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About The Books:
Title: WILD ASSES OF THE MOJAVE DESERT &
GOBBLEDY
Author: Lis Anna-Langston
Pub. Date: October 20, 2023
Publisher: Mapleton Press
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 302
Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/WILD-ASSES-OF-THE-MOJAVE-DESERT
A modern girl caught in the chaos of
the modern world, Skye takes a drastic turn when she escapes a toxic
relationship. Driving across country she seeks solace at her sister's house in
the low desert reuniting with her best friend Dylan, whose discovery of a
mysterious rock sparks a belief in its magical properties. With the help of a
psychic, her sister, her ex, a phantom dog and a little Ho’oponopono Skye
weathers the unexpected twists and turns during the course of a summer that
changes her life forever.
…a journey away from the familiar and
into the desert of discovery…As relationship quandaries, marriage
possibilities, and good and harmful emotional connections emerge against the
backdrop of the desert environment, readers receive a multifaceted story that
connects via both emotional and landscape twists of perspective.
“Wild Asses of the Mojave Desert is a
novel that pulls at heart and mind alike. Through Skye's journey and process of
letting go everything she's held tightly throughout her life, readers receive a
compelling saga…”-D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
Title: GOBBLEDY
Author: Lis Anna-Langston
Pub. Date: October 20, 2023
Publisher: Mapleton Press
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 233
Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/GOBBLEDY-LANGSTON
Read for
FREE with a Kindle Unlimited Membership!
Ever since eleven-year-old Dexter
Duckworth and his brother, Dougal, lost their mom, everything has been
different. But “different” takes on a whole new meaning when, one day just
before Christmas (or Kissmas, as they call it), Dexter finds a golden rock in
the forest that hatches into an adorable alien. Gobbledy is smarter than he
seems and is lost on planet Earth. Before long, Gobbledy takes Dexter, Dougal,
and their best friend Fi on an adventure of friendship, family, and loss—one
that requires them all to stay out of trouble, protect Gobbledy from a shadowy
group called the Planetary Society, and prepare for their school’s Winter
Extravaganza Play, where Dexter has to be a dreaded Gingerbread Man.
Gobbledy is a fun-filled holiday story that adds up to two
brothers, three friends, unlimited jars of peanut butter, a ketchup factory,
and one little alien far, far from home.
“Hugely entertaining as well as
emotionally moving." ~ Kirkus Reviews
"This charming alien-in-the-attic story boasts engaging characters, witty
storytelling, and a furry little beast that will eat anything, all wrapped up
in a warm holiday package." ~ Booklife
EXCERPT of WILD ASSES OF THE MOJAVE DESERT
Chapter One
The summer I left South Carolina, mice went to live in my car. To get on with the next stage of my life, I abandoned art, stationery, vintage coats, old mail, Mardi Gras masks, and a prop sword from the movie Alexander in my trunk. In the smoldering heat of summer, rodents sought refuge in my Honda, parked in the shade of the last few trees left in the desert.
The mice set up house in gifts from my ex that carried the weight of conflict. Three hundred yards away, inside a cool, air conditioned room, I set up house in my sister’s extra bedroom, certain I had PTSD. The mice built a life from junk I was too shell-shocked to leave behind. Like a smooth second hand rolling around the dial, time passed. It didn't heal or fix things. I didn't have a map of my life, just a feeling that connected to a feeling that connected to a feeling. I'd gone too far out into that wide-open space that turns back on you and howls. I pressed wildflowers into the pages of my favorite Murakami. I was a mess.
That weekend, my sister broke up with her boyfriend and stacked his measly crap on the front lawn. That wasn't really the problem. The problem was his latest piece of ass. His new girlfriend drove over to pick up his Elvis Costello CD collection. That was an error in judgment, because my sister is a fighter, not a lover. My sister put on her ass-stomping boots, and thus began a new chapter in our lives. The bail bondsman was a family friend. More than a friend really; he was Dylan Wilde's cousin. After that incident, everyone knew I was back in town.
