SUPER MIDDLE GRADE MONDAYS GIVEAWAY
Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show
by Steve Bryant
Welcome to this week's Super Middle Grade Mondays Book Blitz presented by Tantrum Books/Month9books and Chapter by Chapter Blog Tours!
Today, we get up close and personal with Steve Bryant, author of Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show from Tantrum Books.
Be sure to enter the giveaway found at the end of the post!
Description
Lucas Mackenzie has got the best job of any 10 year old boy. He travels from city-to-city as part of the London Midnight Ghost Show, scaring unsuspecting show-goers year round. Performing comes naturally to Lucas and the rest of the troupe, who’ve been doing it for as long as Lucas can remember.
But there’s something Lucas doesn’t know.
Like the rest of Luca’s friends, he’s dead. And for some reason, Lucas can’t remember his former life, his parents or friends. Did he go to school? Have a dog? Brothers and sisters?
If only he could recall his former life, maybe even reach out to his parents, haunt them.
When a ghost hunter determines to shut the show down, Lucas realizes the life he has might soon be over. And without a connection to his family, he will have nothing. There’s little time and Lucas has much to do. Can he win the love of Columbine, the show’s enchanting fifteen-year-old mystic? Can he outwit the forces of life and death that thwart his efforts to find his family?
Keep the lights on! Lucas Mackenzie’s coming to town.
Praise for the Book
"I thought this was a great twist on the usual paranormal novels. Set against the backdrop of the 1950's, it is the tale of a 'midnight ghost show' that travels and puts on scary performances sort of like a freak show or circus might. The book reads like everyone is alive but in reality almost everyone you meet in the book is actually a ghost! [...] This is an exciting read all the way to the end! I really loved the way the author took this ghost show that is so wholly paranormal and set it in normal towns in the US even specific towns. It brings a new sensibility to the book and I really enjoyed it being set in the real world rather than in the afterworld as we see so much. You have to pick up this book if you love paranormal young adult books! Just be aware that there is a little bit of content that might be too risque for younger children, but it is basically between the kids in the book and it is all normal things kids would do. It is great and I am thrilled to have been able to read it!" ~ Erika Messer
"Lucas Mackenzie tries from the beginning of this novel to figure out who he is - but you quickly find out what he is - dead, but at 10 years old he already had a stage management job. Lucas wrestles with what he wants to be as he travels around the 1950s USA with a menagerie of real ghosts who act in wonderful performances as fake ghosts. Pursued by Dr Hull from the Paranormal studies department, thrilling audiences and meeting other ghosts in surreal locations this is a great read and I only wish it was longer." ~ Simon K. Beverton
"A really good story bridging life in the 50's, magic and ghosts together in a very clever way." ~ B-Town Blues
Interview With the Author - Middle School Thoughts
What is your favorite memory from school?
My favorite memory from middle school days was spending time at Verble’s Café, a hangout run by a classmate’s mom. It had snacks and a juke box, and we learned to slow dance with the girls we had grown up with, to songs by Johnny Mathis and Jimmy Clanton.
What is something you know now that you wish you knew in middle school?
I know to have paid attention to everyone, especially the shy or quiet kids who often turned out to be special adults. The most important was that girl with the blond ponytail, a seventh grader when I was an eighth. I eventually married her, but I hate it that we wasted what might have been an amazing school year.
Tell us your favorite book when you were in middle school.
I loved all the so-called Robert A. Heinlein juveniles, such as Time for the Stars and Tunnel in the Sky. If you had asked me then, I would have said I liked them because I liked science fiction. Years later I realized that I liked them because Heinlein always pitted boys and girls together against formidable odds, and romance ensued. I have always remembered to make romance a key part of any stories I write.
What was your favorite subject in school?
I equally liked math, because I was good at it, and English, because I loved it. All those books and poems were written for our entertainment. My eighth-grade English teacher lived to be 103, and to the end she would admonish us for spelling or grammar errors.
Any advice for kids heading back to school?
Enjoy every day. Middle school was my favorite time ever. Keep a diary or journal, and write down each night what you appreciated about that day. Even better, use your iPhone and take lots of photos and videos. How I would love to have those from my school days!
About the Author
Steve Bryant is a new novelist, but a veteran author of books of card tricks. He founded a 40+ page monthly internet magazine for magicians containing news, reviews, magic tricks, humor, and fiction; and he frequently contributes biographical cover articles to the country’s two leading magic journals (his most recent article was about the séance at Hollywood’s Magic Castle).
Giveaway
Enter the blitz-wide giveaway for a chance to win an ebook copy of Lucas Mackenzie and the London Midnight Ghost Show by Steve Bryant.
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