Scooter Nation, Unapologetic Lives Series Book 2
Writing is a marvelous thing because of the freedom it confers. The late Hunter Thompson proved that when he created his own genre—gonzo journalism—and pushed it well beyond anything anyone had ever seen before.
I wouldn’t presume to be on the same level as Thompson—that would jeopardize my health. But I did presume to reach the first time I took up the laptop, and I continue to do so with the newly released second edition of Scooter Nation under the Out of My Head Publishing imprint.
Scooter Nation is many things. Part humor, part social commentary, it even hints at a bit of magical realism. This is blended genre, I’m told. It is a thing that doesn’t fit squarely into a box. But it does offer a world peopled with living, breathing protagonist-antagonists searching for two things: meaning and affirmation.
Scooter has won humor prizes while its prequel won horror prizes. Go figure?
SO, WHAT KIND OF BOOK IS THIS ANYWAY?
The world of Scooter Nation is a very old and mysterious one. Steeped in tradition and 
couched in secrecy, funeral service, as we morticians like to call it, is carried out behind locked doors under gilded chandeliers.
There are several reasons for this, all of them necessary and good. But there is one single factor that trumps them all. Morticians the world over are governed by privacy laws, professional association by-laws, and codes of ethics that add up to the same thing: Protect the dignity of the deceased and the privacy of their survivors at all times.
Our duty to protect what my ethics professor called “the most vulnerable people on earth” can, at times, be misconstrued by the untested, fearful or conspiracy-loving among us. Obfuscation, fiscal malfeasance, a lack of integrity, and professional coverup are popular charges bolstered by often humorous and satirical literary offerings and television programming.
Fair enough. If we cannot talk about what we see and do, how can we defend ourselves against misinformation?
It was deep inside this question that Scooter Nation, a work of satirical fiction, was born.
Imagine a neighborhood establishment that has been part of the street for nearly seventy years. During that time, it has seen many coats of paint and many different faces as staff cycle through with the passing years. Those on the street who do not have business with this business never venture inside. The only living beings that do, have congress with the dead.
What are they like? The fictional funeral directors at Weibigand Brothers Funeral Home 
are inherently self-aware. Owing to the nature of their work and the long-evolved traditions that back them, they take pride in their old-fashioned livery and deep-seeded altruism that reinforces what they know well: They are doing lasting good, if only for the few short days they spend with each of the families they serve.
Embalming may have changed drastically since the days of ancient Egypt, but these morticians know that they belong to something old, perhaps even mystical. This is why they fight back as viciously as they do when a self-entitled “upstart” bullies her way in and tries to change things in the name of transparency and accessibility.
There are a lot of themes at play in Scooter Nation: tradition v. modernity; secrecy v. openness; beauty v. utility; kindness v. cruelty.
The old ways teeter on the brink as big and shiny moves in. Buildings will be bull-dozed and great tabernacles will be erected to honor brand and market share. But can our brave warriors survive the gloss of bolder and greater social policy, or are they destined to disappear along with rotary dial phones and face-to-face friendships?
Not for a second. Characters must change in Scooter Nation. Their survival depends upon it. But what passes for a makeover cannot alter what lurks deep inside.
Do you want to know what really goes on? Step into my parlor and find out.
“Unapologetic, beautiful and crazy.”
“Who knew that funeral homes could be so entertaining?”
Available on Amazon
A.B. Funkhauser is a dark humor, satire fiction author with three titles to her credit. Her fourth novel, Poor Undertaker, is a prequel prequel to Scooter Nation due this fall, 2019.
Visit
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/A.B.-Funkhauser/e/B00WMRK4Q4
Website: https://abfunkhauser.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamfunkhauser
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abfunkhauser/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/funkhausera/
There are many reasons why I decided to go indie and not one of them had anything to do with my original publisher, who was great and very supportive. In fact, if there’s anything I miss more it is the community that came along with them. So many writers came up with me and it was from one another that we learned how to write better books.