July started with a swarm of insects. Beetles. Because why not? I'd built a deep Jungian nightmare for myself over the last six years and I needed a job. The slow buzz of fluorescent lights above my head pushed me closer to insanity. I lie. I was already insane. I just couldn't put my finger on why. Like, how does your life just fall apart? Deep anxiety welled in me every time I thought of letting go. But I had to. That's why I was in the kitchen poring over job sites, listening to lights buzz.
Sheets of acid allowed me to escape my former relationship. It was a sweet deal in terms of cash. The stress of getting caught was another conversation altogether. I cut the sheets into book markers, slipped them into plastic covers and carried them around in library books. No one ever thought to check. No one thinks a girl with a passenger’s seat full of books about French poetry is a drug dealer. I missed the maple tree I had in my front yard in South Carolina, and the fog that hung low off the river. It kept me company. The money was gone. I was sitting alone, doing career building exercises.
Back to the beetles, though. The back door that led to the patio and down the narrow strip of gravel to the driveway was crawling with bugs. Dylan found me in the kitchen with the buzzing lights, watching bugs skitter. He'd moved into a trailer out in the desert, eating hash brownies and tracking UFO sightings in a journal he won at a rodeo raffle. It was a small town. Rumors flew constantly.
I pulled a bag of jellybeans out of my backpack.
"What's up with the creepy bugs?" He said, grabbing a handful.
I shrugged, sneaking a glance at their skinny legs.
"Maybe the heat is bringing them out," Dylan said.
"Do you think we should call the landlord?"
"I think if it gets any worse you should call a priest."
That night I dreamed that, two thousand years in the future, scientists carbon date my memories and determine that my last relationship never existed.
The mice were still living in my car. I couldn't figure out how to tell Dylan. Or if it mattered. In the beginning, there was matter and antimatter. It all mattered. Mice and insects seemed like a lot to process, so I left it out. Dylan heckled me to come out to the trailer. He was seeing weird things in the sky.
"Nothing less dope can't fix," I pointed out.
"Haha, ye of no faith. Seriously, ride out there with me."
I took the mice. Well, maybe not intentionally, but I knew they were in the car. Also, I was hoping they'd like Dylan's place and climb out. They could catch a ride with me back into the city if the snacks ran out. Dylan loved Captain Crunch. He ate huge bowls of sugar coated puffed peanut butter bliss. It was the only thing he knew how to cook. Remy talked him into pizza a few times, but he only went for the beer.
Speaking of beer, when he handed me a bottle of brew I asked, "Have you been abducted yet?"
Dylan sighed. "Smartass."
From that response, I imagined we'd sit in the desert, drink beer and stare at the sky until we were too drunk to move.
In my absence, Dylan had spent money on decent lawn furniture. With the sun setting over craggy mountains it was genuinely nice to toss aside the stress of the last six years and enjoy a cold one. Dylan had upgraded his beer taste from domestic to import. With a bag of vinegar and salt potato chips, we sat in the dusty silence of a desert on the verge of night.
"What was that?" I blurted out, watching an object run super fast out of the corner of my eye.
Dylan snapped his head around. "What? Where?"
I pointed towards a patch of scraggly bushes a few hundred yards away. We both sat perfectly still, holding our breath, watching. Then, again, it ran, darting from one place to the next using the bushes as cover. I leaned forward, the sound of my chair creaking. "Is that ..." My voice trailed off, waiting for confirmation.
Another dart, but slow enough to make out a form. Beer sloshed in my stomach. Whatever was in the distance stopped long enough for me to get a clear picture. My brow pinched tight. "Is that Charlie?"
Dylan launched himself out of his lawn chair, yelling, "Grab that rope."
I tossed the chair off, standing quick, realizing in one single, sudden motion that I was tipsy, possibly drunk. Dylan ran across hard-packed earth, legs wobbling from alcohol and speed. I looked around quick. A plain piece of rope was on the metal table next to me. I grabbed it and followed, pretty sure all the beer I'd consumed the last hour was about to be reintroduced to the world.
I did some fast math in my head. "Hey, how old is Charlie?"
Dylan crashed to a stop in a bush and pushed himself upright, blood seeping from scratches on his forearms. "Charlie died three years ago. Of natural causes."
