I Need To Be Safe--Practical and Kid-Friendly

I Need to be SAFE: I’m Worth It! How to Protect Your Child from Danger
By Janet Goliger
Publisher: Class Publications
ISBN: 978-0-9768273-2-0
144 pages
Cover Price: $19.95
Children Non-Fiction
Available at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and classpublications.com

Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson at Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/I-Need-SAFE-Im-Worth/dp/0976827328

Janet Goliger's I Need To Be Safe is full of information that fearful parents need to teach their kids, but it is likely this is information the parents themselves need. Almost all of us know someone who has been mugged. How much better each of them would have been had they read this book, even cursorily. I can't put it down. You'll learn about awareness and exactly what to do if you're being followed by a car or on foot. You'll learn about identifying suspicious strangers. But most of all, you'll love the fully illustrated (photos) of ways to fight off an attack.

Confidence? After only leafing through this book (well, OK, after thinking I would leaf through it and spending a much longer time studying the steps of self-defense!), I feel surer that I will not be a victim myself. And I intend to spread the word to young girls and boys, other women and, yes, men, too.

Workbooks and a teacher's manual are available.
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A Well Written Insight Into Human Suffering

Title: Sleep Before Evening
Author: Magdalena Ball
ISBN: 978-1-904492-96-2
Page count: 296
Format: paperback
Release Date: 24th July 2007
Available: http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Before-Evening-Magdalena-Ball/dp/1904492967/


Review by Warren Thurston,
owner of Pentales


Sleep Before Evening is Magdalena Ball’s debut novel. It is a beautifully crafted piece dealing with rejection and betrayal. Those of us who have felt that someone we loved deeply betrayed us, will form an immediate bond with the main character.

Marianne is a vivacious nineteen year old, full of life and a brilliant scholar. She is at the peak of her powers when life decides it will test her character. Eric, her much loved grandfather and mentor, is suddenly struck down by a stroke. His death begins a series of events that takes Marianne into a world of darkness, filled with drugs and depression.

Hurting to the core about the loss of Eric, and the fact that she was denied the chance to say goodbye, Marianne hates the world. She also starts to hate herself and seeks solace in the arms of Miles. He is a struggling musician who for a time is the maestro who conducts her life.

Lily, Marianne’s mother, also has her own demons eating at her. She is so wrapped up in her struggle to find happiness and fulfillment, that she cannot see what is happening to her daughter. It is a flaw that many parents are guilty of, not through an act of selfishness, but one brought on by their own struggle to survive.

Confused and angry Marianne deteriorates to the stage where fantasy, reality and pain are so intermingled within her, that she loses contact with her real self. She was entering the stage of what the noted British psychiatrist Hall called, drifting back to the time before you are born. It is a stage along the path of mental recovery, where one’s mind is in an infantile state, as it retreats from the hurt it finds itself in. Then when it feels strong enough it comes forward again, out of the darkness and into the light. This usually brings with it a positive change in an individual, making them mentally stronger and enhancing their creativity.

This is a good story that makes the reader feel the highs and lows of Marianne as if they are their own. It reminds me of the style adopted by the Russian writer Dostoyevsky. He had the ability to get the reader to feel exactly what his characters felt; a gift Magdalena ball has too.

Sleep Before Evening is a well written insight into human suffering. The author shows an in-depth knowledge of how to hold readers attention, and make them eager to know more. This is a debut novel that shows the author has many more novels inside her, which will provoke strong emotions in readers of her work.

A Personal Review--Heart to Heart

The Fallen by Gigi Miner
By Gigi Miner
Publisher: Lulu
Supernatural Mystery - Erotic Aesop's Fable
ISBN: 978-1-4303-0182-0

Reviewed by Yvonne Perry

The Fallen, has made such an impression upon me. My love for humanity has been rekindled and my awareness heightened by reading it.

It may seem like a fiction novel, but the spiritual impact it carries, caused me to see that it indeed contains a greater truth. We are the fallen angels; you, me, and so many others regardless of what course our lives take.

The characters in your book have come to life in the faces of those I love; even in those I do not understand or particularly enjoy being around, because now I know and recognize them as kindred spirits. Already, I feel less judgmental and more compassionate towards those who have forgotten who they are.

You’ve bravely delved into a place of pain where we abuse ourselves and others by the choices we make. Your book will help many realize that all of life is about choice and free will. Hopefully humanity will begin to make better choices that will bring peace to this planet rather than continuing to destroy it with hatred and retaliation.

Thank you so much for sharing your book, your love and your heart with me and all your readers.

