Elena Aitken – When It Hits Close To Home @elenaaitken

When It Hits Close To Home

by Elena Aitken

Writing Composing Myself was hard for me at times because it dealt with a situation that was incredibly close to home for me. Grams and Whitney, two of the main characters, have a very close relationship, not unlike the relationship I shared with my own grandmother. In the book, Grams is diagnosed with cancer, and refuses treatment. This was a very similar situation that I had with my own grandmother and writing some of the scenes was very difficult and at times, very emotional.
Some say that writing through your feelings can be very therapeutic, and I never experienced that quite so clearly as while I was writing this book. At times, I couldn’t even see the screen and the words that I was typing, because I was crying so hard. But whenever I wasn’t sure about something, or questioning the story, I would look up to a photo of me with my grandmother, taken only a month before she passed away, and that would help me push through.

I released Composing Myself, only a few weeks before the one year anniversary of my own grandmother’s death and I know she would be proud of the book and proud of me. This book is nearest and dearest to my heart because it is a very special tribute to my grandma and our very special relationship.

Sometimes, writing does help heal those hurts.

Have you ever written something or read a book that helps you through a hard time?

Samples to Savor: Book Club Picks, presented by Her Books:

Discover your book club’s next page-turner and spark fascinating conversations with your friends in this free sampling from eight bestselling authors. You’ll find rich prose, evocative plots, compelling characters and surprising twists from:

Finding Emma by Steena Holmes
Composing Myself by Elena Aitken
Spare Change by Bette Lee Crosby
The Scandalous Ward by Karla Darcy
The Tree of Everlasting Knowledge by Christine Nolfi
The Promise of Provence by Patricia Sands
Broken Pieces by Rachel Thompson
Depraved Heart by Kathleen Valentine

About the Author(s):
Bestselling authors Steena Holmes, Elena Aitken, Rachel Thompson, Patricia Sands, Christine Nolfi, Kathleen Valentine, Bette Lee Crosby and Karla Darcy provide readers worldwide with contemporary fiction and nonfiction releases ranging from historical romance to literary.

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Genre –  Women’s Fiction

Rating – PG

Connect with the authors on Faceboook

Website http://herbestbooks.com/

A Day in the Life of Peter Cunningham @PCTheAuthor

A Day in the Life of Peter Cunningham

I like my days carefully planned. I remember as a child making a list before I went to bed of the things I would do the next day, like pick the laden  gooseberry bushes in my mother’s garden and sell them to a greengrocer down the town. I wasn’t given pocket-money, but my parents approved of entrepreneurship and the gooseberry trade came under this heading. My mother played golf for Ireland. I borrowed her golf gloves to avoid getting scratched during the picking.

For five years in a boarding school run by Benedictine monks in a rambling castle in the remote hills of County Limerick we were awoken each morning at seven-ten in order to be at Mass by seven-thirty. Ever since, I have never managed to sleep late. In fact, other than when I’m sleeping or making love, I try to avoid bed. Breakfast in bed annoys me; too many crumbs. The Ancient Romans ate sprawled on settees or lying face down and look what happened to them.

The first person I meet when I come downstairs at six-thirty is Charlie, our terrier. I say person because that’s what he thinks he is. I let him out and put the kettle on. Lucy the cat then goes out—she and Charlie sleep together. It’s a Platonic relationship. I pour boiling water into a mug into which I’ve already squeezed a good lemon chunk. Then I go into my desk and turn on my pc.

At this point, I want to do almost anything but write. Email, Facebook, the Internet are all there masquerading as work-related tasks; to get stuck into any one of them will tie me up for over an hour. I generally succeed in resisting such diversions and get stuck into the novel.

The day before I’ve left myself a little portion of unfinished writing to make it easier for me to resume, like a little slice of cake left as a reward for a diligent student who shows up on time. But once I’m in—and I mean, within a few minutes—my sense of time vanishes. I love this part of writing, the total immersion, the absolute engagement with the text and the story.

Suddenly it’s 8.15. I stop at this point and make my way back upstairs and begin my work-out. This takes between ten and twenty minutes, depending on my level of commitment. I take a bath or shower and try to be downstairs for breakfast no later than nine o’clock.

Since I lead such a solitary existence, whether or not I have breakfast at 9.00 or 11.30 will affect no one. But it affects me. Without my routine, I flounder.

Charlie and I take a stroll outside after breakfast, then I’m back at my desk around 9.30.  Carol, my wife, a Jungian analyst, has her own career and interests; but we’re up to date with one another’s schedules.

I’m finished writing by 11.30. Six or seven hundred words of passable quality please me. I’ve advanced. It may not seem much, but even five hundred words a day amounts over a year to a lot of words. This is the coal face of writing.

Most days, Carol, Charlie and I go for a long, brisk walk together. This part of Kildare has lovely wooded ways and we make the best of them. I have a light lunch at 12.30, usually followed by a fifteen minutes nap. On many afternoons I get a call from a newspaper or a magazine for a piece of writing, or a call from my editor, or from someone involved in the books industry. Ebooks have added an entirely new layer of business activity to publishing. Ebook publishing has given writers a whole new way of life.

Sometimes I have a meeting, which usually means going to Dublin. Or I’m doing a reading somewhere, or going to a book festival, or promoting my books in places like the US, France or England.

