Thursday, September 9, 2021

Kyle and Corey and the Game-Store Mystery

This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Joe Stephens will be awarding a $25 BN/Amazon GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Click on "read more" below to read an excerpt or sign up for the GIVEAWAY.  


Kyle & Corey Holley (15 and 12) live in Fairly Springs, a small southern beach town. Kyle is a budding engineer; Corey is impetuous, funny and sports-crazy. Like most brothers, they fight often, but they also solve crimes—like the rash of recent robberies around town...


When Kyle and Corey investigate, they learn that in each robbery, the thieves stole a high-end desktop computer. Why? What are they looking for? And how soon till they find it? Other complications include Corey's wheelchair-bound math tutor, Kyle’s after-school job in a local game store and a revolutionary new video game launching soon.

Kyle and Corey: Brothers. Best Friends. Detectives. They don't go looking for trouble; it has them on speed dial!


my review...

How fun to read. Some of it entirely fiction and other parts as realistic as can be. Brothers argue and pick at one another. True life lessons are learned about acceptance of others. I guess I’m trying to say this is just what I love in a book for a young person. There’s plenty of excitement and mystery here but in all the fun, there is something to learn, something to set aside, an idea to draw on when as a kid you need to make a decision.

Not trying to make this out to be a deep classic. I’m trying to explain that if reading should be fun and yet a learning experience this is a perfect example. I am most certainly not a kid anymore, but I sure didn’t take many breaks while reading it. It was fun and well-written. I’d say the ideal reading age here is maybe age 8 to 13. It could easily vary depending on the reading skills.

If this is a debut for Joe Stephens, he has a winner of a series. Hope he’s writing Book 2 as we speak.

read an excerpt...

That night at dinner, sitting at their comfortable round oak dining table at

home, Mrs. Holley said to Corey, “She thinks you’re a pathological liar.”

“He is a pathological liar,” Kyle said, helping himself to more mashed

potatoes and pouring a generous helping of brown gravy over them.

Corey, sitting across the table from him, glared over his plate of sliced roast

beef, steamed broccoli, and a smaller helping of mashed potatoes. “Liar is a

strong word. I know the difference between truth and a lie, you turd.”

“Corey!” his mother said in warning.

“Well, I do. I only lied at the end a little, when I said the whole thing was a

lie.”

“I know,” Mrs. Holley said. “Ms. Morrison hasn’t lived here long enough to

know what happened this summer.”

“That’s why I did it. If she’d thought it was really true, she’d have asked all

kinds of questions and probably made me write a whole other paper. She’s that

type.”

Mrs. Holley looked affectionately at her younger son. Corey had a knack for

picking out the essential personality traits in everyone he met, almost instantly.

He knew things about people after a ten-minute conversation that took therapists

months to root out.

Her husband Donald was proud of Kyle for his math and science abilities, his

kind and forgiving nature, his loyalty to friends and his gift for taking raw

materials and turning them into something new and unexpected. He was proud

of Corey for his people smarts, his vivid personality, and his natural ability as an

athlete. “I wouldn’t trade either of ‘em for a million bucks,” he told his wife

often, and she always answered, “Wait till someone makes you an offer.”


about Joe Stephens...

JOE STEPHENS has been a fan of boys’ adventure books all his life, and in

this, his first series book, he’s created two boys as memorable as Frank and Joe

Hardy. He has a background in education and has also visited more than thirty

countries while pursuing his passion for scuba diving. He lives in Georgetown

with his growing family and three thoroughly spoiled cats.

 

Amazon buy link:

https://www.amazon.com/KYLE-COREY-Game-Store-Mystery-Stephens/dp/0578922592/

BN: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kyle-corey-and-the-game-store-mystery-joe-stephens/1139681787

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58394956-kyle-corey-and-the-game-store-mystery


 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

15 comments:

  1. Thanks for hosting me today, and what a terrific review; thanks again! So happy to be here and yes, I AM writing Book 2 as we speak! Hope to hear from a lot of your readers throughout the day!

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    1. Best of luck with your series.

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    2. Thank you, Kathy! Hoping to have Book 2 out before Christmas!

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  2. Replies
    1. Thank you; I hope it is! Either way, I sure am proud of it!

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  3. The book sounds really good. I like the diversity of the characters. Thanks for sharing an excerpt!

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  4. So glad it interests you. Hope you'll look for a longer excerpt on Amazon Kindle. It was written for young readers everywhere, and I really hope they enjoy it!

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  5. Question for all the young readers (or relatives of young readers) here:

    What elements do you enjoy most in a young-adult mystery? What types of plots pull you in fastest and keep you reading longest?

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  6. Cannot wait to share this book with my daughter-in-law for my grandson...

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  7. Hope you do, Michele! And I hope he enjoys it!!

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  8. Love the cover, synopsis and excerpt, this sounds like a must read book and series for my grandchildren and I. Thank you for sharing the details

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