Tam May and The Specter new release! and review

Announcing a new release from Author Tam May!

To what lengths will one go to exorcise a specter?

One rainy morning in 1892, people gather to mourn the death of San Francisco socialite Penelope Alderdice. Among them is a strange little woman named Bertha Ross, who claims to have known “Grace” in the 1850’s in the small town of Waxwood. But Penelope’s granddaughter, Vivian, has never heard of Grace or Waxwood.

Bertha reveals surprising details about Grace’s life in Waxwood, including a love affair with Evan, an artist and member of Brandywine, Waxwood’s art colony.Vivian’s mother, Larissa, insists Bertha is an imposter who has come not to mourn a woman she knew in her youth but to stir up trouble.

Vivian, however, suspects the key to her grandmother’s life and her own lies in Waxwood. She journeys to Brandywine where she meets Verina Jones, Evan’s niece, and discovers a packet of letters her grandmother wrote forty years ago about her time in Waxwood.

As Vivian confronts the specter that holds the truth to secrets buried in the family consciousness, she examines her grandmother’s life as a mid-19^th century debutante and her own as a Gilded Age belle. Will she find her way out into the world as an autonomous being, or will she be haunted by the specter of her grandmother’s unhappiness all her life?

Available at the following online retailers:

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RLVX7NW

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07RLVX7NW

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-specter-tam-may/1131626306

Apple iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1464211695

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-specter-5

A Brief Interview with the Author:

Tell us, Tam, what do you love about this new book?

I love the character of Vivian Alderdice. She’s the unofficial protagonist of my historical family drama, the Waxwood Series, and she’s a representative of the Gilded Age woman moving into the new century (the 20^th century) which saw so many changes in America, including a flourishing of women’s rights. I love that she isn’t afraid to probe into the past, and that she realizes knowing the past is necessary to a peaceful and enlightened future, not only historically, but personally.

I am also fascinated by the dynamics of the Alderdice family. I struggled with this family since 2004, as I knew there would be so many complications to their dysfunctionality, but I wasn’t able to put my finger on where they were coming from until I wrote this book. There is so much going on under the surface related to their personal family dynamics and the expectations of the Gilded Age. I think the stage is set The Specter for this family to develop more meaningful interactions and startling revelations as the series progresses.

Introduce us to the character who made you laugh first.

That’s a challenging question, because none of the characters in The Specter are really that light-hearted. But I think the character that most made me laugh, though not in a mean way, was Bertha Ross. She’s an elderly woman who’s a little “confused,” let us say, but very kindhearted and wise in her own childlike way. She has a quirky pattern of speech, and her thought processes aren’t always easy to follow. Sometimes she says funny things without meaning for them to be funny. But she also has insights that lead Vivian to important places on her journey to discovering some of the truths about her family.

Share one or two things you learned while researching.

Oh, wow, there are so many things I learned! I’ve done research in the past on the 19^th century, and I’m an avid reader of classic literature of that period, but this was the first time I did research on specifically the Gilded Age. The biggest thing I learned writing The Specter was all about late Victorian mourning practices, as there’s a lot of mourning going on in the series. These practices were extremely specific and elaborate, and many of them were based on superstition, as people in the 19^th century believed superstitions much more than we do today. For example, I learned that all the mirrors in the house were covered and all the pictures put face down because of the fear that the spirit of the deceased would emerge from one of these images or his/her reflection in the mirror and possess the living. Kind of creepy!

How has your writing grown since your last release?

It’s grown so much! My last release was in 2017, a book of contemporary literary short stories titled Gnarled Bones and Other Stories. I loved writing it and was glad to release it. But in the intervening years, I discovered my true passion lay in historical fiction. All my stories are psychological fiction --- that is, story comes out of character and the plot includes the deeper elements of character, such as thoughts, musings, dreams, fears, and desires. That hasn’t changed. But I realized while continuing to work on my writing that the past influences our future on both a personal and a collective level. Painful as it sometimes is, we must look back at the past, or we can’t move on to the future, at least, not without complete peace of mind and self-knowledge. We don’t want to dwell on the past, of course, but I think we need to recognize it and acknowledge how it shaped us, who we are, our beliefs, our choices in life, our emotional and psychological reality. In my first book, my characters realize that and go through their own emotional journeys to get to the end of a long, dark tunnel where they can walk into the light, if not knowing who they are now, at least seeing the potential of who they can become unhindered by who they were in the past.

What's next for you?

I’m working right now on the second book of the Waxwood Series which is going to focus on Jake Alderdice, Vivian’s brother. Then next year, it’s on to the last two books of the series involving other characters whose psychological and emotional lives lend themselves to Vivian’s growing awareness of who she is and who she wants to be, as well as reflecting the rapid motion of the last years of the 19^th century that hurled us into the modern age.

What are you reading now?

I read several books at one time. I just started a novel by historical fiction author Libbie Hawker called Madam. I always try to find historical books set in 19^th century West Coast towns (Hawker’s book is set in Seattle), as so much Gilded Age fiction seems to be about the East Coast or the Midwest. I’m also always reading one classic fiction book, since I love the oldies. I discovered Gertrude Atherton several years ago, and I’m right now in the process of reading as much of her work as I can, since she is a San Francisco writer and comparable to Henry James and Edith Wharton, who were both psychological fiction authors. The book I’m reading of hers right now is called The Sisters-In-Law and it’s a fascinating “insider” look at the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, although it’s much more about two women who become sisters-in-law and their differing attitudes toward class and society at the turn of the 20^th century.

Lisa's Review:

The Specter is a deeply impressionable tale of a nearly lost Bohemian culture taking place across America in the 1850s. May focuses on one such community north of San Francisco, where artists and other odd ducks could live and create in a setting of like-mindedness and peace.

