BOOK SPOTLIGHT & REVIEW: The Stupid Nerdy Notebook Vol:1-3 by Chris Garrett

The Stupid Nerdy Notebook
By Chris Garrett
Genre: Poetry/Teen and Young Adult

Book Synopsis:

The Stupid Nerdy Notebook is the poetic struggle of a teenage boy trying to understand the world and why things happen the way life intends. With the classical influences of Robert Frost and Edgar Allen Poe and the help of modern music in the Punk, indie, and hardcore genre. Chris Garrett creates page after page of exciting stories in the form of riddles, rhymes and stanzas. We all have battles to face and sometimes the best defense is a pen and paper. 










Excerpt from book:

We ask questions with questions.As if we shield our shoulders from life's nasty daggers.I can't think of suggestions.Believing god's angels were sought and now captured.

Feeling so unprotected.We shiver and shake at the fear of earthquakes.Its not the quakes we fear.The shaking of lonely hearts knowing no one is near.

We slow dance with loved ones.To the last song you'll ever hear.We only punish ourselves for falling in love.Our punishment is for love to quickly disappear.

My review:

In this collection of poems covering a few years, self-publisher Chris Garrett relates his late teenage and young adult experiences. In this awesome little collection Chris pours out his heart over love, lost, unrequited, and found, punk angst, isolation, loneliness, and pain. I find myself returning and re-reading these sometimes sorrowful, sometimes light, and always engaging pieces of prose. Poetry is not one of my most enjoyable things to read, but I really like this book! I give it a very high recommendation as a solid chunk of work from a writer with a strong future in literature in front of him. 

Author Bio:

Rising out of Georgia. Chris Garrett is a natural story teller delivering nerve pounding tales of hope, heart break and moshpits since 2004. He is an independent Author and free lance comic book writer. His work includes the teen angst zine and poetry series "The Stupid Nerdy Notebook" and has scripted short comics for Scairy Tales publishing based out of Atlanta. He is also the Co creator of The Finley's characters and comics along with J.R Mounts that will be printed in 2015 by Scairy Tales publishing. When not writing or being with family Chris enjoys eating Veggie burgers and slaying dragons.

Author sites:

www.chrisgarrettofficial.weebly.com

www.facebook.com/chrisgarrettofficial

www.amazon.com/author/chrisgarrettofficial

www.goodreads.com/chrisgarrettofficial

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BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Jack of Souls by Stephen C. Merlino

The Jack of Souls
by Stephen Merlino
Genre:  Fantasy / YA Fantasy
Publisher:  Tortoise Rampant Books
Publication Date: December 12, 2014

Synopsis:

Harric is an outcast rogue who must break a curse put on his fate, or die on his nineteenth birthday. To survive, he’ll need more than his usual tricks. He’ll need help. But on the kingdom’s lawless frontier, his only allies are other outcasts.
One of these is Caris, a mysterious, horse-whispering runaway, intent upon becoming the Queen’s first female knight. The other is Sir Willard—ex-immortal, ex-champion, now addicted to pain-killing herbs and banished from court.
With their help, Harric might keep his curse at bay. But for how long?
And his companions bring troubles of their own: Caris bears the scars of a dark past that still hunts her; Willard is at war with the Old Ones, an order of insane immortal knights who once enslaved the kingdom.
Together, they must overcome fanatical armies, murderous sorcerers, and powerful supernatural foes.
Alone, Harric must face the temptation of forbidden magic that could break his curse, but cost him the only woman he’s ever loved.

“The first volume in Stephen Merlino's 'The Unseen Moon' series, "The Jack of Souls" is a terrific read from beginning to end and clearly establishes Merlino as a master of the fantasy action/adventure genre. Highly recommended for community library Science Fiction & Fantasy collections…” - Midwest Book Review

Author Bio:

Stephen Merlino lives in Seattle, WA, where he writes, plays, and teaches high school English. He lives with the world's most talented and desirable woman, two fabulous children, and three attack chickens. 