A wave of overwhelming hopelessness seized me. "Then what are you looking for?"
Dylan turned, the last few rays of sunset washing him in an otherworldly glow. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. In that silence, I saw what every girl had ever seen in him. The full mouth and magnificent eyes, not dulled by alcohol but instead dazzling, broad shoulders squared against the moment, perfect hands that held tight to beer bottles but held a future of intimacy, maybe.
He exhaled, arms dropping to his sides. "I keep seeing this animal out here and it looks like Charlie. Explain that."
"So, you're out here chasing a phantom dog?"
"That's bullshit. It's not a phantom dog. Don't make me out to be a wingnut. You saw it too. Saw it first, I might add."
A low rumble arrived on the horizon, the ping of rocks hitting the underside of a vehicle.
"How many times has this happened?"
He rolled his eyes and stepped out of the bushes, looking around to make sure the dog was gone. "I don't know. Maybe a dozen. That's why I started keeping the rope on the table."
It was the first time since seventh grade I'd seen Dylan plan for anything. The vehicle was close, and I turned. There, through the dusty windshield, I clearly saw the face of Trevor squinting over his steering wheel at the two of us, standing in the middle of the desert, dirty, a little drunk, with me holding a piece of rope in one hand.
Trevor parked his truck and got out. "Everything okay out here?"
And that was how I reunited with my high school crush.
Dylan rubbed blood from his forearms. "Let's keep this between us," he whispered.
The truth was too awkward to convey to outsiders. "Deal," I said.
Trevor watched as we hiked back to the trailer. The sun made its way to the other side of the world. Trevor looked so intense, silhouetted with his mohawk and combat boots. My punk rock cowboy.
"I saw Remy down at the Sav-A-Dollar. She said you moved back."
Trevor caused me to have huge lapses in reason. I'd spent my entire senior year making out with him in the very same truck now parked in the driveway. Well, there was no driveway. It was a big, empty stretch of dirt, but you get the point. I sat on the tailgate drinking malt liquor instead of making good college choices. The tattoo of a dragon curved up Trevor's neck, and my tongue always went with it. He was one of the last people to still have a lip piercing. A metal hoop I chipped my tooth on. We were like two molecules of dust, full of surface tension. One second in his hands, and I'd change from solid to liquid, evaporating in his palms.
The aluminum door slammed shut behind Dylan, bounced, then hung open.
Trevor glanced at the door. "Is he mad at me?"
The question caught me off guard. "He lost something," I said, in a stroke of vague brilliance.
Trevor's eyes squinted into the vast expanse of desert. "What could he possibly have lost out here?"
Ready to be done with the conversation and get on to making out in the back of that truck, I said, "His mind."
Trevor laughed so hard he forgot to press for a real answer. Evasion is all about delivery. Dylan walked out of the trailer, face glistening, wet hair pushed back off his forehead.
According to the Law of Truly Large Numbers, with a large enough sample any outrageous thing is likely to happen. Straddle these worlds.
I was thinking about that when Trevor turned around in his chair. "What is that scratching sound?"
Before I even had time to ponder such a question, I knew the answer. The mice. They were in my trunk, performing strange mouse rituals.
Dylan flipped the outside flood lights on and looked around. The rest of the desert was pitch black. I straddled this world of mice and men.
In my attempt to not reveal the mice, I averted my eyes and noticed what appeared to be a wedding ring on Trevor's finger. "You're hitched?"
"Six years."
I choked on my beer. "Who's the lucky girl?"
"Jenny Wormgood."
"You married Wormy?" I wiped beer from my chin.
Dylan walked behind Trevor and frowned. I knew what he was thinking. And trust me, I was trying to find the self-discipline to shut up.
In the distance, I saw headlights. By sheer speed and the wild careening over pot holes, it had to be my older sister. Stella skidded to a stop, threw open her door, and stepped out wearing jeans and cowboy boots. I'd never seen her wear anything else. When she was eight years old, Pawpaw took her into a western store to buy a new hat for long days on the tractor. Jeans and boots had been her uniform ever since. No one messed with her in high school, and by extension, no one messed with me or Remy, either. While most girls crossed their legs pretentiously to show off wedges and strappy sandals and skin, Stella clomped through life in old cowboy boots.
