Lindagodfrey's Blog

Now Available! Vendor Links for reader apps below!

A new urban fantasy e-book published in conjunction with Dystel & Goderich Literary Management

God Johnson: The Unforgiven Diary of the Disciple of a Lesser God

By Linda S. Godfrey

Author event at Racine Barnes & Noble  Saturday, February 16 I’ll be reading from God Johnson and giving free signed color copies of the cover with every purchase of the e-book. I’m also on the panel for the writers workshop from 1230 to 2 PM, please come say hey if you can!

I’m beyond stoked to announce the debut of my first published novel, whose title sneaked into my head some three years ago. It’s about an ambitious young woman who trades the rights to her soul to a lesser god partly because he looks like Abraham Lincoln. She expects no less than a fast track to super-stardom in return, but discovers too late that the gods don’t disclose the fine print. Check out the first few paragraphs:

“Looking back, it’s not something I’m proud of. I will admit, however, that I am the sole disciple of a lesser god. As a result, I owed most of what I was and had – red hair a shade between bittersweet and auburn, a powder blue convertible, and an inside track to super-stardom at the tender age of twenty-two — to the grace of a minor deity. He likes to be called God Johnson, although the other gods and I usually drop the “God” part since we all know what he is. And I still prefer to go by Liberty, Liberty Belle Abbott. My close friends call me Lib, but my god is a stickler for formality.

I’d rather be a stickler for the truth, and I want to be clear from the get-go: God Johnson is not the God that owns the Bible. And he bears no resemblance to the object of any other organized form of worship I have ever heard of. I doubt any decent Mohammedan, Hindu, Mayan or ancient Greek would have him. But he did provide all I wanted and some things I didn’t smooth as beeswax for a little less than one heady, heart-in-my-mouth month. I even thought he might be the man — or male entity — that I’d been saving myself for. And then one day, although I had never received so much as a Twitter feed hinting at any official commandment, I learned he had a secret Major Rule. I had broken it, naturally, and I would have to suffer his Wrath.

I had no idea at the time what the extent of a demi-god’s Wrath might be…”

VENDOR LINKS: BUY FOR $3.99

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/God-Johnson-Unforgiven-Disciple-ebook/dp/B00B89PFNO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1359644921&sr=1-1

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/god-johnson-linda-s-godfrey/1114272818?ean=2940015948653

Kobo: http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/God-Johnson-The-Unforgiven-Diary/book-SvIrOS2vn0W2fe7TAFdaNg/page1.html?s=uZxmwmnHkEOQAIg9aVsBhg&r=4

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/280556

Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/123159924/God-Johnson-The-Unforgiven-Diary-of-the-Disciple-of-a-Lesser-God

PHOTOS AND OTHER FUN STUFF; places, people and things from God Johnson

Here are a few pics of UW-Madison’s Rathskeller, where Liberty is initiated into the Whetherworld, the unseen habitat of the lesser gods. Most mortals last no more than a few minutes in the Whetherworld. but Liberty proves unexpectedly tolerant of this weird domain.

Drink Coasters

The gods are not slobs. They’re quite fastidious for the most part, and would not dream of setting  a foaming mug of nectar  on a bare table. The coaster design features a drawing of one of the chandeliers that hang in the basement Council of the Gods. The chandeliers dim or brighten  according to their own interpretation of what is going on in the room at the time. They are not above using this modest ability to subtly manipulate goddish activities.

There is nothing magical about the coasters themselves. The gods have them printed in bulk by a Cincinnati paper goods company called Pulp Faction. The gods really enjoy bad puns.

Bascom Hill

Recipe for Orange Scones

1 3/4 sifted all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup (half a stick) butter

the zest (grated  peel) of two oranges

Use a pastry blender or knife to cut through these ingredients until particles are about the size of a pea. Beat two eggs separately and save out about 2 tablespoons of the eggs. Beat 1/3 cup cream into the larger portion of eggs, then pour the mixture into the dry ingredients and stir only until blended. Add a quarter cup of dried cranberries if you like. Spread the dough evenly into an round baking pan or fill separate compartments of a muffin tin about half-full. bake in an oven preheated to 450° for about 15 min. If you use the baking pan, which is how I do it, cut the finished product into eight triangles. Drizzle with glaze if you like.

Glaze

2 to 3 tablespoons of very soft butter

1 cup of powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

small pinch of salt

about a quarter cup of milk more or less

This glaze is my own recipe so it is rather haphazard. Mix first four ingredients. Add milk a little at a time until the mixture is just pourable enough to drizzle over the warm scones. If you would rather spread it on with a knife, be sure to stop adding milk when mixture reaches a paste like consistency.

Delicious!

The Scarab

The Scarab is truly a disgusting character so you may not want to look at this illustration of mine while you are eating the scones.  He reminds me of  old time movie villains; think of an insectoid Edward G. Robinson. 

My astute readers, which would be all of them, will certainly wonder  about his relationship to the ancient Egyptian scarab deity. The Egyptians saw the scarab beetle as a representation of their Sun God. I assure you that their religious views have little or nothing to do with my own interpretation. But I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that the scarab beetle is also called the dung beetle because it eats animal doo, which it transports by shaping it into a little ball and rolling it away. This ball reminded ancient Egyptians of the sun and that association led to their worship of the scarab beetle. In God Johnson, that doesn’t  turn out so well for the big bug.

This page is a work in progress. Please keep checking back for more pictures and illustrations.

Thanks for stopping by!

A quick summary of God Johnson

Straight-laced wannabe actress Liberty agrees to be the sole disciple of a minor deity and Abe Lincoln lookalike oddly named God Johnson, in exchange for a fast track to world-hunger-fighting-super-celebrityhood. As Liberty tries to give him her heart – and a certain portion of her aura — she breaks his Major Rule which is that humans shall not play god with other humans. He then must abandon her to the other lesser deities for their sport until she pays for her sin or dies. By the time Liberty discovers what the gods really want from her, she knows that what she wants from God Johnson is worlds away from her original plan. She must either accept the considerable and attractive sacrifice God Johnson makes for her, or leave the natural world and create her own brand of do-gooder stardom as the glamazon goddess she has become.