Growing up in Seattle drove Stephen indoors for eight months of the year. Before the age of video games, that meant he read a lot. At the age of eleven he discovered the stories of J.R.R. Tolkein and fell in love with fantasy.

Summers and rare sunny days he spent with friends in wooded ravines or on the beaches of Puget Sound, building worlds in the sand, and fighting orcs and wizards with driftwood swords.

About the time a fifth reading of The Lord of the Rings failed to deliver the old magic, Stephen attended the University of Washington and fell in love with Chaucer and Shakespeare and all things English. 

Sadly, the closest he got to England back then was The Unicorn Pub on University Way, which wasn't even run by an Englishman: it was run by a Scot named Angus. Still, he studied there, and as he sampled Angus's weird ales, and devoured the Unicorn's steak & kidney pie (with real offal!), he developed a passion for Scotland, too.

In college, he fell in love with writing, and when a kindly professor said of a story he'd written, "You should get that published!" Stephen took the encouragement literally, and spent the next years trying. The story remains unpublished, but the quest to develop it introduced Stephen to the world of agents (the story ultimately had two), and taught him much of craft and the value of what Jay Lake would call, "psychotic persistence." 

Add to that his abiding love of nerds--those who, as Sarah Vowel defines it, "go too far and care too much about a subject"--and you have Stephen Merlino in a nutshell. 

Stephen is the 2014 PNWA winner for Fantasy. 

He is also the 2014 SWW winner for Fantasy.

His novel, The Jack of Souls is in its fourth month in the top ten on Amazon’s Children’s Fantasy Sword & Sorcery Best Seller list, and among the top three in Coming-of-Age.

You can find Stephen online at stephenmerlino.com.

Links:

Buy on Amazon         

Read more on Goodreads

FREE EBOOK sample chapters 

Facebook

Twitter: (@stephenmerlino)

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Seachange @ Work by Linda James

Seachange @ Work
By Linda James
Genre: mind, body, spirit, personal development, self help, energy healing/healing

Book Blurb

Seachange @ Work brings ancient wisdom and energy techniques into the modern workplace to reshape our work habits, rejuvenate the work environment and create more personal energy. Author Linda Mary James has tailored this book for the 21st century workplace so the concepts can be incorporated seamlessly into the daily routine.

Linda shows readers how to track and manage their energy levels throughout the working day. She also looks afresh at the modern corporate environment, introducing the concept of the energy system of a business to illustrate the importance of a well-balanced workplace.

Seachange @ Work is structured around a typical working day. The book starts with the journey to work, takes readers through their working day and shows how to:

Create an ideal working day
Arrive at work feeling fresh and ready to take on the day
Understand the chakra energy of your business
Identify key areas that would benefit from an increase in energy flow
Create a supportive working environment
Easily introduce the beneficial effects of colour, gemstones/crystals, essential
oils, flower essences, sound etc into your workplace
Be your authentic self in the workplace
See working relationships from a different angle
Maintain high productive energy all day.
Arrive home with energy to enjoy the rest of day
Work with passion and purpose
Each chapter provides clear, easy-to-follow guidance 5 minute exercises designed to help readers gain a greater awareness of their environment and develop the basic skills to sense and work with the energy around them. In this practical and engaging book, Linda James shows how, with small adjustments, readers will bring authentic, positive changes and increased energy to their working day.

Author Bio

The more Linda learnt about energy healing and spiritual wisdom, the more she discovered that we can incorporate it into our working life. She found that we can experience our working day in a more positive and energised way. Linda’s desire is to take ancient wisdom and energy techniques to the business world in a way that workers, managers and executives can understand and use to make positive changes for their personal wellbeing, the wellbeing of the staff and their colleagues, and the health of the business itself.

Linda Mary James was born in England, and spent time in Toronto, Canada before moving to live and work in Sydney, Australia. In writing Seachange @ Work Linda draws on more than 30 years’ management experience and concurrently over 15 years energy healing experience. She is a Certified Energy Healer, Holistic Counsellor and Transformational Life Coach, writer and teacher of inspirational courses in Sydney, Australia.  

