The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Aaron Michael Ritchey's New Book: Elizabeth’s Midnight.
Author Aaron Michael Ritchey is the author of Young Adult, Science Fiction and Fantasy novels.
Elizabeth’s Midnight
Author: Aaron Michael Ritchey
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Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Meyers is an overweight, unhappy teenager enduring a dreary suburban life when her grandmother awakes from a catatonic state and announces that the two of them must go to France and solve four magical puzzles to reach a long-lost prince from another world. Elizabeth doesn't believe this, of course. She has no intention of helping her grandmother escape the nursing home, elude the authorities, find a way to steal passports and fly to Paris. And yet Elizabeth finds herself doing exactly that.
Excerpt from Elizabeth’s Midnight
GRANDMA MAY MISSING
A half an hour later, people packed Grandma May’s room—Beth, her mother, her sisters, and Mr. Cooper, the director of the nursing home.
Both of Beth’s sisters leaned against the wall, texting, maybe to each other, while Beth’s mother slowly drew a cigarette out of her pack like a sword from a scabbard. Mother Meyers was not happy they had called her from work. “Well, where is she?”
Mother Meyers. It was how Beth thought of her mother after the divorce. That was when everything changed. Even before the divorce Beth’s mother hadn’t been easy, which was why Beth’s father had run away in the first place.
Mr. Cooper gave a nervous little tick of a smile. “Don’t worry, Ms. Meyers, we’ll find her. I’m certain she didn’t leave the facility.”
Beth had been pushed to the very back of the room near the window. She glanced down and half-hidden underneath the bed was a little box of paperback books, the Earthsea trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin. Next to it was a pile of clothes and a toiletry bag. Had her grandmother been packing?
Beth thought of her whispered words. Our time has come, my love. Our time, finally…
What did that mean? Beth’s grandfather had died before Beth was even born.
Mother Meyers continued to chew on Mr. Cooper. She pointed at him with her unlit cigarette. “Well, you better find her. If you know what’s good for you.”
Cooper pulled at his tie. “Ms. Meyers, could you please put the cigarette away? There’s no smoking in the—”
She brandished her lighter. “Find my mother in five minutes or I will smoke. Right here.”
Beth’s sisters looked up from their texting to smile, showing teeth. Megan and Melinda were a matched set, pretty twins with heart-shaped faces boys adored and girls envied. Though Beth’s sisters were only freshman, they were already considered royalty. Beth was a junior, and no one knew her at all. She was just the weird girl in the big, blue coat. Nameless.
A trickle of sweat ran down the back of Beth’s neck. She felt stifled, and watching Mother Meyers bait Mr. Cooper made her sick. “I have to go to the bathroom,” Beth finally said. It was a good excuse to get out of there.
No one moved to let her out. Maybe they hadn’t heard her. More likely, they were ignoring her.
“It’s very odd.” Cooper gulped. “I can’t imagine where she went, though it’s not uncommon for catatonic patients to wake up with a certain level of dementia and then to—”
“Four minutes.” Mother Meyers held up her watch and the cigarette. “Get moving.”
Mr. Cooper fussed with his cell phone.
Mother Meyers nudged Beth. “You said you had to go to the bathroom, Bethie. Well, go then.” She pointed at the cramped toilet.
Beth did not want to go into such a small place. And she hated being called Bethie. “No, I’ll go to the one in the lobby. I need some air anyway.”
“Why?”
Beth shrugged. “I just want to, that’s all.”
A sigh hissed out of her mother. Beth stumbled past her sisters on her way out, and they both groaned.
“We have the weirdest sister ever.”
“Maybe we’re not related.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Beth fled from the chatter, out the door, down the hall. She edged her way through a crowd of people in the lobby, feeling her size and hating it. There were bigger girls at school, but compared to her sisters, Beth felt like a behemoth. She pulled her blue, down coat around her more tightly—her armor against the wind and anything else in the world that wanted to hurt her.
