Title:
Luna Marina and the McMachina (The Adventures of Luna Marina Blue Book 1)
Author: G.A. Costa & A.R. Costa
Publisher: G.A. Costa & A.R. Costa
Pages: 485
Genre: Young Adult
Format: Paperback/Kindle
Fourteen-year-old
Luna Marina Blue has the temper and disposition of a sailor (with the language
and the manners to match)!
She's mad at everyone and everything around her, but what has her maddest of
all is that it's the first day of school and summer vacation is over. Poor
Little Luna has had it with all her shallow friends and the stupid grown-ups
who make demands and refuse to listen to her. When one of her classmates
recounts her 'wonderful' summer vacation on an Italian farm, an idyllic
place right out of the 1950's, where she told of hayrides, dances, parties and
stolen kisses, Luna starts daydreaming about going back in time. She
desperately wants to be in Old Italy during the 1950's, and experience all that
for herself.
Luna imagines how she would wow and impress all the poor 'backward' farm people
with her beauty, modern look and 'new-age' style; she would be a little
queen and the star of everyone's attention, she just knew it! Later that day,
after getting suspended from school and punished at home, Luna gets the chance
to have her wish come true. Mad at everyone and convinced that no one cared for
her or would even notice if she went missing, Luna accepts the offer,
thus beginning her own Grand Odyssey.
Going back in time to the farming community in and around the Italian town of
Pontecorvo during the 1950's, Luna Marina Blue embarks on a journey of personal
discovery and realizes that the so-called 'backward' farm people are just as
educated, intelligent, and capable as she is (if not more so). She also learns
some valuable life lessons and family secrets along the way.
Homesick and desperate to get back to her original family, whom she spurned so
easily before, yet learning to love an entirely new family in Old Italy, Luna
is torn between her old life in modern times, and the new one she found in the
1950’s.
Luna Marina Blue has a choice to make, one which will echo throughout her
entire life and beyond ...Will she stay? Will she go back? What a conundrum!
Teens from fourteen to ninety-four will enjoy taking this journey with Luna,
watching her grow from an immature child to a thoughtful and intelligent
young woman, all the while sharing the exciting adventures and wonderful
surprises that lie ahead ...
This is a wholesome, feel-good and heartwarming tale that the entire family can
enjoy together! Not only will teens and preteens love this story, but adults
will as well.
For More Information
About the Author
G.
A. Costa was born in Pawtucket,
RI. He grew up in Seekonk, MA
and now resides near Boston.
He attended The Perkins School for the Blind until Junior High, where, as a
child, he started learning how to sing and play the keyboard. After
outgrowing Perkins, he attended Junior High in Watertown, MA.
He then came home to Attend
High School in Seekonk, MA,
where he received High Honors and was inducted into The National Honor
Society. While at Seekonk High, he joined 'The Verdandi Male Choir for
Swedish Singers' with whom he traveled the country singing in concerts.
After high school, he was accepted at SMU (now UMASS Dartmouth), and graduated
with a B.S. in Computer Science and with a minor in Sociology. After
graduation, he wrote for a computer magazine and designed computer games.
Besides writing, he now plays various instruments, including the guitar and
drums, while continuing to sing and write music. Other interests include any
and all kinds of science and physics, reading, listening to music, and electric
trains.
A. R. Costa was born in Milan,
Italy, just
before the Second World War, and was raised in Pontecorvo, Italy,
in the Province
of Frosinone. She
obtained a teaching degree from 'The Fancy School in Town' when she was twenty,
and soon after she was married in The San Bartholomew Cathedral, right across
from her house. Since her mother was born in Fall River, Ma, and always talked about her
life in America,
Alessandra decided to 'come home' to the USA, and her entire family came
with her and her husband. Now the author and her two children, her
brother, sister, their children and grandchildren are all spread out very close
to their roots, in and around Fall
River, Massachusetts,
in the Good, Old U.S. of A. Her parents, Nonno and Nonna, lie peacefully
next to each other, near their family and together forever.
For
More Information
Book Excerpt:
Luna Marina Blue
is dreaming the most perfect dream ever! On her head she’s wearing a jeweled
crown made from solid gold and inlaid with delicate silver designs, passed down
through the ages, waiting for the moment it could rest on her pretty head. Her
long, dark, and lustrous hair (in real life her hair is short and dark) hangs
nearly to her waist beautifully. She’s wearing a long and soft gown of blue
velvet which seems to glow with its own inner light, matching her eyes
perfectly. Hundreds of people are there, and they all love, adore and
admire her and every last one of them looks at her with great expectation. Luna
Marina Blue is celebrating her fourteenth birthday and she’s having the time of
her life at this unbelievable party. Her birthday party was organized by her
Fairy Godmother, Giselle, and everything was done in pink and blue, Luna’s
favorite colors. There are fluffy clouds of pink and white, with red and blue
roses growing out of them on long, leafy stems. There are big, bright balloons
of bright yellow and green (and of course blue and pink as well). The
multilayered birthday cake is pink, white, and frosted silver, taller than Luna
herself, with fourteen bright candles and sugar flowers in all the colors of
the rainbow. Besides her entire family and all her friends, the guests
are very famous and important people, all dressed beautifully in every color imaginable
and all are happy just to be invited. But the best one would be the secret
guest. Giselle had kept quiet about the biggest surprise of all. She said
that his last name was Charming and she had laughed joyfully, her tinkling
laugh making everyone smile. Luna doesn’t dare say who she thinks this guest
would be, but she’s hoping. Then the secret guest finally reveals himself, and
she meets THE PRINCE! She looks up into his beautiful eyes and falls completely
in love at first sight. This Gorgeous Prince is humble, charming, tall and
dashing. He looks admiringly into her deep blue eyes, kisses her tiny hand, and
then he wants to kiss HER. Luna is anticipating the loveliest kiss in the
world, drinking him in eagerly. Then she goes for the kiss slowly, jubilantly,
their lips getting closer and closer. Just when their lips start to touch and
JUST as they start what Luna knows FOR SURE is the most WONDERFUL kiss
ever……….she hears someone yelling in the background:
“LUNA, WAKE UP
SWEETHEART! FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!.......” Somebody is shaking her awake.