Carol and I meet for a drink around six and have our supper together. Afterwards, we read—we both have Kindles—or play Scrabble or watch TV. We often talk to the kids by Skype. We’ve become big into box sets and spent most of last winter watching Mad Men. Sometime between 10.00 and 10.30, it’s time for bed. Charlie and Lucy go first. We don’t have a TV in our bedroom. I try to read a little every night, but when I turn out the light, I’m asleep in two minutes.

A book for your head and your heart. Winner of the Prix de l’Europe 2013.

A powerful novel from one of Ireland’s best writers on the turbulent birth of a nation, and the lovers it divides

Ireland 1945. Young and beautiful, Iz begins a life on the south-east coast with her new husband. As she settles in to try and make her life by the ever restless sea, circumstances that have brought Iz to the town of Monument are shrouded in mystery. However, history, like the sea cannot stay silent for long. The war in Europe is over, and change is about to brush away the old order. Soaring across the decades that follow Ireland’s newly won independence, sweeping across the fierce class issues and battles over land ownership that once defined Irish society, The Sea and the Silence is an epic love story set inside the fading grandeur of the Anglo-Irish class.

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Genre –  Historical Fiction/Historical Romance

Rating – G

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Peter Cunningham on Facebook  & Twitter

Website http://petercunninghambooks.com/

Author Interview – Rachel Thompson

What’s your favorite place in the entire world? London.

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? My 4^th grade teacher read us The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and that was it – I was hooked. To this day, I love that book.

When and why did you begin writing? At age 10 and throughout my life. Professionaly, in 2008 for publications and my blog. Published since 2011.

When did you first know you could be a writer? When I made my tough guy biology teacher cry with a poem I wrote.

What inspires you to write and why? I love music – the darker and moodier, the better. Rain, also.

What genre are you most comfortable writing? Definitely nonfiction, but I’m also working on fiction at the moment.

What inspired you to write your first book? I started blogging in 2008 and when I started writing my Mancode essays, people begged for more. I didn’t even think anyone besides my mom read my blog at the time so it was thrilling.

What do you consider the most challenging about writing a novel, or about writing in general? The dichotomy between marketing and writing. By the time you’ve released a book, you’re already entrenched in the next one. So wearing different hats can be difficult.

Did writing this book teach you anything and what was it? Writing Broken Pieces was an experience in writing raw, as author Rebecca Tsaros Dickson (Say My Name) calls it. Like the Lorrie Moore quote above, don’t think about anyone else’s opinions. This is MY work. I hope people like it but ultimately, I write what I want to read.

Do you intend to make writing a career? It is definitely my career, in addition to my business, BadRedhead Media (social media and author marketing).

Have you developed a specific writing style? In my humor books, I take stereotypes and deconstruct them with satire (which some take literally but that’s okay). In my serious nonfiction, I’m extremely honest in my thoughts and feelings. In both cases, I often say what others only think.

What is your greatest strength as a writer? Like I mentioned above, delving into that which most people hide and sharing it.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – NonFiction

Rating – PG13

More details about the book

***See why A Walk In The Snark won Best Runner-up 2012 Nonfiction Virtual Book Fair Indie Book Awards!***

**See Thompson’s first book and decide for yourself if you love it — or hate it!

Thank YOU for making A Walk In The Snark a #1 Bestseller on multiple charts including Motherhood, Parenting & Family, Family Relationships, Advice/How-To, Women’s Studies and more! AND a Top 100 Overall Paid bestseller!

Be forewarned — the material in this collection has been called controversial in nature. It is a relationship book based on the author’s popular blog. There are recurrent themes regarding men and women, love and loss, romance and parenting. This is intentional. 

It’s not ALL humor, but it IS all honest. Can you handle the snark?

Sometimes I think I’m too jaded. Then I think no, it’s just the lighting.

Praise for A Walk In The Snark – now a #1 Bestseller!
5 of 5 stars!

The commonalities we all share is what makes this book spark to life. - Tony Eldridge, Author, The Samson Effect

Thank you for making the lives of women and men more intelligible, Rachel, and for making us laugh at ourselves! - Berit Ellingsen, Author, The Empty City

Rachel believes “Men are from Seinfeld, Women are from Friends,” and so do her legions of fans. She dares to ask “Why do men want to change the world, but can’t change a roll of toilet paper?” Are you offended easily? Take satire literally? Don’t buy this book. 

See why everyone is buying this book! Mancode, Chickspeak, and much, much more!  See why critics love it! 

More praise:

5/5 Stars:  Crisp, cutting, and caffeinated. A gem of a read. ~Rebecca Tsaros Dickson, Author, I Could Tell You Stories; Editor-In-Chief, Indie Ink

The author’s wicked sense of humor sprinkles every day stories of relationship angst with spicy hot pepper with keeping it real adventure. ~Bonnie Jean Adams, Chicago Culture And Events Examiner

Want to know why this book reached #1 on the Kindle Motherhood list (and Parenting & Families, and Women’s Studies and…) and is still a mainstay months and months later?

