New eBook for Review: Christian-spiced Christmas Fiction ‘Slouching Towards Bellingham’ by Anneke Campbell

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Anneke Campbell will be touring December 5 – 16 with her Christian-spiced Christmas fiction novel, Slouching Towards Bellingham!

When a pregnant girl named Mary waddles into Bellingham, Indiana, she also wanders right into the hearts of its townspeople. Not to mention their imaginations: Because Mary’s a virgin!

Joe the postman is the first to spot her, struggling bedraggled and dirty down the road into town. He introduces her to Violet, the waitress at his favorite diner, who has her own reasons to be kind. Next thing you know their friend Dr. Bob’s examined her and proclaimed her a virgin.

And then the whole world wants a piece of her.

News stories are written; websites built; roving gangs of paparazzi set in motion. Throughout it all, Mary maintains sacred silence. Juggling a townful of characters, each with his or her own agenda, not a single one selfless or blameless, Campbell makes Bellingham come alive as she shows how each is changed by the apparent miracle.

This good-natured tale about an extraordinary event in an ordinary town pulls off the rare trick of being satirical, funny, and very, very real without ever sinking into the cynical. A great gift for anyone who reads—especially if they’re a mom.

BOOK EXCERPT:

What was that up ahead, slouching towards Bellingham, shaped roughly like a blue egg on matchsticks? Joe Dupree pushed his glasses up on his nose, shifted the mailbag onto his other shoulder, and picked up his pace. His right hip socket talked back at him louder than usual, which was to be expected in this weather, in the damp and threat of more snow. Could the egg be causing the footprints he’d been following, foot long and humanoid, as if from a creature dropped by a flying saucer, or, judging by the wheel tracks, let out of a truck on old Route 37?

Joe turned and walked up the first driveway of the Sycamore Hills Subdivision. He rang the bell and while he waited for a response, peered back over his shoulder, but his vision blurred the blue, and there flashed in his mind’s eye the prescription for new bifocals sitting on the mantel at home three months already. Because of his slow ways, here he couldn’t tell what he was seeing between the bare trees and bungalows. Something was up, this he knew from his internal weather, from an edge of alertness not caused by a thermos full of java.

Not that Joe was a superstitious man. He would be the first to tell you, his were sore but realistic bones. At work this morning, when the office manager recited the newest evidence of government cover-ups, with others throwing in their conspiracy theories, Joe said nothing. People believed what they wanted to believe, and all the talk could not assuage the underlying fear of more lay-offs and wage cuts, of a collapsing economy, of terrorism or natural disasters heading their way. It must be reassuring to believe that some devious persons were in control. A few of the other carriers could stick around for hours, deriving comfort from mouthing off, but he preferred to be out here under the open expanse of grey, with the quiet broken only by the rush of cars and barking of dogs.

The door opened to a man in a robe.

“Mornin’, Mr. Hogmeyer,” Joe said. “How ya doin’?”

“Could be worse, could be better.”

“Sign here, please?”

“Think we’ll have a white Christmas?”

“That’d be nice,” Joe agreed. He liked to be friendly, chat about the weather, ask after a relative or animal, although that was harder now his memory for names wasn’t as keen as it used to be, and less so since the switch of route two years ago. Walking the West Side for seven years, he had known most residents by name, dog and human. They knew his name too, and that he liked those home baked sugar cookies at Christmas, loading him up until he had to take the surplus to the Salvation Army. Along his new route, it seemed like fewer folks stayed home during the day. Except for Mrs. Deckart at the next house over, who might be waiting, reeking of strawberry perfume, wanting the mail delivered into her hands, which would fondle his, as she talked and talked, trying to keep him there. She would invite him in for coffee. Sorry, he would say, got my job to do.

He straightened his tall frame, and inhaled deeply the smell of damp earth and dead leaves, the indefinable smell of snow. He stuffed some catalogues into the mailbox and moved on to the ranch house beyond, which sported a row of elderberry bushes bearing red ribbons and shiny red balls– a measly display compared to the millennial show a decade back. Then it had seemed like the century’s approaching end had turned the usual Christmas depression into mania, with every home ablaze with decoration, and the constant talk of Y2K and the end of the world. Pressure had built, mounting in intensity, but neither computer glitches, nor the continuing little wars and crises had fulfilled apocalyptic expectation. September 11^th had done that job instead. Joe did not share in the shock that hit his fellow employees then, maybe because he had never felt that safe. The world was a dangerous place, so to see these folks feeling newly vulnerable, had only increased his sense of alienation.

The evangelicals had found abundant grist for their end-times mill, when those airplanes hit and the towers went down. The head clerk had formed a postal employees prayer group to usher them safely into every New Year since. Much of the decade had been accompanied by lay-offs or early retirements, with Saturday closings and the recent four day work week. Now, two years away from the dreaded 2012, Joe sometimes wished it were the end of the world, if only to shut everyone up.

Only nine more months to retirement, he reminded himself and let his thoughts drift forward in a southerly direction. Down to air soft and warm as a caress, to his retirement on a Bahama Blue 330 Coastal Wellcraft he would christen Celeste, to drifting in the warm water of the Keys, the heat of the day melting the aches from his joints, the ocean a sun-sparkled blur, a can of beer by his feet, drifting until he felt the fishing rod tighten. Since the oil spill, he couldn’t imagine the specific kinds of fish that would bite, nor those he would clean and eat, but he did have his eye on a lady to spend time with, one he imagined would like to fish in companionable silence.

The plastic angel over the Robertson bungalow door brought Joe back to the present. Its yearly reappearance always provoked a chuckle, it so resembled a blow-up sex doll with beige wings. This year the angel held in its hand not just its usual clarion, but an American flag.

After stuffing dozens more gift catalogues into the last subdivision mailboxes, wondering as he had so many times, who could afford to buy all this stuff anymore, Joe climbed into the postal Jeep and drove it to the U-turn at the Bellingham sign. He turned the wheel, and there it was again, the splash of blue against the gray landscape. He slowed his vehicle. The matchsticks revealed themselves to be skinny, bare human legs in dingy sneakers, which belonged to a very round girl, her head and body wrapped in a blue cape or blanket. Bruises stood out against the pale skin of her legs. Walking around barelegged in the cold, and pregnant too? She didn’t look up. Didn’t make a hitching gesture either. He had his job to do. There was no limit to needy creatures these days.

He pulled ahead of her, up to an iron fence, with scrollwork announcing “Elm Heights.” The gates opened to let him in.

Visit Anneke on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Slouching-Towards-Bellingham/183127415036037.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS BOOK IS ONLY IN EBOOK FORMAT. PLEASE MENTION WHETHER YOU NEED THE KINDLE OR NOOK FILE WHEN INQUIRING. THANK YOU!

If you would like to review Slouching Towards Bellingham, please fill out the form below or email Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife(at)gmail.com. Please mention which date would work for you. Deadline for inquiries end November 15 or until the tour is filled. Thank you!

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How do you make sales happen for you?

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