May’s historical fiction picks apart the delicate façade of American gentility in upper class, well-heeled families on the wild West Coast at the end of the nineteenth century. The world is beginning to change yet again as society shifts with a burgeoning middle class. A matriarch of a shipping family passes away, and with her death come more secrets that granddaughter Vivian will do anything, even break strict mourning codes, to unravel. Bypassing her unemotional aristocratic mother, Vivian follows a mysterious old woman who insists she was Grandmother’s friend, to the summer getaway of Waxwood, where Grandmother spent an adventurous year as a Waxwood Belle. There, and in the artist’s colony of Brandywine, specters breathe.

A large portion of the novel consists of letters home, which slowly reveal some of Grandmother’s secretive life, but only if one reads between the lines. I had fun thinking up numerous solutions to the riddles, some of which were cleverly revealed, and others left tantalizingly dangled. The research and era-specific codes, dress, and references were nearly faultless to Grandmother’s mid-1850s period, and the era of Vivian, the 1890s. Told mostly through Vivian’s perspective, and as she reads the letters, the grandmother’s, readers of American family drama who enjoy riddles will find much to appreciate about this first novel in a series. Although complete with a thoughtful conclusion, another mystery is dredged up at the very end which I assume will be the focus of another book in the series. 

Thank you, Tam.

About the Author: 

Tam May grew up in the United States and earned her B.A. and M.A in English. She worked as an English college instructor and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher before she became a full-time writer. She started writing when she was 14 and writing became her voice. She writes historical and contemporary fiction about characters who must examine their past and the time in which they live to move on to the future.

Her first book, a collection of contemporary short stories titled Gnarled Bones And Other Stories, was nominated for a 2017 Summer Indie Book Award. She is currently working on a Gilded Age family saga, of which the first book, The Specter, is now available. She is also working on a historical mystery featuring a turn-of-the-century New Woman female sleuth. Both series take place in Northern California.

She lives in Texas but calls San Francisco and the Bay Area home. When she’s not writing, she’s reading classic literature and watching classic films.

For more information on Tam May and her work, feel free to check out her website at www.tammayauthor.com.

Fallen Leaf new mystery from Julie Cosgrove

Fallen Leaf, book 2 of the Relatively Speaking series

Julie B Cosgrove

Inspirational mystery

Write Integrity press

May, 2019

$2.99 ebook

$15.99 paperback

Buy on Amazon 

Buy on Barnes and Noble

About the Book

A DNA shocker.

Can Jessica prove the father she’s never known is innocent of a thirty-year-old murder?

It must be a mistake. When a DNA kit reveals the blond, blue-eyed Jessica Warren is half Cherokee, she confronts her adoptive parents who have always been tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding her infancy. Reluctantly, they hand over her adoption certificate along with a letter written long ago by her biological mother about her father — in prison on a murder charge!

Jessica and her best friends, Bailey and Shannon, head for Oklahoma to locate her birth mother, seek the truth about her heritage, and discern if her father is as innocent as he claims. In the process of trying to prove he was wrongly imprisoned, the three women uncover a thirty-year-old mystery some powerful people never wanted revealed. Can Jessica trust a handsome, young district attorney from Tulsa to help her discern the truth, or does he have an agenda of his own?

As Jessica chases down the past and digs into the real reason she was put up for adoption, she soon learns the sins of the fathers really can be visited upon their children, just as the Bible states.

The father she’s never met wants Jessica to prove his innocence.

My Review

Three friends decide to research their family heritage through the popular DNA kits sold through genealogy research sites. Cosgrove’s Relatively Speaking stories are interlinked, but stand alone. Fallen Leaf is the second and focuses on Jessica, a woman who was adopted and learns she is half Cherokee, much to her surprise. With today’s internet search engines, and the help of her parents, it doesn’t take long to find her birth parents, who thirty years later have new lives. Jessica’s mother, Megan, has married her father’s best friend, and Jessica’s father is incarcerated for murder. Not exactly the dreamy story a young lady would like to hear.

As a single, divorced journalist who makes a living free-lance writing, Jessica decides, after meeting both parents in their new settings, to delve into the devastating event that changed everyone’s lives. With her friends Bailey and Shannon for support, she heads up to Oklahoma to meet the parents. A couple of days turns into a week in Oklahoma that promises to shift her world after a prison encounter with her birth father sets the friends into a whirlwind of discovery to unleash the truth of a thirty-year-old murder which was based on lies and still has the power to destroy.

A series of potential leads all come and go with the help of the hunky very young Oklahoma DA, Grady Collins, who is a friend of Bailey’s beau, Texan Detective Chase Montgomery. When things start to tie up too neatly, budding romance too good to be true, and an ordered car ride gone very wrong, it appears the DA has ulterior motives for assisting Jessica in clearing her father’s name. In a twist of memories and illusive facts and the help of modern forensic science, the crime may be solved, but its effects remain and change Jessica’s life. Once suspicious of men as a result of her disappointingly short marriage, Jessica learns the value of deep friendship and that not all men are unfaithful.

Billed as a cozy mystery, this faith-filled story will please those who enjoy a little toothy inspirational tale set in the real world of terrifying crime and racial injustice. It’s clean language with some illusion to horrific acts rings true and doesn’t cross lines between good story and decency. As with all of Cosgrove’s story, faith is the ground layer, but supports the characters, not driving them. Recommended for mystery readers junior high on up.

About the Author

Freelance writer, award-winning traditionally published author and speaker Julie B Cosgrove leads retreats, workshops, and Bible studies. She writes regularly for several Christian websites and publications and is a digital Missionary for Campus Crusades for Christ Canada's The Life Project managing over 25 devotional writers. Julie has one grown son and lives in Fort Worth, Texas. Visit her website at www.juliebcosgrove.com or her blog: WhereDidYouFindGodToday.com.

