Friday Roundup: Book stuff, Glitter Princes, summer cocktails.


My friend Ray Black just got a great review from Kirkus Reviews for his middle-grade book, Ethan Weiss and the City Between Two Rivers, which I published this year through my company, Luft Books. The review calls his book, "An imaginative adventure in a fully realized alternate world that young readers will surely want to visit", which is an apt assessment. Check out the full review here.

No book giveaways to report this week, but all of my Kindle-formatted ebooks are priced at a very reasonable $2.99 at Amazon. Looking for summer reading? Here's a full rundown of my books, complete with descriptions and purchase links. Still not sure which book is right for you? Take this highly-scientific (if slightly outdated) quiz over at the official Luft Books website, and it should point you in the right direction. Or just start with Bias Cut--that one is generally a crowd-pleaser. Don't have $2.99 to spare? Eh, no worries. Leave me a comment here or Tweet at me, and we'll work something out.


Another Heroes Reborn trailer was released this week:


Yeah. It still looks kind of good. Damn it, I really want to hate it, because those final two seasons of the original series were just toxic and foul, but... I'm more or less sold. We'll see.

I'm still hard at work on my eighties-centric graphic novel, Glitter Princes. Over the past two weeks, I've introduced you to Marcel (see image at the start of this post) and Etienne; this week, it's all about Sebastian.


The de facto leader of the Glitter Princes, Sebastian is a struggling actor by day, secret agent by night. A compulsive embellisher, he is almost certainly not a member of British nobility, despite his claims to the contrary. Hell, he might not even be British. He's a charming bon vivant with a deadly streak.

Summer cocktail of choice: I'm a big sparkling wine buff. I gravitate toward brut Cavas in particular, the dryer and earthier the better (I would gravitate toward dry Champagnes, but Cavas are much cheaper, and I am not wealthy). Anyway, the perfect addition to a chilled glass of Cava on a hot, muggy summer evening? Watermelon juice. Throw watermelon chunks in a blender with a squeeze of lemon. Maybe add a little sugar if you'd like. No need to strain; watermelon purees down into liquid with very little pulp. Add a shot of it to your bubbly, and you have a beautiful, refreshing, elegant watermelon bellini. Shortcut: Trader Joe's sells an inexpensive watermelon juice that comes with the lemon already added.


(Back in May, our aunt from Alaska stayed with us for a week or so. During her visit, we took an expedition to the Met, then followed it up with lunch at Cascabel Taqueria on the Upper East Side. I ordered a drink--the El Capitan--which was Cava, ginger liqueur, and passion fruit puree, served in a pint glass. Basically, it was a pint glass of Cava, and it was outstanding. I recently leafed through an article on Princess Diana in the February 1985 issue of Cosmopolitan, which contained an offhanded mention that the Royal Family always drinks Champagne out of tumblers, not stemware. This is hands-down the most interesting thing I've ever heard about the Royal Family.)

I leave you with Andy Taylor's video for "When The Rain Comes Down" from 1985, back when he first quit Duran Duran for a solo career and was bumming around Los Angeles with his new friend Don Johnson, which explains why this one ended up on the Miami Vice soundtrack:


Until next week.

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