“Where are you, Grandma?” Beth whispered. Cooper’s words haunted her. Catatonic patients wake up with a certain level of dementia. What if Grandma May hurt herself? She was so old, so frail.
Distracted by worry, Beth pushed through the bathroom door and nearly ran into Rachel Phipps.
Pretty, popular Rachel Phipps from school was the last person in the world Beth wanted to face. Not after what Rachel had done to her so many years ago.
Author Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Literature & Fiction
Website: Aaron Michael Ritchey
Author's Blog: Aaron Michael Ritchey
Twitter: @AaronMRitchey
E-Mail: aaronmritchey@gmail.com
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Amazon Author Profile
Author Description: Aaron Michael Ritchey is the author of The Never Prayer and Long Live the Suicide King, both finalists in various contests. His latest novel, Elizabeth’s Midnight, will hit the streets May of 2015. In shorter fiction, his G.I. Joe inspired novella was an Amazon bestseller in Kindle Worlds and his steampunk story, “The Dirges of Percival Lewand” was part of The Best of Penny Dread Tales anthology published through Kevin J. Anderson’s WordFire Press. His upcoming young adult sci-fi/western epic series will also be published through WordFire Press. He lives in Colorado with his wife and two ancient goddesses of chaos posing as his daughters.
Author's Book List
The Never Prayer
Magdalena Marquez is a teen-aged girl struggling with adult responsibilities and choices. She knows right from wrong, but realizes that with her back against the wall and her brother’s life on the line the division isn’t as black and white as she wants it to be. Forced to choose between an angel and a demon, Lena must first confront her own broken dreams and allow herself to find hope again before she is stripped of all she loves. When do we struggle to change the world? When do we let go and embrace life’s broken beauty?
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- KOBO
G.I. JOE: Post-Traumatic Stress Commander
- Kindle Worlds NovellaCobra Commander is laying low, and the international terror market seems to be taking a break from the daily grind of world domination. But all is not as it seems. Especially not for a particular Joe.
Gung Ho, all around tough guy Joe, is starting to have problems. Trapped in a struggle with PTSD he is deteriorating, and must fight to regain control of his own mind. He must fight to overcome the shame of a condition he doesn’t think is valid or real. Stripped of his active status, he is enrolled in a specialty clinic to fight his nightmares of blood and rats—nightmares of being trapped in a New Delhi sewer with Cobra shock troops destroying everything around him.
The world seems to be going to hell, and Gung Ho is right there for the ride down. But at least he has help. At least he has a doctor who understands what he is going through. That is… until a hooded figure, also suffering from PTSD, as well as paranoid delusions, is also checked into the facility.
Weaponless and trapped in a facility with ultra-high tech security, Gung-Ho and Cobra Commander must face their mortal enemies—and the terrors of their own minds if they are to survive therapy and each other.
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Long Live the Suicide King
Seventeen-year-old Jim JD Dillinger knows exactly how his miserable suburban life is going to play out. At least drugs added a little chaos to his life, but after almost losing his soul, JD knows he has to quit. Now clean, he figures he has another sixty years of plain old boring life followed by a nasty death. JD decides to pre-empt God by killing himself. However, once he decides to die, his life gets better, more interesting, and then downright strange. New friends. Possible romance. And donuts. Lots of donuts. Once the end is in sight, every minute becomes precious.
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Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
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Thanks to all for the support! This book is special to me. I wrote it when the whole publishing game seemed to much for me...the impossible dream I was too afraid to keep on chasing down. I was in an elevator at a reader convention, about to retreat into my room, when I realized I was like the Elizabeth in my novel. I was her. Questing. Because they don't call them easies, they call them quests. Let's do the impossible.
ReplyDeleteAaron: Keep up the great writing. I hope romance readers will find you at the Romance Author Dreams Convention in Phoenix which Starts 5/27 thru 5/31/15. http://bit.ly/1Dvq6hJ
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