New from Carol McClain on Stinking Creek

About the Book:

NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM STINKING CREEK

Alone, again, after the death of her fiancé, abstract artist Kiara Rafferty finds herself on Stinking Creek, Tennessee. She wants out of this hillbilly backwater, where hicks speak an unknown language masquerading as English.  Isolated, if she doesn’t count the snakes and termites infesting her cabin, only a one-way ticket home to Manhattan would solve her problems.

Alone in a demanding crowd, Delia Mae McGuffrey lives for God, her husband, her family, and the congregation of her husband’s church. Stifled by rules, this pastor’s wife walks a fine line of perfection, trying to please them all. Now an atheist Yankee, who moved in across the road, needs her, too.

Two women. Two problems. Each holds the key to the other’s freedom.

June 21, 2019

Humminbird Press

$2.99 ebook

$12.99 print

Buy on Amazon https://amzn.to/2Xxxc4w

Buy on Barnes and Noble http://bit.ly/2KwEFNq

A brief interview with the Author:

Tell us about the theme of your novel.

The themes of A New York Yankee on Stinking Creek are nothing is as it seems and little difference exists in any extreme.

The five-year-old twins Macie and Dixon are mischievous, good-hearted children. They wander where they shouldn't, and thus, they run into snakes, fall into ponds and develop a strong friendship with the main character Kiara who supposedly hates children They can't believe she's an atheist, doesn't know how to pray, and doesn't go to church. Such oddity for a grown-up.

Macie loves Kiara's dreadlocks and tries to make her own. When her father forbids her from making a dreadful mess in her own hair trying to make it look like Kiara's, she practices on his beard. Macie wants to be an abstract artist just like her neighbor.   

What do you hope readers will tell others?

When the reader finishes this novel, she'll understand the fine line between extremes. She'll see, beyond a few inconsequential differences, the North and South, as well as the extremely conservative Christian and wild atheist. The two are more alike than different.

We can't judge superficially.

I hope to immerse the reader in the sweet and simple world of Stinking Creek, Tennessee. They'll laugh and cry and demand a sequel. 

What are you reading now?

Currently, I'm reading Take Me With You by Catherine Ryan Hyde. It's a clean, secular read about a burned-out teacher who unexpectedly finds himself taking two young boys on a road trip with him. Their father's jailed and had begged August Schroeder to take his boys while he serves his sentence. It's a compassionate, contemporary novel--my favorite genre.

What’s next for you, Carol?

As for me, the summer offers family visits and gardening and the world outdoors. I'm developing my marketing skills and planning my next novel where a woman discovers three neglected children whose parents overdose and die. The opioid epidemic in Campbell County is brutal. I want the reader to see its devastation.

About the Author:

Author Carol McClain is an eclectic artist and author of four books. Her interests vary as much as the Tennessee weather-running, bassoons, jazz, stained glass and, of course, writing. She's a transplant from New York who now lives in the hills of East Tennessee with her husband and overactive Springer spaniel. She is the president of ACFW Knoxville and the secretary of the Authors Guild of Tennessee. In her "free time" she teaches life skills in the local jail and supervises student teachers for WGU.

Guest Alexis A Goring shares Silver Platter Faith

Here we are with another Faithful Friday offering from returning guest Alexis A. Goring. 

Silver Platter Faith

A devotional by Alexis A. Goring

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. 

And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;

perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

~ Romans 5:1-5 [NIV]

Ever since I was a youth, I’d prayed to God to give me an unshakable faith in Him that withstands the test of time. When trials and tragedies entered my life, they shook me. But as I aged, I realized that when I asked God for an unshakable faith in Him, He wasn’t going to hand it to me on a silver platter. He had to immerse me into situations that would not only test my faith in Him but refine my faith and make it solid as gold.

As the Master Teacher, God knew that He would have to put me in situations that tested my faith in order to produce perseverance and result in that deeply anchored, unshakable faith that I crave.

As Romans 5:3 [NIV] states, “suffering produces perseverance.” Sometimes, God needs us to suffer so that we learn how to persevere and hold on to Him. He doesn’t send the storms into our lives to destroy us; He sends tough times to strengthen us! He wants us to have a faith deeply rooted in Him and the only way to get that is to go through things. If our life was always easy or as they say “peaches and cream,” we wouldn’t have faith in God. We may even be led astray thinking that we don’t need Him, which is not true because, without Him, we would be lost and never make it to Heaven.

There’s a song, “The Anchor Holds” and the lyrics speak to the message that I’m trying to convey. Here’s my paraphrase of the song, “The Anchor Holds” as performed by Christian recording artist Ray Boltz: Life’s journey can take you through dark nights, making you feel like you’re fighting for your life alone while trying not to drown in the open sea. But through it all, God’s eyes are watching you and yet the anchor holds! Though your body is battered, though the sails that help you move through life are torn, though you’re in the midst of a raging sea, despite the storm your faith in God is anchored deeper than the ocean and you will survive the storms of life because your faith is rooted in Him and He has the power to speak “Peace Be Still” and calm the waves around you. But if He chooses to take you through the storm and not lessen the magnitude of it all, know that you will stay safe as long as you stay in faith with Him.

The song also talks about one’s perspective when they’re young in their faith and compares their youthful viewpoint to their viewpoint when they’re older and more seasoned by life. As a person matures in their faith walk with God, they see that God uses the storms of life to prove His love for you! It is in tough times that we rely on God the most and in those moments, we see how good He is and we learn that no matter what happens, He is in control. We also find it to be true that there’s nothing we can do to make Him love us less and there’s nothing we can do to make Him love us more because He is our Heavenly Father and He loves us just because we are His creation.

The love of God is a kind, gentle and passionate force that will change you from the moment you experience it and radiate through you for as long as you cultivate your relationship with God. As God’s love radiates through you, it will draw people who need Him to you and before you know it, God is using you to change the world for the better with His love.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

I hope that you are encouraged to stay strong in Jesus Christ and that you too will ask God to give you a faith that’s deeply rooted and withstands the test of time. Trust me, as time moves on and this sin-ridden world gets worse, a faith that’s deeply anchored in God is exactly what you need to survive!

