Five Titles from the I'm Here series by Joe Novara
I’m Here is a fast-moving tale about the slow-down of aging and the freedom of choosing where to sleep and with whom.
After 25,000 Masses: A 72-year old priest decides to leave more than his parish when he retires. A woman who admired him as her high school chaplain opens him to loving one person after a lifetime of loving everyone.
Pinata Belly has a retired black high school teacher and an ex-pat Southern Belle running a B/B in the Guatemala Highlands. The two never-marrieds are a parable of our times as Harry and Cobi, diversity-woke, racially open, represent the browning of America or conversely, America going off-white.
Vito’s Tale, is one immigrant’s version of the American Dream that saw this country as a means to make enough money to return to the ‘real world’ of his motherland while pushing one of his sons into upward mobility before pursuing late love in ‘the old country.’
Cagalupo Redux: Nick Finazzo, a roving freelance writer, spots Carol walking a Lake Michigan beach a long way and a lifetime from their early years in Detroit’s Eastside—their adolescent attraction, friends in common and now disparate life styles—her Lake Michigan mansion, his live-in van. Can they start over?
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Leanna is a widow who just wants to start over. She moves out into the country, where she feels an instant connection to the land with the little cobblestone cottage. She hopes the change of scenery and time by herself will help her take some much needed time to herself and find a way to heal.
One evening, deciding to explore a little, she crosses the cobblestone bridge that crosses the creek running across the property. One minute, she is crossing the bridge in the late evening. Next minute, she is nose to nose with a real, live dragon. In the middle of the day.
As if the dragon isn’t shocking enough, the Elf on his back has seriously got to be the sexiest man she’s ever seen. Vlameir is an Elf King who has all but given up on finding his soulmate. When Leanna stumbles through the Portal and into his life, he is shocked to feel an instant connection to the petite human female.
But there is always more to every story. Unfortunately, soulmates finally finding each other is only the beginning...
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What if someone wished a fairy godmother would help the entire city of Seattle? An overworked, overstressed social worker named Rose Samson does just that when she makes an idle wish on a mustard seed. Felicity Fortune of “Godmothers Anonymous” shows up to help. Rose Samson is neither fashion model beautiful, nor a twit, and she happily joins forces with Felicity Fortune, a “Godmother” who demonstrates that Grimm’s fairy tales are still relevant in our humdrum modern world.*Fairy godmothers are on a magical budget, so every possible way they can get human beings or animals to assist one another, they will try, rather than using up their magical means.
Felicity encounters many strangely familiar situations: a pretty stablehand named Cindy Ellis is mistreated by her cruel stepsisters. A rock star’s daughter, scared of the supermodel her dad married, runs away from home and meets seven Vietnam veterans at an encounter session and retreat. One of them might be a big bad wolf, who knows?*In all their experiences, Rose and Felicity try to blend their magical aid with realistic human initiative and social responsibility. Scarborough’s fully realized settings, with the humor built into the mix of magical solutions and grim reality, make this work an entertaining and compelling read.
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The Godmother's Apprentice“Dear Rosie,
Being an apprentice fairy godmother is complicated. Not only do I have to go out and find good deeds to do, but for a sidekick I have that hit man that Felicity changed into a toad. I wanted to take the cat but she seems to have had a big funeral to attend. Felicity isn’t around much. She keeps disappearing through a door in the guestroom that opens on the side of a hill. The swimming pool is weird too, and I could have sworn I saw someone dancing on the bottom. I am enjoying riding the flying horse and helping a boy who plays squeezebox and talks to swans though, so things are—you should pardon the expression—looking up.”
“SIMPLY ENCHANTING.” Publisher’s Weekly
“CLEAR AND ENTERTAINING. . . LOTS OF FUN.” Locus
“CHARMING. . .Scarborough mixes folklore, adventure, atmosphere, psychology, and whimsy into a thoroughly absorbing plot.” Booklist
“AN ENCHANTING BOOK.” Affaire de Coeur
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Cindy Ellis knows about fairy godmothers. Her almost-stepdaughter is studying to be one and she is a close personal friend of Felicity Fortune, an Irish godmother. But she didn’t suspect when she picks up Grandma Webster that the elderly, seemingly lost American Indian woman in traditional dress was a magical godmother too. When a self-serving skinwalker/witch inflames tensions between neighbors and pits sisters against each other in the best fairy tale fashion, Grandma enlists Cindy’s help, along with that of a Navajo doctor, a Hopi rancher, and an unlikely champion, a dude who is related to coyotes and dreams of a home shopping network empire. Together they must defeat the evil that is threatening to destroy their world forever.
“Characterization, pacing, and folkloric expertise are all up to the series’ high standards, so Godmother-followers and others should greet this book joyfully.”—Booklist
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