STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Special Treat ??“ Verhoeff

Jan 18, 2006

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Adventures of Breken Ridge

Jan Verhoeff

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Inspired mystery adventure for children chattering on about the investigative non-sense of two pre-teen boys from the outskirts of Breken Ridge. Mom a writer deliciously hoards their tales featuring them in her columns and articles, not realizing the challenges they are facing. A series of mysterious happenstances and adventures become a thrilling slew of puzzling events that will keep you sitting on the edge of suspense in the first of the series "The Black Shoe Mystery".

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Who could steal a Steinway in broad daylight? What does it have to do with a black shoe on the driveway? And what does it all have to do with the Mayor of Breken Ridge?

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Fans of Author Jan Verhoeff will find themselves sitting on the edge of suspense, crippled by breathtaking fear, and holding onto their chair through thrilling episodes of this story.

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~~~~~~~~ an excerpt ~~~~~~~~~~

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Morgan drove past the picnic area and kept going toward home, past Mr. Master??™s place, across the bridge and down Ridge Road. ???Oh what she wouldn??™t give for her cell phone in this moment!??™ She parked on the open drive beside her mother??™s SUV, just past the flowerbeds where green leaves were sprouting through the dark sod and mulch. She never understood why her mother's Spring flowers always sprouted first in fall.

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Neill and Gavin were coming up over the edge of the rock ridge as she stepped out of the car, carrying long walking sticks, a bucket of what she thought might be rocks, and some sort of old jacket. They??™d always been scavengers; she hardly expected that to change.?  She leaned on the back bumper and waited for them to arrive.

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???Find anything good on the river???? She asked, her arms crossed, as she leaned on the back fender of her car.?  The heavy denim coat she wore a bit worn with age, but still her favorite cold weather wrap, hung nearly to her knees. Her jeans faded and worn, but comfortably soft, tucked at the ankle into heavy brown hiking boots, tied with leather straps.

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Morgan grinned into the faces of her mirror images, both her brothers looked just like her.?  All of them bearing an uncanny resemblance to their mother, and looking not one twit like the man who abandoned them almost nine years earlier.

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???Just this old coat.??? Gavin announced, turning it this way and that, ???It keeps haunting us, ya think it looks a bit ghastly???? Gavin raised an eyebrow and gave his sister his famous goofball grin.

Morgan raised an eyebrow at the drama her brother portrayed and followed the two of them past the front of the house, along the brick walk that lead to the shed and the back door. Gavin stopped to hang the coat up in the shed again, but stopped abruptly.

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???Morgan!??? His eyes were big and round as he stood there in the door of the shed, the jacket still hanging from his finger, and fear edging his voice.

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Read more excerpts - posted regularly at http://writeurthoughts.blogspot.com this month.

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Make it a blessed day.