God bless you.

 Love, 

Alexis...

Alexis A. Goring is a college graduate with a degree in print journalism from Washington Adventist University in Takoma Park, Maryland. Writing is her passion. She hopes that her stories will touch hearts, bring smiles to faces, and inspire minds to seek God whose love for humanity is unfailing.

 

This post was originally published on Whispers in Purple blog, April, 2019.
Used with permission.

Amazing YA dystopian Erin Lorence

Dove Strong, book 1

Erin Lorence

Christian fantasy

YA or New Adult near future

Released April, 2019

Books 2 & 3 coming in June and August

Watershed Books, an imprint of Pelican Ventures LLC

$5.99

$16.99

Buy on Amazon 

Buy on Publisher’s site 

Goodreads

About the Book

Dove Strong loves God. She loves standing chin up and fists clenched when facing Satan's attacks. But there's one thing she doesn't love—other people. So when this spiritually-gifted, antisocial teenager is chosen to join other believers in a trek across Satan's territory, rattlesnakes and evil-intentioned Heathen aren't her biggest challenges.

But failure isn't an option. In a month, the Christian Councils will decide the Reclaim, a vote on whether there'll be a war between Christ's followers and Satan's to take back America. It is up to Dove, God's messenger for peace, to reach her Council in time. Because if she doesn't, things could get bloody.

My review

In a near future fantastical setting where Christians are outcast, relegated to hide in the treetops, under the earth, or even in plain sight, Satan has power on Earth. The title character, teenage Dove, is the chosen one for the Strong family’s seven-year interval mission to take the all-important vote to the Council on whether to go to war. It’s a perilous journey from which many who attempt it never return.

God seems to have “handed out spiritual gifts with more of an open hand,” Dove says in her somewhat cynical first-person voice, one of many observances in this clever novel geared for young adults. Except that Satan has it in for this girl, and she’s going to need all the help she can get from other members of her Christian family to make it to the Council. Teamed with a reluctant girl from a neighboring underground-dwelling family, Melody, the tree-dwelling Dove must count on Melody’s danger-sensing gift along with her own ability to hear the voice of the Lord to keep them safe.

Dove and Melody encounter myriad confusion in the world of the Heathen, including the United Church of America. How could this be? But her greatest fears may be realized when she meets Heathens and gets a reputation for being a Heathen-lover. Filled with lovely language like spider-leg eyelashes, trilling voices, and suffering that wraps around Dove’s skull so tight she can’t think, this novel will make every reader consider the depth of faith which calls us.

God is still speaking when all else fails. Lorence has painted a vivid picture of a possibility when Christians with their one-way-to-salvation views are outlawed as perpetrators of hate crimes in a tolerant near future. But the Christians are still people with vastly different views on war and peace, defense and offense. When Dove’s certainly of a peaceful answer clashes with those who believe holy war is the only way to be free, how can anyone win? Dove Strong is the first of a planned trilogy with books 2 and 3 releasing yet this summer. While the reader isn’t dropped off a cliff at the end, you will want to read the stories that follow.

About the Author

As a young child, I fell in love with reading and with Jesus Christ. Over the years, my passion for both has grown. Currently living in Western Washington with my husband and two daughters, I’m excited to share with readers my first young adult Christian fiction, the Dove Strong Trilogy. https://www.erinlorence.com

Contemporary Fiction from Deborah L King

Glory Bishop

By Deborah King

Red Adept Publishing

June 4, 2019

Urban Womens Fiction

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Barnes and Noble

                  

About the Book: 

Glory Bishop lives her life in pieces. At work and with her friends, she reads novels, speaks her mind, and enjoys slow dances and stolen kisses with her boyfriend, JT. But at home, Glory follows strict rules and second-guesses every step. Though she dreams of going to college and living like a normal teenage girl, her abusive mother has other ideas.

When JT leaves to join the navy, Glory is left alone and heartsick. The preacher's son, Malcolm Porter, begins to shower her with lavish gifts, and her mother pushes Glory to accept his advances. Glory is torn between waiting for true love with JT or giving in to the overzealous Malcolm.

When a stranger attacks Glory on the street, Malcolm steps in to rescue her, and her interest in him deepens. But the closer she gets to him, the more controlling he becomes. Glory must eventually decide whether to rely on others or to be her own savior. 

My Review:

King’s tale of a teenager from a dysfunctional and spiritually damaged family falling in with an equally damaged husband shakes one’s soul.

Downtown Chicago, present day. Demons are alive and well—no, not spec fiction demons, the biblical demons that only Glory’s mother can experience. Glory Bishop’s mother is determined to raise a godly daughter according to standards that only mother can exact. The godliness comes about by regular beatings and a Spartan existence inside the home, and regular attendance at the opulent Baptist Church run by the “first couple,” who live an envious, glamorous life.

Glory is allowed to attend public high school where she enjoys her classes and friends, and is exposed to the evils of the world, which must regularly be expunged. One of Glory’s escapes is visiting the beauty salon where her mother goes for weekly appointments. Glory accidentally meets Herschel, the flamboyant and exemplar of parental kindness who for the coming years makes Glory’s life bearable. Glory has a secret—a wedding at age five with the love of her life, JT; a relationship Herschel helps hide. When Glory learns no relationship is sacred and her heart is broken, she feels adrift. Although creeped out by the attention of their pastor’s son Malcolm, a man a decade older who has hidden personality traits we suspect, Glory’s mother pushes them together. When the ominous music starts in the reader’s mind, we want to scream at Glory not to run into the dark woods where monsters hide, just like in the movies. We’re helpless as we watch events unfold and Glory is slowly sucked toward a cesspool covered with illusionary beauty.

