Let me state the obvious, right up front…

Although (hallelujah!) it is now available for your reading (and listening) enjoyment, Bonnie Billings : Superhero (the 10th installment in the Angel Brings Fire / Future Burns Bright series of science fiction / modern fantasy / superhero novels) is almost exactly a year… late. 😳

But I have an excuse!

Text-To-Speech Drudgery

Namely, the past year has been put to very good use, as I have spent that time (and here, we’re talking about “2 to 4 hours per day, for about 320 days or so”) in converting the 10 books of the Angel Brings Fire / Future Burns Bright series (including but not limited to Bonnie Billings : Superhero) into audio-book format (which you can access and purchase on the Kobo platform).

It is honestly difficult to properly describe the amount of work that this process involved; suffice it to say that above and beyond the usual duties of ensuring a consistently acceptable voice output on the part of the transcoder that I used, the Angel Brings Fire / Future Burns Bright series contains a large number of “alien-language” words that, to put it mildly, are usually not pronounced correctly by any of the currently available text-to-voice transcoders. These types of errors each had to be individually fixed in post-production and I can personally attest that doing so was a tremendous amount of nit-picking, tedious work… although, I’m duly pleased with the final results.

Don’t quote me on this, but I am planning on offering all subsequent novels, in audio-book format. Hopefully, whenever that happens, the technology of the transcoding software will have advanced and will thus have made the process less onerous.

How To Get Bonnie Billings : Superhero

Bonnie Billings : Superhero will, in the next week or so, become available from the following distribution channels :

• In paperback format from Amazon (only place to get a physical copy).
• In Kindle (.MOBI) e-book format from Amazon (KDP).
• In Acrobat (.PDF) e-book format from Google Play Books.
• In .EPUB e-book format from Lulu (downstream distribution to Apple iBookstore).
• In .MP3 audio-book format from Kobo (only place to get the audio-book version).

Due to technical issues beyond our control, there may be slight “look and feel” differences between different e-book formats. (Note : All formats have their good and bad aspects, but from our POV, we believe that the .PDF versions come closest to reproducing what the paperback edition looks like.)

Of course, none of the different versions of Bonnie Billings : Superhero have DRM (“Digital Rights Management” copy protection, with which I strongly disagree as a concept) applied to them; once you buy a copy, in whatever format, it’s yours to keep.

Summary

I’m proud to announce the general availability of Bonnie Billings : Superhero and I hope that you like reading this novel – but if you do <spoiler alert> – be prepared for a lot of new background information and some major new developments, in the ongoing story of Vìrya Bonnie Billings, and her alien “Auntie”, Karéin-Mayréij!

Best wishes

Marcus Shields

Author, The Angel Brings Fire / The Future Burns Bright / Bonnie’s New Auntie / Bonnie Billings : Superhero

I’m very proud to announce the general availability release of my latest science fiction / modern fantasy novel, entitled Bonnie’s New Auntie.

This is an “Epilogue” to the final volume of The Future Burns Bright (e.g. Book #4, The Future Alight, of the second series); however, Bonnie’s New Auntie, can also be read as a “stand-alone” novel, without having read either The Angel Brings Fire or The Future Burns Bright, beforehand. (Obviously, though, you will understand more of what’s going on, if you have read the previous two series.)

Bonnie’s New Auntie is also a more “Young Adult” – oriented novel compared to the earlier series… although there’s plenty within it to interest audiences of all ages! The book can be ordered from Amazon (paperback / Kindle format), from Lulu (EPUB iPad format) and from Google Play Books (PDF generic e-Book format).

The Plot (spoiler alert!)

The novel tells the story of one Bonnie Billings, 16.5-year-old daughter of Simon Billings of Phoenix, Arizona… and, therefore, niece to Bob Billings, of Tucson, in the same state. Endlessly bullied and condemned by her weight and personal appearance issues to being “the last kid called for the volleyball team” at her boring, run-of-the-mill American suburban high-school, Bonnie’s day-to-day routine is all about “surviving… not thriving”.

Tonight, Bonnie’s Uncle Bob (and, his mysterious and newly-acquired immediate family) are due to drop in to the Phoenix Billings clan’s residence, for a long-postponed get-together. Bonnie isn’t looking forward to the occasion; especially, she fumes at seeing Uncle Bob’s new trophy girlfriend, whose unnatural, supermodel-like attractiveness is everything that Bonnie ever wanted for herself (but couldn’t dream of obtaining).

Bonnie hates this newcomer, with a resentful, jealous passion. But the Billings teenager is in for a big surprise… because “Sari” (as Uncle Bob’s new “squeeze” has been introduced to the Billings clan), is unlike anyone who has ever walked on the face of Planet Earth… and Bonnie’s humdrum, “C”-student lifestyle, is about to get the ultimate in “celebrity make-overs”!

Final Thoughts

I hope you’ll enjoy reading Bonnie’s New Auntie as much as I enjoyed writing it, over the past year or so; COVID-19 has been difficult for everyone, and perhaps reading the novel will help you forget about the pandemic for a short while. (Semi-relevant sidenote : The Storied Watcher’s “New People”, while naturally immune to virtually all human diseases, also can’t get vaccinated… since you can’t stick a needle into them without it being melted off; and even if you somehow got the vaccine into their bloodstream, it would be automatically destroyed by their alien-powers. So — when “COVID-40” shows its ugly face… are the “New People” the only sentient beings left on Planet Earth? Or do they all die off, because they can’t be vaccinated? 😈 )

As always, if you have any comments or observations (good, bad or indifferent), by all means leave them as responses to this blog; I read all of them and value everyone’s perspective.

Sincerely

Marcus Shields

Author, The Angel Brings Fire, The Future Burns Bright and Bonnie’s New Auntie