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Monday, July 31, 2017

BOOK BLITZ: Silenced Song By Gloria Marlow

Silenced Song
By Gloria Marlow
Genre: Clean Romantic Suspense

Thirty years ago, the playful songs of three small girls was silenced forever. Now, someone watches the families they left behind, counting the days until the music dies once more.

When food editor Susanna Morgan returns to Parnell, Florida to oversee the sale of her childhood home and cover the annual Pomelo Festival for her magazine, she vows not to remain one minute longer than necessary. She doesn’t anticipate her attraction to the local pastor, a return of the faith she thought she’d lost, or the phone calls from her long dead sister.

Former pastor Grant Landon has enough on his plate - his mother’s increasing dementia, his ex-wife’s abandonment and remarriage, and his teenage daughter’s unbridled tongue - without adding his attraction to Susanna Morgan.

When a series of anonymous phone calls and sinister pranks makes it clear that someone is intent on opening old wounds and creating new ones, Susanna and Grant set out to unearth long-buried secrets and heal hurts that are decades old.

Can the faith they share bind them together, even as the past threatens to tear them apart?



About the Author

Gloria Marlow's heart is firmly planted in the northeast Florida neighborhood where she grew up in a family of commercial fishermen (and women!). Her home inspires her romantic suspense novels, allowing her to use beautiful settings from northeast Florida in her books. She's a homemaker at heart who loves cooking, Florida wine, making pickles & jellies, and her rapidly-growing pack of grandchildren.

Monday, July 24, 2017

GUEST POST: Your crossroads. Your choice. By EJ Apicello

Your crossroads. Your choice.
By EJ Apicello
Genre: Self-help

About the Book

Welcome to my diary, my journey, as I tripped and crawled through the darkest time in my life- when I witnessed  people that I held incredibly close to me shatter my very existence with their words and actions. The things within this book spine are extremely raw and exceptionally real. You and I are going to get very close, the details in this book, although oddly general, are incredibly specific. Yes, I realize what I just said and as you read my words you will see what I mean. As you silently gasp and mentally bitch slap me, please be kind because my story is just that - my story. It is not any more or less special than yours. In fact the only difference between our stories are the choices we made at each of the crossroads in our lives. For most of my life the choices I made were not based on my happiness but on everyone else’s. This book describes what I have experienced in my journey to finding my happiness and hopefully never letting it go. Sadly, it took me thirty six years to find the strength I need to detoxify my life and self view and find someone who is worthy of my awesomeness. Thirty six years to shatter the negative foundation I had built shatter the ultimate representative I created to hide behind and begin the process of building a new foundation. Only this foundation will be built on strength, confidence and above all, happiness. So take a minute or thirty and sit with my story for a while. You never know what you might find out. 



About the Author

Welcome to my real, crazy, emotional, probably too honest journey. I am an everyday girl in this everyday world trying to keep my head above water and within the pages of this book you will learn about the things that have broken me down  and the steps I am taking to build back up. You will see, my new friends, that this story is written in a unique, general, conversational voice, which was my choice. I want you to be able to picture yourself in my shoes, relate my trials and tribulations to yours and see that you too can find your happiness. Even if you don’t realize this yet, every single one of us possesses things inside of ourselves that we didn't know were there. It took my life taking a crazy right turn and dumping me at the lowest possible point before I could see the strength within myself. We are not defined by what we do, we are defined by the choices we make. I decided when I put pen to paper that I want my choices to start defining me as strong, confident, secure and above all else, happy. So, who am I? How about I tell you who I was - a self loathing shell of myself who put everyone else’s happiness before my own. Herein lies my story to find that happiness and all of the ups and downs along the way. See who I was and who I am trying to become and maybe, somewhere in there, you will find out a little about yourself too.


I believe that one of the most amazing things about life is the ability for a do-over. I know your first instinct is to think this is an impossible task, but read the sentence again. We have the ability for a do-over. It is a cruel irony that hindsight is 20/20, but I think the ability to reflect and learn from our past choices is what drives us on. If we are able to look back at the decisions we have made then we should be able to move forward with our eyes wide open. Think about all of those maps that have seen with that have a big red dot stating “You are Here.” You are here, in the present moment, exactly where you are supposed to be. The past has already happened, there is no question to it, there is no surprise about it. You have experienced it and it now resides, well….in your past as memories, emotions, experience and knowledge. These past occurrences are what have molded you into the person you are at your present moment. The future is a question, nobody knows what is going to happen. All we can do is try to make the best choices at each of our crossroads to propel us in the right direction on whatever path we take.