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Humor / NonFiction

Rating – PG13

More details about the author

Connect with Rachel Thompson on Twitter & Facebook

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – NonFiction

Rating – PG13

More details about the book

Brian Cormack Carr – 10 Things You Didn’t Know @cormackcarr

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Becoming a Self-Published Author

by Brian Cormack Carr

I self-published my first book How To Find Your Vital Vocation: A Practical Guide To Discovering Your Career Purpose And Getting A Job You Love four days before my 40^th birthday.  In the first week after its launch, it made the Amazon UK Kindle careers bestseller chart. The process of getting my book written and out in the world has been a lot of fun, and a real education.  Here’s some of what I learned along the way:

1. You don’t have to wait for someone else’s permission.

Today’s self-publishing options – such as Kindle Direct Publishing and Smashwords (for eBooks) and Createspace (for paperback books) – mean that it’s easier than ever to get your work out into the world.  You don’t have to wait until an agent or publishing house decides you’re worthy of publication. If you’re willing to put some real effort into writing, self-publishing and marketing your book, you really can ‘do it yourself’.

2. Self-publishing isn’t the ‘soft’ option.

To some people, self-publishing still has a degree of stigma attached to it – but that’s fading.  Nowadays, indie authors have as much of a potential platform as authors published through traditional publishing houses, since they are able to distribute their work through Amazon (arguably the single most important book distribution channel in the world today).  The quality of indie books is high – many are almost indistinguishable from their traditionally-published counterparts, especially if they’ve been professionally edited and designed.

3. You need to get professional help if you want to be a professional author.

Assuming your writing is of a high standard, you still need to ensure your book comes across as professional.  To do that, I strongly recommend having your work professionally edited (a skilled editor will pick up stylistic glitches even the most talented writer will miss) and the cover professionally designed (self-published books with Photoshop covers generally look awful).  Professional help really will give your book the best start in the world, and it’s possible to enlist this help without too much expense.

4. You should set a target and make a plan.

Once you’ve made the decision to write and self-publish your book, it’s a good idea to set yourself a deadline.  Ten months before my 40^th birthday, I set myself of the target of having written and published my first book by my birthday itself (I hit my goal with four days to spare).  I worked back from the target date to establish and calendarize milestones like “get book back from editor” and “source cover designer”, and I also set myself weekly word count targets.

5. Print-on-demand means you won’t end up with a stockpile of books in your garage.

Remember the old days when one of the results of self-publishing was piles and piles of unsold books?  With print-on-demand facilities like Createspace, that’s no longer necessary.  You upload your book file, and when someone wants to buy the paperback copy, one copy is printed and shipped to them from Amazon.  Easy, inexpensive – and no storage issues for you!

6. EBooks give you real flexibility.

As well as being cheap and easily distributed (to those with e-readers, anyway) eBooks are also very flexible. Decide you want to change something in the book, or add an appendix later? You just upload a new file online through Kindle Direct Publishing or Smashwords and your ‘new edition’ is ready for purchase immediately.

7. You need to start promoting your book before you start writing it.

Don’t wait until your book is out there to start building an audience and author platform.  Start as soon as you start working on your book (if not before). At the very least, you should have your own author website (easily and cheaply set up through WordPress or Blogger) and a mailing list (using a facility like Aweber or Mailchimp). Start building a readership through blogging, and start capturing email addresses to your list.  You’ll be glad of this audience when your book is released.

8. Social media is a self-published author’s best friend.

Another great way to build an audience is through social media.  Pick one or two tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Goodreads and Google+ and start building your presence and interacting.  You’ll make useful contacts and add an important dimension to your author platform, which will help with sales when your book is out.

9. Digital distribution means your launch can be long-term.

Because I had built an audience through my website and social media platforms, I was able to generate a spike of initial sales when I released my book in June of this year.  But I don’t see my launch as being over.  I’m going to focus  on promoting my book for several months before starting work on my next project.  Because the book is available worldwide through digital and print-on-demand channels like Amazon and Smashwords, I don’t have to worry about it disappearing from bookstores!

10. Once the book is published, the hard work really starts!

Don’t let yourself think that once your book is published, you can relax. Now the real work begins!  Get out there and promote it.  Write blog articles for your site.  Send a bulletin to your mailing list. Post quotes from your book to Facebook and Twitter. Consider going on a ‘blog tour’ (this article is part of my blog tour to promote How To Find Your Vital Vocation). Let the world know it’s there.  You worked hard on it – now you need to shout about it.

Good luck!

BIOGRAPHY:

Brian Cormack Carr is a writer, certified career coach and chief executive of BVSC The Centre for Voluntary Action, one of the UK’s leading local charities.  He trained in personnel management with Marks & Spencer plc and gained an MA (Hons) in English Literature and Language from the University of Aberdeen.  Brian has nearly 20 years of experience in the fields of personal development and leadership, and has helped hundreds of clients, readers and workshop participants to find fulfilling work and a renewed sense of purpose.

Website: www.cormackcarr.com

Twitter: @cormackcarr

HOW TO FIND YOUR VITAL VOCATION:

Ready to choose or change your job? Stuck in work you hate? Think the career of your dreams is beyond your reach?

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO FIND YOUR VITAL VOCATION

If you don’t love your work, you deserve better – and with this book at your side, you can get it. A lively and potentially life-changing guide,How To Find Your Vital Vocation sets out a simple-to-follow yet profoundly effective process that will take you step-by-step from wherever you are now to a working life based on your most cherished dreams.

LEARN HOW TO:

• Hear the inner call that’s telling you what will make you truly happy
• Rediscover your gifts and use them to build a perfectly-tailored career
• Identify and overcome the obstacles that stand between you and your ideal work
• Create powerful networks to help you find great jobs that are never advertised
• Find out what it takes to become an entrepreneur of the future
• Maximise the impact of your job applications
• Ace every interview
• Attain reward levels that will help you thrive – even in this tough economy!

