YA Readers Have The Gus LeGarde Series Too! Check Out Don't Let The Wind Catch You! Latest from Aaron Paul Lazar...

Stolen from the Author's Web Site!

"I dropped the reins on the grass and my trusty black gelding began to graze as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I rolled onto my back, breathing hard. “Holy mackerel! I’ve never been so scared in my life.” 
"Elsbeth slid from Golden Boy’s back and tied him to a fencepost. Sig did the same with Frisbee, and they joined me on the grassy hill. 
“Mein Gott! How did he know we were out there?” 
"Elsbeth propped herself up with one elbow and turned to me. “And who was he talking to?” 
"Siegfried was quiet for a moment, but I could see his brain working furiously behind half-closed eyes. “Maybe he has a prisoner in there. And his mouth was gagged. That’s why we couldn’t hear their answers.” 
"I sat up. “But he heard the answers, right? He was really talking to someone.” 
"Sig’s mouth twisted. “Ja. I guess so.” 
"When Elsbeth turned on her stomach, her dark brown curls fell forward, nearly obscuring her face, her cheeks still flushed pink from our gallop to safety. “I think it was a psychic child, his only daughter who can read minds and make spoons bend. She sensed we were outside and told him. Maybe she told him in his head. She didn’t even need to talk.” Her eyes flashed with excitement, even though Siegfried seemed to dismiss the theory with a half head shake. 
“It could be.” I rolled onto my stomach beside her, finally feeling my breath come under control. “Or maybe he was talking to a ghost. What the heck was that weird singing sound, anyway?” 
"Siegfried snorted and ignored my question. “Let’s face it. It’s more likely he was delusional. He imagines a friend is with him. He is so lonely he had to make one up. And he has conversations with them on a regular basis.” 
“That would make him nuts,” I said. Siegfried looked at me as if I were a slow student. “Ja, precisely.”

~~~

Don't Let the Wind Catch You:
A Gus LeGarde Mystery

By Aaron Paul Lazar

For those who already love the Gus LeGarde series by Lazar, you'll be happy to hear that the same characters at younger ages are back in this latest novel and will continue in the future! And, of course, the mystery is just as exciting for young readers as it is for we adults who enjoy the wonderful characters! 

Conesus Lake, NY

It doesn't take more than one book by this author to consider future books! His characters become friends that you'd like to invite into your home, get to know, and invite back often... Maybe that's because he's already invited you into the characters' homes, fed you with home-grown garden items and told you about the surrounding areas as he tells his stories...
The mystery is always fun but it's the characters' involvement in the solution that really pulls me in, especially these young ones! LOL Young adults will enjoy spending their summer riding horses, roaming the countryside, and, of course, getting in trouble with Gus, Elsbeth and Siegfried! As well as more than enough danger!

"Siegfried and I finally stopped our mad flight when we arrived at a field of sunflowers. The heavy-headed stalks stretched hundreds of acres over a gently rolling hill that sloped toward the Conesus Lake basin. The view of the westernmost Finger Lake was phenomenal, showcased by two hilly ridges that cradled the shimmering basin of water. I slid off Pancho’s back and tied him to a black locust tree. He jerked his head back a little, loosening the reins enough to let him yank the tall grass at the bottom of the tree with his square white teeth. 
Siegfried jumped off Frisbee’s back and tethered him on a nearby honeysuckle bush. I found a log to sit on and made room for Sig beside me. With my head in my hands, I swayed and moaned. “What the heck was that?”
"Siegfried looked paler than I’d ever seen him. A scared boy sat in the place of my quiet, knowing friend. He rubbed his eyes with his hand, then ran it along his slack jaw. Without saying a word, he shook his head over and over again. Finally, he brushed back his enviably long blond hair and looked me straight in the eyes. “It’s just not possible.” 
"I slid down to the soft dirt beside the log and leaned back, closing my eyes. “I know. If you hadn’t been there, I would’ve thought I was dreaming.” We sat quietly for a while, trying to absorb the weirdness of it all. I pulled absentmindedly on a grape vine that ran along the log, and rolled one of the leaves into a little ball. I tossed it up and down, catching it with one hand and throwing it with the other. My eyes stayed unfocused, however, and the scene kept playing itself over and over in my brain. Visions of the Huck Finn pages flipping by themselves sent shudders of nerves down to my toes. The weird singing ended up stuck in my brain. It reminded me in a strange way of the minor tunes in Chopin’s mazurkas. “It was the same weird singing we heard the first time.”

~~~

“Is there anything I can do to help, Elsbeth? 

I’m so sorry.” Something more than affection

 pulsed through me, and it may have happened

 to her, too, for she nuzzled closer to me.

“Hold me, Gus.” 

She reached her arms up to my shoulders and

 kissed my cheek. I kissed her back, close to

— but not on— her soft lips. Tears still

 streamed from her eyes, and when she laid

 her head against my neck I felt the warm

 moisture wet my skin. We held each other

 until Siegfried called to her from the doorway.

 “Coming!” She looked at me with a rush of

 affection and whispered, “You’d better go. 

