flashpoint2008

So nice of you to edit this chapter, thus highlighting which chapter it is. Confused? Yeah, you see, I think this is my favorite chapter of your whole series, that letter from Ricky, along with the fact that he was first, cemented his place as my favorite character in the series. So, thanks again for the wonderful series and a special thanks for editing this chapter.

I had actually wondered the same. Is the CJames of GayAuthors the same person as Chris James over at iomfats http://iomfats.org/storyshelf/hosted/james/ ? Love your work and looking forward to the next chapter, whether it comes in a day, a week or month.

Thanks so much for the book, also, thank you for writing the whole book first then posting at superhuman speeds, it has been enormously satisfying knowing the next chapter was always a day or two away. I realize and on some level accept your definitively statement that this is the last of book of the Castaway Hotel, I do however hope that at some point in the future, you will be drawn back to give us more , thank you for all the exceptional and excellent work. Because of the your stated END of the series, and how the discussion between Graham and Josh was going, I was thinking that all the ghosts / spirits were there to welcome Josh into the afterlife. While telling myself that NO, Bill would never have Josh pass on while so much of the family, especially Jake is away, I couldn't help but wonder if my and others insisting that we wanted more after this book would lead you to edit prior to posting and have Josh pass in his sleep. I convinced myself, before reading on that despite the importance that Josh has played in this series, the story could continue without him and that you would probably realize the same, saving Josh from his fate . Cody and Brent, if I recall correctly, they were never tenants at the same time and didn't know each other yet are hard and fast brothers in the afterlife, that was a truly heart warming touch. It was especially sad for me because I don't really recall their back stories (how they came to be tenants) but I vividly remember how they died. Well, now that the book is locked down, it is time for me to go back and start at book 1 chapter 1 again, I think I'll give it a few months first then download the lot into Stanza on my iPad. Thanks again for the amazing work, enjoy the holidays!!

So, Elliott and Ian have finally coupled up, YEAH. Thanks for the chapter.

Another jam packed chapter, thanks for the hard work. Sorry for the short review, but I've gotta go.

I can just picture Joshie sitting with Wyatt on his lap telling the baby about his day, it is just such an idyllic picture. I hope your last chapter for this book ends with a cliff hanger that just begs for a continuation, something along the lines of "That evening when Little Ricky rushed in the door, he called the adults together insisting that dinner could wait. Once Jake, Danny, Brandon, Dion, Trey and I were comfortable Little Ricky started talking about a call he got in the office from Graham. Little Ricky had just gotten back to the office after placing 4 brothers aged 6 to 15 in separate emergency foster and group homes after a fire had destroyed their home, killing the parents, Graham's call was about a vision he had had..." Please forgive my wandering thoughts, I'm getting pre-nostalgic even before you finish your wonderful story.

I loved Joshie scolding Wyatt for taking so long to get home, absolutely loved it. Thanks for the chapter, you are making the run up to the finale one to remember.

Glad to see that there is a trickle down from Frankies heroics. RE: My "thing" with Little Ricky, it is actually a thing with Ricky, being the firsts tenant of the hotel + his letter from Oz, make him the character that I dwell on the most (although Joshie is giving him a run for his money), for me part of the wonder of Ricky, is how he handled his first meeting with Little Ricky. Since that first meeting at the group home, Little Ricky has had a tough go of things but has worked hard to cement things with both his first family at the farm as well as the Curries as such he has become my personal surrogate for Ricky. With his chosen profession, he is both stating his appreciation for all the support he got but also his dedication to helping the next kid like him, thus, I'd like to hear more about him. I recognize that his generation isn't the focus of this story but I can't help but hope that he makes more cameos. Thanks for the chapter, it felt like you were wrapping the story up but I am pleased to note that there is at least another chapter to go.

Noah is certainly a cutie. I was wondering if other family members went to the awards show, persons like little Ricky I would think could have attended, I would like to know so I can re-read and imagine the Currie mob cheering on Frankie. Thanks for the chapter.

Scared of heights AND a diver, what a combo. High dive platforms from the ground, as high as they are, you can't help but think, "that's not so bad", but when you are standing on the edge, looking down you are WAY up there, higher than the roof of a 3F building. Elliot has my respect for "concentrating" his way through that. Joshie asking when his little brother is getting there is precious, that is a meeting that I am really looking forward to. Thanks as always.

I like the brothers growing on each other, even Jesse seems to be getting in on the action more which is great yet a bit surprising, with the independence of a car you might think he would move away from family and towards friends but instead it seems to have gelled the brotherhood. Of course with this family and Jesses long history I shouldn't be surprised. I'm guessing that we are close to the arrival of Joshies brother, another event that I am looking forward to, how the kids, but mostly Joshie, interact and act with the new arrival is something I am looking forward to reading. As the chapter count ticks upwards, I am a bit apprehensive about the inevitable end of book 10, I hope there are many more chapters (and books) to go.

I had the pleasure of reading 2 chapters at once today and since both chapters seemed to focus (the second more than the first) on the growing Noah / Elliot bond, it was a seamless read. As for the punishment, it seemed appropriate on just about every level, I liked that Danny and Brandon made it a point to take what Elliot had to say into consideration and asked Josh for advice. One thing that concerns me is that the mother of the bully seemed to think that the bully would get an additional beating from his father and that this is OK, because of this I couldn't help but think of the story Joel by Ted Louis wherein a couple of his kids got into it with a bully and were made to invite said bully over for a day as part of their punishment for fighting. Both situation and the age of the kids involved is different (as is the author ) but I recall thinking that this was a great way of dealing with bully type situations with younger kids. Because of the promised punishment of the bully, my thoughts went to how do we protect this kid from domestic abuse and on a mostly different tangent, I also thought that the bullies younger brother might become Noahs best friend, but then, I'm now just thought vomiting. I noticed that I got a smack-down for referring to Elliot as a bit of a snob regarding money, well, I stand by my statement but I will expand on my thoughts so that they might be better understood, if disagreed with. Based on the chapters to date, I have no doubt as to how generous Elliot seems to be with his money especially as it pertains to his family, however, Elliot frequently, mostly in a joking manner brings up that he has it without regard as to whether those listening to his "jokes" have money themselves. This is different from Josh narrating his financial situation as background for the story or Elliot or any other kid discussing finances with his parents, Josh or Mike. Specifically, he talked about having money, I think it was at his birthday party in front of Hayden also the casual "I'll buy my own" in regards to a car at Jesses party. Nothing egregious but still, a little bit snobby, I mentioned it in my previous review specifically because Josh in the past made it a point to talk with his kids about finances regularly (I vaguely remember him mentioning that he went over each boys trust with them on a monthly basis) and how to act and be responsible, further he stressed on multiple occasions how talking, even mentioning their fortune with others might make them feel. Now, I am perfectly content reading the story as written, I just mentioned it as an observation. Thanks for the chapters and while I enjoyed the double dose, I hope to return to reading a chapter a day tomorrow.

Before I remembered that you don't really do it, I kept expecting either Jesse or his mother to pop up and give a speech about Jesses life . All things considered, it is kind of amazing that Jesse is 18, getting / got his first car and is planning on going to college as if it is the most obvious thing in the world to do. Although I am fuzzy on the details, I do recall the scared, literally speechless kid who was scared of Josh and was only comfortable with Andrew. Noah seems to be coming along, although somewhat slowly, I'll look forward to when you add a best friend for him. Elliot seems a bit of a snob about his money, this has creeped up a few times and I'm thinking that Danny and Brandon are going to need to give him a more definitive smack-down at some point. If I recall correctly, this was an issue before as well with some of the kids so I'm sure it can be dealt with but it is the type of issue that is best nipped in the bud. Thanks for the chapter.

I just mounted the ISO on my hard drive and used that, but the point is, a driver to get something working shouldn't depend on that very item PRIOR to the driver load.

Seems to me like Jesse needs a car to use, maybe with the new baby coming Dion and Trey will upgrade and pass on theirs. Elliot and Noah bonding is the stuff that makes Castaway so special, I'm liking the direction. Keep up the amazing work.

Bill W said in a chapter review response: Nope, although I can see switching from a Josh perspective to somebody else, or even a series of somebody elses, I do not think "400+ chapters on the Curries is enough", or too much, which seems to be what you are implying, "Save the Kid" as a genre, is my favorite and you do it very very well.

After such an active life, I can just imagine just how stir crazy Josh was getting on DAY 1 of being alone at home, I'm sure that the various after school activities will fill much of his time after a while but I wonder what he will do with himself in the meantime. Noah seems to be settling in and it is a pleasure to see both Jesse and Elliot making an effort to make his transition as smooth as possible. While Elliot being catatonic may have been more dramatic, Noahs relative unresponsiveness is just as telling, it is also telling that Noah seems more responsive in general to the kids and Josh. I'll look forward to the Currie family magic weaving its spell on the newest resident of the Castaway Hotel. Andrew must be back at school but with Little Ricky back at home, I do hope that you include him more in the stories, getting him started in his new job and figuring out where he will stay in the long term should be a fairly rich story vein to mine in and of itself. Whats more, based on his education and his relative age, Little Ricky could also be fairly important in getting Noah fully integrated. I see that we are fairly close to catching up to the real world calender, I hope things in the story slow down so that there are many many books to go. Thanks for all the hard work.

So, my desktop hard-drives are approaching their respective end of lives, and as a result require quite a bit of TLC, no problem, I'm dangerous enough with tech stuff to fix most things. What does one do when you are in a can't boot situation, well, you get on your laptop and create a few CDs to help you out, problem was, I had updated a few things on my laptop I shouldn't have and my CD-burner was out of wack. No problem, did the google thing, solution, update the driver, DOH. Here is where it all went sideways for a bit. Said driver for my DVD / CD-burner, which is needed to get the damn thing to work, WAS AN ISO WHICH NEEDS TO BE BURNED ONTO A CD TO BE USED. How frackin stupid is that?!?!?!?! Like I said, I know enough tech stuff so I worked around the issue, but COME ON, I can just imagine the frustration this would cause most average users. FYI: Just because I know I will be asked, a very old IBM laptop which is just barely good enough for browsing.

