Kindle Edition Amazon Category:  Spirituality Publisher: Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas ISBN-10:  1941103359 Type: Fiction Pages: 380 Copyright: Nov. 23, 2014 ISBN-13: 9781941103357 Price: $2.95 (eBook) Pastor Gus Gospello and the Devil are in a battle of wills. Who's going to win? The Devil and Pastor Gus is an often whimsical, yet thought-provoking contemporary satire about the tumultuous relationship between the Rev. Gus Gospello and the Devil. Sick of being a laughingstock for his failure to acquire Gus’s soul years earlier, B.L.ZeBubb is obsessed with restoring his lost reputation by acquiring Gus’s soul and delivering him personally to the fires of Hell. Middle-aged Pastor Gus is obsessed with leaving a significant spiritual legacy: a novel ridiculing B.L.ZeBubb’s pride. But B.L.ZeBubb is a dangerous adversary, and Gus finds himself fighting the most dangerous battle of his life. The question is not whether Gus will die on his 65th birthday, but where he’ll be when he wakes up. Excerpt “Good day, my man.” The stranger might have been addressing the doorman at the finest of five-star hotels back on Earth and not Heaven’s renowned gatekeeper. Simon Peter leaned closer to the bars of the outer gate to get a better look at the man. Black hair. Short goatee. Custom-made flesh-colored suit. Anything but average in appearance. “I have an appointment with God.” Simon Peter grabbed the golden clipboard from a nearby stool and glanced over the names on the top sheet. Then he flipped to the second sheet. And the third. Just as I thought. No new arrivals expected for another eight earth minutes. And nobody shows up here before his appointed time. Ever. The stranger swaggered to a prominent spot several feet from the outer gate. Peter narrowed his eyes in shock. New arrivals didn’t do that. They stood back a respectful distance, their heads bowed as if they were already in God’s presence, and waited for Peter to call their names. What was with this guy? After giving him another discreet once-over, Peter mentally clicked through each of the pictures he’d viewed moments earlier—the people who hadn’t arrived yet that day. He shook his head. The stranger’s picture wasn’t among them. He rubbed his chin and looked at the man. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who—” “Call me B.L.ZeBubb,” the stranger said before spelling his surname—twice. “No spaces, and the accent is on the L. Bee-EL-zuh-buhb. The Bible misspelled it as B-e-e-l-z-e-b-u-b.” He crossed his arms and looked into Peter’s face. “As I just told you, I have an appointment with God.” “Bee-EL-zuh-buhb,” Peter said to himself as he ambled over to the computer at the check-in station and typed the name into The Lamb’s Book of Life search field. He double-checked his spelling before clicking Go. If he didn’t get a hit on the correct spelling, he would try the misspelling. A blood-red “No matches found. Be on the alert!” exploded across the screen. Peter narrowed his eyes. He’d never seen anything like that. A message from God popped up on the screen before Peter could wonder what to do. “Not a problem, my child. Here’s how I want you to handle this…” # Twenty yards into his stroll towards his appointed meeting place with God, B.L.ZeBubb glanced back over his shoulder. Peter was still watching. And laughing his fool head off. “This is what I think of you, Simon Peter.” His eyes glowed red as he spat, and the saliva sizzled as soon as it hit the ground and burned straight through to…wherever. Even though God had long been his worst enemy, B.L.ZeBubb deserved better treatment than this. The very thought of His refusing to grant a visitor’s pass or speak to him in person. Unwarranted. But making him walk halfway around Heaven’s outer wall to talk on an intercom? Preposterous. He almost turned around to leave. But this mission was too crucial to his well-being to give up on that easily. He walked only a few yards further before one foot slid out from under him. He barely caught himself in time to keep from landing in…mud. Conditions ahead appeared worse. He looked this way and that for a way around the bog only to discover that Heaven’s foundation extended a mere five or six feet outside the wall, and that part was completely mud-covered now. An immediate drop—probably bottomless—surrounded the foundation’s outer perimeter. Why hasn’t God installed warning signs and guardrails? Especially to protect someone as important as I am? The closer the path came to the edge, the more often B.L.ZeBubb lost his footing. He glared at the mud and sensed that it was glaring back at him. Scuffing his custom calf-high boots through the shallow mire and leaving little toe troughs in his wake, he mumbled a string of the most profane curses he knew. And he knew a lot of them. He would’ve preferred to shout them at the top of his lungs, but his mission was too important to chance offending God. These aggravations wouldn’t mean much once he got what he’d come for. “I won’t be satisfied until I have Gus Gospello’s soul,” he muttered. “And every bit of my lost respect.” He snorted like an unbroken colt and clenched his fists. He wanted to shake them in God’s face, but that would cost him his case before he could present it. And would also mean losing his balance and falling in the mud—and possibly sliding over the edge. Ugh. He shook his head. After rolling his pant legs up just above his hairy knees, he slipped off one boot and—balancing awkwardly on the other leg—peeled off a sock that matched his flames-and-pitchforks necktie. He almost fell backward into the mire before getting the second boot and sock off and leaving them standing Satan-less near the edge. As he worked his way closer to the wall, the mud oozed and squished between his toes. It was cold. Oh, so cold. After thousands of years in a much warmer climate, he couldn’t stand anything that wasn’t superhot. His movements slowed. The mud had grown deep enough to bog his steps down with a distinctive, sucking thlurp each time he lifted a bare foot to move forward. He proceeded that way for several minutes, each an eternity longer than the one before, until he spotted a waterfall washing—no, flooding—the way ahead. The outlet from Heaven’s central heating and air conditioning system. He’d once gotten into big trouble by turning the heat up all the way as a practical joke. Maybe that’s where God got the idea for Hell. Sounded like a God-thing. Grrr. Something small, silvery, and cylindrical sat on the mud at the base of the wall, where his chances of avoiding an ongoing drenching ranged from nil to zero. That must be the place. After thlurpping closer, B.L.ZeBubb grabbed the empty can, pulled the handwritten note out, and held it up to the light that spilled over Heaven’s wall. What in the…?

