The Works of A. P. Mator

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Back Cover

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Synopsis

What if God started answering prayer?Every prayer. Healing, happiness, prosperity: if you needed it, you could find it. For the residents of 442nd Street, be careful what you wish for takes on new meaning when a blessing of Biblical proportions interrupts their quiet lives.Welcome to the longilatitudinal ecliptus, the only climate region suitable for harvesting the merpleberry bush, a shrub coveted for its exotic flowers and phosphorescent berries. The region centers on 442nd Street and is controlled by the Teaspoons, a family that maintains near-royal status by monopolizing the merpleberry industry. That is, until a group of local teenagers accidentally find an exiled Teaspoon heir who has engineered the unthinkable: a merpleberry bush that can be harvested outside the ecliptus. When the exile, Dr. Jack, distributes samples to the public, his young friends discover an unintended benefit. Whatever they need (be it escape from drug addiction or victory against brain cancer) mysteriously becomes theirs. After word of the miracles leaks out, pilgrims flood the rural Pennsylvania community seeking cures for their ailments, and the reclusive Dr. Jack can barely keep up with the demand. The blessing may be divine, but the Teaspoons see a problem: the new improved merpleberry has no market value. It cant be sold or controlled, and its putting them out of business, along with doctors, lawyers, self-help authors, bureaucrats, and televangelists. The modern world has no room for utopia. Debate turns to scandal when a murder in a mega church implicates Dr. Jack. Now, he must prove his innocence to a fickle public while hiding a dark secret about the fate of a local clergyman who vanished seven years ago. But Jack and his Teaspoon rival both seem to be slipping into insanity, leaving the bewildered, gossiping masses to decide for themselves whether to take or turn away paradise.