\nAuthor: Janice Lane Palko
\nPublisher:\u00a0Plenum Publishing
\nCategory: New Adult
\nWebsite:\u00a0http:\/\/www.janicelanepalko.com<\/a><\/p>\n
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![\"a_shepherds_song_amazon\"](\"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/A_Shepherds_Song_amazon-200x300.jpg\")
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Tom Shepherd is anything but a hero. A senior physics major at Three Rivers University\u00a0in Pittsburgh, he just wants to make some easy cash. On the last Sunday in November,\u00a0he arrives to sell the Christmas season\u2019s hottest toy, So Big Sammy, for three times its\u00a0retail price to a buyer, but a snafu lands him in the middle of a bone marrow drive\u00a0benefitting four-year- old Christo Davidson, who has leukemia. When everyone\u00a0there\u2014including the media covering the event–assumes that Tom has come to give the\u00a0toy to the sick boy, Tom has no choice but to give it away.<\/p>\n
Lauded by the media as a hero and bestowed with the nickname The Good Shepherd,\u00a0Tom finds himself an overnight celebrity. As a toy scalper and liar, he knows he\u2019s\u00a0unworthy of the honor, but when Gloria Davidson, a fellow student and Christo\u2019s\u00a0relative, seeks out Tom to thank him for being so kind to her little cousin, Tom,\u00a0bewitched by her beauty, embellishes his character and lies to further impress Gloria,\u00a0portraying himself as a big-hearted philanthropist.<\/p>\n
Tom asks Gloria out, beginning a relationship that will lead him to examine everything\u00a0he believes or doesn’t believe. On Christmas Eve, Tom finds himself facing choices that\u00a0will affect not only himself but also Gloria and Christo. Tom must choose between\u00a0sacrifice and honor, love and loneliness, life and death.<\/p>\n
Excerpt:<\/em><\/p>\n Tom works part-time in the college book store, and this is a scene between him and the manager of the store Rajiv.<\/p>\n \u201cI did not mean to frighten you, Thomas.\u201d Rajiv\u2019s lean brown figure hovered so close I could smell the curry powder on his breath. \u00a0I didn\u2019t believe him. \u00a0He\u2019s always scaring me. \u00a0Americans are too big and loud to be really good at skulking. Rajiv was smaller and treaded more lightly. He insists that if I lived in the \u201cpresent moment\u201d instead of letting my mind wander, I\u2019d be aware of him and not be startled when he approached. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n My mind wasn\u2019t wandering today. It was fixed on Gloria. I needed to talk to her, but with this weather, she\u2019d never be able to drive over and see me.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat is it?\u201d I growled as I knelt on the floor and began collecting the books I\u2019d dropped. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n He held a magazine in his hand. \u201cI hope you do not take offense, but I feel it is my duty to point out your error.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019d probably dog-eared the magazine while I was stocking the racks, and now he was here to nag me about it. I rose. \u201cWhat error?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDo you recall our conversation the day the news reporters came seeking you? When I said you are negative and that one day you will meet your positive?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYeah, what about it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou will remember that you stated that when a positive and negative meet, they annihilate each other.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYeah? So what\u2019s your point?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPlease forgive me, Thomas. But you are wrong.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Wrong? What did he mean wrong? \u00a0Who was the physics major here? Annoyed, I put my hands on my hips and adopted my wise-guy tone of voice. \u201cOK, Rajiv, you tell me how I\u2019m wrong.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou have heard of antimatter, I presume?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYes, of course I\u2019ve heard of antimatter.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Antimatter is believed to have been formed alongside regular matter when the universe was created. In an environment of high energy, matter is created in pairs\u2014one particle of matter and one of anti-matter. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat about it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat happens, Thomas, when matter and antimatter meet?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This conversation was an insult to my intelligence. I rolled my eyes. \u201cI told you before, Rajiv. \u00a0They annihilate each other. When a positive and negative collide, they obliterate each other, wipe each other out. Got it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThen why do you and I exist?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s that have to do with antimatter?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThomas, why do we exist?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI thought we were talking physics here, Rajiv, not philosophy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAh, but I am.\u201d He licked his fingers and began leafing through the magazine. \u201cI was reading this article on antimatter, and it stated that for every billion antiparticle-particle pair created, there was one extra particle. A positive particle. If there had not been that one extra positive particle, the universe would not exist.\u201d He looked at me. \u201cYou and I would not exist.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cLet me see that magazine,\u201d I said, grabbing it from him. Pushing the hair out of my eyes, I looked at it. \u201cI can\u2019t read this.\u201d I shut the magazine. The stupid thing was written in a foreign language\u2014Hindi or hieroglyphics, or something.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSo you see you were wrong,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n I thrust the magazine back at him and walked toward the stockroom to get more books to shelve. I didn\u2019t need him explaining the universe to me.<\/em><\/p>\n Mr. Persistence, Rajiv, followed after me, practically skipping as I doubled my pace to get away from him. \u201cWhen a positive and a negative meet, Thomas, it is not annihilation\u2014but assimilation and creation. It is destiny that positive wins. It is woven into the fabric of the universe; it is preordained in the stars. Good must triumph over evil, love over hate.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I stopped in the stockroom\u2019s doorway and turned to tell him to get lost, but when I looked at him, he beamed his blinding white smile at me, \u201cthe cowboys in the white hats over the ones in the black.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOK, OK,\u201d I said, throwing up my hands in surrender. \u201cI get it. \u00a0Positive wins. Big deal. \u00a0What\u2019s that have to do with me?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIt has everything to do with you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cHow?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n He placed a hand on my arm. \u201cI tell you this as a friend, Thomas. Do not be afraid to embrace the positive. Open yourself to it. It will not destroy you. It only desires to unite with you to create something beautiful.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I jerked my arm away. I didn\u2019t want to hear this garbage. I was still hell-bent on annihilation.<\/em><\/p>\n Have you read this book? Let me know what you think in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi, Aadi here! Can you believe it’s already the first week of Advent? I love this time of year. The snow, the decorations, the romance novels. Mischa, the grouch is here too. You know, you can quit rolling your eyes. Christmas romances are sweet reads. Hey, it’s Mischa. And I’m not a grouch. I just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"What I'm Reading: A Shepherd's Song by Janice Lane Palko #FridayReads #B4CT","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentarybyaadi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/A_Shepherds_Song_amazon.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7xtYd-84","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dawnwitzke.com\/CatholicUnderground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}