Ebook Giveaways, The Jade Rabbit for Runners, and Stray for those affected by addiction.

 **As of 09/01/2011,  The Jade Rabbit ebook giveaways through directly emailing me are done.  However, look at Goodreads.com for a free giveaway of 2 paperback copies of The Jade Rabbit. Jade Rabbit Giveaway

The Jade Rabbit, Available in Kindle, Nook, coming soon in paperback, tells the story of  an adopted Chinese woman who works at a Detroit runaway shelter and runs marathons to cope with a life full of trauma and a job full of madness.  I am looking to find a few Running folks who would like a coupon for a free ebook.

The Jade Rabbit on Amazon

The first three emails I recieve telling me a running event you have taken part in and I will respond with a coupon code for a free ebook of The Jade Rabbit from smashwords.

Also, Stray, the novel, a story that parrallels the life of lost, stray souls struggling with addiction, and the stray animals next door who are looking for their own salvation, is also up for free downloads. It has received all four and five star reviews on Amazon.

 Stray on Amazon
The first three emails I receive telling me either your sobriety date, or the sobriety date of a loved one, or any tidbit about how addiction has affected you, will receive a coupon code for a free download of Stray, also from smashwords.

Thanks! And by the way, reach me at xmarkm@yahoo.com.

The Jade Rabbit Now Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Paperback Coming Soon

No, that shaking you felt on August 23rd wasn't the east coast earthquake, it was the sound of a wonderful new novel dropping onto the earth and into your e-reader.

I am very pleased to announce that The Jade Rabbit has been published, and is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords with a paperback copy soon to follow.  I am thrilled, and looking to get it into some readers' hands. Look for some unique giveaways soon.   The Jade Rabbit is an emotional, visceral novel you will not soon forget.

Here are the links:

AMAZON
The Jade Rabbit on Amazon

BARNES & NOBLE
The Jade Rabbit on Barnes and Noble


Here is the description:

A female infant is abandoned by her birth-mother in a small Chinese village and spends her first ten months in an orphanage. She is adopted and raised in the United States where she becomes a social worker in order to help children in a desolate Detroit neighborhood. Her nickname is The Jade Rabbit and this is her story.

As director of a shelter for runaway and neglected youth, Janice Zhu Woodward gets pulled into the lives of the lost children of the Detroit streets. Fueled by angry parents, stories of ghosts who haunt the shelter's basement, and her own history of being left by a birth-mother who may have long forgotten her, Janice emulates her adoptive mother and becomes an avid, nearly obsessed marathoner. Training injuries, failed goals, and unexpected trauma test her will and take her to her breaking point. When a mysterious girl with dreadlocks is abandoned at the shelter's front door, Janice becomes her surrogate mother and risks everything to save her. Only a miraculous, unforgettable run through the streets of Detroit can save them both.

The Yellow Brick Road of A Marathon Runner

All existence is suffering, and all of our efforts are to relieve that suffering, if but only for moments.  Another bittersweet Buddhist belief. My paraphrase on one of the four noble truths.

However, with the right efforts, you can relieve that suffering so well that you transcend to something much higher than life.  Do it again and again, and your suffering baseline gets higher, your peaks of living continue to exceed the last one, and the dips of your life are completely manageable.

All this to to try and explain why I run.  I have found that it puts me into a space outside of the world. It heats up my insides and boils my truths to the top, detoxes my brain and rearranges things, and when the run is over, it all settles into a new place.  A rebirth happens with every run.

In times of turbulence, running brings me back to a deeper truth about myself and how to navigate in the world.   It is like going to see the wizard of Oz, and all along the yellow brick road, I am forced to use the very thing in my being that I thought I lacked, and when I get to the end, the wizard points out how it was there all along.  Yes, those scary flying monkeys are there too.

And this is why I love my character Janice Zhu Woodward, the narrator of The Jade Rabbit.  Janice has an incredible amount of angst and truths in her that need to be 'boiled out', and she has a quiet strength in her, a feminine strength really. She needs direction, perspective, and is yearning for her self-doubt to be erased.  With every run, she finds the answers and resolutions she is looking for to attack another day.  And with her final run in the marathon, she has an epiphany that some will see as incredulous while others, who have felt the spirit of the marathon run, will see it as a veritable truth.

We all have our yellow brick road, the journey we take to bring out the best in us. Ask yourself what is yours.