Lilliana--granddaughter Birthday Pics

 Who's a proud grandpa? I'm a proud grandpa!

We were down with the flu all week, so I'm just now getting a chance to post some photos from Lilli's 5th birthday party. Also, I didn't take all that many photos--I was busy eating pizza. But it was great, because all four of my grand-kids were there in the same place, and I don't get to see that very often. Also, cupcakes and ice cream.

Birthday girl!

When you're five, people your own age start getting interesting.

Also attending, of course, Lilli's sister Willa, along with Willa's Dad James.

So far they get along!

Grandpa's mission: Get Willa to smile. Mission accomplished.

Lilli has been, thanks to her mom Jill, getting into The Wizard of Oz. So Emily's and my gift to her was a volume of L. Frank Baum's first six Oz books, including the original illustrations--I read the books to her Mom, now it's Mom's turn.

Oz: The Complete Collection: (Illustrated First Edition) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Marvellous Land of Oz, The Woggle-Bu


Find Our books here:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

For Christmas: All the Books In All the Genres

 Well, here I am, making my annual appeal for shoppers to buy our books for Christmas. Once a year isn't so bad, is it? I have yet to make a promotional post in honor of Arbor Day.

But wait--there's more!

That's something sellers have to say, I'm not sure why. Our books should speak for themselves, but they aren't available as audiobooks yet. I thought this year I'd let the books figuratively speak for themselves, so here's a brief description:

 Storm Chaser, The Notorious Ian Grant:

The second is the sequel to the first, and both follow the basic romantic comedy outline: One of the couple is a homebody who loves their little town; the other comes from the big outside world and proceeds to spread trouble. One is a cop, the other kinda/sorta works in the entertainment industry. In the first, a woman chases storms, in the second, her brother is the storm. The other thing they have in common: We're preparing to reissue them after getting the rights back from the publisher, so at the moment you'd have to contact us direct for a print copy.


 

Storm Squalls: 

Short stories set in that Storm Chaser universe, formerly known as Storm Chaser Shorts--but improved with more content and a better title. I haven't been talking about it much, pending the reissue of its parent novels, but it includes a new short story I'm particularly proud of.


Coming Attractions:

 Like the Storm Chaser books, this romantic comedy is set in northeast Indiana and also involves an outsider, this one trying to get the local drive-in theater shut down. Here's a secret cameo: One of the characters from Storm Chaser makes a very brief appearance, although he's never named. Well, I guess I gave away that he's a he.


The No-Campfire Girls:

Also related to Storm Chaser, but more of a spin-off. This YA adventure stars Beth Hamlin, the irrepressible teen from the other books, who plots to defeat a burn ban at her summer camp with the help of a Native America rain dance. It doesn't end well.


Radio Red is the first romantic comedy I wrote, and it's a little heavier on both the humor and the sex (!) I mean, the publisher is Torrid Books, so what does that tell you? It's about an irreverent Michigan radio station owner who hires a down on her luck air personality just before someone starts sabotaging the station.

What's that, you say? You want some non-fiction? Maybe even some humor? Okay:

People should be full of good humor: Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving At All, proves my co-author (and wife) Emily and I are full of it. We traveled all over the state I love to find out all sorts of cool details about it, and then ... made fun of them all. But it's good natured fun, so ... there.

Slightly Off the Mark and More Slightly Off the Mark are collections of my newspaper columns: The first are columns that never published because the paper got bought out, and the second are edited, updated columns from around the early 90s. Interestingly, while the humor/history/trivia book Hoosier Hysterical has been my best seller this year, these two books have been my worst sellers. Guess I should have added more history and trivia.

Images of America: Albion and Noble County:

This one is part of Arcadia Publishing's Images of America book, photo-heavy volumes about local history. Despite being something you wouldn't expect anyone outside of Noble County to be interested in, it sold very well--which is good, because Emily and I worked hard to produce it. It's also the only one that made it onto the shelves of a Barnes and Noble (and a local CVS pharmacy!)

 

On an even narrower area of local history, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With the Albion Fire Department covers the first century of the fire department I served on for forty years. It's got a bit more humor, but of course it's still a local history book--and it took me 25 years to research and write! (I wasn't writing daily, of course.)


Wait, that's eleven. Am I missing one? No, I think that's it as far as what's published--more to come. There are also those anthologies I have humor pieces in: My Funny Valentine, Strange Portals, and The Very True Legends of Ol' Man Wickleberry (and his demise).

Where do you find all these, you ask? 

Thank you for asking, much appreciated. They can all be found on our website and on Amazon:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

And also on my daughter's website, White Birch Lane Boutique:

https://www.whitebirchlaneboutique.com/search?q=books

 

Most, but not all, can be found at other places:


https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

 https://books.apple.com/us/author/mark-r-hunter/id1025271801

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/coming-attractions-11

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/42934724

 

You can't get all the books at all those sites for various reasons, but all in all it ain't too shabby.

 

Remember, every time you gift a book, an angel gets his swim trunks. It gets warm up there.

 


 

Read a Scene From My New Novel In This Month's Newsletter

 This month's newsletter is out, and with it an excerpt from my newest NaNoWriMo novel, Christmas On Mist Creek! You can find it here:

 https://mailchi.mp/44770eabb377/a-free-read-from-nanowrimo?e=2b1e842057

  (By the way, if you sign up for the newsletter your e-mail address will NOT be sold or given to anyone else.)

I've completed the rough draft, and also won NaNoWriMo by going past the 50,000 word goal and hitting 59,296 words. The novel itself is actually about 56,500 words: The extra is the word count from other writing I did during the month, including writing a blog and the newsletter itself.

How long it will take to edit and polish the work, I don't know. I already saw some spots in the scene I posted that I'd like to change, including an opening that's a bit too stereotypical romance novel. But hey--that's what editing is for.


Remember, every time you sign up for a newsletter, Benjamin Franklin's ghost gets another beer. Ben loved beer--that's why he hung around Sam Adams.



(Also, don't forget: Buy books for Christmas!)

 Find ours:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"