Glory Bishop is a cautionary tale of societal prejudice toward outward appearances. Don’t let them fool you. Recommended for readers of contemporary family issue-laden stories with lots of colorful drama.

About the Author:

Deborah King has been a writer and storyteller her whole life. She published her first short story when she was seven years old. Her writing runs the gamut from poetry and women’s fiction, to espionage and science fiction. When she’s not writing, Deborah enjoys cartoons, cooking, photography, and Star Trek. Born and raised in Chicago, Deborah has managed to achieve all of her childhood dreams and still lives in the area with her husband and two youngest children. According to her daughter, she has “literally aced her life!”

Gail Pallotta and teen suicide rates with Stopped Cold

Welcome to my friend Gail Pallotta, who shares this article with the sad facts of teen suicide.
Gail has offered to give away a review copy of Stopped Cold and her book that focuses on Lyme Disease, Barely Above Water. Comment below to entered in the drawing which will take place on Thursday at 8 PM Central with the winners announced on Friday June 7.

According to The Parent Resource, The Jason Foundation, suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages ten to twenty-four. “Each day in our nation, there are an average of over 3, 041 attempts by young people grades nine through twelve.”

The CDC says “suicide among teens and young adults has nearly tripled since the 1940s.”

According to the Westminster Catechism, which I studied in the 1940s and 50s, man’s chief end is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” 

In “A Young Athlete’s World of Pain and Where It Led,” published on June 22, 2016, in “The New York Times,” Tim Rohan tells the story of a young football player suffering from concussions. He didn’t mention it to anyone because he thought it wasn’t the manly thing to do. He ended up killing himself.

I’ve had the misfortune of knowing young people whose inability to cope with being less than number one resulted in devastating results. They range from youngsters who had difficulty coping because they didn’t come in first in a race or receive all A’s to young people who attempted or committed suicide. The drive seemed to originate from different sources, parents, siblings, peers or within.

I wanted them to know they didn’t have to be number one for God to love them. He’d given each of them a gift or gifts to use for him. The desire rattled around in my head for years and finally became the theme for Stopped Cold.

I’m a fan of healthy competition. It pushes us to do our best, and we often achieve success beyond our goals, or not, but when the game or contest ends, win or lose, we’re still a child of God. Winning or losing doesn’t define our self-worth.

About Stopped Cold 

Things aren't what they seem in peaceful Mistville, North Carolina. 

Margaret McWhorter enjoys a laid-back Freshman year in high school swimming and hanging out with friends—until the day her brother, Sean, suffers a stroke from taking steroids. Now he's lying unconscious in a hospital. 

Anger sets a fire for retribution inside her, and Margaret vows to make the criminals pay. Even the cop on the case can't stop her from investigating. Looking for justice, she convinces two friends, Jimmy and Emily to join her in a quest that takes them through a twisted, drug-filled sub-culture they discover deep in the woods behind the school. Time and again they walk a treacherous path, and come face-to-face with danger. 

All the while Margaret really wants to cure Sean, heal the hate inside, and open her heart to love. 

Meriwether, the high school in Stopped Cold, has its own twitter site. Margaret would love to have you follow it at Meriwether Christian @ MeriwetherCS

Buy the book:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Pelican Book Group

BookBub

About the Author:

Gail Pallotta’s a wife, mom, swimmer and bargain shopper who loves God, beach sunsets and getting together with friends and family. She’s a former regional writer of the year for American Christian Writers Association, a Grace Awards Finalist for an earlier edition of Stopped Cold and a Reader’s Favorite 2017 Book Award winner for Barely Above Water, a contemporary romance that includes a heroine struggling with Lyme disease. Learn more about Gail and her books on her website.

New in the Uncharted series by Keely Brooke Keith

Uncharted Destiny

Book 7 in the Uncharted series

By Keely Brooke Keith

c. June 3, 2019

Near future sci fi/fantasy

$3.99 Ebook

Buy on Amazon

About the Book:

Bailey Colburn is safe in the Land, but her father figure, Professor Tim, never made it to Good Springs. When Bailey discovers Tim is lost in the Land’s dangerous mountain terrain and out of his life-saving medication, she sets out to rescue him. Even with the help of intriguing native Revel Roberts, Bailey faces an impossible journey to save Tim. The mountains are shrouded in dark folklore and full of deadly surprises.

Revel Roberts never stays in one place too long. No matter where he travels in the Land, he avoids the Inn at Falls Creek, his boyhood home and the business he will inherit. But when fearless newcomer Bailey Colburn needs Revel’s help to find her friend, he joins the mission and is forced to return to the place he’d rather forget.

Bailey and Revel’s friendship strengthens as they need each other in ways neither of them imagined. But nothing can prepare them for what awaits in the Land’s treacherous mountains.

Uncharted Destiny, the seventh installment in the beloved Uncharted series, weaves faith and adventure while delivering long-awaited answers in this inspirational story of life in a hidden land. 

My review:

Prolific serial author Keely Brooke Keith begins to answer some more of the questions about “over there” in this latest installment from the Land Uncharted. “Over there” as in the other side of the Land where a group of settlers sought refuge from the turbulence of 1860 United States; and “over there” as in what has been happening in those United States two hundred years later.

As with all the books, it’s best to read them in order, yet it’s also fine to pick up this story and become absorbed in the tale of future world meets yesteryear. Bailey is part of a crew from the dystopian remains of the near distant future who determined to seek a rumored utopia where a tree grows whose leaves have the cure for what ails a person. A former visitor to the Land managed to sneak out samples of the gray leaf tree, and Bailey, a pharmacological biologist, was sought to attempt to learn whether the tree can grow outside of the land, and learn about its magical medicinal powers. When Bailey learns that she is a descendant of long-lost settlers who once set out on a voyage to seek their own island of peace, she jumps at her friend and mentor’s suggestion they, too, journey to this land. Bad things happen upon their arrival, but as with all of Keith’s romantic stories, things aren’t as bad as they appear.