I spent my childhood making choices that took me down paths which always seemed to ensure other people's happiness over my own. This put an enormous weight on my young shoulders and forced me to stop living in the present moment. Instead, I lived in a constant fear of unknown “what if” moments that were likely never going to happen. I tirelessly attempted to plan for the most awful, gut wrenching “just in case” scenarios so that I would know how to handle them. This torturous game of life that I was a helpless player in never allowed me to enjoy the present moment. I set this cycle up early in life because my accomplishments were often met with “don’t get your hopes up” levels of encouragement. Nominated for homecoming queen? Don’t get your hopes up, you probably won’t win. Want to be captain of the softball team? Don’t get your hopes up, you run with a refrigerator on your back and tomahawk when you swing the bat. I was essentially the pig pen character from Charlie Brown only instead of dust and dirt swirling around me there was a cloud of insecurity and self doubt. I thought that the only way to get rid of this cloud was to ensure that my mom, my friends, my husband and anyone else I held dear to me, were happy. I was relinquishing my choice for theirs each and every time.

Recent events have forced me to let go of the past and stop obsessing over the future because I see now that they are the parts of my life that I can not change or predict. All I can do is take charge of the present moment, my big red dot. It is the only part I have control over so it is the only part that I can worry about. I realized that those “what if” scenarios were like a colony of termites invading the foundation of my thoughts. When you see one of those pesky insects in your house you know there are probably thousands more hiding below the surface. My termites are negative thoughts that chewed deep into my consciousness telling me why I should not or could not make the choice to change my life. Situations and experiences that had been happening in the recent past were not making me happy in my current moment. Once I came to that conclusion, I knew I needed to make a change before those negative termites destroyed all of my foundation, leaving me unable to make any positive steps forward.

Whoa. I had to do what? First, let’s have a mini round of applause here. The act of having this thought, that I was unhappy in the life I am leading, and then taking steps to change that takes a lot of guts and courage and a little sprinkling of crazy. The routines, safety nets, and knowledge that my life was essentially planned from here on out was a pretty enticing thing. Some of the “what if” termites were settling down because aside from going completely off the deep end and stressing over the sun turning into a supergiant or freaking out that a volcano under Yellowstone would erupt, I only had death and my unhealthy relationship to focus on. Screw that! I am only 37 years old which is not even forty which I have been informed is the new thirty so I am basically celebrating my 28th year of life! I am not ready to throw in the proverbial towel and wait for my imminent death to catch up with me. So what now? What steps do I need to take in order to change my life and begin to lead the one that is going to make me happy? I think we all realize what the first step in the journey had to be - I had to take ownership of my decisions. Whether or not I truly stood behind them 100% yet, I had to become my own advocate and take action. Fake it until you make it and all, right? I promptly fumigated my negative thought termites, cleaned out all of the crevices and cobwebs and hopped onto my own cheerleading train.

Awesome. I was halfway there, right? Wrong, I have a lot of work left to do but isn’t it 95% motivation and 5% something else? I have the motivation but I needed to come up with the something else, the thing that will propel me into the next phase. I knew that beginning to change my stagnant life had to start with a single choice. A single thought set in motion, a little push to get the ball rolling so it could gain the momentum and lead me to success. So I did it, I put something in motion to alter my future, I chose to end my marriage. Please, no moment of silence of needed, this is not a reason to mourn but rather a cause for celebration! Honestly, it was probably the first thing I have ever chosen to do completely for myself in my entire life and it’s scary as hell. But it is also exciting and refreshing and feels completely right. Closing one door does allow for others to open but they aren’t necessarily going to do it on their own. I will need to be my biggest advocate, my loudest cheerleader and my own personal life coach in order to make my dreams a reality. This is where the other 95% comes into play - I have made my choice, taken my next big step and now I need to make sure I follow through.
Take a moment and think about the choices you have made throughout your life. Not the little ones like what you had for dinner last night, but the bigger ones, the ones that shape who you are and where your life is going. Are you happy with all of them? Are there any that you can change? If there is even one thing that you have thought of that would make you happy to change then do it! Hold on to that thought and start to develop a plan to make your desires turn from a dream into a goal. What’s the difference between the two? A dream is something that you have the possibility of completing, a goal is something that you are taking measurable steps towards achieving. So, what is your goal?


