Neighborlee, Ohio Sampler #1: Neighborlee, Ohio

By Michelle Levigne

Welcome to Neighborlee, Ohio.

 

Where? Somewhere on the North Coast of Ohio, south of Cleveland, right off I-71, north of Medina, in the heart of Cuyahoga County.

 

What is it? That's a little harder to explain.

 

Neighborlee is a place you need to experience.

 

The most important thing you need to understand: Neighborlee is magic. Some people say the town is alive. It exists to protect the weird and wonderful (and sometimes a little bit scary) from the cold, practical, material world.

 

More important, Neighborlee protects the outside world from the weird and wonderful that come to visit … and sometimes come to stay.

 

First stop: Divine's Emporium, a four-story Victorian house sitting on a hill overlooking the Metroparks. Whatever you really need, you can find at Divine's. Even if you don't know what you're looking for when you walk in the door. The shop is often bigger inside than it is outside. Angela is the proprietor. Please stay on the first floor. You don't want to find out what is hidden and locked safely away upstairs. Like Aslan, Angela is good, but that doesn't mean she's safe. And neither are the secrets and wonders and doorways to other worlds that she protects … and keeps securely locked.

 

Come in and explore. Meet the people who help Angela guard Neighborlee. Share their adventures of magic and wonder, danger and sacrifice. You never know who or what you'll run into as you walk the streets and listen to the stories of their lives.

 

Neighborlee, Ohio Sampler #1 contains 3 stories of Lanie, Kurt and Felicity when they were children, learning the "rules" for being semi-pseudo-superheroes from comic books, guided by Angela and other adults who believed in magic and wonder.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ye Olde Dragon Books
• Release date: Jun 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781952345142

Michelle Levigne

On the road to publication, Michelle fell into fandom in college and has 40+ stories in various SF and fantasy universes. She has a bunch of useless degrees in theater, English, film/communication, and writing. Even worse, she has over 100 books and novellas with multiple small presses, in science fiction and fantasy, YA, suspense, women's fiction, and sub-genres of romance. Her official launch into publishing came with winning first place in the Writers of the Future contest in 1990. She was a finalist in the EPIC Awards competition multiple times, winning with Lorien in 2006 and The Meruk Episodes, I-V, in 2010, and was a finalist in the Realm Award competition, in conjunction with the Realm Makers convention. Her training includes the Institute for Children’s Literature; proofreading at an advertising agency; and working at a community newspaper. She is a tea snob and freelance edits for a living ([e-mail] for info/rates), but only enough to give her time to write. Her newest crime against the literary world is to be co-managing editor at Mt. Zion Ridge Press and launching the publishing co-op, Ye Olde Dragon Books. Be afraid … be very afraid.  www.Mlevigne.com www.MichelleLevigne.blogspot.com @MichelleLevigne

Book preview

Welcome to Neighborlee, Ohio.

Where? Somewhere on the North Coast of Ohio, south of Cleveland, right off I-71, north of Medina, in the heart of Cuyahoga County.

What is it? That’s a little harder to explain.

Neighborlee is a place you need to experience.

The most important thing you need to understand: Neighborlee is magic. Some people say the town is alive. It exists to protect the weird and wonderful (and sometimes a little bit scary) from the cold, practical, material world.

More important, Neighborlee protects the outside world from the weird and wonderful that come to visit ... and sometimes come to stay.

First stop: Divine’s Emporium, a four-story Victorian house sitting on a hill overlooking the Metroparks. Whatever you really need, you can find at Divine’s. Even if you don’t know what you’re looking for when you walk in the door. The shop is often bigger inside than it is outside. Angela is the proprietor. Please stay on the first floor. You don’t want to find out what is hidden and locked safely away upstairs. Like Aslan, Angela is good, but that doesn’t mean she’s safe. And neither are the secrets and wonders and doorways to other worlds that she protects ... and keeps securely locked.

Come in and explore. Meet the people who help Angela guard Neighborlee. Share their adventures of magic and wonder, danger and sacrifice. You never know who or what you’ll run into as you walk the streets and listen to the stories of their lives.

Neighborlee, Ohio

(Title, Original Title, Print Release Date)

Confessions of a Lost Kid (Growing Up Neighborlee) 05/20

Semi-Pseudo-Superheroes (Dorm Rats) 07/20

Virtually London (London Holiday) 09/20

Living Proof (that no good deed goes unpunished) (Living Proof) 11/20

Night of the Living Proof, 01/21

Quitting the Hero Biz (Hero Blues) 03/21

Bride of the Living Proof, 05/21

Shrunk: The Exile of Maurice (Divine’s Emporium) 07/21

Return of the Living Proof, 09/21

Allergic to Mistletoe (Have Yourself a Faerie Little Christmas) 11/21

Dawn of the Living Proof, 01/22

Angela’s Knight (Divine Knight) 03/22

The Living Proof Gets the Blues, 05/22

The First Six Neighborlee Books

Confessions of a Lost Kid

Lost Kids: toddlers found on the outskirts of town. When no one claims them, they grow up at the Neighborlee Children's Home. Some are adopted, some develop superpowers, and some vanish without explanation.

Lanie is a Lost Kid. She teams up with Kurt and Felicity, two other Lost Kids, to figure out what they are, and why they are. Mutants? Escaped genetic experiments? Alien visitors?  And if so, just how do they phone home?

As Lanie and her friends learn what they can do, and develop rules for their superpowers from reading comic books, they join the other guardians of Neighborlee. Sometimes they protect the magic, the weird and wonderful of Neighborlee from the world—and sometimes they have to protect the world from the mysteries and dangers of Neighborlee.

SEMI-PSEUDO-SUPERHEROES

High school is rough enough, but the town of Neighborlee, Ohio, has traditions that make it even harder—culminating in Senior Prank Night, when some seniors try to ensure they never walk through graduation. Lanie and her friends even have to cut short their own Senior Prank Nights to protect their classmates. It's rough being a semi-pseudo-superhero, especially when you don't even get a costume or a cool name.

Lanie and her friends grow into their duties as guardians. The threats to Neighborlee grow darker as enemies gather from many different directions. Other worlds. Other dimensions. Possibly even the Lost Kids who were stolen years ago.  The guardians do whatever it takes to protect their home.

And sometimes the guardians pay the ultimate price.

VIRTUALLY LONDON

Athena Longfellow and Doni Halliday are granddaughters of one of Neighborlee’s guardians, Ford Longfellow. When danger threatens Neighborlee, the girls awaken to their duties and their gifts, and slowly grow into their heritage.

Athena, the computer whiz, finds and experiments with an unusual video camera at Divine’s Emporium. She records Doni, and then records a room at the shop—and inadvertently opens a door to another dimension. Properly frightened, she shuts down the program behind firewalls. Enemy invasion thwarted. For now.

She doesn't realize she also created a virtual copy of Doni, until an advanced computer class in college, when the artificial intelligence that calls herself London Holiday moves into her team's class project.

Athena suddenly has a good idea how Dr. Frankenstein felt. The question is: If she has to pull the plug on London Holiday ... how?

LIVING PROOF (THAT No Good Deed Goes Unpunished)

Lanie saved her student's life on Senior Prank Night, but broke her back and blunted some of her semi-pseudo-superhero powers.

Now