Kindle Edition Download to your Nook (eBook) Amazon Gibbous Moon Gibbous Moon Category:  Family Publisher: Sarah Book Publishing ISBN-10:  1614564248 Type: Fiction Pages: 144 Copyright: April,8,2016 ISBN-13: 9781614564249 Price: $2.99 (eBook) Gibbous Moon is the story of Michael, a teenager, just finding his way in life as his grandfather is losing his through a terminal illness. Michael is a teenager with a thirst for life, dying to learn as his grandfather is learning to die. Grandfather is dying a slow, painful death. Michael's girlfriend succumbs to anorexia and is admitted into a hospital psychiatric wing to be "monitored". Father is an alcoholic who insists on wearing his vest and underpants to watch television and at every meal announces "What's this muck!". Aunty Joan suffers from Down's Syndrome but this doesn't seem to have impaired her romantic nature. Michael's best friends and joint members of the school folk band "Toad Fallout", are Kaiser and Norbert. Kaiser has an IQ of 153 and common sense quotient of 0, he arrives at one "gig" with a gun, points it at Michael's head and says " I bet you think it's not loaded! “ Michael falls in love with a German exchange student. Grandfather has dabbled in astronomy and veterinary surgery for many years believing that practice makes perfect and used his pernicious anaemia injections as a distemper cure for dogs. He finally succumbs to bowel cancer and in the little time he has left tries to prepare Michael for life without him. Is it going to end in tears?     Excerpt Thud! Grandad's head hit the floor with a thud. "Go and sort him out, Michael." Grandma's request was met with compliance. "That's the third time this week, Grandma!" I aimed the statement into thin air and bounded up the stairs to Grandad's aid. Opening the door, the aroma of mothballs and vomit invaded my nostrils with the determination of a dog in heat. Grandad was prostrate on the floor, covers wrapped around him in a failed attempt to imitate an Egyptian mummy. Helping him back into bed, his new weight of six and a half stone, was much easier to handle than his fifteen and a half stone would have been some six months earlier. He muttered something in my ear and was then sick on my best school shirt. "Oh God, Grandad, Mother will kill me! Can't you aim it in the bucket like I've shown you?" He looked at me with sorrowful, apologetic eyes, then spewed on my best school trousers.

John Heath
Loved the book. An intriguing web of characters and portrayals of the sort of
people who pop in and out if our lives at some point? With every appearance,
we find out more of each of the characters through their behaviours and antics.
'Yes, I once knew someone who was a bit like that', was a recurring thought, and
Mick builds up the personalities and their traits with an insight which makes every
one of them so ridiculously believable.
Looking forward to the sequel!

Linda Crooks
"A thoroughly enjoyable read, with all the emotions, humour, wit and sadness."
A thoroughly enjoyable read, with all the emotions, humour, wit and sadness. The author brings to life living in the 50'and 60's in a mining village. It shows the caring side of a boy towards his dying grandfather, almost never seen in the male population of northern males.!! also the difference in his relationship with his grandfather and his father. He brings to life the characters, with humour and gives a good insight into his schooldays, and the characters who meant something to him. He begins the book as a boy and ends as a young man on the verge of an exciting and better life which I am sure his grandfather would be proud of.