GEMINI

Authored by Michael Burns

Set in rural Vermont during the 1968-69 academic year, Gemini is the story of one man's effort to salvage his life.Jack Scanlon returns to his hometown after an 18 year absence, taking a position as a high school science teacher, and moving in with his uncle and his wife after losing, due to his excessive drinking, his wife and young daughter, and his job. Scanlon's ambivalence extends to his views on the war in
Vietnam, the hippie culture, and his own identity. After an incestuous dream, he is driven to seek counseling. His counselor, with the unlikely name of Robert Kennedy, whose somewhat unorthodox therapeutic method includes whiskey drinking during sessions, becomes not only Scanlon's counselor, but his alter ego. Their relationship becomes fundamental to Scanlon's continuing struggle for a better life.

About the author:
Since his retirement from St. Paul's School in 2004,
Michael Burns has been living with his wife in rural New Hampshire, writing novels and catching up on the reading he missed before retirement. In the short New Hampshire season, Burns enjoys playing golf, and also appreciates good music, good food, and good wine.

A GOOD READ!

A nice review for a great book!

Where You Are
Author: Michael Burns
http://allbooksreviews.blogspot.com/2010/07/where-you-are.html



What would happen if you lived in a small town most of your life in a dead-end job without much of a future of anything changing, except the seasons? The main character, Paul, is in such a place barely making enough to live on without his new bride also having to work and not liking this particular small town with nothing going on as far as any type of cultural activities, just the same old people doing the same old boring things, day in and day out.

His wife nags her husband Paul, to move to the west coast, and attend college. Moving is not something Paul has considered. He is also not sure about going to college. Paul’s only time away from his hometown was a stint in the army, then back to the same place, and losing contact with his high school friends.

Married around a year, Laura, Paul’s wife takes off one day with a note left for Paul that is cryptic at best. Has his wife Laura left him? Will they get back together? Will Paul finally leave his small town and the small town ways to the big city? The only way to find out is to read “Where You Are.” This reviewer is not going to spoil it for you.

“Where You Are” is a good read. If you like relationships and interesting situations, “Where You Are” is a book for you. This reviewer found the pace good, the characters true to life, engaging, and assigns a four star rating to “Where Are You.”

GEMINI'S BLOOD

WE ARE PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE SECOND BOOK BY MICHAEL BURNS!
NOW AT http://allthingsthatmatterpress.com

Gemini's Blood
By Michael Burns

Jack Scanlon, at the threshold of his sixtieth year, finds himself in an uncomfortable recliner in the corridor of Day Surgery at a local hospital, hooked up to an IV tube. He is receiving three units of blood, a process that will take the better part of eight hours. He has all but convinced himself that he is a terminal case, a victim of colon cancer. If a drowning man is capable of witnessing the sum of his entire life before his eyes at the instant before he goes under for the last time, Jack Scanlon has the luxury of witnessing his at his leisure, and in chronological order. His meditations focus largely on his early childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, which covers roughly the years 1944 through 1961, with a few brief detours into more recent history, a history that involves the deaths of his younger half-brother Keith, and his mother, as well as a short description of his own recent medical struggles.

About the author:
Michael Burns was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. His family moved to New Hampshire in 1950 where he attended high school, graduating in 1957. He deferred entrance to college to serve in the U.S. Navy for four years, seeing duty in Southeast Asia in the early days of the Vietnam War. After mustering out of the Navy, Burns returned to New Hampshire where he met and married his wife, and matriculated at the University of New Hampshire.

Encouraged by his freshman English teacher, Burns first became interested in writing fiction in 1963. He continued writing after being inspired by the late Thomas Williams, National Book Award-winning author and mentor to many young writers, among them John Irving.

In 1971, Burns joined the faculty of St. Paul's School, a college preparatory boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire. He retired from that school in 2004 after 33 years of teaching chemistry, life science, and creative writing. At present, Burns is living with his wife in rural New Hampshire where he is at work on his fourth novel. Gemini, his first novel, was published by Poncha Press in 2001, and will be republished by All Things That Matter Press in 2009. Where You Are, Burns' second novel, was published by All Things That Matter Press in 2009.

Gemini's Blood

"WHERE YOU ARE" Just Released

Where You Are- By Michael Burns


"I can't take it anymore. Love, L" writes Paul Embry's wife of less than a year on the envelope of an electric bill. Thus begins the late summer and fall of Paul Embry's discontent as he struggles to come to grips with the ambivalence he feels about his marriage that this act offish young wife generates in him. In phone conversations with her,later, Paul learns that she has fled to San Francisco, California; he comes to discover that her motive is to catalyze a change in their lives, to induce him to pull up roots from the town where he was born and lived all his life, to begin a new life in a new city, far from the stultifying influence of the depressed New Hampshire mill town where they had married and were living.


About the author:

Michael Burns was born in St. Johnsbury,Vermont. His family moved to New Hampshire in 1950 where he attended high school, graduating in 1957. He deferred entrance to college to serve in the U.S. Navy for four years, seeing duty in Southeast Asia in the early days of the Vietnam War. After mustering out of the Navy,Burns returned to New Hampshire where he met and married his wife, and matriculated at the University of New Hampshire.



Encouraged by his freshman English teacher, Burns first became interested in writing fiction in 1963. He continued writing after being inspired by the late Thomas Williams, National Book Award-winning author and mentor to many young writers, among them John Irving.



In 1971, Burns joined the faculty of St. Paul's School, a college preparatory boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire. He retired from that school in 2004 after 33 years of teaching chemistry, life science,and creative writing. At present, Burns is living with his wife in rural New Hampshire where he is at work on his fourth novel. Gemini,his first novel, was published by Poncha Press in 2001. Where You Are is Burns' second novel.