Put yourself in charge of your career – once and for all. Packed with valuable insights, powerful exercises and illuminating self-coaching questions, How To Find Your Vital Vocation will help you chart a practical path to a fun and fulfilling livelihood. In this comprehensive resource, expert career coach Brian Cormack Carr shows you how to find your passion and purpose and finally start doing the work you were born to do.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING:

“Too many of us have gone about finding our livelihood in a haphazard way. Before long, we become a statistic in a job dissatisfaction survey. Happily, it doesn’t have to be that way and Brian Cormack Carr proves it. If you think that work should be about more – much more – than just a way to pay your bills, this book is the roadmap you’ve been looking for. Work with How To Find Your Vital Vocation for a short time and you’ll be working at your real work for a long time.”

~ BARBARA J. WINTER  Bestselling author of Making a Living Without a Job

“Warm, witty and wise. I highly recommend this book. Brian knows his stuff and How To Find Your Vital Vocation is a breath of fresh air.”

~ GRACE OWEN  Executive coach and author of The Career Itch

“I appreciated the step-by-step nature of Vital Vocation. It made finding a new career that much easier, and I’m still amazed at how well it helped me clarify what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”

~ DAVID  Member of the Vital Vocation Online Coaching Programme

“Vital Vocation helped me focus after I had spent too long panicking and going nowhere. Now my part-time hobby has grown to a full-time occupation and I’ve finally given up the day job that was making me sad!”

~ STEVEN  Member of the Vital Vocation Online Coaching Programme

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre –  NonFiction / Careers

Rating – G

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Brian Cormack Carr on Facebook  & Twitter

Website http://vitalvocation.com/

Whitley & Austin, Where Truth and Fiction Meet by Parker Paige @parkerpaige86

THREE beautiful redheads – THREE Motives – ONE Murder

Tapping into the common wish to be someone else, if only for a short time, this suspense drama explores what happens when a woman, bored with her humdrum existence dyes her hair red and takes on the persona of her late sister.

After the murder of her beloved sister, a quiet and warmhearted legal secretary, Charlie Weiss, who works for the prestigious Whitley & Austin, is in search of an escape. A few sessions with her psychologist propel her to the realization that the excitement that she seeks is in a new life, the life of her late sister.

With a daring wish to continue the wild life of her late sister, she colors her hair red and dares to reinvent herself. And with this new persona comes a different type of experience, including becoming one of three redhead suspects to a murder.

“This whodunit suspense drama will keep you guessing until the last page.”–Elance book editor

Parker Paige has been writing fiction for several years with a passion for creating eccentric characters. She is fascinated with true stories and for that reason, she is drawn to the network Investigation Discovery like a drug. She is the author of “The Color Pink” and “Whitley and Austin.” She is not completely insane, maybe just a little bit crazy. She lives in Los Angeles.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Romantic Suspense

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with  Parker Paige on Twitter

Website parkerpaige.wordpress.com

#AmReading Straight Dope by LeRon Barton

Straight Dope is book that asks the simple question – why are drugs so entrenched in America's society. Instead of doing the same ol' rigamarole song and dance and interviewing talking heads and experts, Straight Dope gets to the heart of the matter and talks to the people at ground zero – the drug addicts whose life revolves around getting high; the criminals who profit of the misery of the addicts; the teachers who deal with the children in drug abused homes; the drug counselors that try and balance breaking the addicts cycle of addiction while dealing with the bureaucracy of government politics; the legal marijuana growers battle against tobacco companies and how to thrive in the growing industry; and the parents issue of how they will prepare their children to just say no.

Inspired by the late great Studs Terkel's many works, Straight Dope is comprised of raw and uncut hard hitting interviews about the participants experiences, thoughts, opinions, and outlook on drug abuse, why or why not drugs should be legal, and how the government is handling the war on drugs.

Removing nearly all of the questions, the interviews are more like monologues, allowing the reader to feel as if the subject is just, “talking,” instead of your standard interview.

In addition to the real life accounts of people, Straight Dope also has spoken word pieces compiled of biting social commentary, as well as my own personal reflections composed of my experiences with drugs.

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Genre - NonFiction / Sociology

Rating – PG

More details about the author

Connect with LeRon Barton on Twitter

Madeleine McLaughlin – Inside The Mind Of The Writer

Inside The Mind Of The Writer

by Madeleine McLaughlin

Every writer is curious (nosy) and wonders about the world and people around them. A writer hears an airplane overhead, she imagines the lives of the passengers or wonders who they are and where they’re going. A writer sits in a restaurant and listens to conversations going on around her.

We love to look at people, too. Over there, there’s a young girl with a long pelvis. How does she walk? Hey, I can use that for a character. Gossip is thrilling for every writer. It’s what interests people in each other, therefore what will interest the reader to keep reading. That man talking about never realizing his boss was siphoning off money from the firm is placing a plate of author-food in front of you. The character and the reaction of others. Everyone reading the story would react the same.

There’s something else, the need for the world to know what you think and approve of your stories. I know it sounds pathetic but who wouldn’t want their inner thoughts to be accepted and even complimented. Communication is a wonderful thing, people respond and when you’re a writer, they’re responding to something very personal and important to the writer.

Writers live in the past. Some people respond to adversity or tragedy by wanting to forget it happened. The writer lives the tragedy over and over again, until she has extracted every emotion and thought about it and put it down on paper. Everything is of use to a writer, every bit of information that others see as useless or trivia is fuel for the writer.

Delving deep into the soul, whatever that is, is another thing writers do a lot. It’s like we’re in continual therapy, rooting around in our emotional root cellars looking for scraps. And strangely, the writer is visual. She sees the image of the scene and pulls out the words to match it.

The writer likes newness and oldness, both are fodder. She likes babies and old people. She watches to see how they behave and figures out how she can use them. What will make them good characters. Does it sound like the writer is always working? True. Well, we take vacations and don’t think then but most of the time, at work or at play, the writer is thinking.

Throwing a frisbee around in the backyard with the children could be a story when she puts all the elements together. Innocence. Great horror movies and books have been written with innocent characters becoming monsters. Or a heartwarming story might be in store for the imagination.

Just remember, it’s all good in writing. Every single thing is of use. The writer notices everything.

She works to put it all together so that others will understand her point of view about it. So just know that when you’re reading that book you can’t put down, that what is in it is actually a lifetime of thought and imagination of the writer. The end result of years of play.

When Kevin learns of his mountain town’s evil past, he must struggle to understand his father’s part in it and how it affects himself.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – Horror

Rating – PG

More details about the author & the book

Connect with Madeleine McLaughlin on Facebook & Twitter

Living with Your Past Selves by Bill Hiatt

 

He's haunted by the past, but he has an enemy very much in the present. Danger lurks around every corner for the seemingly ordinary teen who is anything but.

Many teenagers struggle to find their identity, but for Taliesin Weaver, that struggle has become life or death--and not just for him. Tal, as he prefers to be called, believes in reincarnation, and with good reason. When he turned 12, his mind was nearly shattered by a flood of memories, memories of his past lives, hundreds of them. Somehow, Tal managed to pull himself together and even to make good use of the lessons learned and skills developed in those previous lives. He even had the ability to work magic--literally--and there was no denying that was cool. No, his life wasn't perfect, but he was managing.

Now, four years later, his best friend, Stan, has begun to suspect his secret, and Stan isn't the only one. Suddenly, Tal is under attack from a mysterious enemy and under the protection of an equally mysterious friend whose agenda Tal can't quite figure out. An apparition predicts his death. A shape shifter disguised as Stan attacks him. An old adversary starts acting like a friend. He and some other students get hurled into Annwn (the Otherworld), face Morgan Le Fay, and only just barely get back alive--and that's just during the first month of school!

By now Tal knows he is not the only one who can work magic and certainly not the only one who can remember the past. He realizes there is something that he is not remembering, something that could save his life or end it, some reason for the attacks on him that, as they escalate, threaten not only him but everyone he loves as well. In an effort to save them, he will have to risk not only his life, but even his soul.

Can Tal save both himself and his friends, or will he have to choose?

From now till 5th August, be a part of Bill Hiatt's "Find Me A Treasure" book tour.

Each blog stop will have a special clue or question.

Answer these in the Rafflecopter below and stand a chance to win a $50 Amazon.com gift card or cash via PayPal

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre - Fantasy / Young Adult

Rating – PG13

More details about the author

Connect with Bill Hiatt on Facebook & Twitter

a Rafflecopter giveaway

NG Osborne – The Right to Love

The Right to Love

by NG Osborne

When we think of the struggle for women’s rights, the rights we most often think of are the right to vote, the right to property and the right to work and equal pay. These are all phenomenally important rights, and ones that women in the West have fought hard to secure. However I would argue that the most important right of all is the right to love.

Many of the novels I’ve been most drawn to in this life – Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, Pride & Prejudice, Middlemarch – have had at their heart these incredibly strong and courageous women; women who’ve battled the popular perceptions of their time and have courageously loved despite the obstacles and scorn flung their way.

Now 150 years later, it may seem as if their struggle is antiquated. But what these women fought for in the nineteenth century is exactly what so many women in the Muslim women are struggling for now.

20 years ago I spent 12 months as an idealistic, young aid worker teaching in a school and an Afghan refugee camp on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan. It was one of the most eye opening experiences of my life. I had never seen a woman in a burqa before and the only thing more shocking was the fact that most women wore them. In the main, the women there were third class citizens living in a patriarchal feudal system with few rights. Yet the rights they did have were strangely the ones that Western women had fought hardest to secure, namely the right to vote, the right to work (if only in the most menial of jobs) and the right to property (a central tenet of Islam).

The one right they didn’t have was the right to love.

Here are the facts. The United Nations estimates that 50% of all Afghan girls are forced into marriage before reaching the age of 15. Pakistan is the 3rd most dangerous country in the world for women with 1000 women and girls murdered every year in ‘honor killings’ and 150 suffering horrendous acid attacks. Most rapes go unreported and the reason is simple: unless a woman has four male witnesses it is almost certain that she will be charged with adultery or a ‘moral crime’. In Afghanistan 87% of women have experienced some form of ‘intimate violence’ – i.e. either a forced marriage or physical, sexual or psychological abuse. In many areas of Afghanistan the practice of ‘baad’ is common in which girls are given away to settle disputes between families.

This is why of all rights, the freedom to love is the one that should be most cherished and hardest fought for. For when a woman is not allowed to love whom she wants, she is in essence being told that her feelings are worthless and when you cannot act on your feelings you are no more than an emotional prisoner. Conversely if men can control whom a woman marries, they will never respect their opinions or look upon them as anything but their property.