Be your authentic self in the workplace.

Links:

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/linda.james.351756

website: https://www.lindajames.com

Twitter: Linda James @LindaJa37222250

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/231232069-seachange-work#other-reviews

Amazon Kindle:  http://amazon.com/seachange-work-discover-difference-energised-ebook/dp/B00N092V78

Amazon paperback: http://www.amazon.com/seachange-work-discover-difference-energised/dp/0992504104

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Money Game by Michael A. Smith

The Money Game
By Michael A. Smith
Genre: Urban Crime Thriller

SYNOPSIS:


The Money Game is an urban crime thriller in which the main characters are forced into a kidnapping/ransom plot that disrupts their individual plans to begin life anew.  Marshon Johnson, gambling kingpin of the East Side, and a benevolent pimp, had planned to relocate to an idyllic Caribbean island.  There, he and his best friend, Richey Stanton, an aspiring actor, barfly and neurotic, would create an innovative gambling operation that includes a “private lottery.”  Their lady friends have other ideas, however.  Gail Thomas, a successful financial executive, wants Marshon to use his ill-begotten gains to become a respectable businessman.  Richey’s significant other, Carmen Salazar, proposes that she and Richey form a traveling entertainment troupe.  Ace Semanski, racist and psychopath, has his own plan hatched and perfected in prison.  That script calls for various “buffers,” including a role for each of his new “friends,” including Kandie Givens, a needy single mother of three, and “Country” Long, a mentally challenged factory worker.  As the kidnapping unfolds, it generates a vortex of violence, betrayal, death and confusion.  The Money Game is a study of the critical influences that shape lives and life — childhood trauma, adult goals, social pressures, love, greed, cultural kitsch, hatred, wisdom, faith and fate.  

AUTHOR BIO

Michael A. Smith is the author of six published novels, all described on his Website, www.goodnovels.org.  He began his career as a newspaper reporter, and was editor of the Golden, Colorado Daily Transcript.  He also was Associate Director, Illinois Board of Higher Education, and Press Secretary, Congressman Richard Durbin.  He is a member of the Authors Guild.

www.goodnovels.org

Find The Money Game on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1Clxyi8

BOOKS SPOTLIGHT: Two Workbooks by Clara Penner

Gentle Steps on the Journey of a Healing Heart - Living joyfully through rocky times
By Clara Penner
Genre: Personal development,  self help, healing, chronic illness, parenting, or adult illness 

Synopsis:

In Gentle Steps on the Journey of a Healing Heart: Living Joyfully through Rocky Times, author Clara Penner shares her family’s story of their journey to healing their hearts when their family is faced with the news that their newborn son is affected with severe hemophilia. As their world is dramatically changed with this new unknown future, she must navigate a new path and overcome her fears of the unknown.

Penner describes her family’s roller coaster of emotions when faced with the realities of chronic illness, as well as the ways that each person overcame this helpless feeling. Capturing stories of the challenges each family member experienced and the steps to their healing, she shares the amazing triumphs of the human spirit and explores how each of us has the power within to shape our destiny. Transform from just surviving life to living it, loving it, and becoming a part of it! Penner shares the steps her family discovered for everyone to use in their own journey:

Validate the rush of emotions in creative ways.

Evaluate your belief system.

Create a more purposeful life.

Align your life to reach your goals.

Discover the authentic you.

Experience the pure love of family;

Accept the power of you and enjoy the journey of your life.

BOOK TWO

Fifty-Two weeks of Adventure and Discovery for your soul
By Clara Penner
Genre: Personal development, self-help
Review Copy Available in PDF, 68 pages

Synopsis:

Fifty-Two weeks of adventure and discovery for your soul is packed full of adventure and discovery.  Each week for one full year, you can choose something that you want to do to infuse joy into your life.  Start checking off those things that you are saving for someday.

As you allow your inner child to have fun you may find yourself wanting to be more conscious of who you are and who you want to be, so more of what you want can show up in your life.  Through the discovery of you, you can align your thoughts and actions so you can attract positive people and experiences in to your life.

