Monday, September 29, 2014

A Sweet Inspirational Book


Learning to Dance in the Rain by Melanie Bennett
ISBN: 978-0615988085

Purchase the Book
: Amazon

Blurb: I would like to invite you to join me on the journey of ups and downs, heartaches and thrills I experienced through a year of caring for a child with autism. This journal is my story as a caregiver, weathering the storm with a seven year-old girl with autism. Whether you know nothing at all about autism or feel well-versed on the topic, I believe you will find my story educational, enlightening, and heartwarming.

Learning to Dance in the Rain was a really sweet diary type book on the life of a young autistic girl. I love the way the author pulled you into the story and made you fall in love with this sweet little girl. There were times that you (the reader) will cheer for her accomplishments and other times that will make you cry. The story was very inspirational and I was thrilled to learn that the events in the story were true. I cannot wait to find out what happens to the little girl and her family next. Perhaps the author will write another book involving the little one's life and accomplishments. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a heart-warming story.

I give this book 5 stars out of a total of 5 stars.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

A Pearlable Woman Series

image
It's in the House: Lessons from a Widow Woman - Getting What You Need & More!
By Michelle Word Hollis

About the Book:

In this book you will discover the powerful lessons, from the Biblical story of the Widow's Oil, that will help you overcome any difficulty you are currently facing. You will learn easy to implement strategies that will cause positive transformation in your thoughts and actions. The lessons are based upon Biblical principles that you can use daily for successful living. God has given us a blueprint in His Word that will help us build a grand life no matter where we are currently in life. The principles contained in these pages have withstood the test of time; they are universal truths! The lessons and principles are simple to understand, as well as, implement for those who would dare try and keep trying. Making a lasting permanent change does take time, practice, and patience, but you can do it!
image1Michelle Word Hollis is a native of St. Louis, Mo. She is a wife and a mother. She received her undergraduate degree from SIUE and her MBA from UOP. Michelle is a life long learner and enjoys many other personal pursuits. Michelle is a new author, but she has been writing privately for many years. Michelle's Pearlable Woman book series will explore spirituality, family, life, and love. In the series, she will share lessons that have stood the test of time. These lessons are pearls of wisdom from the lives of Biblical women that can be applied to our contemporary lives.
Follow Michelle Word Hollis Website | Facebook | Twitter

Enter to Win a $50 Amazon Gift Card!

Enter below to enter a $50 Amazon gift card, sponsored by author Michelle Word Hollis! a Rafflecopter giveaway This book blast is hosted by Crossreads. We would like to send out a special THANK YOU to all of the CrossReads book blast bloggers!

Monday, September 8, 2014

Forgetting Allyssa by Stephanie Romans

Forgetting Allyssa by Stephanie Romans
Genre: YA
Purchase the book: Amazon

Amnesia. What a Better way to start off senior year of high school?

When seventeen year old Allyssa Bradshaw wakes up from the nap of a lifetime things aren't really adding up. Her face feels like it's gone through the toaster and she doesn't recognize the people standing around her - she doesn't even recognize herself.

Clearly she's woken up on the wrong side of the hospital gurney.

As she recovers from an attack she doesn't remember, Allyssa is thrown into what feels like someone else's life. Despite her lack of memories, she heads off to school determined to start anew. What Allyssa doesn't expect is the backlash of a life she can't remember. The more she learns about Old Allyssa the less she wants to have anything to do with her, making this New Allyssa determined to become someone better.

Forgetting Allyssa is a story of love, loss, and identity - who you were does not mean that's who you are.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Come Eat at My Table by Ruth O'Neil

Come Eat at My Table by Ruth O'Neil

Purchase the book:
Amazon

Blurb: Karin is a woman with a past. About the time she thinks no one will ever know, it comes back to haunt her. The deeper she tries to push it away the more prominently it returns. Forgiveness is a word that isn’t in her vocabulary as far as the people from her past are concerned. She thinks she's fine until someone from her past shows up unexpectedly forcing her to think about what happened. With the help of her family and other people around her she realizes that she must learn to forgive, even if forgiveness wasn't asked of her.

This book makes people think. Everyone has been hurt at some point in their lives. Forgiveness can be very hard from some. However, forgiveness is not about the offender, it’s about the offended. Forgiveness can help one overcome many situations in life and be better for it.


Excerpt:

“Only two more days till Christmas!” Hope danced around the kitchen chanting while getting underfoot. She was good at that, but not always a whole lot of help.
“Yes, we know!” Hope’s twin sister Faith said, while frosting some of the cookies she had baked earlier in the day with their mom.
Hope picked up the cookie as soon as Faith set it aside to let the frosting set.
“You didn’t burn these did you?”
“I haven’t burnt anything in a long time!” Faith said.
“Yeah, it’s been at least a week!” Hope said sarcastically.
“We’d get more done if you helped a little more besides eating everything.” The girls’ mom, Karin, said to Hope without looking up from what she was doing.
“I’m taste-testing.” Hope said with her mouth full. “And taking pictures.” She held up her other hand, which contained a camera. It was an older camera that used film, but she found taking pictures enjoyable and she was good at it. She used her talent and became the photo editor of their school newspaper. She would often get right up in people’s faces to get a close-up shot. Karin and Faith hated that, which made Hope do it even more.
Hope and Faith were identical twins who would turn sixteen the next July. While they looked alike, they made every effort to look different. They had the same honey colored hair and green eyes as their mom. The three of them looked so much alike that their father often called them his triplets.
Karin wore her hair long, down to her waist. Faith had hair that came down past her shoulder blades, but more often than not, she had it up in a ponytail to keep it out of her way. Hope kept her hair only to her shoulders and she would straighten hers since she didn’t particularly like the waves that her mom and sister kept.
As far as their personalities were concerned, the twins couldn’t have been more different. Faith was the no fuss twin. Hope was the one who was more concerned about her appearance. She always took the time to do her hair and put on clean clothes and make-up before she took out the garbage.
Faith liked to cook alongside of her mother. Although she used to burn a lot of meals, after the last couple years of practice, she had become a much better cook. Faith liked to play sports and hated shopping. Hope liked shopping and hated sports. Hope was more popular at school and had a lot of friends. Faith was well liked, but she was much quieter than Hope and was loyal to her small group of close friends. Hope was much more talkative and more interested in the latest trends.
Hope talked incessantly, while Faith was a listener. Faith saw and heard things that Hope had no idea were there. Hope’s personality was more like her dad’s and Faith’s was more like Karin’s.

Book trailer: Youtube

Contact the author: Website | Blog | Facebook

Help Me Welcome Author Marianne Jones

Hi Marianne and welcome to my blog. Thank you for taking the time out to interview with me this evening. Please start by telling us a little about yourself.

I am a retired teacher, mother, wife and grandmother from the wilds of Northwestern Ontario. My work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, Canadian Living, The Globe and Mail, and numerous literary and denominational publications. I was named International Poet Laureate by Utmost Christian Writers, and am the author of 4 books. Although not all my words are carved in stone, three of my poems are, in permanent installation at Prince Arthur's Landing at Marina Park in Thunder Bay.

Please tell me about your novel. Who or what was your inspiration behind it?
The Serenity Stone Murder is a humorous cozy mystery, full of quirky characters, including a very spoiled dog. The story is a fun romp and guarantees lots of laughs. It was my sister who wanted me to write a murder mystery set in our home town of Thunder Bay, Ontario. One day, she was describing, with a great deal of humour, a disastrous women’s retreat she had attended with a friend. Suddenly I visualized two fifty-something women who stumble upon a murder while attending a retreat. The characters of Louise and Margaret seemed very clear in my mind. They aren’t based on my sister and her friend, apart from the ages. I thought: why not write a mystery where the amateur sleuths in question are church ladies “of a certain age”? Why should young people with hot bodies have all the fun? And since I know Thunder Bay and this area very well, setting was easy!

Who was your current novel dedicated to? Any particular reason?
The Serenity Stone Murder is dedicated to my sister, for obvious reasons, and to her daughter. The three of us would meet periodically at our favourite pub for drinks and nachos to work on plot details whenever I hit a snag in the story. I don’t know if it was the nachos or the ciders, or our combined imaginations, but it always helped.

What are some of your favorite genres to read and to write?
My favourite genre to read is literary fiction. I began to enjoy the Russian classics in high school, as well as all the American and British classics they taught us. (I don’t know why Canadian classics weren’t on the curriculum.) My love of great literature led me to take my degree in English, and dream of becoming a writer myself. I am working on a literary novel of my own, but I am so intimidated by the genre that I am afraid of failing miserably. I enjoy some light reading as well: mysteries and humour mainly.

When you sit down to write, do you do it the old-fashioned way with pen and paper or do you use a computer? Do you prefer one way or the other?
I journal using pen and paper, and keep a notebook in my purse to jot things down, but nowadays I do most of my writing by computer. The transition took a while, but now I’m quite comfortable with composing on the computer, especially since I can type much faster than I can write. As I get older, I find that my hands cramp up with arthritis if I hold a pen too long, so it’s a good thing I learned to type!

What is your favorite junk food vice?
My favourite junk food vice is fudge—especially penuche. I almost never buy it or make it, because I have no self-control.

Did you get to quit your day job and become an author or do you still have a day job and writing is something you do for fun? If you still have a day job, what is it?I am retired now, which makes writing a lot easier. I have always said that writing is something one should do for love, not money, since there is no guarantee about the money. So I don’t recommend to people that they give up their day jobs! Besides, who wants to write under all that pressure of worrying about income?

What do you do when you are not writing? Do you pick up some from you to be read pile?
Besides reading and writing, my favourite thing to do is spend an afternoon trying out a new recipe for dinner with good friends. There is nothing like great conversation—it’s the closest thing to great literature. Add great food and wine, and life doesn’t get any better.

Did you have any teacher in school that encouraged you to write? Did you take their advice?
I did have a teacher in high school who believed in my writing. I regret not going back to thank him for that. High school is such a difficult time in most people’s lives that his encouragement meant more to me than he ever knew.

We all have our little things when it comes to reading, is there anything that bugs you when you read a novel? What is it?
Cliches and bad writing bug me in a novel. Enough of them, and I won’t finish the book. I can forgive grammatical errors, but there’s no excuse for lazy writing.

What 7 words would you use to describe yourself?The seven words I would use to describe myself are: compassionate, quirky, honest, funny, loyal, untidy, generous.

Where can people find you?