Sincerely,
Yvonne Perry
Author of More than Meets the Eye and owner of Write On! Creative Writing Services
Discuss spiritual topics on our blog at http://weareoneinspirit.blogspot.com/

College Instructor Reviews Western Creative Nonfiction

Fly With The Mourning Dove
By Velda Brotherton
Creative non fiction
ISBN 1-4241-5904-0
Publish America


REVIEW by Dr. Loren GruberOriginally published on Publish America's website

Velda Brotherton delivers again. Gleaned from the diaries of Cassie Smith and her daughter Edna, Fly with the Mourning Dove captures the struggles of two women to civilize their portions of the West.

Quoting material from their diaries, Brotherton reconstructs their lives at the beginning of the twentieth century.

They "cowboy up" as tuberculosis ravages the lungs of Finas, their husband and father; as drought ravages their land; as the Great Depression ravages the economy. While butchering a turkey, overcoming frontier loneliness, and eating porcupine, Cassie and Edna each learn to be as tough and tenacious as the West itself.
Brotherton recreates especially endearing scenes when Edna discovers herself. She roars through the boarding house with her Indian-scalping playmates, prepares for her first Communion, lives the life of a cowpuncher, and teaches her first grade school class.

Young Edna asks permission to accompany her father on his trip to fetch water at Taos Junction, New Mexico.

"No," her mother replies, "I said no. You stay here and we'll make some clothes for the fairies. They have missed you terribly and are practically going naked."
Although Edna thought the notion of naked fairies silly, one can imagine that she grew up with Palmer Cox's Brownie Books, Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, and perhaps Art Nouveau semi-nude fairies.

In her later years, Edna writes, "All my life has been packed away in little boxes." Lucky for us, she did.

Still luckier for us, Brotherton carefully unpacks each to display memorable scenes of Edna's life.

Fly with the Mourning Dove is a welcome addition to turn-of-the-century "civilized" memoirs that include Virginia Cary Hudson's O Ye Jigs and Juleps, Dorothy Daniel's Circle 'round the Square, and Clarence Day's Life with Father.

The difference is that Velda Brotherton draws us into the lives of two women who helped shape the West, Edna and Cassie Smith. We are all the richer for it.
------
Loren Gruber is former Dean of the Arts and Humanities Division at Missouri Valley College, Marshall, Missouri. He continues to teach English there.

Courageous Souls, A Metaphysical Study

Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?
Robert Schwartz
Pre-Birth Contracts | Spiritism
$14.95
ISBN: 9780977679454,
327 pages
Whispering Winds Press, 800/742-0148, www.courageoussouls.com

Reviewed by New Age Retailer magazine June, 2007
Anna Jedrziewski, Spirit Connection New York, New York, N.Y.

The serene cover of Courageous Souls belies the punch with which Robert Schwartz communicates the results of his research into pre-birth planning. Working with four experienced channelers, he asked 10 people, each facing different challenges (AIDS, blindness, addiction, or death of a loved one), to delve into the reasons why they agreed, before birth, to put themselves in such difficult situations. Each entry begins with an interview in which the person’s story is told from his or her point-of-view. Information via a medium is used to provide insight and sometimes actual pre-birth conversations about the goals or life lessons desired, contributing past-life factors, and the people who contracted to play major roles in the person’s present incarnation. Moving us away from the idea of karma as punishment, Schwartz introduces the idea of learning through contrast, for instance, a soul wishing to fully experience her or his compassionate side might choose to be born into a family that lacks compassion.

In addition to the considerable wisdom provided from the spirit side, Schwartz writes a summary at the end of each chapter in which he adds some of his own insight garnered during years of metaphysical study. Overall, it is one of the best books of this kind I have come across.

Courageous Souls will trigger interest in both past lives and spirit-guide contact. Display alongside books by best-selling authors such as Brian Weiss, M.D., and Doreen Virtue Ph.D., or with Ruth Montgomery’s works, A Search for the Truth, A World Beyond, and Companions Along the Way.

Fate: Here's Why We All Believe In It, Even If Just a Little Bit

The Simple Touch of Fate:
How the Hand of Fate Touched
Our Lives Forever
Edited By Arlene Uslander and
Brenda Warneka
ISBN: 0-595-30283=1
Website: www.thefatesite.com


Reviewed by Glenda A. Bixler,
Independent Press Book Reviewer


Do you believe in fate? Fate, “the supposed force, principle, or power that predetermines events,” as defined by the dictionary, is known under many names¾destiny, kismet, predestination, foreordainment, foredoom, luck, or just coincidence¾and is often described by individuals around the world. Arlene Uslander and Brenda Warneka have experienced acts of fate in their lives. In The Simple Touch of Fate: How the Hand of Fate Touched our Lives Forever, they share not only their own stories but have gathered over fifty real stories by real people, in a thought-provoking anthology, that leaves you with one question: if it wasn’t fate, how and why did these events happen?

