Simon Grey and the March of a Hundred Ghosts — Review & Giveaway

Thought for the Day:

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of ‘The Elements of Style.’ The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”
~ Dorothy Parker ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

Jane Friedman has a really important post HERE every writer should know about: A Writer’s Guide to Fair Use and Permissions + Sample Permissions Letter

The old adverbial bugaboo is covered nicely in the post HERE from Writing Forward.

Angela Ackerman wrote a guest post for Jami Gold’s blog HERE that will give you 7 Ways to Describe a Character’s Physical Appearance without boring your readers. It’s a good one.

Last week I offered a copy of My Fate According to the Butterfly by Gail D. Villanueva to one of you. The winner this week is Joanne Fritz. Congratulations, Joanne! I will get your book out to you soon. If you don’t know Joanne, she is a writer from Pennsylvania with a most interesting history. Go to her wonderful blog, My Brain on Books, by clicking HERE. Be sure to click on her About Me tab and read it. Fascinating. She was gone for awhile, but she is back, and I am so glad. I have another giveaway this week, so keep on reading.

The book review company I write for has a lot of services. Sometimes people will send their manuscripts and purchase a blurb. If we take that on, we read a few chapters and skim enough to write one. I did one of these a while back working from an ebook. This is something I usually won’t do. I just don’t like reading ebooks. I like to have a book in my hands, and I like to turn pages. I know. I’m such a Luddite. But since I didn’t have to read the entire book, I did the work and wrote the blurb. Anyway, I told the company if they ever got a print copy of the book in for review, I would really like to read it. They told the author, and he sent an ARC. I really like this book, and I think you will as well. It is Simon Grey and the March of a Hundred Ghosts by Charles Kowalski. Here is the review I wrote for the Tulsa Book Review.

Simon Grey wants nothing more than a good night’s sleep, undisturbed by the many, many ghosts that seem to haunt every corner of London in 1600s. Being the seventh son, Simon has been blessed (cursed?) with the ability to see ghosts. He takes a position as cabinboy on a ship sailing for the Spice Islands and Japan. It doesn’t take long for Simon to discover the ship is as haunted as London. Hit by a strange wave near Japan, Simon has washed ashore, where he is helped by some mystical beings, only to be taken prisoner by an evil man intent upon stealing Simon’s “gift.” While imprisoned, Simon meets a young girl who is half English and also has the gift. They escape the prison but have a difficult and dangerous journey ahead.

Author Charles Kowalski has written a terrific adventure that is filled with strange and amazing creatures from Japanese folklore and mythology and is steeped in Japanese culture. The story is intense and compelling, the characters are fascinating and jump off the page, and the writing is superb. This will delight middle-graders, both boys and girls, who are lucky enough to find it.

I have an ARC of this book for one of you. All you need do is be a follower or subscriber (it’s free!), have a U.S. address, and leave a comment below. If you would like extra chances, please share the link to this post on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media outlet and let me know you have done that. If you are reading this in your email, please click HERE to get to my blog, then click on the title of the post, and leave a comment. And don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at the Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.