Michael J. Bowler

The Writings of Michael J. Bowler

What Is A Monster?

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My newest novel, Forever Boy, has been born and, while written for teens, young adults, and the young at heart, the story delves into the essense of human nature, something we can all relate to. Does someone become a monster by choice or is monstrosity thrust upon them such that they can no longer be decent human beings, no matter how hard they try?

Forever Boy appears to be a contemporary youth tale mixed with the paranormal, but the characters grapple with some weighty issues like free will, abuse, bullying, and loneliness. Does monstrosity come from within or without? Does one need to look like a monster to be one? If someone looks frightening, does that automatically make them dangerous? We all have our light and dark sides and every day we choose which one to display. These realities about human nature form the essence of Mary Shelley’s brilliant Frankenstein, and they permeate Forever Boy, as well.

I believe there are monsters in this world, but they are humans who choose to be that way; Frankenstein’s creature didn’t start out violent and evil, but the violence and hatred people directed at him from human society poisoned his soul. My title character Drágan Albescu, has dealt with great hardships and much rejection in his fourteen years and could easily go the way of Frankenstein’s creature.

Does he?

You’ll have to read the book to find out.

Forever Boy has been getting stellar reviews from editorial sites and has, in my opinion, a dynamic cover designed by Sanusi Emmanuel, who has given the book a striking appearance that’s hard to ignore.

Orphan Drágan, always on the move from place to place, lands in Millwood, Maine where he finds himself surrounded by a cast of mostly likable characters who learn and grow and come of age as the story progresses. Isaac, through whose eyes the story unfolds, is someone most of us can relate to. He is also the first character I’ve ever created who, like me, was born with hearing loss and must navigate life through the impreciseness of hearing aids. If you’re a mom, you just might love the character of Penelope Foster who, as one reviewer puts it, is “the kind of mom all kids wish they had; one who listens to and believes in her child.”

This same reviewer writes, “Drágan is a complete enigma. A boy seemingly outside of time, of place. But Drágan holds dark secrets. As the bond between the boys strengthens, Drágan begins to peel back the dark curtain on who he really is. This is a bell that can’t be unrung; a sight that cannot be unseen.  As Isaac begins to comprehend, he is shaken to his core.”

Grab your copy today and dive right into an unforgettable adventure!

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My Characters Choose their Own Destiny

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Book Three of my Film Milieu Thriller series is finally out in the world. Yay!

Writing mysteries is tricky and my hat’s off to those writers who turn out so many clever and compelling stories. My series is both mystery and thriller with paranormal and suspense elements, so they are not the “cozy” variety. But I came to love the characters in the first two books and took the unprecedented step of bringing both their worlds together in the third so I could have them interact with each other.

Admittedly, for a long time, I didn’t think I could pull off this sleight of hand. Combining the two books meant bringing a lot of characters together and, while most of my book series sport numerous characters, I’ve never tried writing a mystery thriller with so many. The goal of such books is to keep the story moving, introduce red herrings, depict attempts to knock off key characters, but also, as with any story, to flesh out the characters along the way.

Sidelined by surgery, I took a long, convoluted path toward completing this book, but the end result shocked me by being one of my favorites. I somehow managed to give all the characters a three-dimensional presence, and I loved how they chose to interact with each other. As with most stories, the characters take on a life of their own and some make choices I hadn’t originally mapped out for them. This is probably what makes the often lonely job of writing so fulfilling, when characters become so real to the author that they dictate their own choices and drive the story forward.

I think They Know When The Killer Will Strike is the best of this series and one of my best books, period, so I hope everyone gets a chance to meet my fun cast of characters. However, they’re first introduced in the previous two books, along with plot points important to this story, so it’s best, as one teen reviewer put it, to read the other books first to fully enjoy the latest installment. Besides, you see how the characters grow along the way.

Despite wrapping up the major plot elements in this third book, my mind immediately began formulating stories to continue exploring the lives of my young characters in future installments, and I hope readers will long to know becomes of Leo and his friends as much as I do.

They Know When The Killer Will Strike

NEW RELEASE

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Hello Readers,

Happy April and Happy Book Birthday to Shifter (The Healer Chronicles 2). This is an exciting day for me because it’s not only the birthday of my newest novel, but it’s also my birthday. I love sharing my special day with the release of Shifter because the characters that populate this series are near and dear to my heart, just as are the real-life Special Education students who inspired me so much over the years were.

And, MORE IMPORTANTLY, at smile.amazon.com, a percentage of any of my purchased books goes to one of my favorite nonprofits, RAISE A CHILD, which started me on my journey toward adopting the most amazing son ever and continues its passionate goal of finding forever homes for kids in foster care.

I’m also thrilled that Shifter won a Gold Award in the Literary Titan Book Awards, as well as a passionate 5-Star review. It’s a great start to the life of this book, but I hope many more readers will jump into this series. Book 1, Spinner, is available for only 99 cents, so if you or your friends like horror, mystery, suspense, action populated with unique and memorable characters, definitely check out Spinner and then delve into the compelling sequel, all in anticipation of the thrill-packed conclusion, Spoiler, coming in July.

Literary Titan had this to say about Shifter: 

“The author also created a rich and relatable world by adding small details between big moments.There were plenty of everyday things that we take for granted highlighted in these extreme circumstances. For example, Alex’s experiences with his disability, not being able to reach a shirt in a closet that wasn’t made for someone in a wheelchair. 

Alex’s human existence gave us a closer connection to a character with incredible power. I loved so many of the characters in the novel. They were unusual heroes, abandoned or scorned by society because of who they are, mistakes from their past, or circumstances beyond their control.

