Waiting for Next Three-Way Collision of Hammett, Tolkien, and Chesterton

Title: Magic, Mensa and Mayhem

Author: Karina Fabian

Category: Fantasy, Humor

ISBN:978-1-934041-78-9

Available from: Swimming Kangaroo

Reviewed by Walt Staples orignally for Fantasy Novels

This author is as funny as Robert Asprin on one of his good days. Who else could come up with a twelve foot Sam Spade named Vern and get away with it so brilliantly? His partner is no Miles Archer; Sister Grace is a lot sharper, more honest, and carries a mean tune. Her shootout with a muse during a con panel is priceless.

Fabian’s take on elves is a good corrective to the near adoration of some portrayals. And, who knew elvish names could be so much fun when translated into English?

The only problem is going to be waiting for the next instalment of this three-way collision of Hammett, Tolkien, and Chesterton.

Author bio:

Karina Fabian writes award-winning science fiction and fantasy that twist clichés and combines the heavy with the lighthearted. Find all her books at http://fabianspace.com


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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Book Tour: Inspirational Thought Leader

Become an Inspirational Thought Leader, Turn Your Setbacks Into Opportunities and Change the World with Your Gifts
By Marcia Bench

BECOME AN INSPIRATIONAL THOUGHT LEADER

Become an Inspirational Thought Leader gives you the right words to express your Inspirational Message, helps you be more compelling to the perfect people for your business or cause, and makes it easy to market and deliver your services! This book helps readers become truly inspirational, exceeding the awareness and ability of ordinary experts. Written for entrepreneurs, nonprofit directors and corporate leaders, you will find Marcia's paint-by-numbers system to be a comforting solution to the overwhelm, stress and confusion many thought leaders feel. Get ready to exponentially expand your impact, income and influence as you read and apply the principles in this book!

Do you have a calling but can’t quite make the dream happen?

Could your message change the world?

Then become an Inspirational Thought Leader!

If you feel the calling to inspire others and become a recognized leader in your profession without compromising your integrity or having to use hard selling in the process, then this book is a must read. It elegantly combines a heart-centered marketing system with quantum physics, laws of success, and personal growth principles.

The result?

You literally change the world through your work!

In Marcia Bench’s new book, Become an Inspirational Thought Leader, Turn Your Setbacks Into Opportunities and Change the World with Your Gifts, you’ll learn how to:

• Turn your setbacks – as well as successes - into the foundation for a thriving business
• Design your Inspirational Message and package it into multiple “Inspirational Income Streams” you love
• Clear any remaining beliefs or energy blocks to your Inspirational Message
• Reach exponentially more people with your work using online and offline strategies
• Become the go-to expert in your niche and virtually eliminate the competition!
• Navigate the 5 Phases of Inspirational Thought Leadership and expand your business globally.

Navigate the 5 Phases of Inspirational Thought Leadership and expand your business globally.

Let your true spirit be expressed!

By reading this book - and doing the exercises and meditations provided - you will:

(1) be recognized as the go-to person, the expert, the guru

(2) feel more empowered and accept the power of influence you have,

(3) feel more connected than ever with a Purpose bigger than you are

(4) communicate your Inspirational Message to the world in a powerful way!

Inspirational Thought Leadership is not just for the CEO's and "top dogs." It's for anyone who wants to be a force of influence, inspiration and impact in their personal or professional sphere. And when you buy the book today, you'll claim more than $3500 in great bonuses!

http://bit.ly/GTgHam

 About the author:

Author of 24 books, Marcia Bench is known as the Inspirational Messaging and Marketing Mentor™ and as a professional coach, author and speaker she has worked with entrepreneurs, corporations, nonprofits and government clients for more than 25 years. She is the CEO of InspirationalThoughtLeader.com and Marcia Bench Enterprises as well as the Founder/Director of the worldwide training company, Career Coach Institute. http://bit.ly/GTgHam

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Inexpensive Love Gift For Moms in Your Life?

By

Cherished PulseSubtitle: Unconventional Love Poetry
Authors: Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena Ball
Genre: Poetry/Love
Author's Web site: www.howtodoitfrugally.com/poetry_books.htm
Available on Amazon as paperback or for Kindle www.budurl.com/CherishedPulse

Reviewed by Mark Logie (London), originally for Amazon

 

Magdalena Ball's poems in this collection display a considerable interest in, and enthusiasm for, nature, both on this planet and in space. This is appropriate for "unconventional love poetry" as love for someone else often makes them seem to be everything (ie, the universe); it is also not what we expect since, on the face of it, love has no connection with outer space or the natural world on earth. This particularly appeals to me.