Her Mom is pretty and petite, with short dark hair and blue eyes, perky and
sporty, always wearing white sneakers and white cotton shirts on the outside of
her slim, neat tailored jeans. She’s usually kind, gentle and loving, and
today she’s really proud of her Little Luna Blue for graduating to the 9th
grade. While she bustles around Luna’s room, she keeps telling her how
much she will enjoy seeing her friends, meeting new teachers and maybe even
meeting a nice boy to date. But Luna is grumpy, tired and irritable. Slow to
wake up, she just wants to stay in bed, blast her music and forget about
everyone and everything. She was in the middle of the most perfect dream ever,
when Mom unknowingly woke her up AT THE WORST POSSIBLE MOMENT!! And even if she
hadn’t, she would have awoken some time anyway, it was just a dream and not
real after all. Bummer!
It’s the First
Day of School, and summer vacation is over. How can her Mom be so cheerful, so
sweet, so nice, so HAPPY, while Luna is so grumpy?! How can she be that CHIPPER
on an awful day like this? Doesn’t she know that Luna just wants to be
left alone and revel in her bad moods? Luna blames everything on her parents,
but actually she’s just being her usual grumpy, spoiled, pouty, pissed-off
little self. Let’s face it, petite little Luna Marina Blue has the temper and disposition of
a sailor (with the manners and the language to match)! On this particular
morning she desperately wants to stay in her rumpled bed and talk to her
friends about how bad things are at home and how pissed off she is that Mom
makes her clean her room while continuously telling her to be respectful to her
elders. Not all of them command respect, as Luna and her friends well know;
some of these ELDERS are pretty mean and stupid, like the crossing guard in
front of the school. She’s forty if she’s a day, and she hollers at them
to stay put, even when everyone could see that there are no cars coming.
If Mom tells her to do stupid things, dad talks at her like she’s a
child. He demands that she help with chores, while saying:
“No!” To
her spoiled-brat wishes, wants and ravings. Her brother Kyle is another
story all by himself. The chubby, blondish, spiky-haired eight-years-old
is the bane of Luna’s life. This morning, when she comes down to
breakfast, Kyle is already installed at the kitchen table, the smile on his
pudgy little face a prelude of things to come. Luna scrunches her face at
the good and nutritious breakfast Mom made:
“Why can’t we
have pastries, brownies, strawberries in clotted cream and other good stuff for
breakfast?” She says. And then, with a little snobbish look, she demands:
“I would like a continental breakfast, if you please! A chocolate
croissant and a cappuccino, thank you!” Mom giggles while she serves her a bowl
of creamy oatmeal with a bunch of fresh blueberries sprinkled on top, and a
fluffy biscuit split and decorated with a pat of butter and a spoon of
marmalade. Mom puts the food on the table with a flourish:
“You are being
served, Ms. Blue!” She snaps the white kitchen towel she carries over her
arm, and she says with a smile: “Luna, Honey, please don’t scrunch up your face
like that or it will freeze that way!” Luna’s blue eyes flash in anger, and
her black hair sticking up everywhere gives her the look of an angry little
Medusa. This morning she wore her tightest cropped jeans full of holes, and she
tied her already short shirt around her waist. Her midriff is bare, and
her petite little figure is showing curves she doesn’t even have yet. She
looks much older than fourteen. Her dad, tall, slim and handsome, with
blondish brown hair and brown eyes, an esteemed podiatrist, frowns at her, and
sternly says:
“Show your Mom
some respect, Luna Marina Blue! And go change your clothes! You’re going
to school, not a beauty contest!” Then he pecks all their collective cheeks
quickly, checks his neat suit in the hallway mirror, grabs his leather bag and
runs off to work without another word. While this was going on, Kyle had
been trying to kick her under the table the whole time, forcing her to sit
sideways. So, just before she leaves, Luna drops her spoon, bends down to
pick it up, and pinches his leg meanly. Then Luna runs out to the bus (in
the same clothes) with a quick:
“Bye!”
accompanied by Kyle’s howls and her mother’s soft and reassuring voice.
On the bus, the
little Rug Rat Brats, who get dropped off at the kindergarten in the basement
of her school, start getting under her skin immediately, and she’s just mean to
them, telling them to shut up and disappear. She gets even madder as the
little brats start making fun of her in response to her Stone Face, calling
out:
“Luna-Tic,
Luna-Tic, my Big Sister’s a Luna-Tic!” making faces and sticking out their
tongues, making her get redder and redder, whereupon they laugh even harder:
“Kyle, you are
SOOOO going to be TOAST when I get home! I Promise You!” Of course that
was one of Kyle’s little ditties, Luna figures, as she fumes all the way to
school.
