Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Blue Running ~ Lone Star Book Blog Tours Audiobook Review & Giveaway!

BLUE RUNNING
by
Lori Ann Stephens

Dystopian Fiction / Coming of Age / Suspense
Publisher: Moonflower Publishing
Date of Publication: November, 2022
Number of Pages: 334 pages 

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In the new Republic of Texas, guns are compulsory and nothing is forgiven. Blue Running is a gripping coming-of-age thriller set in post-secessionist Texas. A fast-paced, page-turning book, it looks unflinchingly at what the future could hold, and finds hope there.

Fourteen-year-old Bluebonnet Andrews is on the run across the Republic of Texas. An accident with a gun killed her best friend but everyone in the town of Blessing thinks it was murder. Even her father – the town’s drunken deputy – believes she did it. Now, she has no choice but to run. In Texas, murder is punishable by death.

On the road she meets Jet, a pregnant young woman of Latin American heritage. Jet is secretive about her past but she’s just as determined as Blue to get out of Texas before she’s caught and arrested. Together, the two form an unlikely kinship as they make their way past marauding motorcycle gangs, the ever-watchful Texas Rangers, and armed strangers intent on abducting them – or worse. When Blue and Jet finally reach the wall, will they be able to cross the border, or will they be shot down in cold blood like the thousands who have gone before them?

Some things are worth dying for.


PRAISE FOR BLUE RUNNING:
"Brilliant." --Heat Magazine

"A fast-paced story that races along, and stays with you long after you’ve finished it." -- The American

"An important and unforgettable read." -- Armadillo Magazine


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HALL WAYS REVIEW: AUDIOBOOK REVIEW. There’s Texas, and then there’s America. Doesn’t sound dystopian, right? But in Blue Running, THIS Texas has finally seceded, walled itself in, and every citizen over fourteen is required to carry a gun. That still doesn’t sound dystopian as much as prescient, which makes reading Blue Running, by Texan Lori Ann Stephens, a real page-turner.

“We gotta trust in God and the law.”

This book is all about the setting. As Stephens starts the story, everything seems normal enough. We meet Blue (short for Bluebonnet, of course), who’s trying to navigate life at age fourteen. She’s embarrassed by her drunken father, embarrassed by her poverty, and just embarrassed – because fourteen. But readers soon learn that this is not the teenager’s life we know. For one, the kids have an armory at school where they check-in/out their guns each day before boarding their buses home. People aren’t stopped for carrying their guns in public places, they are stopped for not carrying. And anything that comes from America, not Texas – like orange juice, for example – has a heavy import tax so that only the wealthy can afford to have it. Cell phone and internet reach, naturally, are controlled for most Texans, because the leaders know best. Bless their hearts.

I swallowed down my own stupidity, but it

stuck in my throat refusing to dissolve.”

I love the words and phrases Stephens chose that immerse the reader even more in the story and setting. Blue “piddled around” or found herself “screwing up the courage,” and of course ordering a tea at a restaurant means it’s delivered as iced, sweet tea. The description of Blessing, Texas, is familiar with its lay-out that could easily be any small-town, suburban Texas city. Since I listened to the audiobook and didn’t read with my eyes, I don’t know if Stephens uses eye dialect, but narrator Ashley Rose Kaplan uses g-dropping to help convey the Texas accent. That touch, along with Kaplan’s slow, soft, and lyrical drawl, perfectly fits with Stephens’s evocative writing.

Stephens doesn’t miss including any of the hot button issues that are plaguing Texas (and beyond) right now. She spins a set of believable, what-if scenarios of how life could be in a terribly wrong, not-so-distant future. Blue Running is a different kind of horror story. It’s especially terrifying for me because I know there are readers that think it’s not dystopian, but utopian Texas.

Reading Blue Running is sometimes super-stressful: the suspense! The danger! But it’s also a massive social commentary on the fine line we are walking right now, and it forces thinking, which may be uncomfortable for some. Stephens wraps up the book with a BANG (literally & figuratively) and in the Epilogue, readers are told what we need to know to be satisfied as we close the cover. But be warned: it also requires us to envision our own ending. There’s that thinking thing again. 


Novelist, librettist, lecturer Lori Ann Stephens grew up in North Texas, where she developed an addiction to the arts. Her novels for children and adults include Novalee and the Spider Secret, Some Act of Vision, and Song of the Orange Moons, and her award-winning work has been noted by Glimmer Train Stories, The Chicago Tribune, and the English National Opera. She teaches Writing and Critical Reasoning undergraduate courses, as well as creative writing graduate courses, at Southern Methodist University. She lives in Texas and is a bit mad about her cat.


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GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!
ONE WINNER:
Paperback of Blue Running
with autographed bookplate mailed separately
(US only; ends midnight, CDT, 5/19/23)


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FOR DIRECT LINKS TO EACH POST ON THIS TOUR, UPDATED DAILY, 
or visit the blogs directly:

05/09/23

Hall Ways Blog

Audiobook Review

05/09/23

LSBBT Blog

BONUS Stop

05/10/23

Forgotten Winds

Excerpt

05/10/23

Bibliotica

Audio Review

05/11/23

Book Fidelity

Audio Review

05/12/23

StoreyBook Reviews

Playlist

05/12/23

The Plain-Spoken Pen

Review

05/13/23

The Real World According to Sam

Review

05/13/23

Boys' Mom Reads

Guest Post

05/14/23

Shelf Life Blog

Author Interview

05/15/23

All the Ups and Downs

Scrapbook Page

05/15/23

It's Not All Gravy

Review

05/16/23

Reading by Moonlight

Review

05/17/23

Sybrina's Book Blog

Guest Post

05/17/23

Librariel Book Adventures

Audio Review

05/18/23

The Clueless Gent

Review

05/18/23

Rox Burkey Blog

Audio Review



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1 comment:

  1. ❤️❤️❤️💙 Love this review. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete