A Curse, A Mysterious Alligator, and Tumble & Blue


Blue Montgomery is down on his luck. His father, an always-winning race car driver, has decided to leave him at his grandmother’s house in the small town of Murky Branch, Georgia. Near the Okefenokee Swamp, his grandmother’s house contains superstitions, crazy relatives, and now, Blue.
You see, everyone who’s in the Montgomery family is cursed with some type of fate: never winning, good with animals, always in a car wreck, able to eat without gaining weight, beautiful singing. And Blue falls into the never winning category. The curse on his family happened when one Montgomery ancestor met a powerful golden alligator on on the night of a red sickle moon in the heart of the Okefenokee swamp…a creature able to change fates themselves.
Enter Tumble. Tumble Wilson, that is—but her first name is actually Lily. Her and her family, who have lived in an RV since she was little, have rented a house very close to the Montgomery’s. And now she and Blue are neighbors and soon-to-be friends. Tumble has a knack for always getting into some kind of trouble, usually when she is trying to save someone. Because she is a hero-in-training, for her own personal reasons. But what happens when a boy cursed with always losing and a girl who just can’t seem to save anyone become friends?
Ships in 1-2 days.
Tumble decides to try and break Blue’s curse through a foot race, a board game, and more, while the Montgomery relatives are falling over themselves trying to get his great-grandmother, Ma Myrtle, to tell them the secret of to how to find the golden alligator (delightfully named Munch), since another red sickle moon is anticipated on the lunar cycle. And Blue’s dad (with his own curse of always winning), and Tumble’s family (with a secret they haven’t told), just don’t really understand that Blue and Tumble are in the process of growing up, and need to be seen and heard. Fortunately there are also Blue’s newfound cousins, whom he really likes, and his grandmother, who brings him into her fold, making him feel almost like home. And of course Tumble, whose own personal hero is an author named Maximal Star who has written the book (literally) on bravery and heroism, who has to learn that sometimes the ones we think are our heroes actually are not.
Cassie Beasley, the New York Times Bestselling author of Circus Mirandus, has painted a story in Tumble & Blue full of colorful characters cursed with a variety of fates. The story has a real sense of place (the town of Murky Branch and Swamp Okefenokee Swamp themselves seem almost magical), and features two kids whom readers will immediately root for. How will these two friends, and their families, overcome, or learn to live with, their individual fates and fateful curses? Readers will love finding out.