As a product of contemporary near future times, Bailey is not about to turn girly-girl and wear dresses and get the vapors at rumors of monsters on the other side of the island where she learns with delight that her friend and mentor crashed ashore. This book is about that perilous trip fighting self-doubt and weakness, family honor, and secrets to find Bailey’s friend. Some rumors are put to rest, while others are verified. When strangers put out for Bailey, she learns the depth of love and devotion these people of the land have developed. Even if she’s not ready for romance with the stranger who was behind the tragic initial landing, she learns that true friendship that survives any disappointment is the best place to start.

Recommended especially for fans of the Land Uncharted series, and also of those who like clean and wholesome adventure stories.

About the Author:

Keely Brooke Keith writes inspirational frontier-style fiction with a futuristic twist, including The Land Uncharted (Shelf Unbound Notable Romance 2015) and Aboard Providence (2017 INSPY Awards Longlist).

Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, Keely was a tree-climbing, baseball-loving 80s kid. She grew up in a family who moved often, which fueled her dreams of faraway lands. When she isn’t writing, Keely enjoys teaching home school lessons and playing bass guitar. Keely, her husband, and their daughter live on a hilltop south of Nashville, Tennessee.

Corbin Bernsen's novel Rust

Rust

Corbin Bernsen

Based on the movie, Rust

Pelican Boo Group, 2015

208 pp.

ebook $3.99

print $15.99

buy on Amazon 

buy on Barnes and Noble 

About the Book:

This absorbing fiction adaptation of Corbin Bernsen's film Rust, which featured him in the starring role and director, is currently available for purchase and streaming online at Netflix and other online sites. 

In the midst of a crisis of faith, a man finds hope where he least expects it—his hometown. James Moore is a former pastor who returns home to discover his childhood friend is implicated in the arson of a farmhouse and the murder of an entire family. Convinced of his friend's innocence, James sets out to find the truth. In the process he reclaims a relationship with his father, restores hope to a floundering congregation, and rediscovers his own lost faith. Rust is an uplifting tale about faith, family and the powerful ties that bind a community.

My review:

Everyone’s hero, Jimmy Moore, comes home to lick his wounds when God stops laying golden eggs for him. Leaving home after his mother’s death while he was finishing high school, Jim built an emotional wall which he blames on his father and sister. Jim left town, went to college and took a call as a pastor in another community. Years later, Jim, who remains a personal mystery to the reader, skulks home and sets to restoring his familial relationships.

When he’s willing to open his eyes, Jim realizes he disappointed a lot of folks, some righteously, and most unwittingly. We’re never sure about the pure reasons this young man held such a positive influence on his small hometown, and it takes some time for Jimmy to reach past the surface tension such fame held. As he reintegrates with old friends and new ones, he begins to understand the town is holding its collective breath over a secret so soul-wrenching it has affected the very fabric of hope for this current generation. Yes, things have changed in the twenty-plus years Jimmy was a football star. This group of young people doesn’t have the same drive and ambition and it hurts the soul of Jimmy’s best friend, Travis, who has taken up the role of town champion despite his mental quirks. Uncomfortable with Travis’s antics, when he is found at the aftermath of a dreadful tragedy, the town rusts in peace when he admits to the crime.

Jim Moore, reluctant hero, isn’t willing to sit on his laurels and sets about gathering proof that will not only save his friend but restore the faith he’d come to take for granted.

A lovely and haunting tale about a man coming to terms with his soul after running for decades. He finds that he was the one running from God, and when he finally stops to remove the plank from his eye, he can face the uncomfortable issues and claim peace.

About the Author:

Corbin Bernsen comes from an entertainment family and has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in television, theater and film. He holds a bachelor’s degree in theater and a master’s degree in playwriting from UCLA, and was nominated for both Emmy and Golden Globe awards for his performance as Arnie Becker in the hit NBC TV series LA Law.  He most recently starred as Henry Spencer on USA Network’s hit original series Psych. His work includes roles in Disorganized Crime, Wolfgang Peterson’s Shattered, The Great White Hype, and as the Cleveland Indians’ third baseman-turned-owner Roger Dorn in the Major League films. Other film credits include Lay the Favorite with Bruce Willis and The Big Year with Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson. He also appeared with Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Rust is his first novel, and he also wrote, directed, and stars in the feature film of the same name. Bernsen’s latest film, Christian Mingle, was released in January, 2015 by Capitol. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife of 26 years, actress Amanda Pays, and their four sons.

Life in Germany for Expat GIs

Patriotic Expats

Former GIs Describe their Lives in Germany

By Robert Potter

April, 2019

Nonfiction

Ebook $2.99

Buy on Amazon

About the Book:

Would his late Cold War bride have been happier—and better able to fight the cancer that took her in the prime of life—if the couple had chosen to live in Germany, rather than the U.S., after his military service in the 1960s? Decades after his wife’s death, the author remained haunted by that question. In a search for answers, he returned to Germany in 2017 and sought out former G.I.s who married their German sweethearts and elected to reside there. The result of that quest is this series of sixteen interviews with American expats and women who married G.I.s. The men we meet in these pages came from very different backgrounds, but they all experienced the challenges common to immigrants everywhere: learning a new language, adjusting to cultural differences, overcoming bureaucratic hurdles, and earning a living. Each story, recounted with honesty, courage, and humor, provides a unique, fascinating response to those challenges—as well as a detached lens through which to view American society today.

My review:

Robert Potter, a former GI, brought his German bride back to the US when his service concluded. Life here was very different, including laws that would not accept (and still don’t) German education and work experience in many professions like teaching and medicine. Robert and his wife had two children. Gerdi was unhappy in general, couldn’t procure work as a requirement of her visa, and eventually succumbed to cancer. Although Bob eventually remarried happily, he remained aware of men who chose to remain in or return to Germany after they had relationships or married German women. Eventually, Bob, with the help of his tech college writing students, put together an interview format for a project to record stories from ex-patriots to learn more about their situations. Bob found a group of expats who met regularly to discuss their lives and support each other. Several of these men and one wife agreed to meet Bob and be interviewed for this book.

