Reviews to come.. I promise! I am almost done reading
Once Upon A Toad so expect that this week! This qualifies as news, I suppose, even if the YA author in discussion is me..
I feel like giving!
That's right. I feel like doing a little impromptu giveaway! The first 10 people to email "I want Ricky" to henry@myhenrycircle.com will get a free Amazon code for my new story, "A Very Ricky Sunday." No weird catch or anything! You don't have to review it, blog or tweet. I just have a lot to celebrate and want to send some laughter your way!First page of a "Very Ricky Sunday" here:
“This here tie feels like a noose ‘round my neck. Can’t you loosen it up just a little? I’m suffocating. And why I got to wear your dang boyfriend’s clothes? Looks like I’m wearing my dad’s threads. (‘Course if I was really dressed like my daddy, I’d be wearing an orange jumpsuit, if you know what I mean.) Why I got to go to church again? Your brother done lured me over by telling me he had the bloodiest, gruesomest video game ever been made. I was all excited, and then ya’ll hold me down and put this tie on me,” Ricky whines. “Ya’ll know it’s wrong to trick a dude like that.”
I stand back and look Ricky over. In David’s khaki pants, light blue button down shirt, and navy tie, he looks a far cry from the hick bully I was dodging in tenth grade. He looks normal. Almost handsome, with his platinum hair slicked back and his air horn of a mouth closed.
“Ricky,” I say, noticing the green enamel leaf poking from underneath his tie, “You’re going to have to lose the pot leaf necklace. Seriously. You’re not wearing that into a Pentecostal church. Unless you’re in the mood for an exorcism.”
He sighs and unfastens his chain. “My grammaw gave me this. Fine. But I ain’t putting on them penny loafers over there. I am keeping on my tenny shoes.”
“Those are dress shoes, but okay, never mind. You’re passable now,” I say, “Let’s get a move on.”
“I don’t want to go to church. Ya’ll go on without me. You know me; I can’t sit still for long. I get antsy. I get all sweaty in my pits and privates. Bad nerves, I reckon. How’d you get Kip to go? I thought your brother was acrostic.”
Kip swaggers up to us in a full power suit. His suit and his immaculately groomed mustache make him look like a five-foot-tall stock broker. “Acrostic is a poem, my friend. An example: K – knowledgeable, I – intimidating, P – powerful. I believe you mean to say ‘agnostic’. And to answer your question, Christina paid me to go.” Kip is the first fourteen-year-old, mustached, evil genius I have ever known. And he’s my only sibling. Lucky me.