On the other hand, if women are free to love (and free to suffer its consequences) they own the essence of who they are and all other freedoms will follow. Further men will come to look upon them as equals – for, if nothing else, in order to gain a wife they’ll have to earn their love and respect. In my opinion, this is the underlying message of all the great novels I mentioned earlier.

I am an optimist, as Frankin Roosevelt said in his fourth inaugural “the great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward”. Yet if there is one area in which Western women could stand with their Muslim counterparts, I would argue that this is it.

The progress maybe glacially slow in many parts of the Muslim world, however I believe it will come and when it does, when all women are free to love whom they want and their men accept this fact, I believe the world, in turn, will be a more tolerant and peaceful place.

On a dusty, sweltering night, Noor Khan, a beautiful, headstrong Afghan refugee, comes face-to-face with Charlie Matthews, a brash, young American aid worker. To Noor’s fury, Charlie breaks every cultural norm and pursues her. She wants nothing to do with him: her sole aim in life is to earn an overseas scholarship so she can escape the miseries of the refugee camps.

However when Noor’s brother threatens to marry her off, she is forced to seek refuge in Charlie’s home, of all places, and suddenly everything Noor believes in is put into question.

Set in the mystical and seething city of Peshawar, where no one is without an agenda and few can be trusted, Refuge is a timeless and unforgettable love story about the struggle for love and purpose in a cruel and cynical world.

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Genre – Literary Fiction / Romance

Rating – PG13

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Website http://www.ngosborne.com/

For the Future Generations by Anastasia Faith

In a thirty-first century dictatorship where population control is enforced and knowledge of truth is prohibited, a teenager discovers secrets about America’s past and her own nation’s future.

In the first book of the “For a Generation” series, fourteen-year-old Matthia Hefner has discovered the grim truth about abortion and its effects on society. She embarks on a time travel mission to the past with a plan to save a nation destroyed by abortion, as well as to glean knowledge to save her own country. Can she save the nation and its people in time, or will it be forced to suffer the consequences for its actions?

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Genre - Christian YA Fiction

Rating – PG

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Author Interview – Bob Mayer

How much of the book is realistic? More than people might realize.  My background in Special Forces showed me a side of the world most people don’t experience. Often we cloak the seriousness in humor, such as the movie RED, but there has been a war going on in the world of covert operations ever since World War II.

Have you included a lot of your life experiences, even friends, in the plot? Yes.  I took what I knew of covert operations as a former Green Beret and used that.  I change some thing to protect classified information, but much of the action and all of the gear is real.

How important do you think villains are in a story? In this book it’s critical, but I can’t say much, because what appears to be isn’t.

Do you have to travel much concerning your book(s)? I tend to set books in places I’ve already been or lived in.  I lived on Hilton Head Island for four years, so setting Chasing the Lost in the low country was easy.  Chasing the Ghost is set in Boulder, CO and I lived there for four years also.

Can we expect any more books from you in the future? Definitely.  Nightstalkers 2: The Book of Truths is coming out on 30 July.  It’s a very wicked story dealing with nuclear weapons and how dangerous they are.  I put a lot of facts in the book, such as the fact we’ve officially “lost” 11 nuclear weapons.  And Jimmy Carter sent out the launch codes with his laundry one time.  And that the Air Force once set the launch code to 00000000 in order to bypass those pansies in the White House.

Are you reading any interesting books at the moment? I just finished Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life and my head almost exploded.  I’ve begun re-reading it because it’s worth a re-read.

What are some of the best tools available today for writers, especially those just starting out? There’s so much information out there now on the Internet.  It’s certainly different than when I started out.  The big thing is to understand everyone’s situation is different, thus there is no one “right” solution or path.  Everyone is in a different situation.

What contributes to making a writer successful? I know a lot of very successful writers and they share one trait:  they work really, really, hard.  Usually seven days a week, with long days.  We love to write.  In order to write we have to make money.  To make money we have to write.  And so it goes.

Do you have any advice for writers? Trust your subconscious.  The ending of The Green Berets Chasing the Lost was planted subconsciously and it was my wife who came up with the absolutely wicked twist at the very end based on material I’d written earlier.

NY Times Bestselling Author, former Green Beret and West Point Graduate, Bob Mayer.

“A pulsing technothriller. A nailbiter in the best tradition of adventure fiction.” Publishers Weekly ref Bob Mayer

Horace Chase arrives on Hilton Head Island to pay his last respects at the Intracoastal Waterway where his late mother’s ashes were spread and to inspect the home his mother left him in her will. He’s been recently forced into retirement, his divorce is officially final, and now he’s standing in the middle of the front yard of his ‘new’ house where a tree has crashed right through the center of it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Within six hours of arriving on Hilton Head, Chase is exchanging gunfire with men who’ve kidnapped a young boy and tried to grab the boy’s mother, Sarah Briggs. Soon he’s waist deep in an extortion plot to funnel a hundred million dollars of Superbowl on-line gambling money into an offshore bank account or else the boy dies.

Dave Riley has long retired from the military and living peacefully on sleepy Dafuskie Island off the coast of South Carolina. Sort of. Actually he’s bored, feeling old, and just a bit cranky running his deceased uncle’s small-time bookie operation.

