Yes, the saga of the Blood Lite drinking vampire, Morning McCobb, and his mortal girlfriend, Portia Dredful, the filmmaker who’s not afraid to put her neck on the line, continues.

A year after the end of Suck It Up, all Morning wants is 1) to complete his training at the New York Fire Academy and become a firefighter, and 2) to stay head-over-heals in love with Portia for as long as the chronologically-crossed lovers can given that she’s now 18 and he’s stalled at 16.

The story begins on the first anniversary of American Out Day, the historic day in which the Leaguer vampires of America began going mainstream without going bloodstream on their fellow mortal citizens.

The tension between Morning’s wish for a simple, out of the spotlight life, and Portia’s cinematic obsession with historic events escalates to the breaking point when a super-sinister vampire rises from the grave with a powerful thirst, for revenge.

Who grows up? Who doesn’t? Who gets staked? Who doesn’t? Who gets sipped? Who gets flipped? The answers, along with many new characters, all come to light in this fang and folly-infested follow-up. The only guarantee is this: in the end someone will suck it up and die!

It’s all coming to you in August, 2012.

Bad luck they cannot shake
Once Huck and Jim embrace
The skin of ___________.

Even though they could have sued,
Grangerfords and Shepherdsons
Much prefer a good ol’ ____.

He gives his all, a mighty try,
But Huck can’t pray
A simple ___.

Father and son
Never in sight.
This is day one
To C.W. Allbright.

N 41° 42.081
W 111° 48.249

Geocache Clue Poem

Now that Huck has set his waypoint,
And goes on down to Satan’s joint,
Do consider what he might drive,
If he wishes to survive.
Look for fuel to throw on fire,
There you’ll find your heart’s desire.

His Father’s Card

Clue Poem

With Huck and Tom found in Notus,
You’re oh so close, almost got us.
Card and key are your invite,
To the cache of Huck’s last write.
My verses will now fade from sight,
Giving rise to things Allbright.

N 40° 33.183
W 102° 49.146

Geocache Clue Poem

Upon the raft four sinners dwell,
But only one is bound for hell.
To find out which will take some tricks,
Although your crick’s no River Styx.
You’ll find no crossing on Charon’s boat,
Not a single troll or Billy goat.
At trail’s end is nature’s span,
Across the way, hell in a can.
As you seek, don’t be daft,
Remember Huck is on a raft.

N 40° 33.183
W 102° 49.146

Geocache Clue Poem

Just as Huck took Bible in hand,
Causing dead boys to fill the land,
Take up your quest to holy St. Pete,
Then find letterboxes trim and neat.
Look for a family, the house of Huss,
Whose four little angels never fuss.
“Cramped up and smothery” they may seem,
Their feuds of life are but a dream.
Walk amidst their peace of mind,
And what you seek you will find.

N 39° 14.011 Latitude
W 098° 23.679 Longitude

Geocache Clue Poem

When Huck slips into girls’ attire,
Things really begin to misfire.
He’s such a mess as a miss,
You can’t trust ‘im to take a piss.
He would forget to take a seat,
But stand and shoot like Piss Pot Pete.
So look where genders do part ways,
To find out where your treasure stays.

Huck might judge that Tom S. lies,
But “genies” live in da skies.
They fly in “lamps”—more or less—
Satellites with GPS.
Get a device, your “iron ring,”
Then geocache, that’s the thing.
Read Huck Finn to map and measure,
And Genie-PS to find your treasure.

When I was writing lots of kids TV for PBS back in the 90s I was often told by politically correct TV producers that I couldn’t put such and such in a show because it might offend so-and-so. I couldn’t put angels on a wedding cake because it was too Christian and might offend non-Christians. I couldn’t write about birthday parties because Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in celebrating birthdays because it’s a celebration of self.

At some point, I became brainwashed by all this political correctness and had a eureka moment. The one minority that no one seemed to care about was our bloodsucking brothers and sisters: vampires. I mean, c’mon, they have special needs too. They’re subjected to unfair stereotyping. They even suffer from a terrible hate-crime: staking.