"Hey," Dylan yelled. "Whatcha doing so far from civilization?"
"I just got outta class, and I need a drink before I melt down."
I turned around to face her completely. "Are you okay?"
"No. I am not okay, baby sister," she said, flopping into a chair.
My heart sped up. "What happened?"
She reached into the beer cooler and sloshed her hand around. "I just got outta class and I have to write a paper on the Nature of Reality. What the fuck is THAT supposed to mean?"
Dylan glanced at me, suspicious but unsure. Stella was his wild card. Once, in high school, they smoked way too much dope while his parents were at work. They made out on the living room floor to the sounds of the Roadrunner beep-beeping, and Stella still claims the sound of a coyote crashing to the dusty bottom of a ravine is sexually arousing.
Trevor's arms fell open, parallel to the night sky. "That's exactly what we're out here contemplating."
It was funny hearing Trevor use words like contemplating because, even though I was the epitome of a modern girl, I still expected smokin’ hot guys to be a little dumb.
Stella glared at him out the corner of her eye and dug her underwear out of her butt, which I knew was a thong, because I lived across the hall and she left her dirty clothes everywhere. "Great. So, what the fuck is the nature of reality exactly?"
I looked at my sister, ready to save her from herself. "This. These electrically charged particles crackling through the air. The holy grail of neurons firing in our brains. Stars blazing and humming and communicating by pulse and frequency. The circle of us in the desert, at this very moment, with all the conditions lined up perfectly. Things like gravity and distance and speed and light. That's part of the nature of reality. Think of time like a fabric, every moment a thread."
Stella blinked, her beer sweating in her hand. "What the fuck were you doing all those years in South Carolina?"
The truth?
I was working at this quasi-massage parlor out by the airport, while my boyfriend learned to play the guitar. I didn't have to do the old rub-and-tug because I was just a receptionist, but the pay was good, and in the middle of two back-to-back recessions I was kinda grateful to be able to stare at the ceiling and contemplate the nature of reality while men groaned on the other side of thin walls. I also learned to draw my feelings.
Trevor tipped his beer in my direction. "Check out big brain over there."
I woke up in my bed the next morning, the tips of my cowboy boots pointed straight up at the ceiling. I stared at the smooth white paint. I couldn’t remember how I got home, only that beer makes me ache, and kinda stupid. I rolled over, wondering how many years had to pass before I was grown up enough to remember how I got home after a cooler full of fun.
I kicked off my boots, left my jeans on and walked down the hall topless, knowing my sister was at work. Dylan was sitting on the sofa, pulling a little rake over the pristine sand of a Zen garden. My arms flew to my chest.
“I’ll get a shirt,” I said, spinning around quickly.
Dylan laughed, “Why bother now?”
“Perv. I thought I was alone.”
“We’re never alone, Skye. Never alone.”
I grabbed one of Stella's tees laying on the hall floor and walked back to the living room.
Dylan was in the kitchen, opening the freezer. He paused, and even though I couldn’t see him, I knew what he was looking at. “Do you know you have a dead chinchilla in your freezer? At least, I hope it’s dead.”
“Haha,” I said, walking into the kitchen and shutting the freezer door.
His prying eyes turned on me. “What’s going on? Why do you have dead rodents in the freezer?”
“Because I have a hard time saying goodbye. I just really cared about her, and didn't want to leave her behind.”
“What was really going on in South Carolina?”
I scooped coffee into the filter. “I was dating the drummer from this punk rock band.”
Dylan exhaled so loud I could hear it over the running water. “I thought you said he was learning to play the guitar?”
“He was. He was in this whole transition phase, writing a bunch of folk music.”
Dylan blinked without moving, like one of those strange insects on nature channels.
I flipped the switch to make magic beans brew.
“So, you were off with some confused douchebag trying to find himself, while Trevor was back home fucking up his life by marrying some girl he doesn’t love?”