The journal section provides beautifully designed color journal pages to record your adventure and discovery; you can even add pictures or memorabilia to your pages.  You can look can on these wonderful memories of you choosing to start living, loving and becoming a part of your life.

Let the adventure and discovery begin!

Author Bio

It’s me Clara Penner.  Author & Blogger.  Here is the scoop on me…
I am the wife of one, mom of two kids one boy one girl and 2 dogs) & 1 cat
I love to explore energetic vibration, which would explain why my chosen career is to assist other lovely creators to live life by choice not chance so they can climb on up the energetic vibration scale and create an abundant life full of greatness.

I also get to share all of the GREAT info I have learned over the past 12 years of learning how to use my emotions to propel me forward and not drag me under with all of my emotional surfing community over on my blog emotionalsurfer.com or on social media.
My hobbies are Mediation, writing,  hanging out in nature with my four legged friends, camping, reading, and I love watching a great movie but truth be told it’s the popcorn that lures me in every time.

That is a quick preview of me but who knows what great treasures are still to unfold in this adventure called life.



Links to social media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clarapenner111?ref=hl

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClaraPenner

Website: http://emotionalsurfer.com/

Amazon (book 1):http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/189-5845447-5909016?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=gentle%20steps%20on%20the%20journey%20of%20a%20healing%20heart

Amazon (book 2):http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=fifty+two+weeks+of+adventure+and+discovery+for+your+soul&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Afifty+two+weeks+of+adventure+and+discovery+for+your+soul

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/6908777

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BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Madame Lilly: The Time of Sanura by Dormaine G

Madame Lilly, Time of Sanura Vol #3
By Dormaine G.
Genre: Historical Fiction Horror

History has a way of repeating itself 

Madame Lilly journeys back in time to her great grandmother's era, the time of Sanura. Both women possess more than a kinship for they are each bound to harmful spirits whom they refuse to relinquish. By the hand of a mysterious being, Elijah, Lilly is transported into the past to witness the dark path Sanura chose—ultimately leading to her demise.
Sanura fights to deny her ability to see the non-living, but the more she refuses the sight, the more the dead flock to her. A dreadful accident takes place, forcing her to finally accept her once unwanted gift. She soon welcomes the dead.


Through Sanura's struggle of growing up an innocent child forced to take on the burdens no one should carry, she ultimately transforms into a frightfully powerful woman. Lilly watches from afar as Sanura grows more commanding with each act of wickedness, until her final downfall. Even then, Sanura refuses to surrender her bound spirits for they need her as much as she needs them.

Author Bio

I have been writing stories for many years, both in my head and on paper. I’ve always had a love for books ever since spending Saturdays at the library as a young child. Within a book, the mind can travel to worlds of the imagination and the beyond. 

I finally took the plunge and published my first novel in 2013, a young adult urban fantasy titled Connor and two adult horror short stories titled Madame Lilly, Voodoo Priestess and Madame Lilly, Voooo Priestess: Soulless. Micco, Anguta’s Reign, a psychological thriller, was released November 3rd 2014. They are just the beginning of many more books to come as I stay locked up in my office in Colorado spinning more tales.

Social Links: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004470074838

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dormaineg

Website: http://www.dormaineg.com/

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1Dldlra

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7329928.Dormaine_G_

BOOK SPOTLIGHT & REVIEW: Magno Girl by Joe Canzano

Magno Girl
By Joe Canzano
Genre: Comic Urban Fantasy

Book Synopsis: 

When a Manhattan pizza maker is found dead in his own dough, Magno Girl enlists the aid of her biker ninja boyfriend to help solve the crime – and quickly discovers there’s more to the pie than meets the eye, including a sinister plot that spans the globe. 