Horace Chase, meet Dave Riley. Riley-Chase.

Chase and Riley assemble a team of misfits and eccentrics as they take on the powerful Russian mob in the lawless tidal lands of the Low Country to get the boy back.

Meet Erin: Chase’s long-ago summer fling, now a veterinarian and not interested in men any more, at least that way. But her suturing skills and her knowledge of the island bring assets the team needs. Especially after Chase’s first visit with the Russian requires a bit of the former.

Meet Gator: an ex-Ranger, iron-pumping, fire-breathing hulk of a redneck, with a soft spot in his heart for Erin, and steroids burning in his muscles to hurt people. As long as Riley and Chase point him in the right direction, the rest of the populace should be all right.

Meet Kono: a Gullah, descendant of the free slaves who fled to the barrier islands in the 19th century and developed their own culture. He nurses his own pain and secrets, but heeds Chase’s call to renew their childhood friendship. Especially when he learns the target is the Russians.

It adds up to a fiery confrontation to rescue the young boy, and settle some old scores.

But Riley and Chase need to remember a basic tenet from their days in covert operations: Nothing is ever as it appears.

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Genre – Thriller

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.bobmayer.org/

Orangeberry Book Tours – Stow Away by Christopher Wager

Benjamin Holt is an average thirteen-year-old streetwise kid living in Lower Manhattan during the 1930′s. His world is turned upside down, when a simple case of mistaken identity by the cops has him accidently taking refuge in the belly of the tramp steamer U.S.S. Alexandria bound for the wilds of Africa. Along the way, Benjamin must face the challenges of living at sea, a captain’s dream of treasure, and a first mate who would just as soon feed him to the sharks.

Ben’s troubles are only beginning when he is taken hostage by an evil German colonel. He survives a daring escape, only to find himself on a volcanic island battling bloodthirsty natives. Things go from bad to worse as this explosive adventure unfolds around him. Ben must find it in himself to become the most unlikely hero before it is over if he is to make it home again.

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Genre – Contemporary Fiction

Rating – PG13

Connect with Chris Wager on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://briggscomp.wix.com/stow-away-page

Orangeberry Book Tours – Style, Chic, Trendy, Cheap by Elle Campbell

A past graduate of Parsons School of Design, Elle Campbell held internships with companies such as BCBG Max Azria and MTV and had worked in merchandising and buying for contemporary fashion companies like True Religion and Juicy Couture. Now a fashion and lifestyle writer, Elle Campbell really knows what she is talking about when she is using her years of expertise to inform readers how to have an expensive looking wardrobe, luminous skin, red carpet worthy make-up and more and it is all on a budget. Now women with any kind of paycheck can spend less and save more while looking more fashionable that ever.

*A step-by-step guide on what looks chic and what looks cheap.
*Dressing for your body type- The Do’s and Don’ts.
*All the essential makeup, skin care, shoes, accessories and clothing that will never go out of style.
*Hairstyles that are affordable, easy-to-do and will best compliment your face shape.
*Easy-to-do (organic and non organic) ways to pamper your face.
*Outfit ideas for various occasions and much much more!
*A list of affordable yet stylish online beauty and fashion stores to check out.

Now with ‘Style, Chic, Trendy, Cheap’ every woman of every age can afford to look like a million bucks, making her feel both confident and drop dead gorgeous.

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Genre – NonFiction / Beauty & Fashion

Rating – PG

Connect with Elle Campbell on Twitter & GoodReads

Website http://truefashiontrends.com/

Orangeberry Book Tours – Time Killer by Todd M. Thiede

In the small city of Rockton, Illinois, someone is tired of waiting. He’s tired of standing in line at the grocery store and tired of waiting at the drive-through line. Now he’s doing something about it.

The first murder rocks the city. The entire Bjornson family—except the father, Stephen—has been brutally murdered, and the killer has left a message behind, written in the victim’s blood: Don’t Waste People’s Time. It’s a grizzly start for two young detectives who’ve just become partners. But Max Larkin and Jesse Fairlane put their personal distaste for each other aside and start concentrating on how to find the killer from striking again.

As they investigate the scene of the crime and interview Stephen at the hospital, the clues slowly begin to add up. Could this be a deranged killer who struck ten years ago and has now returned to the area? Before they can answer that question, another murder is reported, and Max and Jesse suddenly realize they have a serial killer on the loose.
But as they get closer to the truth, a past memory begins to haunt Max, one that might lead to a break in the case—or the end of his career.

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Genre – Mystery / Thriller

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.toddthiede.com/

Orangeberry Book Tours – The Call of Agon: Book One of The Children of Telm by Dean F. Wilson

THE LAST LINE. THE LAST WORDS. THE LAST CHANCE.

Ifferon is one of the last in the bloodline of the dead god Telm, who mated with mortal women, and who imprisoned the Beast Agon in the Underworld. Armed with a connection to the estranged gods in the Overworld and a scroll bearing Telm’s powerful dying words, he is tasked with ensuring the god’s vital legacy: that Agon remain vanquished. Fear forces Ifferon to abandon his duty, but terror restores his quest when the forces of Agon find his hideaway in an isolated coastal monastery.

Weighed down by the worries of the world, but lifted up by the companions he encounters along the way, Ifferon embarks on a journey that encompasses the struggles of many peoples, the siege of many lands, and discoveries that could bring hope to some—or doom to all.