“Did he tell you that?”
“She’s having sex with some guy at the assisted living facility.”
“A patient?”
“Gross. No. Some guy.”
This was a TMCBC moment: too much conversation before coffee.
"Why are you even here?"
He shrugged. "I was trying to get Stella to have sex with me."
"Did it work?"
"No." He reached for a coffee cup, then said, “Listen. I want to show you something.”
We’d been on a dirt road for a while, when the charred remains of a car came into view. Instinctively, I looked out the back window to make sure we weren't followed.
The car was burnt to a total crisp, like it had burned for days. Dylan pulled to a stop a few yards away. The whole scene felt cinematic as I stepped out. The creaking, the charred skeleton of a car, the thump of boots on dry ground. A dusty cooler lay open, knocked on its side a few feet away.
“There’s a cooler over here.” I tipped it with the toe of my boot. “And it’s empty.”
“Yeah,” Dylan said, walking to the burnt car. “It had tubes of bull semen in it.”
Two car doors laid haphazardly in the brush, where they must have blown off when the gas tank exploded.
“Bull semen?”
“Yeah, it’s quite a commodity, and will allow me to live without bill collectors for a few months.”
I stared at him under the blazing light. Rugged. Manly. Crazy. “You’re serious?”
“Quite.”
“Did you know the person in this car?”
“No,” he shook his head. “I just found it.”
Turning in a circle to illustrate the complete isolation, I asked, “Really? You just happened to find this burnt-out car in the middle of nowhere, with a cooler full of bull semen?”
“It wasn’t really a cooler full of bull semen. It’s kept in canisters inside the cooler, inside these things called 'straws'. But, yes. You make it sound a little more exciting than it was.”
“Okay –” My question was cut off by my inability to actually want the truth. “Dylan, how did you find this place?”
He looked at the car for a minute, his eyes falling on the charred hood, warped and twisted. “Charlie led me out here.”
The wind changed course. The burnt smell of plastic assaulted my nose. “Your phantom dog led you to a burnt-out car in the desert?”
“It was still on fire when I got here, but yes. Something like that.”
“Why did you bring me out here?”
He pointed to the other side of the car and said, “Follow me.”
I followed Dylan two hundred yards away, and stopped. There, in a small charred hole in the earth, a pink-gold stone glowed.
“Whoa,” I backed up. “Is that thing radioactive?”
“I don’t think so. If it is, I’m screwed. I’ve been up close and touched it.”
“You touched it?”
“Well, yeah. Anyway, I don’t have signs of radiation poisoning.”
“Yet.”
He actually took the time to make eye contact before rolling his eyes.
“Were there bodies?”
“No. Not that I saw.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Just bull semen?”
He nodded. “Which I’m not saying was legal.”
"There’s a black market for bull semen?”
“There’s a black market for anything.”
“Okay,” I said, confused. “Where do you think the stone came from?”
Dylan jabbed his finger at the sky in an insistent way, and said, “I think it’s a meteorite. And I think it might have hit the roof of this car and ignited it.”
“Which explains what?”
Dylan shrugged. “I think this rock is here to help us find meaning in our lives. It landed the night you arrived.”
Instead of saying something rational, I blurted out, “Mice are living in my car.”
Dylan bent over my trunk, the seams of his jeans straining, and said, “My god, this tunnel system is amazing.”
I’d noticed the near perfection of their living arrangements. Which made it even harder to get rid of them.
Dylan poked his finger around at a pile of stuffing from the vintage coat. “How long have they been here?”
“I noticed them after I got back, but they could have come from South Carolina. Do you think they’ll chew through any wires or hoses?”
Dylan straightened up, backing away from the trunk. “Maybe, but mice are pretty savvy. They’ve got a good thing going. Mice are opportunists.”
“Says the man who has black market bull semen.”
He shrugged, dusting his hands off and closing the trunk. “You wouldn’t turn your nose up at thirty-eight thousand dollars.”
“What?”
“Yep. Listen, there was a sign back there on the highway that said they have beer cheaper than gas. Let's go see if there's truth in advertising."
