. All I can make out is a bird in the tree so will have to grab a cup of hot cocoa and a comfy chair and start my reading to find out all about the happenings with this intriguing book. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI love the spooky cover for sure!
ReplyDeletei really love the cover and the title. looks like a good one
ReplyDeleteLooks like an interesting book.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the contest.
The cover looks great.
ReplyDeleteI love the cover, to be honest. And my question would be, where did his inspiration for the book come from?
ReplyDeleteThe book cover looks very nice!
ReplyDeleteThe cover has me hooked. It looks spooky and chilling. My kind of read.
ReplyDelete