As a lover of suspense and mysteries, I enjoy reading or hearing about events or activities that leave us wondering and questioning. I especially enjoy “little” acts that happen. For instance, was it a coincidence that one of the authors chosen for this anthology, Patricia Patteson, had also been included in an anthology, Mist on the Mon, that had sat on my bookshelf for many years, unread, but was immediately pulled and enjoyed when it was included in this book?

Or was it fate that a daily newsletter I read before I began to write this review, covered a mysterious life-saving event, but in that story, the writer attributed her story to guardian angels? Personally, I no longer question such things. In fact, based upon a book, As You Wish by Christine Massot Simpson, a resident of Canada, for whom I had the privilege to help edit and publish her book, I now use her phrase, “A God Incident” whenever I confront such events.

Let me share a little about my favorites from The Simple Touch of Fate. If you don’t believe in fate, then these short stories just may force you to reconsider­is there something or someone, somewhere that controls events in our lives?

Jacob! Jacob! Reborn. The date was September 11, 2001. Jacob Herbst often traveled by plane; however, work-related activities prevented his taking a scheduled flight from Boston’s Logan Airport at 8:45, American Airlines, Flight 11, to Los Angeles. How do you thank a man who could not make an important meeting, causing an unexpected delay, for saving your life?

Desert Boomerang. Two soldiers meet in Iraq; one is standing guard at a barren traffic control point and helps the other by giving him directions. Months later, the same two soldiers meet at the site of an accident on a deserted road and the favor is returned. Only this time, lives are saved! For the man just happened to be part of a medical unit...

We all Cross Paths for a Reason. A birth mother and her now-grown daughter are reunited through an automobile accident and a woman’s willingness to work overtime. Just a coincidence?

Time for Life. A man and a woman, members of one family, but located in different places­both trying to catch the train­fail in their efforts due to various reasons. They missed the most disastrous train crash in the United Kingdom in 42 years.

“Honor, Courage, and Commitment”: Saving Jack Roush. When a small plane is in trouble, it happens to hit near the home of an ex-marine, specifically trained “to save a pilot in an upside-down plane from a watery grave.”

Grandmother Spirits. In a time of family distress, a woman prays to the spirits of grandmothers for the needs of a family. Was it a coincidence or a direct response to prayer that allowed a son just arriving in Hiroshima to be able to make a free call to his mother?

The Angel That Couldn’t Fly. My favorite! A wonderful answer to why the chicken crossed the road...

Uslander and Warneka have created an excellent, well-diversified anthology that provides heart-warming, happy, life-saving and sometimes-unbelievable tales. They are presented with an interesting continuity, yet broken with small offerings of people’s own definitions of fate. I found it informative, flawlessly presented to allow readers to form their own conclusions regarding these stories from “real people.” For those who continuously wonder... and search... I found this a must-read!

This books can be purchased for $16.95 on Amazon.com and other online bookstores, or ordered from the publisher 1-800-288-4677 or any brick-and-mortar bookstore.

An Unusual Romantic Heroine for a Summer's Read

THE BODYGUARD AND THE SHOW DOG
Christy Tillery French
Behler Publications
ISBN 193301637X
Romantic Suspense/Comedy
268 pages
$15.95
5 Stars

Reviewer: Brenda Edde, Romance Junkies
www.romancejunkies.com

Natasha Chamberlain is starting up her own bodyguard business and her first case is guarding a show dog. Ok, it is a dog, however, Natasha knows she has to start somewhere and after her last case working for her ex-boss Jonce Striker, where she ran into some trouble she believes this case will be a lot safer. WRONG!

Natasha is excited about starting her own business despite the complaints from Striker and her family that it is too dangerous for her. Her first case guarding Chumley, a champion show dog should be a piece of cake. However, whether it's Natasha’s style or just the fact that the case is jinxed, she runs into trouble at every turn. Jonce Striker, her ex-boss, now lover is having to pull her out of trouble almost daily and is not happy about it. Will this case cause a serious rift in their building relationship or will Natasha and Jonce manage to balance their individual needs for independence? As Natasha follows the clues to who has threatened she runs into an animal abuser, lands in the hospital and is thrown into jail, no wonder Jonce is a bit worried for her safety. Who would have thought guarding a dog would be such a challenge?

THE BODYGUARD AND THE SHOW DOG is a laugh a minute story in the best Janet Evanovich style. The situations that Natasha finds herself in are hilarious, her attempts to balance her career and her relationship are the makings of an Emmy winning sitcom. Ms. Tillery French’s Bodyguard series is one that will have you laughing and cheering Natasha’s bid for independence even as you feel complete sympathy for Jonce’s quest to keep her safe from herself. A wonderful book for an afternoon read.