Try calling tomorrow morning. See if my father

 will let us talk to you.” I fell back against

 the rough wooden planks that separated

 both stalls and nodded. “Okay.” 

It was all I could manage. “Thank you.” 

She lifted her hand to her lips and blew me a

 teary kiss. I was too dumbfounded to catch it,

 but smiled back with a goofy grin.

 “Tomorrow.” 

Mixed feelings surged within

 me.

 I felt awful that she’d been hit again,

 and that her father found the books. 

I wanted to protect her. I cared so deeply

 for her. Now I felt all floppy and 

happy inside..."

~~~ 

Take a good look at this beautiful cover and you'll soon realize that there is a bit of the paranormal. Ahhh, you know, a ghost! Indeed, she's a beautiful Indian maiden who is earthbound and has been for many, many years!

Gus, Elsbeth and Siegfried were out looking for a place that they could claim as their own and had snuck up on an old shack. They saw smoke coming from the chimney but were so close that they kept on going, trying to see who lived there...

Before long, an old man was yelling at them, and next had a rifle in his hands, telling them to get away! Naturally, they all turned and ran! But that wasn't to be the end of that! They soon knew the man whose name was Zach Tully and became friends with him. And Gus was chosen by the ghost to be seen by him. She was called Penni now, but her real name was Penaki. Somehow she had found her way to the hermit's home and had been welcomed and stayed! Cool, right?! Even a hermit likes a little company!

But soon Gus discovered there was another mystery. His mother refused to acknowledge Tully or wanted Gus to have anything to do with him! Later, Gus discovered that it had something to do with his grandfather. Without going further on this mystery, I do want to commend Lazar for tackling an important issue in such a sensitive fashion for the time period in which the story is told...

The three friends were at first scared to be seeing and talking to a ghost, but Penni was so friendly and knew that they were not going to hurt her or Tully, so they started to hunt for clues about the time that Penni must have died. They all believed it was around 1799 when the war had been fought right in that area!


“Look. Here are the names of the guys who died.” I had more excitement in my voice than I should have, and tried to tone it down when I read the list. “Sacred to the memory of… .” I squinted and tried to pronounce the name as best I could. “Hanyerry, a loyal Oneida chief. Sergeant Nicholas Hungerman, Privates Benjamin Curtin, William Faughey, James McElroy, William Harvey, John Putnam, John Conrey, John Miller, and seven others, names unknown who fell and were burned here.” 
Elsbeth’s hand flew to her mouth. “Burned?” I leaned forward and peered harder. “Oh, sorry. Not burned. Buried.”
"Siegfried read from the adjacent side [of the Ambuscade] “November, 1901, erected by the Livingston County Historical Society. Scene of the massacre after a desperate and heroic struggle of Lieutenant Thomas Boyd’s scouting party of General Sullivan’s army by an ambuscade of British and Indians under Butler and Grant. September 13th, 1779.”
“My turn.” Elsbeth took a deep breath and traced her finger in the carved granite while she read. “Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant Thomas Boyd and Sergeant Michael Parker who were captured and afterward tortured and killed.” She turned to us with a somber expression. “There’s a poem underneath.”
 “Read it,” I said.
" Afar their bones may lie, but here their patriot blood baptized the land for aye and widened freedom’s flood.’“ She turned to us with confusion in her eyes. “What’s that mean?”
“They tortured and buried Boyd and Parker in Cuylerville. Remember the plaque that marks where the ‘torture tree’ used to be?” Siegfried nodded. “It’s a park now, right?” “Right. And I think they buried their bodies there, but they were first attacked and captured here..."

~~~

So we've got a ghost, a historical mystery to solve, a family mystery to solve, new friends, and, I'm saving the best for last, a budding romance between Gus and Elsbeth, with Siegfried quietly looking on, pleased that his loved ones are beginning to get along quite well! LOL There are lots of other wonderful characters including neighbors of Gus. And we see a change in attitude for Elsbeth and Siegfried's father which was totally what we wanted to see after what we had read earlier in the book! This is a perfect gift for that YA that's just discovering a love of mysteries. Check out Tremolo, which is the first book with the young threesome... 

And, adults, please don't be embarrassed to read YA books...especially this one that's highly recommended... Yeah, I loved it... Make Lazar one of your preferred authors--you'll be glad you did.