The awe in which we hold the cosmos together with its beauty and loneliness also make it ideal for poems about love. For instance, "Galactic Collision", one of my favourites, is about the virtually catastrophic fusing of two people in love with each other. The comparison of a human heart to a black hole is amazing, bold and apt: after all, a black hole is so powerful that nothing -- not even light -- can escape it. And true, deep love, draws us in and won't let go. She then goes on to underline this by going to the other end of the scale: light ("black hole/ expanded into a cartwheel blaze"). Love it.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, on the other hand, explores the inner recesses of the human world: the heart, the mind and the home, neatly complementing and counterpointing Ball's macroscopic world-view (or should that be "universe-view"?). As they say, "Home is where the heart is".

Howard-Johnson's skill is in choosing original settings for poems that address different sentiments from the expected. It is also evident in her relaxed style, which cuts to the emotional crux of her works in a simple yet elegant way and embraces the real issues rather than the simplistic pseudo-sentiments of most commercial greetings cards. For example, the bittersweet "Dreaming Lilacs", primes the reader to expect a poem about intoxicating, fulfilled love through its vivid evocation of place and utilisation of all the reader's senses ("It's you who had me dreaming lilacs,/ breathing April's sweetest tears, tasting sugared lemon rinds,"), then reveals that it is really about expired or unrequited love ("... As if you/ were with me,/ as if you loved me."). Brilliant.

All in all, a superb collection: different yet not totally unfamiliar.

Roll on the next collection!

~Mark Logie is an award-winning poet & short-story writer;. He is the author
of "On the Road to Infinity" & "You Have No Power Over Me"

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

The Feel-Good Guide for Getting a Job In Bad Times and Good

How to Interview Like A Pro

Subtitle: Forty-Three Rules for Getting Your Next Job [Kindle Edition]
Mary Greenwood. JD. LLM (Author)
Published by iUniverse
Kindle Edition
ASIN: B004JHZ26C

Who would have guessed.

I read this book because I thought I might be able to recommend it to my retail clients, but it turns out, getting a job is very like selling a book! So it’s suitable in many ways for my author-clients, too.

Getting a job isn’t much different than it was in the back in the days when I interviewed at PR firms and magazines like Good Housekeeping. Though we have many tools at our disposal that weren’t available back then, the basics are similar. And industry to industry, we can learn so much from the general (yet detailed!) information Mary Greenwood gives us in How To Interview Like a Pro. Basic business skills like Mary imparts here, are useful for at some level for about anyone who must earn a living.

Mary’s number two rule is that a job hunter must “prepare a good elevator speech.”  It’s a subject (along with pitches in general) that I cover in depth in my book, the new edition of The Frugal Book Promoter (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) .

She also says “Make a list of everyone you know. Well, if authors had followed my advice on building contact lists in that same book, they’d already have a list of everyone they know. A job hunter would only need to review that list to find influential people with contacts of their own who will lead them to other jobs, recommend them to others, and generally hold their hands through the process.

Going hand in hand with this process is Mary’s rule “Telling everyone you know you are looking for a job.”  Mmm. Chapters in The Frugal Book Promoter on networking, too! Greenwood, of course, expands this rule to “Tell everyone you would like to know you are looking for a job.” Here she covers making new contacts using social networking.  Yep, industries are all pretty much the same. We can surely learn from one another!

Mary’s rules are born of experience, both general and legal. Her book moves us along from rule to rule—lickety split—right down to the never-nevers like “Never say you don’t have any more questions.” Interviews go both ways. If they don’t, the interviewer may form some opinions you’d just as well he or she didn’t.

One of the reason things move so quickly are Greenwood’s anecdotes. You’ll come away from this book feeling as if you aren’t alone in your search and knowing how to make sure you aren’t. You’ll know the basics and the details, like how to answer about any question an interviewer is likely to ask.

One of the best things about this book is Greenwood’s Introductory Rule: “Getting a job is like parking. You have to be at the right place at the right time.” If you keep that in mind—along with her little protractor story (yes, this is a tease—I think you should read this book!), you’ll hang in there and know one day you’ll be exactly in that place at that time.