So I found my cause. I was determined to write a story that would let everyone know that vampires are like everyone else. They just have a slight drinking problem–correction–they’re diet-challenged.

The story started as a screenplay for a movie (with the likes of Jim Carry playing Morning McCobb). It was called “Don’t Call Us Vampires – We’re Undead Americans!” It even won a screenplay competition, taking 1st place in The New England Screenwriting Conference of 1998. The Conference gave me a wonderful staged reading of it. But the screenplay never sold and became a film.

After I finished Out of Patience, I decided to resurrect the screenplay as a YA novel. And that’s how Suck It Up rose from the grave of a writer’s trunk.

Suck It Up
Meehl’s contribution to the growing subgenre of YA vampire novels is very, very funny—similar to M.T. Anderson’s Thirsty, but less twisted and heavier on the humor. Morning McCobb, a recent graduate of the IV (International Vampire) League, is the vampire as superhero, geek and lonely boy all rolled into one. His first postgraduation assignment is to tell the world that yes, vampires do exist. Becoming the first out—and therefore most famous—vampire isn’t easy (cue the media frenzy). Being around this unlikely heartbreaker is difficult, too, as Portia Dredful finds out when her PR agent mom’s highest-profile client moves in with them. The author is especially clever with names (Penny Dredful, Merder Sink), his prose engaging, smart and fast-paced. Witty one-liners pile up while Meehl exploits every known vampire cliché to great comic effect (Morning not only refuses human blood, he’s vegan, subsisting on a protein blood substitute called Blood Lite made from soy). A refreshing take on the brooding vampire romance, with a misfit vampire protagonist readers are certain to love.
–Publisher’s Weekly

Dracula smoothly transformed into a bat. Buffy targeted the undead to drive home a point, and now thousands of girls yearn for Edward, Stephanie Meyer’s gorgeous and immortal protagonist in her Twilight books. So, what can Brian Meehl add? The veteran writer brings a delightful twist to “Suck It Up.”

The novel’s final 100 pages plunge into a tense life-or-death struggle, and the action-packed showdown is video-game-worthy.
–The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Best First Kiss
The honor goes to Morning and Portia from Suck It Up (Delacorte, 2008) by Brian Meehl. Like any good first kiss, just before Morning (a very funny vampire) and Portia (a very cool, alterna-chick) lock lips, there’s the requisite nervousness, blushing, pulse racing, and fumbling, as well as the final moment of delightful giving in. But poor Morning; he’s so taken by Portia’s lips and the intense barrage of feelings that accompany a serious kiss, that he ends up with a bad case of dentis eruptis (aka fangs) and the kiss gets cut short. Lucky for him, Portia is forgiving.
–School Library Journal, Donna Freitas, “Be Still My Heart: A Shameless Guide to Sweet, Sexy Romance Novels for Tweens and Teens.”

Suck It Up subtly portrays how readers should not give up on life despite setbacks. Best of all, Brian Meehl’s tongue-in-cheek humor and infinitely puny play on words will leave you smiling while telling a great story and simultaneously poking fun at the increasingly popular vampire action genre.If you like vampire books, this was a refreshing and funny read.
–ALAN’s Picks August 2008 (ALAN: The Assembly of Literature for Adolescents)

“Not quite as dark as most vampire stories, Meehl’s story is filled with humor, quirky characters, light romance, …and a lot of fun.”
–School Library Journal

Honors for Suck It Up

Lone Star Reading List (2009)

Truman Readers Award nominee (Missouri, 2010-2011)

Sixteen-year-old Billy Allbright is about to bust out of his sheltered cocoon and go on a gonzo road trip. He just doesn’t know it yet. His ticket to freedom? A mysterious Bible containing two resurrection stories. The second is about a man Billy’s never met, and is supposedly dead: his father.

But the road to a risen-from-the-grave dad, and the unusual inheritance he promises, is far from straight. Billy zigzags across the American West in a geocaching treasure hunt.

When his journey includes a runaway baseball star, nudists who perform sun dances, a girl with neon green body parts, and con artists who blackmail him into their “anti-action movie,” Billy soon realizes that the path to self-discovery is mega off-road.