Bulwark by Brit Lunden A New Adult Fiction Author?

"It's like a primordial soup," Clay Finnes muttered his hands on his hips.

"A primordial what?" Owen Bishop raised his hangdog face to look at the town sheriff.

"Primordial, ancient, prehistoric..." Clay looked at the deputy's blank face and finished with,  "old...really, really old."

"Oh," Owen shook his craggy head. His bulbous eyes looked like two hard boiled eggs; his hair was matted as if if was blued to the top of his round head. Owen never passed any of the tests allowing him to advance on the force. He was a deputy when Clay first got a job in Bulwark right out of the army. As the promotions started coming, Clay eventually became his boss. He wondered if it bothered the oler man taking direction from someone who trained under him.

"You mean like dinosaurs?" Owen scratched his head.

"Dino...no... forget it, Owen. What else did the couple say?" He listened to Owen drone on about the car that was now sitting in the middle of the greenish pond.

"Appears they were coming from the other side." Owen pointed vaguely in the other direction.

"How could they? There's nothing there. That road has been closed off for years."

Something was missing. He wasn't sure what, but a feeling of unease enveloped Clay until his body fairly vibrated with it.

Clay looked up, his deep brown eyes scanning the thicket of trees surrounding the strange body of water that seemed to appear overnight. He crinkled his nose; it smelled pretty bad too. It was a greenish color, like a dirty army fatigue. It seemed shallow. He resisted the urge to stick the toe of his boot in the water. It was still, the surface like polished glass. The Ford Fuston was trapped in the what appeared to be the deepest part of the puddle as if they had tried to speed through it. The brackish water abut two feel deep.

"If they had skirted the edges they would have made it through. He shouldn't used the choke, probably got an entire engine full of water." Once Owen started talking he could go on about something forever.

"Where the hell were they coming from?" Clay muttered to himself. He moved away as if to see through the gloom. "It's a road that leads to nowhere...

"It's not deep enough to sink," Clay observed his deputy scratch his bald head, then turned to look at the enormous puddle. It covered the road from one end to the other. He chewed the inside of his cheek. He had to admit, it appeared larger than when he got here, but it couldn't be that deep, could it? Clay forced his attention back to Owen. It helped him stop thinking of his own life. "Where are they?"

"Over at JB's house. The wife's pretty freaked out..." 

~~~

Bulwark

By Brit Lunden

Take a pinch of Brigadoon... It appears and then disappears...

And think back to the Fairy Tale, Hansel and Gretel...

You see, in the town of Bulwark, there was an old road that had led nowhere... But one day, on the main road, there suddenly appeared a small body of...ooze...mostly greenish water that moved across the main road, little by little...

The local sheriff was called out to see it, when a car had got stuck in the middle of the road... They had gotten out, but nobody, including the Sheriff, wanted to even touch that oozing puddle which was deeper in some parts...

But the strangest part of all was that the couple who had escaped from their car was screaming about what had happened to their children. They wanted the Sheriff to go to Linden Lane where their children were being held by a witch! In the Gingerbread House...

Only problem was that Sheriff Finnes knew every road located in Bulwark and he was positive there was no Linden Lane there...

Until...there was...

The genius of an award-winning long-time children's book author was, in my opinion, easily translated into this adult fantasy mystery story...Way Cool! It's easily readable for YA and up and quite enjoyable! 
Her main characters are uniquely intriguing, although I did think of Sheriff Taylor and Barney Fife... Clay had come in and ultimately was promoted over Owen...but Owen didn't seem to mind.

Clay, of course, adds to the story by having love problems in his life, distracting him to some extent, but he was involved enough and caring enough to go out and walk right up Linden Lane, heard children's laughter, but seeing nothing but a desolate old mill, a dirt road and ultimately stopped at a mailbox: Bavmorda, Gingerbread House, Linden Lane...

And found an old lady living in an old white Victorian house, who told him her family had lived there for generations...

And then there were the wolves heard in an area where no wolves had lived for many years...  A sequel to Hansel and Gretel--NOT! And definitely without one of the endings! You get to choose!

I had a lot of fun reading this debut fiction novel by Brit Lunden and hope you don't mind my sharing memories of past delights.  I've read most of the author's children's books, and the adventures we found in her fantasy and adventure pirate books, for instance, are a great lead in for her move on to fictional novels that both entertain and keep reader interest to the last page. Kudos!


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