Children of the Panther - Part One "The Healer" is a work of speculative fiction set in Brazil. The main character is Manoel, a psychic healer with a true gift for 'hands-on' medicine. When a distraught mother brings her deaf-blind baby to Manoel, he isn't able to cure the child but teaches him how to communicate telepathically, thus releasing him from his lonely sensory prison. However, trouble looms for Manoel and the baby when a power-hungry psychic seeks to eliminate anyone else who possesses telepathic skills. The lives of the characters in this lush novel are fully described - the joys, sorrows, triumphs, conflicts, sins and love. This is not a children's book.

"Darkness of the God" begins with Keja, a Gypsy girl, traveling with her family through Mexico and missing her friends back in Miami, the gadje (non-Gypsy) friends forbidden in her culture. The Gypsies, suffering from financial difficulties, encounter a strange group of Brazilian orphans and their caregivers, who are fleeing from hired manhunters sent by the internationally famous cult leader, Caldos Moriera. The two groups form an alliance, and soon the strange psychic talents of little Ana and her handicapped uncle Joćo come to light. They can communicate without words, they can heal at a touch, Ana can read minds better than Keja’s mother, an expert palm-reader. On the back roads of the Sonoran desert, they are able to stay only one step ahead of Garik Kroll, the most skillful of Caldos’ bloodhounds. Inevitably Ana, Keja and Joćo fall into Caldos’ hands and a spectacular battle ensues against the idyllic backdrop of Caldos’ Caribbean island retreat. After their friends stage an unsuccessful rescue attempt, Keja remains steadfast to her new friend, at tremendous personal cost.

• October 11, Thursday - Hinton Public Library - 7:30 PM
• October 12 - 14, Friday > Sunday - Pure Speculation Convention, Hazeldean Centre, Edmonton
• October 17, Wednesday - Chapters - Red Deer - 7:00 PM
• October 19, Friday - McNally Robinson Downtown, Calgary - 6:00 PM
• October 22, Monday - Lethbridge Public Library - 7:00 PM
• October 23, Tuesday - Pincher Creek Public Library - 7:00 PM
• October 24, Wednesday - University of Lethbridge, Book Store - 12:00 Noon
• October 25, Thursday - Chapters, Medicine Hat - 7:00 PM
• October 28, Sunday - Stanley Milner (downtown) Branch, Edmonton Public Library, Linda Goyette's Writers' Corner - Afternoon - please phone library for time (496-7000)
• October 29, Monday - Laurie Greenwood's Volume II, Edmonton - 7:30 PM