Jessies story must have kinda faded for him with time, also his mother is close in every sense of the word. For Elliot his trauma is still fresh but so is his arrival and his being accepted into the family Currie, as a reader I just knew that Elliot would be key for Noah to settle in quickly when we first heard about Noah, which is likely the reason I was so insistent that it was out of character for Josh not to insist that Elliot be consulted. In the last chapter it seemed that Elliot was fairly reluctant to share his new found family and I was just a little worried that Noahs arrival would have sibling rivalry baked into the relationship from the start. I see instead that Elliot will be the hero older brother that Noah will likely need in the weeks to come, yeah. I'm going to enjoy reading about Elliot learning to be an older brother (I think Joshie is a different matter for him) and Noah learning to become a middle child with support from older siblings while nurturing a younger generation, age wise, he is young enough to be a silly kid while wanting to act grown up. Great chapter, thanks.

Glad Frankie is doing OK and the upcoming ceremony sounds like it will be interesting. So, new coming baby is zero, Joshie is 5, Noah is 11 and Elliot is 15, basically a 5 year spread for each of the next generation. It eagerly anticipating you filling out the family with age matches or in betweens, while these amazing kids are getting along great I would imagine the age gap will prevent the types of friendship that permeated the previous generation. I'm guessing that if some of the gaps were filled in, they would act as natural bridges to knit the generation as a whole into a cohesive unit. I recall that with the previous generation, most of the time, each new kid was ultimately comforted by someone that shared an aspect of their story and talking amongst themselves. In Noahs case, it seems that Elliot is the man but as he seems not to be ready, personally I flashed on Vinnie (is that right, Vinnie lost his parents in a plane crash, right and he is paired with Keven thus is often close by). I am a bit bummed that we don't get a detailed recounting of the the summer vacation the rest of the family went on. Perhaps you would consider doing the next book to cover basically the same time frame but from a different, perhaps even multiple perspectives. Jake or the various uncles might have a different spin on the same events making for an interesting story and also a good jumping off point for future stories. I recognize I'm just being greedy. Anyway, thanks again for the work and I'll look forward to the next chapter (book as well to tell the truth).

If you will permit just a bit more of the mountain making on my part . It seems to me that Josh always made it a point to consider how anything would affect the boys already in his care, sure there were other reasons as well but he seemed to make it a point to have his boys co-own any major decision that he made by discussing it with them before finalizing said decision. I believe in this chapter Danny indicated that the mother dying of cancer had days left and that it was a bit of a surprise that she had lasted as long as she had, it is because of this that I was surprised that Josh didn't point out that Danny and Brandon need to loop Elliot in on the situation sooner rather than later. Sure, I understand the timing as you laid it out visa-vi the mini-vacation to Cincinnati and Danny / Brandon wanting to make sure that Josh is on board first, still, Josh not making the point to involve the kids during this discussion seemed odd. He made it a point to discuss whether they would have time and how taking the boy in might strain their finances and while he did mention that Jesse and Elliot might even be more helpful than himself, he didn't talk about how Danny / Brandon should get them to buy in before finalizing their decision. Like I said, not a huge deal or anything, I just felt this was out of character for Josh. Also, like I said, I will just look to future chapters to see how this plays out. Thanks for the super-human posting speeds and your hard work writing a continuation of one of my favorite stories.

Just to make sure people understand, I was talking about 8 heads.

Sounds like EVERYTHING is hitting the fan at the same time. I really hope that Frankie pulls through relatively unscathed, my mind immediately leaped to amputation when I read this. I have trouble remembering who many of the kids are but Frankie is one, especially due to his forced transformation and maturity upon departure is a special character for me. I do have a bit of a bone to pick, I believe when Josh was asked to take in Danny, he made it a point to talk with Ricky first. If I'm off on that, I do absolutely remember that Danny and Ricky were consulted on kid number 3 (I can honestly say, I have zero recollection as to what that was). Danny and Brandon are making a HUGE mistake in not asking Elliot for his opinion and I'm finding it hard to fathom that Josh didn't point this out, it seems way out of character for him. I can see Danny and Brandon doing this but Josh?!?!?! I mean even Joshie was "consulted" in regards to the new baby. Also, Josh actually stated that Jessie and Elliot would be key to the kid being comfortable, Danny and Brandon lived it, especially with the age difference, getting Jessie and Elliot on board and owning the decision to take the new kid in is critical. So, great work yet again, please remember that I love reading your story and the above is meant more as dialog not as criticism. Thank as always.

As you may have noted, I've been a bit busy of late and have taken to skimming the chapters while promising myself a full and thorough re-read once the book is complete. I giggled / chucked / laughed out loud like a 5 year old telling a poo-poo joke when Nicky got his second puking (is that a word?). Keep up the amazing work!!

You know, an interesting but unexpected conclusion to the story would be for B-stroke to succeed in killing Trevor, Lisa, Joel and Shane along with mommy, step-daddy, uncle and auntie. Nothing explosive, something face-to-face.