Bookmark Online Reads : General

Bookmark Online Reads
General

General

County Road by Parker Pruett

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It’s not really about a story, it’s about a place: small but special beyond compare. There’s 18 miles of snow white sand, bordered by warm gulf water and protected by a ban on high rise development. There’s restaurants and retail, boogie boards and bikinis, but most important there’s people. Those people are of a most unique nature. Jake Burns is one of those people. He’s a man without a mission.

Rating: 8/10

Gospel Enigma by E.J. Elsesser

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An enigma is perplexing, and a rather common plea from the pulpit these days is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations. So what is the problem? Where is the puzzle?

The enigma shows up as a person begins to consider the gospel Jesus Christ actually preached to his own disciples. It was called the “good news of the kingdom of God.” This kingdom gospel is not at all like the one we hear today. What happened to the original, and why has it become the neglected stepchild to a second gospel? Now there we have a great puzzle, but this is just the beginning.

Hold on to your seats; we are about to enter the bizarre world of right-side-up and upside-down theology. To keep us on an even keel, we have the help of some level-headed children. These youngsters will be our theologians, for it has long been said that the deepest mysteries open up to such as these.

Rating: 9.4/10

Absent Friend by Wes Boyd

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"What in hell am I doing in this burg?" Mike thought to himself as he got out of his rusty old Chevy Malibu and looked at the old wooden building on the corner across the street.

Back when he started in journalism school, he'd at least thought that he'd be working for a daily newspaper when he got out of school. But, he'd had resumes out for months, and even though he was near the top of his class, there hadn't been so much as a nibble, except for the one letter from the Spearfish Lake Record-Herald -- and he hadn't even sent a resume there.

Rating: 3/10

Dreamers of the Day by Jon A. Gored

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Wendy Xanadu was a seeker of knowledge, just another pilgrim on a journey through life. Her friend Pete Astor was an all together more exotic beast. He believed that he had some knowledge and he sought confirmation. Yet he faced much the same problems in attempting to know the unknowable.
Over the forty-hill and making a good living out of the music business, Pete Astor's experiments with a mind-enhancing drug directed him down a life-path where he suddenly had lots of money and the chance to use it without becoming a prime target for spongers. He was an overnight success in a business that urges its brightest stars to burn brighter and brighter until they burn out.
As he rode his tide of good luck and fulfilled life-long dreams, Astor did so with a feeling that everything could be changed back, and worse, if he didn't play his cards right. Almost every time he took the drug charm, he was in touch with the source of his good fortune. But Astor was struggling to find the border between reality and his visions. And he felt that he needed to know whether his luck would hold with dangerous people out to get him, whether he was putting friends like Wendy at risk and just how far he could trust his guardian angel ... or demon.

Rating: 6/10

Dreamer by Charles Hosford

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Dreamer, which is about someone who wakes up in a hospital with no memory and also can't move or speak at first. This is Blake who, after a couple strange experiences in the hospital, gets kidnaped by an ex-hippie, Weldon, who wants Blake's help in starting some kind of utopian religion. There's also a runaway girl, Mink, with dreams of stardom, a disillusioned old hippie buddy of Weldon's, Freek, with no dreams at all, and, as the story progresses, among other adventures, Blake visits the mall from hell, gets rescued by an Amazon from a couple of deprogrammers, becomes a looter in a riot, a hapless contestant on a sadistic gameshow, talks to a murder victim, is transported to the moon where he finds the Pentagon, is promoted to general, and goes to a strip bar called Gawd's with Sammy Davis Jr. and Linda Lovelace after they and several of their armed black supporters have lynched several Klan members, before Blake meets a character named Appetite who finally clears things up for him a little.

Rating: 8/10

Looking Through the Windows of Madness by Leo Vine-Knight

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Steven is a psychiatric nurse close to burnout. He senses that the boundaries between his own mind, the mental health unit where he works, and society itself, are becoming dangerously blurred. Glamorous nursing assistant Kate could be his saviour, but...

Rating: Pending

Facing the Storm by Wes Boyd

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When John and Candice Archer's jobs go bad and their kids are sent to lousy schools, they decide it's time to get out of the city and head back to John's home in Spearfish Lake. It takes a little getting used to because their lives are different there, and they can't help but change to face new circumstances and new opportunities as well as finding new friends and new interests. But then, their new friends are undergoing changes, too. One couple is having trouble getting used to a slow life after challenging but intensive jobs; another's stable long-time relationship is not so stable any more, and a third couple is facing having to give up a dream of decades to face the challenges of the real world. None of it is easy, but they're all in it together.

Rating: Pending

Alone Together by Wes Boyd

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Jon Chladek and Tanisha Blythe have a lot in common. They're very bright engineering students at Georgia Tech, they see a lot of things the same way, they each have families that have their own ideas about what they should be doing, and would go ballistic if they knew the two were seeing each other. When the chance of a lifetime comes, they're faced with a big decision -- whether to take the chance and pay the price they know they'll have to pay, or lose their dreams by following what their families want them to do.

Rating: Pending

Andromeda Chained by Wes Boyd

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The blonde jogger wore handcuffs! Brenda Hodunk couldn't believe the sight before her eyes as she jogged down Lakefront Drive. Her new job had already taught her that Spearfish Lake was a little different, but this was a little more different than she had expected. Yet her natural reporter's instinct smelled story, and she decided she needed to know more about what she'd seen -- and it leads her to places and things she never would have believed.

Rating: Pending

Dawnwalker by Wes Boyd

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College and the years just afterwards are pivotal for many people, having adventures and establishing their lives. It was especially true for Randy Clark and his three girl friends. They are very different people facing very different futures. Can their special friendship survive the problems and distances of the real world?

Rating: Pending

Absent Friend by Wes Boyd

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In 1970, a Spearfish Lake kid walked into a patch of jungle in Vietnam, and was never seen again. In an era when many people were tired of the war or just didn't care, most were ready to forget about him -- except for his friends, some of whom he'd never met, but who kept the faith anyway.

Rating: Pending

Runner's Moon by Wes Boyd

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Two kids, a dream, and acres of dogs . . . Josh and Tiffany want to become dogsled racers. They just have to grow up first -- and learn about what they're doing along the way.

Rating: Pending

Busted Axle Road by Wes Boyd

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A snake crawls out of a bathroom drain, and a woman kills it with her hair dryer . . . That's all it takes to set townspeople, media, crooked environmentalists, a country music singer, the federal government and a bunch of dogsledders to getting at each other's throats. Of course, nothing's quite normal in Spearfish Lake!

Rating: Pending

The Next Generation by Wes Boyd

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All she ever wanted was to be normal! Her mother considered Judith to be a hopeless invalid that would have to be cared for all her life -- but then she finds a boyfriend that doesn't see her that way. With his help, she learns to be a farmer's wife and a much stronger person than anyone had ever thought she could be.

Rating: Pending

Snowplow Extra by Wes Boyd

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In the middle of the worst snowstorm of the decade, the whole town was burning down. The only hope lay on two rusty steel rails . . . Nonstop action and adventure -- no sex or violence as railroad workers and firemen struggle against fire, storm, and failing equipment to relieve an isolated northwoods town.

Rating: Pending

Rocinante by Wes Boyd

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The only thing that kept Mark going in Vietnam was his plan to spend some time wandering the country by air, like barnstormers did 50 years before. In the last days before leaving, he acquires a partner -- a tall, morose girl named Jackie. They spend months on their aerial odyssey, falling in love along the way while having adventures that will turn into memories for a lifetime.

Rating: Pending