Magno Girl leaps into action. After all, she can fly, she can fight, and she can use her fearsome superpower, the “Gaze of the Guilt,” to bring a hardened criminal to his knees. But the road ahead is hard. The city’s other superheroes despise her, and the cops don’t want her around, and her own mom won’t stop spitting out advice about marrying a “respectable guy” and trading in her crime-fighting career for a baby carriage—but is she attracted to “respectable guys”? And is she interested in emotional commitment? And will finding real love be her biggest challenge of all? 


Welcome to the world of Magno Girl, a wild and absurd place filled with humor, action, and romance.

My Review

MAGNO GIRL is a champ! I gotta say, I love this book!  It reads like a comic book without pictures, but filled with such vibrant color, complexion, passion, and wit, that I had no trouble envisioning all the characters in my mind’s eye!  Magnolia, the key up-an-coming superhero is caught up in a sea of self-aggrandizing sexist jackasses that double as her contemporaries in the crime fighting gig. How is she going to rise above her plight and maintain her integrity? Will Ron be a help, or another hindrance? Will she be able to defeat the many evil villains aligned against her? Will she foil the wicked plot? Will she get her Mom off her back?  Joe Canzano has written a powerhouse of a novel, and I’m very excited for his next one.  One head’s up, though, this book is not for the squeamish, repressed or the old-fashioned.  You’ve been warned.

Author Bio

Joe Canzano’s interest in stories started at the age of three, when his mother read him Peter Rabbit. Unfortunately, his grandfather shot Peter and shoved him into a pot, convincing Joe at a young age to never write a story about a fuzzy animal.

Through his school days, English was the only subject that didn’t put him to sleep. He has a BA in English from Rutgers University.

Joe once wrote a 10,000 line epic poem about an upscale madam and the secret agent who falls in love with her. He figured this would take the literary world by storm since there was nothing like it on the bestseller lists. He soon discovered there was good reason for this. As one editor said, “Epic poetry ain’t what it used to be.” Well, crap. Joe decided to write something else.

Joe’s hero is Wile E. Coyote because he keeps on trying, no matter how many times a big rock falls on his head.

Joe’s short stories have been published in the following places: Akashic Books Online, Happy Magazine, The Chrysalis Reader, The Wisconsin Review, Studio One, Pearl, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Quercus Review

Joe is a rock and roll singer, songwriter, and guitar player, and his stories and style are influenced as much by the Ramones and Lou Reed as they are by Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Elmore Leonard, Christopher Moore, and Tom Robbins.

Joe’s publishing company, Happy Joe Control, has several other novels to be released in the near future.

Links:

www.happyjoe.net

www.facebook.com/happyjoecanzano

www.twitter.com/happyjoecanzano

www.amazon.com/author/joecanzano

www.goodreads.com/joecanzano

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COVER REVEAL: Nashville Crazy by Bethany Michaels

Nashville Crazy

By Bethany Michaels

Genre: Hot Contemporary/Erotic Romance

Synopsis

When Harper Perry’s latest Hollywood debacle blows up the internet, the fallen starlet returns home to Nashville…and the man she left behind. She needs someone to make her Tennessee home livable--someone who will be discreet while she lays low and lets all the negative press blow over. Former lover Dan Ryan is just the handy man for the job.  With her personal life being primetime tabloid fodder, her career on the skids, and her concert tour facing cancellation, Harper has a lot to figure out. The last thing she needs is the irresistibly sexy handyman working his way back into her life…and her bed.

Dan Ryan has never forgotten the girl who left town the second he confessed his feelings for her ran deeper than the sizzling hot hours they spent burning up the sheets. And with half a dozen women on speed dial, he’s tried! But once he sees Harper again, he knows why no other woman has ever touched his heart--he gave it away to Harper years earlier. Now that she’s back in town, however briefly, Dan is determined not to let Harper get away a second time...even if he has to give up everything he’s worked for to keep her.

Purchase links:

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1C7us14

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1wY71oS
Amazon Canada: http://amzn.to/1EAiQUy
Kobo: http://bit.ly/19cyfxx
B&N: http://bit.ly/1HDGPAu
Apple: http://apple.co/1b4SNIQ
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/526451