Books with author Michael Card

This is an original non-fiction narrative of a contemporary Pacific Northwest Hero. No group of Hollywood writers could invent a more compelling make-believe character. His daring exploits would make the late crazy motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel set up in his grave and tip his crash helmet towards Ricky.I decided to tell his life story as a suspense narrative. Because Ricky’s life is the poster child for a Hollywood style suspense/thriller movie.“Shatterproof… the countless lives of Sheriff Ricky.” At first it was to be ‘the nine lives of Sheriff Ricky,’ but that would be grossly undersold.Skagit County Washington’s Sheriff Richard Grimstead is that real life-amazing person. Who hasn’t said… I know a Weird-Wiley or Naughty-Nancy. Their adventures, or escapades, would make a great book or movie. The lifeblood of all T.V. reality shows is placing ordinary people, like the viewers, into extra ordinary situations. And not unlike the reality show Survivor, Ricky Grimstead is for real.At just eleven, he spent a month running down, corralling and breaking Rago, an ornery wild range stallion. Then to make him run he accidentally set fire to thousands of wilderness acres in Washington State. While attending Washington State University, Ricky's numerous sophomoric pranks got him expelled.Then living a type of snow ski bum and or life of Riley existence survived several late night car crashes sending a couple buddies to the hospital. Also survived extreme high dives to impress a crowd of onlookers.After his famous father, at least at WSU, pulled some strings, getting Ricky back into WSU he took on some risky summer jobs. Ignoring many safety orders, Ricky just barley survived high falls and being crushed to death with no trace of him to claim. As a broke, bone-tired, overworked, newly married young man, he crashed his car into the bottom of a thirty-foot deep irrigation canal. In Vietnam, he was awarded twenty-nine Air Medals, flying six hundred helicopter combat missions. After completing his tour in Nam, he saved his flight crew and scores of Hawaiian sunbathers from sudden death, redirecting a harrowing helicopter crash. While on duty as a Washington State Trooper, he had several narrow escapes from out-of-control drivers. When Sheriff Ricky retired after two elected terms, I approached him about telling his life story. At first, he declined saying to me “au shucks my life’s no big deal.” His family and everyone else that have heard of his exploits vibrantly disagreed. When I asked his wife Kay, about Ricky’s daredevil stunts she told me, “Ricky doesn’t have a death wish… he just thinks he can do anything.”

Sailing from California to Hawaii, Susannah, her family, and a crewman are driven by a vicious storm into the path of a drifting powerboat. The ghostly boat carries the bodies of two drug runners and a huge stash of money. For the sailors, stealing the sordid treasure changes everything, causing dissent and division, compromising each of them, and putting their futures at risk. Because now they are being pursued by the worst enemies imaginable, including a drug lord's son eager to prove himself and a cold-blooded teenage hit man with murder on his mind.

In the year 2045, climate change is killing people. Fifteen-year old Lily Star must use her power over water to save her family and thousands of refugees in the parched, superheated American West. She’s a powerful Diviner who can find and raise water from from deep underground. At Everspring, the family's only source, she's been raising water since she was thirteen, but now it's dying from climate change. The Star family must ration every drop to stay alive. Ash from forest fires falls like snow, relentlessly blowing sand and dust are a fact of life, and millions of Floaters, driven out of their homes by flooding coastlines, drift inland looking for food, water, and new homes, which are in desperately short supply.The United States has split into two unfriendly factions, the United Western Republic and the Eastern Alliance. When the Republic’s Minister of Water, Tanner Voles, discovers that Lily has the power that he’s been seeking, he pressures her to use it for his own political gain and the benefit of the water-hungry capitol, Aquion. But Lily and her family refuse, suspecting that Voles, a notoriously self-serving and evil man, will exploit her to get the water for the Republic and then kill her so nobody else can use her power. To gain control over her, he sends the family to Floater Camp 65, a broiling wasteland filled with thousands of Floaters. There Lily befriends Nate Arnett and the group 1Planet, an underground resistance group of kids who fight the government and give their generation hope for the future.Along the way, Lily’s belief in herself will be sorely tested, her like of Nate Arnett will turn to love, and she will be wracked with grief and guilt over the violence she leaves in her wake. But ultimately, she will come to believe that she can save her family and the Floaters dying of thirst. And at the same time, change the planet, at least their small slice of it.

Legend Tripping: to seek out and investigate sites of heightened paranormal phenomena.Fifteen-year-old Zachary Larkin wants to find a monster. His plan? A new school club. Its mission: discover living, breathing proof of the paranormal. Its members: Zachary’s three best friends, his young next-door-neighbor, and a teacher who doesn’t know Sasquatch from Saskatchewan.Their first case brings them to a small town plagued with sightings of unexplained beasts. Murderous Mercreatures? Check. Bloodthirsty birdmen? Naturally. Organ-harvesting Chupacabras and a fire-spewing dragon? Oh yeah. When the horde launches an all-out assault, the Legend Trippers must make a do-or-die choice: fight back or let the entire world become a graveyard.Finding the monsters was easy. Defeating them? That’s going to be killer.LEGEND TRIPPERS is the first book in a paranormal action adventure series for both teens and adults. It will especially appeal to fans of The X-Files, Jurassic Park, and Ghostbusters."5 out of 5. This book was excellent. I really enjoyed reading this book. It was action packed"- Mindy Walski, NetGalley"5 stars"- Anne Patkau, Goodreads

Ten years ago, all the superhumans vanished. No one knows what happened to them?until now. Thirteenyear- olds Danny and Colin are shocked to discover that they are in fact the beginning of a renewed superhuman race. As they rise to take the place of the lost generation, the unimaginable truth behind the explosive final battle that occurred ten years ago between the superheroes and the supervillains is exposed. And when the past resurfaces, Danny and his fellow superheroes must face the new challenges that threaten their survival. On the run from everyone, and not knowing who is friend or foe, the one ability the new heroes are going to need most is the power to distinguish good from evil.

A National Book Award nominee!Returning to the same era of his "In a Dark Wood", Cadnum's majestic novel--part mystery, part history--chronicles the pageantry and brutality of the Crusades under King Richard.Edmund, a young apprentice, is awaiting punishment as a counterfeiter when a knight intervenes on his behalf--and compels Edmund to join Richard Lionheart's forces in the Holy Land. There, amidst the savagery of the twelfth-century Crusades, Edmund learns both courage and compassion, and discovers that cruelty is sometimes considered the will of Heaven. Set in medieval England and the war-torn shores of the Middle East, Cadnum's tale weaves together a rich tapestry of storms at sea, the brutality of hand-to-hand combat, and one of the classic horse and lance battles in recorded history--the Battle of Arsuf.

The king is killed on a shadowy summer day—and his servant becomes an outlaw On an August day in 1100, King William II of England goes hunting. At the side of the notorious monarch is his loyal servant, Walter Tyrrell, who is ranked among the finest archers in the kingdom. Riding through the New Forest, the king is separated from his party. Tyrrell lets loose a shot at what he thinks is a passing stag, but his arrow buries itself in the king’s chest instead. When he realizes what he has done, Tyrrell escapes from the forest—and into the twilight of English legend. For nearly 1,000 years, scholars have debated whether or not Tyrrell intended to kill the king. In this rollicking novelization of that ancient tragedy, author Michael Cadnum imagines what might have happened to cause that fatal shot—and where the fugitive archer ran to next.