When rodeo clown Cody Goode is killed by the notorious bull, Baby Face, a maelstrom of events unfolds in the small town of Wild River, Wyoming. The arrival of Cody’s secret Thai mail-order bride Song throws it and especially Weston Beaudurant into chaos. Immigration issues and Native American gambling explode. But at the heart of this poignant tale is the love story that emerges between the lonely cowboy and lovely Thai immigrant. The novel soars with romance, rodeos, Native Americans and cowboys who ride the range, rope, and even throw punches in a quintessential barroom brawl. Complete with a diverse cast of unique characters, this American saga plays out beneath the wide Wyoming sky 
Leigh Podgorski is an award- winning playwright and screenwriter. Among her favorite projects are a play and documentary on Cahuilla elder Katherine Siva Saubel entitled We Are Still Here and the one-act play Windstorm for which she interviewed Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross. Leigh’s novels include The Women Debrowska that is loosely based on her own Polish ancestry, Ouray’s Peak which follows the story of one matriarchal Ute Indian lineage, and the Mystic Mystery Stone Quest series that includes Desert Chimera, Gallows Ascending, and the newly released Neuri Shape-Shifter. Her most recent novel is Western Song, published by Solstice Publishing who has published novellas My Soul to Take and The Season of the Neuri Knight as well as her short story Silent Night. Currently she is working on a murder mystery adapted from her play, Amara.
Formerly a Manhattan entertainment attorney and a contributing editor to the quarterly art magazine SunStorm Fine Art, Susan Lynn Solomon now lives in Niagara Falls, New York, the setting of many of her stories. She is the facilitator of the Buffalo Writer’s Critique Group.
Cursed by a Native American, the Bennet House is one of the most haunted locations in Niagara Falls. This is where Emlyn Goode and all but one member of her writers’ group hunt for ghosts on Halloween. What they find in the house, isn’t a ghost, though. It’s the body of Daniel Bennet, the missing group member.
Deirdre Reid and Hartley (Lee) Tate feel an immediate attraction when they meet at the office where they will work together and fall in love. There is only one problem: they are married to others and Lee has four daughters to whom he is devoted.
Linda Lingle began writing at a young age and had some early success with her whimsical short stories. Then life intervened and she took a break from writing to build a career in public service. When the storyline for Dear Heart, and its companion book, Sweet Heart, came to her out of the blue, it sparked her imagination and reignited her enthusiasm for writing. She is currently working on a screenplay for Dear Heart which incorporates the plots of both books. Linda lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, Arthur, and her dog, Sam.
Two women is a lot for any man to handle, but when one of them is a child-devouring demon and the other is Eve, Mother Of All Living, Harry Adams really has his hands full. An erotic contemporary fairytale that follows the reincarnations of Adam and Eve and, of course, the ever-hungry Lilith, throughout time, Parable of Pronouns finds the first dysfunctional family in what may be their final story. Harry Adams and Riann Haava don’t remember who they are, but that doesn’t deter destiny from catching up with them as they struggle to overcome their own demons and save Harry’s son from a fate worse than death.
Cassondra Windwalker earned a BA of Letters from the University of Oklahoma. She pursued careers in bookselling and law enforcement before resigning her post to write full-time. Her poetry, short stories, and essays have been 
Who is the Mystery Girl?
I am thrilled to share HEUER LOST AND FOUND, The Second Edition. Out now as a #FREE #DOWNLOAD on Amazon, Heuer traces the day to day goings on at a ramshackle family-run funeral parlor.
The ForeRunners have destroyed one of Capulet’s cities, and the joint Lenar-Human search teams are needed to root out the enemy. But when the empathic Lenars refuse to work without Selena Dillon and her team of commandos, they soon find themselves back on Capulet in an uneasy alliance with the planetary administration and in a race against time to stop the enemy from destroying other cities.
Mark’s short stories have been published in Back Brain Recluse, Dream, New Moon, Haunts, Kalkion, Screaming Dreams, and the anthologies Write to Fight, Escape Velocity, Auguries and Monk Punk. With over forty years’ experience in the martial arts and a 9th Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo, he’s written features for the magazines Combat, Taekwondo & Korean Martial Arts, Fighters, Junk, Martial Arts Illustrated, profwritingacademy.com and calmzone.net. He also runs a writer’s group for the British Science Fiction Association, along with The Scribe for Veterans with the help of The Royal British Legion.
Solstice in September 2013. Book II, ‘The Cull of Lions’, was published a year later. ‘Roar of Lions’ is the third book in the series.
I love Emily. I know she loves me too, she just needs me to show her. One day, we will be
together forever. I’ll make sure of that. She’s only with this guy she’s been hanging around with to test me, see if I’ll stand true. Emily wants me to fight for her, to see if I can win her. Of course, I will. Once she sees how I’ve been caring for her, all the plans I’ve made, the lengths I’ve gone to in order to be with her, she will be so proud of me. If only she would stop pretending so I could stop hiding in her attic.
I’ve become obsessed with her.
A. B. Funkhauser, Author 