Links:

BOOK BLITZ: Casual Affair (Slow Seductions #1) By Melanie Munton



Casual Affair (Slow Seductions #1)
By Melanie Munton
Genre: Contemporary Romance

He’s bossy. She’s sassy. The only business they can agree on is in the bedroom.

Bea Paxton is a free spirit. She loves her fledgling interior design business, having fun, and she loves men. But only temporarily. Rule #1 is no relationships, no love, no commitment. She likes being in charge. It's the only way to protect herself from getting hurt again.

Zane Price is the perfect candidate for a steamy time—beautiful, built, and British. Plus, he'll soon be moving back to England. Really perfect.
Well...except for the fact that he's her biggest client. And he doesn't play by her rules. Hell, no. He wants more. Much more. Which is definitely not on the agenda.

Unfortunately, his kisses are nothing short of toe-curlingly awesome. And he is distracting her—a lot—from doing her job.

She needs to stay away from him. Her livelihood depends on it.

But Zane always gets what he wants. And he wants Bea. But for right now? Or forever...?





Author Bio

Traveler. Reader. Wino. Beach-goer. St. Louis Cardinals fan. North Carolina resident. Sarcastic. Bit of a nerd.

Author of the Slow Seductions, Cruz Brothers, Possession and Politics, and Timid Souls series, Melanie loves all things romance, comedies and suspense in particular because it's boring to only stick to one sub-genre! From light-hearted comedies to sexy thrillers, she likes to mix it up, but loves her some strong alpha males and sassy heroines.

Go visit Melanie's website and sign up for her newsletter to stay updated on release dates, teasers, and other details for all of her projects! http://www.melaniemunton.com/

You can also follow Melanie on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Goodreads.

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Polio and Me By Ken Dalton



Polio and Me
By Ken Dalton
Genre: Personal memoir {discovery of polio vaccine}

The year is 1943. A five year old boy wakes up. He cannot stand or hold an apple in his hand. The boy is rushed to his family doctor, diagnosed with polio, and taken from his mother’s arms to the contagion ward at the county hospital.

Thus begins his eleven year journey of surgeries, rehabilitation, and therapy so that one day, he can walk, unaided, across a stage and receive his high school diploma.

While the boy struggles through his childhood, and in spite decades of research, polio epidemics continue to paralyze and kill hundreds of thousands of adults and children well into the late 1950’s.

Polio and Me provides the heartbreaking story of polio’s devastating past, the struggle to overcome present, and promising future.











About the Author


Ken Dalton was born in Los Angeles in 1938. In 1943 he contracted polio and spent the next eleven years of his childhood in and out of hospitals.

He is married to his childhood sweetheart and is a father of three, a grandfather of four, and great-grandfather of nine.

After a successful thirty-eight year management career with Pacific Telephone Company, Ken retired to write golf and travel articles for Golf Digest, Golf Illustrated, Fairways and Greens, and Golf.com. During two NBC-TV Celebrity Golf Tournaments at Lake Tahoe, he interviewed Olympic Decathlon Champion, Bruce Jenner when he was Bruce, not Caitlyn, the mischievous Chicago Bears quarterback, Jim McMahon, the iconic Vice-President Dan Quail, and NBC Today show anchor, Matt Lauer.

Ken designed, built, and operated a 2000 case winery named Pommeraie Vineyards where he produced award winning Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.

He has published six mystery novels, The Bloody Birthright, The Big Showstopper, Death is a Cabernet, The Tartan Shroud, Brother Can You Spare A Dime, and The Unsavory Critic.

Ken’s memoir, Polio and Me, marks his initial foray into the world of non-fiction.

Presently, Ken is working on his seventh Pinky and Bear mystery, The Heretic’s Hymnal.