One Helluva book!
The style is breezy, piquant, playful, and punchy. Bruner shows us clearly the Enemy of our souls, who while toothless, is troublesome. Even though Gus was my own high school nickname and since I am a pastor myself, I found myself smirking with every page I turned (and it is a page-turner) so delightful are the often subtle allusions and turns of phrase used in relating the adventures of the protagonist, Pastor Gus. The novel reminds me of C. S. Lewis' classic fictions: The Bus-ride to Hell, and The Screwtape Letters. But the lesson most learned is this: we need to be true to God, not clever for God. Many of its truths are pleasantly blunt: "The more useless the committee the more frequent its meetings and the more useless its discussions." Bruner has a wonderful playful way with words as he schools us concerning the "wiles of the Devil" in a truly delightful fashion.

Very thought provoking!
I was unsure about how I felt about this story at first, but the more I read the more I was drawn in. This is a good example of not only the devil's pride, but our own as well. The characters were real and believable. I love reading books that, after reading, teach or inspire growing in my relationship with God. This book enforced my knowledge of God's unending love and acceptance, no matter what we do.

Patient Pastor Matches Wits with The Adversary
I SO loved this book. I do not read just any book at 3 am. I am snoring and most books have tumbled to the floor. Not Pastor Gus. I read it longer than most bedtime reading. A-pot-calling-the-kettle-black experience launched the book: at the beginning, Pastor Gus infuriated me by taking FOREVER to tell Mattie what was troubling him. The fact of the matter is I am the same way. The portrait of Pastor Gus's marriage to Mattie is inspiring. This book engaged my mind in many ways. I felt myself cheering for Pastor Gus and commiserating with him. It takes a well-drawn character to bond with the reader. Actually, all of the characters were well drawn. The plot is MASTERFUL, very carefully thought through. Pastor Gus has cliffhanger qualities also, because Pastor Gus duals intellectually with the Devil. Then, there is the humor in the book which is delicious; I love word play and irony. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is complex and satisfying.