An epic fantasy set in a world replete with its own lands, races, languages, history and mythology. An immersive and lyrical tale with flawed and mysterious characters. A page-turner right up to the last page.

Enter the world of Iraldas.
Answer the Call of Agon.

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Genre – Fantasy

Rating – PG

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Website http://deanfwilson.com/

Orangeberry Book Tours – Intoxicated by Alicia Renee Kline

When everything she ever wanted turns out not to be enough…

Lauren Jefferies is on the verge of having it all. Hard work and determination have culminated in a promotion that promises to put her on track with her upwardly mobile boyfriend Eric. High school sweethearts and together for ten years, they are young enough to have their whole lives ahead of them, but old enough to have established themselves as forces to be reckoned with.

The news should be cause for celebration.

But taking the job means moving two hours away.

Instead of planning their reign as an up and coming power couple, they find their already tenuous relationship further damaged by their conflicting opinions. Eric doesn’t want her to leave. Lauren refuses to back down. In the end, she packs her things and heads up north to her new life, the abstract promise of figuring this all out later hanging between them.

Lauren settles into her new routine quite easily, thanks largely in part to her fast friendship with her roommate Blake. Blake’s companionship comes in a package deal with that of her older brother Matthew. One night over dinner, an innocent conversation leads to the discovery that the three of them have more in common than they’d ever imagined.

Ashamed of his role in the thread that ties them together, Matthew begins to withdraw. As Lauren devises a game plan to ease his torment, Eric inadvertently pushes them together with his selfish actions.

Lauren’s relationship with Eric continues to flounder. The distance is an issue, but Eric’s indifference does nothing to help. Every bright spot in their courtship is countered by darkness and bitterness. More often than not, Matthew is there to pick up the pieces that Eric leaves behind.

Prior to meeting Matthew, Lauren thought she knew what she wanted. Now that she’s just about to obtain everything on her list, she’s left to question if she ever really knew what that was.

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Genre – Romance / Chick Lit

Rating – PG13

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Website http://aliciareneekline.com/

Orangeberry Book Tours – Shadow Cay by Leona Bodie

SHADOW Cay is an instant hook thriller when a tropical island paradise with a seedy secret becomes a life-and-death nightmare. Already reeling from a rash of maritime disasters, a war and international intrigue, Madeleine Nesbitt and Peter Duncan are destined for even darker days when they investigate the man with no conscience behind the world’s most profitable enterprise. They find a sea of corruption, deception and lies.

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Genre – Thriller / Suspense

Rating – R

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Orangeberry Book Tours – Too Many Secrets (Cleo Sims Mysteries) by Lynn Osterkamp

Sabrina Larson wants her fortieth birthday to be a major milestone—the beginning of a new life. But it looks more like the end for the Boulder, Colorado nurse when she mysteriously disappears while celebrating with her women’s group in a mountain wilderness area.

Search teams comb the region for days, but find no trace of her. Close friends and family fight bitterly amongst themselves telling different stories about what happened. Is she dead? Kidnapped? A runaway?

Cleo Sims, a local grief therapist who has discovered a process that lets grieving people contact the spirits of departed loved ones, is pulled in to help by one of Sabrina’s friends who is desperate to find out the truth. Cleo is reluctant to involve herself in yet another possible murder investigation, but the friend’s brother is Cleo’s benefactor who funds her Contact Project. When he prevails on Cleo to help find out what happened to the missing woman, she can’t refuse.

As the search goes on and the mystery deepens, Cleo finds herself digging into some dangerous secrets. As usual, her persistence, curiosity, and compassion keep her enmeshed in the investigation even when new developments threaten the very core of her personal life.

Too Many Secrets is the third book in the award-winning Cleo Sims mystery series set in the mountain community of Boulder Colorado. Like the others, it can also be read as a stand-alone book.

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Genre - Mystery

Rating – PG

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Orangeberry Book Tours – Saving Jackie K by LDC Fitzgerald

The First Lady in Danger? Jump into the past to save her!

Enter an upside-down world where Soviet henchmen botched their mission to eliminate John F. Kennedy fifty years ago, slaying his wife Jackie instead. The unthinkable crime incites Americans and triggers an unending war with Russia.

In present day, as the two superpowers teeter on the brink of mutual destruction, a team of outlaws discovers a way to jump through time. The wisecracking felons decide to take matters into their own hands by traveling back to 1963 to save Jackie K. To fix the future, they must right the wrongs of the past.

But, their mission may go awry . . .

(Formerly titled Destination Dealey.)

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Genre – Thriller

Rating – PG

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Website http://www.savingjackiek.com/

Orangeberry Book Tours – The Tortoise Shell Code by V Frank Asaro

Off the coast of Southern California, the Sea Diva, a tuna boat, sinks. Members of the crew are missing and what happened remains a mystery. Anthony Darren, a renowned and wealthy lawyer at the top of his game, knows the boat’s owner and soon becomes involved in the case. As the case goes to trial, a missing crew member is believed to be at fault, but new evidence comes to light and the finger of guilt points in a completely unanticipated direction.

Now Anthony must pull together all his resources to find the truth in what has happened and free a wrongly accused man—as well as untangle himself. Fighting despair, he finds that the recent events have called much larger issues into question. As he struggles to right this terrible wrong, Anthony makes new and enlightening discoveries in his own life-long battle for personal and global justice.

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Genre – Legal Drama

Rating – PG13

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