Tuesday, October 28, 2014

RELEASE DAY: Kathryn Scarborough "This Just In"


Blurb:
Science teacher Gina Thompson is as pragmatic and level headed as the next person except for the perpetual TV announcer that lives in her head and comments on everything she thinks.  Her large family drives her crazy by getting her the worst blind dates on the planet.  Ken Armstrong is an astrophysicist working at NASA.  He is alone except for his grouchy old cat and his grouchy old uncle, Ken’s only family, and he likes it fine that way.  Uncle Johann meets Gina and decides ‘she is the one’.  Through a series of planned mishaps and an icy visit from Mother Nature these two seriously logical people discover that indeed, there is scientific proof of love at first sight.
 
Author:
This past year an article I wrote about my father was published in Flight Journal Magazine as well as several short stories in other magazines.  I have just written a small book on the history of the Methodist Church in North Carolina that will be in a collection for libraries and historical societies to be released this year.  I just move recently to Birmingham, AL. from central NC with my husband.  I taught English in secondary schools and at the college level but now write full time.
 
 
Now available on
Amazon Barnes& Noble Smashwords
 
Excerpt:
Chapter One
 
If my nose ran any more, it would be in a marathon, mumbled Gina, rolling her eyes at her own silly comment. She groped around in the pocket of her ski jacket for a tissue, and found gum wrappers, scraps of paper, a pen, and at last a piece of tissue that looked like it was used during the Crimean War. With a great sigh, she dabbed at her nose while she waited for her turn to use the ATM.
The icy wind blew through Gina’s down-filled parka and she stamped her feet trying to stay warm. She shivered as she stepped through the glass-doored ATM booth, where she was at least out of the wind. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed an ad taped to the inside wall:
 
For Sale:
Kerosene heater.
Brand-new. Never used.
$35
Call 555-2793
Ask for Mr. Glibmann.
 
Gina stared at the bit of paper as she blew on her cold fingertips. She rubbed her hands against her backside, trying to get some feeling back into the frozen digits as she re-read the ad.
Her little bungalow on the south side of Huntsville, Alabama, was her pride and joy. She had purchased the house during the summer and had worked on the interior as far as her teacher’s salary would stretch. She'd found out, much to her abject misery, that her 40-year-old plus house leaked like a sieve, and the heating system was beyond inadequate. No matter where she sat herself down in the little house, she felt a chilling, never ending draft. Hmm, a kerosene heater… it might just be what she needed. It was Saturday. Maybe this Mr. Glibmann was at home.
Completely forgetting about the money she meant to withdraw, Gina left the glass ATM booth, pulled her cell phone from her pocket, and punched in the number from the notice.
“Hello?”
“Hello, are you Mr. Glibmann?”
“And who wants to know if this is Mr. Glibmann?” The voice that answered the phone shook with age and a heavy German accent.
“I’m Gina Thompson, and I’d like to know if the kerosene heater is still for sale?”
“Yes, the heater. You want to look? You can look if you want to. My nephew will be here. I better go to the grocery. If you come now, he’ll be here. So, you want to come now?”
Gina pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it quizzically. Was this guy for real? He sounded like a bad imitation of those old Jewish guys in 1930s movies. Oh well, it takes all kinds.
“Oh, yes sir. Tell me where you are and I’ll be right over. I’m at the mall near University Drive. Is that far from you?”
“At the mall? At the mall? Always the girls are at the mall.”
“Mr. Glibmann, I’m hardly a girl and…” Who was this old guy? Had he missed all the lectures about the modern woman and how they all hated being called girls?
“Is all right, all right. You can come down the University Drive and turn on… “The old man gave a quick set of directions and Gina decided in the middle of the droning voice that she was glad she had her GPS in her glove box. She would just enter the old fellow’s address and let Stephen Fry, the voice she’d chosen from the many the GPS had to offer, give her directions. Mr. Fry’s lovely English accent intoned, not said, but intoned things like, “There’s an exit on the right and that’s the very one we want.” Or, “To the left if you’d be so lovely.” Or, “On to the motorway we go; fabulous.” Sometimes, she left the GPS on when she was going to work just so the round dulcet tones of Stephen would make her feel a little less lonely.


 

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