I appreciated learning about what it’s like to move and try to adapt to a different culture and language. The stories included mostly those of servicemen who had done their time. The unbelievable issues with obtaining work permits and regulations, how much language to learn for what skillset, what kind of certificates to obtain for professional work or even unskilled labor was fascinating. Medical care seemed to be a big issue among the expats, as far as where to go for care and who pays. Most thought German medical care was superior. Some men had wives willing to live in the US for a time, and a few cases worked out quite well when the spouse was able and willing to retrain for a profession and get a US license to work. Getting visas and residency requirements were quite different though both countries seem regulation bound. Driving licenses and gun control were stricter in Germany. Voter apathy didn’t seem much different, nor did political opinions. The book was interesting and every person interviewed unique. Bob’s original quest regarding whether he should have chosen to live in Germany instead of having his wife emigrate to the US was determined to remain an open theory, though Bob finally found peace through reaching out to other veterans who may have learned something through sharing their own stories. 

The Consequence of Stars review and interview with memoirist David Berner

The Consequence of Stars: A Memoir of Home

Spring 2019 from Adelaide Books, New York/Lisbon

Paperback now available.
$19.60
Buy on Barnes and Noble
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Read my Review below.

About the Book

THE CONSEQUENCE OF STARS is a unique and thoughtful memoir on our eternal search for home. Told in a series of essays on love, loss, travel, music, spirituality, and the joys of solitude, memoirist David W. Berner, reaches deep to discover where he belongs and ultimately where all of us belong.

A brief interview with the Author

David, what do you love about this book?

The book is so universal, I believe, to the human condition. We are all seeking "home"—some place of our own, of peace and solace, and great spirit. THE CONSEQUENCE OF STARS is a memoir in essays, each piece is about finding home, whatever that may mean to all of us. It's part travelogue, part memoir, part diary. 

Share a couple of things you learned while researching this story.

I learned, in a writerly sense, how to link essays, how that is best done. But I also learned about myself, what's truly important to me. Joan Didion once said, "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking." This very much was my experience. I have written several memoirs prior to this book, and this has been true for all of them, but this one particularly opened me up. I am so complicated. Aren't we all, really?  

What do you hope readers will tell others when they’ve finished the book?

I hope readers will see the connection between all of us in the words of this book. We are more alike than we are different. That's an old cliché, but clichés come from truth. And connectivity is a universal truth.  

What are you reading now?

I'm re-reading a Jim Harrison novel, THE ENGLISH MAJOR. Love this book. I'm also reading a book on Zen meditation, re-reading Kerouac's THE DARHMA BUMS, and looking for a new book of essays to jump into. 

What’s next?

I have a completed memoir manuscript about a season of walking. It's done. But I'm so focused on THE CONSEQUENCE OF STARS release and the work involved there, that I haven't really shopped it around yet. I'm also working on a work of fiction. 

About the Author

David W. Berner is a memoirist whose personal stories tell all of our stories. His memoirs reflect on our collective relationships and how those experiences link us to the world we share. From stories of fathers and sons, to road trips, travel memoir, pets, and music, David's books are mirrors of our common human experience.

www.davidwberner.com 

http://www.adelaidebooks.org/

Lisa's Review

David W. Berner, author of Any Road Will Take You There and There’s a Hamster in my Dashboard, offers in his newest memoir a series of nineteen linked essays traversing his childhood in Pennsylvania through early adulthood to contemporary life. In this book, Berner tackles the idea of “home” through a series of defining moments. The opening chapter is a revelation of what home means, launching life from the safety and wonder of the front porch with sleepovers, board games and plotting explorations of the neighborhood.  “This is how one built a life in my hometown. It’s what people did. They grew up in unexceptional little neighborhoods, went to the same Sunday church services, attended the same elementary, middle, and high schools, got jobs at the mills or the local banks, bought homes near their parents, drank at the corner bar with their old high school friends on Friday nights, and raised kids who would grow up and do it all over again. For a time, I was moving straight down that path, doing what you’re supposed to do.”

Berner’s first inkling of the meaning of home came at age seven when he determined to run away. “Leaving home was supposed to evoke sadness in the person being left behind”; a part his mother refused to play as she cheerily waved him onward. A short trek through the safety of his concerned neighborhood soon routed him back.

Exploring home takes Berner back to study the lives of his parents, who never ventured far from their natal community. War time duty and a stay in a tuberculosis sanatorium may have been enough adventure for the couple who married and raised children near their extended family.

The essays feature themes of growing up, the gradual realization that life is an ever-expanding bubble rapidly enveloping the mysteries of “outside”; “things we don’t talk about,” such as the effects of the Vietnam War to memories of the way we want to believe events unfolded instead of how they truly happened. A look backward shows Berner the truths of friends and family that no one can see in the moment.

“Life is a series of comings and goings,” Berner writes as he prepares to leave for (not very far away) college. He was the “oddball” thinker in a family of blue collar workers, destined for higher education. By the time he was eighteen years old, he “understood that we must abandon our homes to find our new ones, and leave our hearts behind in hopes that our souls will be endlessly restored.”

Abandoning home eventually meant settling in the Chicago area, 500 miles away where he lived in several different places in the second reiteration of his life, that of a radio host. “I was the first in my family in nearly a hundred years to leave” Pittsburgh, Berner says, evoking the first tears he’d seen his father shed. Raising his family is a serial repeat of watching lessons Berner learned as a child play out in his own children. Exotic travel and instilling the sense that no matter how temporary the space, Berner notes that a piece of self stays behind. “Leaving” is always undertaken with the sense of “returning.”

