Novel

Kacie Bawiec has been scribbling stories in notebooks since she was in the third grade. And just two weeks ago, the 15-year-old teenager published her first novel, "Silver Dagger. " The fantasy manuscript, which Kacie wrote when she was in the eighth grade, was picked up last year by Tate Publishing, a small, family-owned Christian-based publishing house that specializes in emerging authors. In its 198 pages, "Silver Dagger" is full of evil spirits, ghostly possession and magical weapons, such as the eponymous blade with its jewel-encrusted hilt, which materializes when Bawiec's characters are enraged.

When the British author Chris Cleave published his debut novel, "Incendiary," he fell victim to perhaps the worst historical coincidence ever to afflict an author. The book, about a terrorist attack in a London sports stadium, was released on July 7, 2005 - the same day that three suicide bombers detonated their devices in the London underground transit system. Cleave's publishers yanked "Incendiary" off the shelves and canceled Cleave's book tour. He was so depressed that for a time he stopped writing.

Author Michael Kun may be a bit of an acquired taste. But once readers sample Kun's hilariously off-kilter world view, they're frequently hooked for life. And it doesn't hurt that chief among Kun's passions is the city of Baltimore, where he attended college at the Johns Hopkins University and where he spent eight years practicing law. Though he has since relocated to Los Angeles, Kun returns to his adopted hometown whenever he can - including this weekend, when he will read from his newest book, "Everybody Says Hello.

Heloise Lewis wears several hats. She's a prostitute who runs an escort business. She's a single mom who voraciously reads classic literature and has a close relationship with her 11-year-old son. And she's entangled with a murderer who also happens to be a drug dealer, a crime boss and, although he doesn't know it, her son's father. Meet the quirky but troubled protagonist of Laura Lippman's novel, "And When She Was Good," which looks at women's issues and at the sorry effects of murder, mayhem and drugs.

Someone once described the ambition of getting a novel published as "a slender keyhole through which few have passed. " Rodgers Forge resident Eric Goodman has passed through that keyhole, and has found rewards on the other side - on Monday, June 4, he was in New York picking up the 2012 Gold Medal for Best Fiction in the Mid-Atlantic Region in the Independent Publishers Book Awards for his book, "Tracks: A Novel in Stories. " Goodman, 41, wrote his first short story when he was in third grade, and hasn't stopped since.

Mary Hastler knew she was about to create a fuss, knew that, unfair as she might find it, people were going to label her the last thing a librarian wants to be called — censor. You don't refuse to carry the most talked-about series of books in the country without anyone noticing. But as she read E.L. James' erotic novel, "Fifty Shades of Grey," on her iPad, Hastler couldn't reconcile its words with the Harford County Public Library's policy not to buy pornography. Hastler, the county's library director, says she has no problem with your run-of-the-mill bodice-ripper.

Several years ago as Harford County's public libraries were becoming centers where people could access the Internet, the issue of using library terminals to access the array of smut available online came to the forefront. Just as the libraries don't stock explicit magazines in their extensive collections of periodicals, they also don't allow library computer terminals to be used for accessing pornography. There's a certain amount of reason and logic behind this type of ruling. Unfortunately, the notion of regulating pornography in the Harford County library system seems to have been thrown like a blanket over the E.L. James best seller, "50 Shades of Grey," a sexually-themed novel.

Zach Teal is just 17, but his love for books led him to write one of his own and to volunteer more than 250 hours at the Finksburg branch of the Carroll County Public Library. "Two hundred and fifty hours is quite unusual for our teen volunteers," said Heather Owings, who was volunteer coordinator at the library and now works at the North Carroll branch. Zach logged those hours over the course of three years, performing such tasks as making crafts for story times, signing in reading program participants, even wearing a mouse costume for a reading of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Harry Potter novels will be available through the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, Amazon said today, in announcing a deal with J.K. Rowling's Pottermor e website. announced today. Of course, there's a catch. To get access to the library, you'll need to spend $79 for an Amazon program that also offers perks such as free two-day shipping. “We're absolutely delighted to have reached this agreement with Pottermore. This is the kind of significant investment in the Kindle ecosystem that we'll continue to make on behalf of Kindle owners,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

When Sasscer Hill was growing up, she rode stick horses and plow horses and read "The Black Stallion" novels, a series of books about the friendship between a young boy and a beautiful black Arabian stallion. In the process, she fell in love — with horses and books and, eventually, writing. On April 15, her novel "Racing from Death" is being released by Wildside Press. It is the second in a series about jockey/ assistant trainer Nikki Latrelle, a Laurel Park-based rider, who finds herself caught up in murder.