The inside of the White Tavern was dark and smelled like stale cigarettes and grease. A server came over wearing tight, black skinny jeans and an old Van Halen concert tee.
Dylan turned sideways in the booth to stretch his legs out. “Tell me about this beer that’s cheaper than gas.”
"Dollar eighty-nine," the server said, which was, in fact, cheaper than gas.
“Do you have any fries to go with those competitive beer prices?”
It had been a long time since I’d had a burger not made from a Portobello mushroom. Around the corner from my apartment in South Carolina there was a vegan deli. Turning over a new food habit, I ordered a lush, hot, juicy burger. I moaned out loud at the first bite.
Dylan looked up from his double order of fries and raised an eyebrow. "Do you and that burger need to be alone?"
I ignored his comment. “Was there anything else in that car? Anything that might indicate a drug deal gone bad?”
“Nope. Just the cooler and the rock.”
“Huh.”
Dylan locked eyes with me. “That rock means something, Skye.”
The White Tavern was empty except for us and one other table near the back that looked like kitchen staff. Still, Dylan leaned across the table and whispered urgently, “It’s like that scene in Pulp Fiction with the briefcase in the diner.”
I furrowed my brow and gagged on a sesame seed. “With Honey Bunny?”
“And Pumpkin.”
“What?”
Dylan leaned back and shrugged. “Her boyfriend's name was Pumpkin. Honey Bunny and…”
“I know. I’ve seen it thirteen times. I’m just wondering why we’re out here in the middle of the desert with you drawing comparisons of your life to a film that came out when you were seven years old.”
“You-- you, you mock me, Skye, but there’s a connection.”
“Between a film and that glowing rock?”
“Yes.” He clasped his hands together firmly and laid them on the table.
“There’s no rock.”
“It’s implied.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yeah, it is. It’s in the briefcase.”
“We never see what’s in the briefcase.”
Dylan squirmed in this exaggerated way and said, “God, use your imagination, Skye. It’s a glowing rock.”
“Okay. Say it is a glowing rock. What does that have to do with us?”
“It’s our time to finally make sense of our lives.”
“That’s what I've been doing.”
“No, you haven’t.”
I grabbed the ketchup bottle and whacked the bottom. “How do you know that?”
“Because you’re here. Right back where you started.”
His answer was so simple and earnest, I didn’t know whether to kill him or cry. “That’s not fair.”
He touched my greasy hand and said, “It’s not a judgment. Look, I don’t know what you were doing out there. You didn’t exactly call. But you’re here now, and so am I, and I believe this is some kind of strange gift.”
“If the rock is so important, why haven’t you moved it?”
“Because I think it's perfect where it is.”
I looked down at my plate with a strange mixture of surrender and hunger. “What do you think I was doing on the east coast?”
Dylan inhaled and shrugged, “Trying to escape this place and burn Trevor out of your mind with hot yoga and gluten free buns.”
About Lis Anna-Langston:
Lis
Anna-Langston was raised along the winding current of the Mississippi River on
a steady diet of dog-eared books. She attended a Creative and Performing Arts
School from middle school until graduation and went on to study Literature at
Webster University. Her novels have won the Parents’ Choice Gold, Moonbeam Book
Award, Independent Press Award, Benjamin Franklin Book Award and NYC Big Book
Awards. A three-time Pushcart award nominee and Finalist in the Brighthorse
Book Prize, William Faulkner Fiction Contest, George Garrett Fiction Prize and
Thomas Wolfe Fiction Award, her work has been published in The Literary Review,
Emerson Review, The Merrimack Review, Emrys Journal, The MacGuffin, Sand Hill
Review and dozens of other literary journals.
Hailed as
“an author with a genuine flair for originality” by Midwest Book Review and “a
loveable, engaging, original voice…” by Publishers Weekly, you can find her in
the wilds of South Carolina plucking stories out of thin air.
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Giveaway Details:
1 winner
will win their choice of a finished copy of WILD ASSES OF THE MOJAVE DESERT or
GOBBLEDY, US Only.
Ends December
19th, midnight EST.
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