Through a lifetime of experiences calling different places home, from a writer’s retreat in Florida to visiting Europe to meeting a new life partner and molding out a space of his own, Berner concludes, “It is by leaving home we can heal best in order to return.”

“Home is what you carry with you. And in that spirit, I have been transporting my home with me wherever I go.”

Lyrically written with earthy language, Berner shares intimate details of a life seeking and understanding his own place “to be”; a place of love and acceptance, a place to practice and grow and share himself. The Consequence of Stars is a call for all of us to revisit our lives and reach for the elusive elements of what we call home.

For my readers: drug use and coarse language.

Structure and Spend Quality Time with Your Kids

New from Julie Morgenstern

In Time to Parent, the bestselling organizational guru takes on the ultimate time-management challenge―parenting, from toddlers to teens―with concrete ways to structure and spend true quality time with your kids.

Would you ever take a job without a job description, let alone one that requires a lifetime contract? Parents do this every day, and yet there is no instruction manual that offers achievable methods for containing and organizing the seemingly endless job of parenting. Finding a healthy balance between raising a human and being a human often feels impossible, but Julie Morgenstern shows you how to harness your own strengths and weaknesses to make the job your own. This revolutionary roadmap includes:

A unique framework with eight quadrants that separates parenting responsibilities into actionable, manageable tasks―for the whole bumpy ride from cradle to college.

• Simple strategies to stay truly present and focused, whether you’re playing with your kids, enjoying a meal with your significant other, or getting ahead on that big proposal for work.
• Clever tips to make the most of in-between time―Just 5-15 minutes of your undivided attention has a huge impact on kids.
• Permission to take personal time without feeling guilty, and the science and case studies that show how important self-care is and how to make time for it.

Released September, 2018

Ebook: $9.99

Paperback: $18.00

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Barnes and Noble

In her most recent book, Time To Parent: Organizing Your Life To Bring Out The Best In Your Child And You (Holt Paperbacks, available now), Julie extends her organizational skills to time management for parents, designed to help them organize their time by bringing more balance and productivity to family life, work time and self-care. Based on her years of field work and nearly a decade of research on the science of human development, Time To Parent presents a framework that frees parents to savor time with their kids and on their own, from birth through college. While organizing our material possessions is important, Julie recognizes that it is how we spend time that often brings the most joy to our lives and provides timely solutions and actionable guidance so critical now with more women and men than ever juggling family, career, and other obligations.

Organization and productivity expert and New York Times best-selling author Julie Morgenstern has spent more than 30 years helping individuals and major corporations (American Express, Hearst, HARPO, Deloitte, Microsoft, FedEx, and more) overcome disorganization to achieve their goals by designing “Inside Out” systems of time and space that feel natural and easy to maintain.Julie’s previous books on organization include the New York Times bestsellers Organizing from the Inside Out and Time Management From The Inside Out, both of which were developed into specials for PBS. Her on-camera interviews have included Today, Rachael Ray, Good Morning America and CNN and she has been featured in print publications including The New York Times, Time Magazine and USA Today, among others.

Kim Suhr shares short stories

Wisconsin author and director of Red Oak Writing Studios announces her new release, Nothing to Lose, a collection of short stories that take place around Wisconsin. Welcome, Kim Suhr. 

                       

Cornerstone Press, Dec. 2018
ISBN 9780984673971
Paperback: $14.95
E-book coming soon
Buy on
Indie Bound
Amazon

About the book:
Drawing on the rich complexity of the American Midwest, Kim Suhr peoples her debut book of fiction with characters that we know, carved out of the Wisconsin landscape and caught between expectation and desire. An Iraq war veteran stalks the streets of Madison. Four drunk friends hunt deer outside of Antigo. A mother tries to save her son. A transplanted New Yorker plots revenge against her husband. A man sobers up and opens a paintball range for Jesus. A woman with nothing to lose waits for her first kiss.

Personal and powerful, Kim Suhr’s Nothing to Lose shows us a region filled with real people: less than perfect, plagued with doubts, always reaching.

A brief interview with the author:

Introduce us to your most difficult character.
That’s a tough one because I love all my protagonists—even the unlovable ones—for their complexity and brokenness. Perhaps the most difficult for me to get inside of was Anna, aka Ellen Wilkinson, from the story titled “Brush Strokes.” I wanted to help readers identify with her even as they become increasingly uncomfortable with her. Who is the “good guy” and who is the “bad guy?” I like to keep the reader guessing.

Can you share two things you learned from your research during the writing and publication process?
I learned that there are artists who actually paint with human blood. (I don’t even want to think about what my Google search history looked like on the day I learned that!)

As for a publishing tidbit, I learned the truth of the adage: “I’m a great believer in luck. The harder I work the luckier I get.”

What do you hope readers will tell others when they’ve finished the book?
This book made me see something in a different way; it made me compassionate for someone who is different from me.

What’s next for you?
I am working on the audiobook version of Nothing to Lose, then probably an e-book as well. I have a couple of short stories in process and a few chapters of something that wants to be a novel. (Ssshhhh! Don’t tell anyone.)

What are you reading now?
I just finished Besotted by Melissa Duclos (which I loved) and have cracked the spine on Saving the Scot by Wisconsin author Jennifer (Rupp) Trethewey, the fourth book in her House of Balforss series.

Lisa---I'm a big Rupp fan, too, but shhhh! Don't tell anyone.

Thanks for sharing, Kim.

About the Author:
Kim Suhr lives and writes in southeastern Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in Midwest Review, Stonecoast Review, Rosebud and others. She holds an MFA from Pine Manor College, where she was the 2013 Dennis Lehane Fellow in Fiction. She is director of Red Oak Writing and a member of the Wisconsin Writers Association Board of Directors. You can follow her at:

Facebook
Twitter (@kimsuhr)
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