July 2013

Welcome to Issue 36 of the SUPERIOR BOOK PRODUCTIONS newsletter!

My new novel The Best Place has now been released. It's my seventh novel set in Marquette and it includes some characters from past novels. Here's a little about it:

An irritating best friend gained during a childhood spent in a Catholic orphanage, a father who became a Communist and went to Russia in the 1930s, and 3:00 a.m. visits to The Pancake House. Such is the life of Lyla Hopewell. But in the summer of 2005, when her old boyfriend Bill has a heart attack, her best friend Bel really gets on her nerves, and Finn Fest comes to Marquette, things will change for Lyla.

Joined by a cast of Marquette's most eccentric and endearing characters—the foul-mouthed fourteen-year-old Josie; ninety-three-year-old Eleanor, still trying to fix her little brother's love life; ex-boyfriend and blunt womanizer, Bill; blind Mary Mitchell and her ornery sister Florence; the sweet but romantically confused cabdriver Sybil; and many, many more—Lyla recounts her life-story as she comes to terms with her past. After years of feeling unloved, neglected, frustrated, and unfulfilled, can Lyla finally find her own best place? More

Upcoming Events

Summers are always busy for authors. Join me and a dozen other authors at U.P. Authors Day on July 6th at the Westwood Mall in Marquette, MI from 11a.m.-7p.m. My fellow authors will include: Gretchen Preston, author of the Valley Cats series, Ida Nord, author of Shards of War and many more books, Mary Soper, author of The Hospital Handbook, John Parlin, co-author of Harvesting the Wilderness, Karl Bohnak, author of So Cold a Sky: Upper Michigan Weather Stories, Kathy Kuczek, author and illustrator of Hamsters After Dark, Donna Winters, author of the Great Lakes Romances series, Deborah Frontiera, author of Living on Sisu and many more books, and Randy and Kevin Kluck, authors of Yooper Bars.

You can also find me at the Outback Art Fair July 27-28 at Picnic Rocks in Marquette, MI.

More summer events are still in the planning. You can find the full list of my upcoming appearances at my website at www.MarquetteFiction.com.

Be sure to check out the latest great new books below, and thank you, as always, for reading the Superior Book Productions newsletter.

Tyler R. Tichelaar

New Books

Howard Pickman is a lot like most teenage boys—a little nerdy, not exactly popular, very smart and just trying to make his way through high school—with one added problem. His family has a secret, and when that secret is discovered when the book opens, it results in Howard's parents being torched to death and Howard fleeing in search of a safe place to begin his life over.

Howard's secret is that he comes from a family of ghouls—not ghosts—for the Pickmans are flesh and blood people and not unlike anyone else except that they must eat human flesh to survive. Being a ghoul is tough. Even after Howard escapes death and makes his way to his grandmother's home in New Jersey, where he starts life and high school over, trying to fit in, he still has to rob graves for himself and his grandmother so they can live. He's pretty good at grave robbing, but there's always a risk....

To read more, visit American Ghoul.

Brian Wayne Maki knows how frustrated computer users can be by the annoying little updates constantly popping up on their computer screens, interrupting their work, and leaving them confused whether or not to accept the update. In Little Annoying Updates, he walks the reader through a series of chapters, detailing various programs, the updates needed for them, and how to install or uninstall programs and updates. Updates include Flash Player, Java, iTunes and many others. Brian also discusses various browsers like Internet Explorer and Mozilla, offering advice on updates as well as suggestions on which to use. I especially appreciated his advice to renew your antivirus programs annually rather than for five years at a time because you never know whether in another year there won't be a better program than the one you currently have.

To read more, visit Little Annoying Updates.

When I first heard of It’s NOT Meant to Be a Secret, I admit I was skeptical. Who was this person who thinks God is speaking to him? Is he crazy? But when I read the book, I straightaway had my questions answered by the author, Nathan French, who says:

“Many people mock others who claim to hear God, and for just cause....The Bible, however, tells us that we are meant to hear God, and if that is so and God does speak today, we could argue that we might be ‘crazy’ not to want to hear him. Jesus said, ‘My sheep hear my voice and a stranger’s voice they will not follow’ (John 10:4-5). If he is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), that means he does not change, and if he does not change, it is time every one of us begins to learn how to hear him.”

To read more, visit It’s NOT Meant to Be a Secret.

In Discovering a Dynamic Marriage, author Joy Peterson answers up front the first burning question readers will have: “Why another book on improving your marriage?” Joy understands this question, having read countless books on marriage during the quarter century she has been a practicing psychotherapist and more than thirty years as a wife. And she rightfully asks, “How can it be that even after the millions of words written on the subject, the divorce rate still stands at 50 percent, as it has for the past half-century?”

Joy notes that even couples of faith fail in marriage just as frequently as others. In fact, she developed the Discovering a Dynamic Marriage program first at her own church when it became overwhelmed with the need for couples counseling. Now, even if couples can’t personally take the Discovering a Dynamic Marriage course, they can benefit from Joy’s wisdom and experience by reading this book together.

To read more, visit Discovering a Dynamic Marriage.

Fealty is the sixth book in Rowena Portch’s Spirian Saga, which tells the story of beings on this earth who live among humans but are more like angels. There are good Spirians—the Protected—and evil Spirians—the Shadows. Needless to say, the Protected and the Shadows do not get along.

Fealty is specifically the story of Rae, a new character in the series. Rae is a young female and the daughter of a powerful Shadow leader named Drake. Rae’s mother is dead, or so Rae believes, because she displeased Rae’s father. Rae and her brother have become allies against their father, and Nico has used his powers to “shield” Rae, meaning he prevents her father from using his own powers to know more about Rae than she wants, including that she has the powers of a healer.

To read more, visit Fealty.