Shifter (The Healer Chronicles Book 2) is a suspenseful young adult thriller. With strong and memorable characters, non-stop action, and high tension, readers will not want to put the book down and anxiously await the conclusion of this exciting trilogy.”

So, if you like compelling series fiction with unique and memorable characters, give The Healer Chronicles a try. #yaseriesfiction#yaseriesbooks#paranormalstories#suspensebooks#horrorbooks#disabilityinclusion#endearingheroes#amreadinghorror#amreadingya#amreading #bookbirthday

A New Kind Of Summer

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So far, 2020 has turned the world upside down in so many ways, none of them good. As a writer, I have seen much to decry and comment upon, but as the parent of a young child, it’s best that I focus on him and his immediate needs and leave the commentary to others who feel they are more qualified.

In this regard, the school year is trickling to its conclusion, which is probably a relief to every parent in America. Fortunately, Ronald’s transition from partial to total online classes was not traumatic or even difficult for him, so his education was not unduly disrupted. However, his summer will be quite different than it was in 2019.

Ronald loves acting, so his summer camps are always theater-based. He adores Shakespeare plays and was scheduled to attend the Youth Theater Camp at Theatricum Botanicum here in the Los Angeles area for the second year, culminating in the performance of a Shakespeare play. As with all camp activities, this one will now go online. How that will work, or even will it work, are questions that remain unanswered in this new COVID-dominated world.

Later in the summer, he’s scheduled for a musical theater camp that has, of course, also moved online this year. His YMCA soccer program is canceled, as are all youth sports, so this will be a summer of adaption, just as the spring has been. Fortunately, beaches and hiking trails are reopening, so we can get outside the house and breathe in much needed fresh air in those venues.

The one advantage of everything being online is the abundance of possible activities, some of which are free. If you have children and worry about how to keep them busy this summer, check out this link for a few ideas: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/15-online-camps-fill-kids-summer-with-learning-adventures

My one hope about this lockdown is that families will have learned to appreciate each other more than ever before. Hopefully, people will realize we don’t need to over-program our children, or ourselves, for that matter. Just sitting at home after dinner and playing board games is the kind of bonding time that will be gone all too quickly when our kids are grown and moved out on their own.

So here’s my suggestion: let’s enjoy our kids while we can and let them become professional athletes or dancers or actors or scholars or You Tubers or whatever when they’re older. Children want to do anything and everything right now because, like so many adults, they become easily addicted to “likes” and “views” and other forms of vicarious fame. It’s up to us, the parents, to balance out their lives.

No matter how much they may love a sport or dancing or acting or studying or any other pursuit, they need time each day to be children and engage in free play with other children. They may complain when you don’t let them attend a dancing class or soccer practice or play video games every day, but they will thank you down the line when they have children of their own and know how to feel comfortable simply playing with those children or letting them play with each other in unstructured activities.

We must safeguard this fleetingly short period of time for our children, whether they understand the reasons or not, because childhood is too short, and too precious, to waste, and once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

Here’s Ronald participating in his Physics and Cooking classes. I’m so grateful that I decided to homeschool him this year because his HS teachers did a fantastic job converting from in-person classes to online and keeping the work hands-on, so much so that Ronald felt completely engaged in the curriculum.

FREE READ

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My first novel, A BOY AND HIS DRAGON, has been revised and rewritten and is unspooling chapter by chapter over at Wattpad. I had previously published this story on Amazon to test the waters, but it’s no longer available for purchase and can only be found on Wattpad. It’s suitable for all ages.

This book was written in the 1980s, well before the fantasy resurgence that culminated with Harry Potter, and also saw endless dragon-related stories hitting the bookshelves. I wanted to try a somewhat realistic approach to a dragon story, so I took my childhood—at least my seventh and eighth-grade years—and inserted a dragon. I wondered how life might progress for that thirteen-year-old boy living in suburban Northern California in the year 1970 as he juggled daily life while also caring for, and hiding, a rapidly growing dragon, without the use of the internet or any of the technology we have today that would have made such a task easier. Somehow, Bradley Wallace Murphy must figure out solutions to every dilemma that crosses his path without the use of Google, which means the story takes longer to unfold, but hopefully, it plays out in a believable fashion.

Of course, this is more than just a boy and his dragon story and the book is intended as the first of a trilogy that postulates a return of magic into our modern world (at least, the modern world of the ’70s and ’80s.) It’s a nostalgic tale for anyone who remembers that time, and for younger readers who can’t imagine life without cell phones and social media, it will be an eye-opening depiction of a different kind of childhood.

Here’s a blurb for the book. I really hope you go on Wattpad and check it out. I’m adding in visuals that tie directly into each chapter and are relevant to the storyline. If you do read this book at the link below, please comment along the way. Us authors only improve if we have constructive feedback to work from.

Thanks for checking out this free read. Enjoy!

Bradley Wallace Murphy just turned thirteen, and he’s not happy about it. He doesn’t fit in at school, he’s no good at sports, a bully torments him, he’s a disappointment to his parents, and his only “friends” are fictional characters on a TV show called Dark Shadows. He’s on the verge of manhood, but wants no part of that, either.

Then he finds the egg and everything changes.

From this egg hatches Whilly, a supposedly mythical dragon that bonds with him emotionally and spiritually. The sudden responsibility of hiding, feeding, and caring for a rapidly growing dragon in a small California city in 1970 forces Bradley Wallace to grow up whether he wants to or not. 

Through their adventures together, boy and dragon learn the true nature of their symbiosis and Bradley Wallace learns that he is not just a misfit kid.

He’s dangerous. More dangerous than anyone in history. So dangerous that he’ll be killed if the truth comes out. The boy who doesn’t want to grow up comes to realize that it might be better for the world if he didn’t.

https://www.wattpad.com/story/193384793-a-boy-and-his-dragon