GABixlerReviews

Aaron Paul Lazar wasn't always a mystery writer. It wasn't until eight members of his family and friends died within five years that the urge to write became overwhelming. "When my father died, I lost it. I needed an outlet, and writing provided the kind of solace I couldn't find elsewhere."
Lazar created the Gus LeGarde mystery series, with the founding novel, DOUBLE FORTÉ (2004), a chilling winter mystery set in the Genesee Valley of upstate New York. Like Lazar's father, protagonist Gus LeGarde is a classical music professor. Gus, a grandfather, gardener, chef, and nature lover, plays Chopin etudes to feed his soul and thinks of himself as a "Renaissance man caught in the 21st century."
The creation of the series lent Lazar the comfort he sought, yet in the process, a new passion was unleashed. Obsessed with his parallel universe, he now lives, breathes, and dreams about his characters, and has written ten LeGarde mysteries in eight years. (UPSTAGED - 2005; TREMOLO: CRY OF THE LOON - 2007 Twilight Times Books; MAZURKA - 2009 Twilight Times Books, FIRESONG - 2011, with more to come.) The author is currently working on his sixteenth novel.
One day while rototilling his gardens, Lazar unearthed a green cat's eye marble, which prompted the new paranormal mystery series featuring Sam Moore, retired country doctor and passionate gardener. The green marble, a powerful talisman, connects all three of the books in the series, whisking Sam back in time to uncover his brother's dreadful fate fifty years earlier. (HEALEY'S CAVE, 2010; TERROR COMES KNOCKING, 2011; FOR KEEPS, 2012) Lazar intends to continue both series.
Lazar's books feature breathless chase scenes, nasty villains, and taut suspense, but are also intensely human stories, replete with kids, dogs, horses, food, romance, and humor. The author calls them, "country mysteries," although reviewers have dubbed them "literary mysteries."
"It seems as though every image ever impressed upon my brain finds its way into my work. Whether it's the light dancing through stained-glass windows in a Parisian chapel, curly slate-green lichen covering a boulder at the edge of a pond in Maine, or hoarfrost dangling from a cherry tree branch in mid-winter, these images burrow into my memory cells. In time they bubble back, persistently itching, until they are poured out on the page."
In 2009, Kodak gave him up for grabs, and during the year off before he landed in his coveted new job with KB America, he had time to explore and reconnect with his environment. Little did he know that several trips to the Adirondack Mountains would reawaken his passion for that part of the country. Two new books were written in that timeframe, starting yet another mystery series, Tall Pines Mysteries. The first two books in the series are due out in the late 2011 early 2012 timeframe. Watch for FOR THE BIRDS and ESSENTIALLY YOURS, coming soon.
The author lives on a ridge overlooking the Genesee Valley in upstate New York with his wife, mother-in-law, two dogs, and cat. He finds grandfathering one of the most precious and important times of life, and spends as much time as possible with Julian, Gordon, and Isabella.
Lazar maintains several websites and blogs, was the Gather Saturday Writing Essential host for three years, writes his monthly "Seedlings" columns for the Voice in the Dark literary journal and the Future Mystery Anthology Magazine. He has been published in Absolute Write as well as The Great Mystery and Suspense Magazine. See excerpts and reviews here:
www.lazarbooks.com
www.murderby4.blogspot.com
www.aplazar.gather.com
www.aaronlazar.blogspot.com
Contact him at aaron.lazar@yahoo.com.
Twilight Times Books by Kindle bestselling author, Aaron Lazar:
LEGARDE MYSTERIES
DOUBLE FORTÉ (FEB 2012, author's preferred edition)
UPSTAGED (AUG, 2012 author's preferred edition, eBook and print)
TREMOLO: CRY OF THE LOON (2007, AUDIO BOOK 2011)
MAZURKA (2009, AUDIO BOOK 2012)
FIRESONG (JULY 2011, AUDIO BOOK 2012)
DON'T LET THE WIND CATCH YOU (AUG 2013)
VIRTUOSO (2014)
MOORE MYSTERIES
HEALEY'S CAVE (2010, AUDIO BOOK 2011)
TERROR COMES KNOCKING (FEB 2012, AUDIO BOOK 2012)
FOR KEEPS (JULY 2012)
TALL PINES MYSTERIES
FOR THE BIRDS (NOV 2011, AUDIO BOOK, 2013)
ESSENTIALLY YOURS (MARCH 2012, AUDIO BOOK 2013)
SANCTUARY (Fall, 2013)
MURDER ON THE SACANDAGA (2014)
Double Forté - 2012 ForeWord BOTYA, FINALIST, Mystery.
Tremolo: cry of the loon - 2013 Eric Hoffer Book Awards: Grand Prize Short List; Honorable Mention in 2013 Eric Hoffer Legacy Fiction; 2011 Global eBook Award Finalist in Historical Fiction Contemporary; 2011 Preditors & Editors Readers Choice Award - 2nd place, Mystery; 2008 Yolanda Renée's Top Ten Books; MYSHELF Top Ten Reads 2008
For the Birds - 2011 ForeWord Book Awards, FINALIST in Mystery; Carolyn Howard-Johnson's Top 10 Reads for 2012
Essentially Yours - 2013 EPIC Book Awards, FINALIST in Suspense; 2013 Eric Hoffer Da Vinci Eye Award Finalist
Healey's Cave - 2012 EPIC Book Awards WINNER Best Paranormal; 2011 Eric Hoffer Book Award, WINNER Best Book in Commercial Fiction; Finalist for Allbooks Review Editor's Choice 2011; Winner of Carolyn Howard Johnson's 9th Annual Noble (not Noble!) Prize for Literature 2011; Finalists for Global EBook Awards 2011
For Keeps - Semi Finalist in Kindle Book Review 2013 Book Awards, Mystery Category

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