Friends,Writers,Blogosphere, lend me your ears;
I come to renew my blog, and shamelessly praise it.
The evil I do (by not posting) will not live with me;
And the good I now do (by posting)will not be buried.
(adapted from Mark Antony's eulogy in The Tragedy of Julius Caesar)
So, that last line above, well, I couldn't make it fit very well with the original Shakespearean wording. But, I think I did a fairly good job at telling you all that I still love my blog and readers, and because of this, I feel bad about not posting in such a long time.
It seems that I keep making vows to myself to keep blogging on a regular basis (just as I do with dieting and exercise and writing and the list goes on). Well, here I am making the vow again, and this time I will stick to it. So, Welcome Back!
Here is my Thursday Trailer feature for In the Shadow of the Lion by Kimberly M. Jane:
"Fifteen-year-old Kathleen Gallant is on an archaeological adventure at
Tsavo East National Park in Kenya when she unearths the grave of an ancient
woman known as Njeri. The natives are horrified by this discovery; Njeri is so
infamous that no local will even speak her name. They fear the discovery of
Njeri's corpse will bring about pestilence and disease upon their tribe. The
legend of Njeri goes back to the mystical Mchanga and Misitu War. This war was
fought long ago, and historians are still unsure of how it ended. It seems the
soldiers from this war apparently disappeared. Now news of local villagers
either gone missing and even some found dead are worrying her friends, but
Kathleen feels strangely drawn to the story of Njeri; she begins to have
nightmares and visions of a past life and a battle of wills. Someone is taking
over Kathleen's young mind-someone who wants revenge. With the help of her new
friends Sekani and Okechuku, Kathleen discovers the ancient war never really
ended. Under the influence of Njeri, she learns more about the past than she
ever expected to-and realizes she may become the weapon through which Njeri
exacts her revenge."
-summary from back cover
I am so intrigued with this novel! And, the music is so eerie and spookie that I almost got goosebumps just thinking about what this girl did with her demon-possessed, soulless black eyes and ancient, rusty dagger. A definate must read just from the premise! Also, to be honest, it reminds me of my own unpublished novel--the one where my main character, 17 year old Alex de Luna, merges with the spirit of 16th century Aztec girl. But, Alex's eyes don't turn black, and she doesn't get all "hood" crazy either.
Chapter 1, "The Guardians," (love this title, by the way) starts off with the near mauling of a boy by a sneering hyena. Apparently, the lions of the book title are not the ones to be feared in this chapter.
Now, I seriously need to go read it! The writing is really, really good from the beginning, and this is one way that I judge the quality of a novel and whether I want to keep reading it. Works everytime.
By the way, the trailer gets 5 Stars and the cover art gets 5 Stars...these are bonus factors to me.
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