Now, here’s the thing. I believe that almost anyone in the business world could benefit from this book. From interviewee to interviewer. From author to retailer to IT guy or gal. Sometimes the books we get the most from are the ones we don’t think we need in the moment.  Have it ready. It’s way more than a get-a-job book.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Fantasy Novelist Called Genius

Mythica: GenesisScott S. Colley, author
www.krullstonepublishing.com
Genre: Fantasy
ISBN: 978-0-9833237-0-9

This review appears on Amazon by Bonnie S. Curley:
I just finished reading Mythica Genesisl and I loved it from the beginning to the incredible ending. I am so impressed with the brilliant writing of Scott Colley. He is a genius and a very talented writer. The story was so compelling and easier to follow than I thought it would be when I first started reading the novel. The vocabulary, the descriptions and details of the terrain, the weather, the characters, their surroundings, the fight scenes were amazing. The characters were so believable and I loved the bond between the brothers. I absolutely loved every page of this book and am hooked on his style of writing and will eagerly await his next book. What a creative imagination! I absolutely recommend this book to everyone looking for a great story and a brilliant writer.


~Submitted by Krullstone Publishing, LLC
Charlotte A. Ivey, charlotte@krullstonepublishing.com

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Author Turns Sex, Interviews, Sudy into Pickup Artist Book

Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser

Subtitle: Long Interviews with Hideous Men 

By Clarisse Thorn
Available on Amazon and Smashwords

Nonfiction: Feminist Theory/Se

ISBN: 9781476129211 


Reviewed by Katy Huff originally for Amazon

 

I picked up this book for the David Foster Wallace reference in the title and the sexy reputation of the author. I only put it down so that I could eat something without endangering my Kindle. It's a fast-paced, chatty, cerebral, and ultimately sex-positive and feminist dissection of the pick up artist subculture, which turns out to be a seedy amalgamation of internet fora, night clubs, nerds, hedonists, misogynists, misandrists, sociopaths, and ordinary men (and women).

Clarisse is unflinchingly honest (radically honest, even) about the occasionally hot, often tormented, and chronically analytic headspace she experienced as a sex-positive feminist investigating the bizarre subculture of pick up artistry. She risks endangerment of her sanity, her feminist paradigm, and her person to stalk, interview, and, yes, flirt her way through the underworld of geeks and sleazebags of pick up artistry.

I was morbidly fascinated as she fluidly reviewed the myriad vocabularies, philosophies, and 'techniques' that have evolved within this strange community. I was then relieved when, after outlining and explaining this disturbing world, she tore it to shreds in a dissection that is too honest to completely please anyone involved: pick up artists, feminists, and innocent bystanders will all leave with a lesson or two.

I can only hope she's already conducting her next undercover investigation of the next fascinating subculture she'll write about.

~Learn more about Clarisse Thorn

http://clarissethorn.com/

http://facebook.com/clarisse.thorn

@clarissethorn

Sex + Relationships Editor, Role/Reboot

http://www.rolereboot.org/sex-and-relationships

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :

Linda Brooks Reviews Literary Novel Set in Australia

Black Cow

By Magdalena Ball

http://www.magdalenaball.com

Published by BeWrite Books

http://www.bewritebooks.com  

Feb 2012, Genre: General Fiction

ISBN: 978-1927086469

Reviewed by Linda Brooks

In this cunningly crafted novel Magdalena Ball takes us to the heart of a family floundering on the brink of self destruction. And it is truly a destruction of self we are watching in painful clarity. The multitude of material goods that clutter their concrete lives is in direct contrast to the idealism and truth of their youth. It is a life they have first chosen, then drifted with, but is now surely choking the essence of their whole family. Magdalena has put a stark mirror to their lives. Freya and James are too close to see, but close enough to know fear. It takes time for this fear to have a name. Time for the lifestyle of the parents to implode on not only themselves, but their children.

Essentially, James and Freya are in a hell of their own choosing and as a reader we can palpate the pulse of the chaos of their lives. But for all their materialism and struggle, we can see shadows of their former, purer selves – and this compels us to hope for their redemption before they even begin to hope for themselves. These are not two people who we hope hit rock bottom, but we sense strongly that this is precisely the stimulus that will push these two out of the miasma of their illusory success. The disconnection of the family is terrifying. With each stroke Freya forces in the pool, and each entry of James into the boardroom as CEO, we sense life out of control, but we become invested in them. These are two people who have a growing sense of loss of self, and we tense with them as they gradually discard old ties and clear away the debris of what once was their sense of achievement and identity.

It is a shedding as painful as the decline, and the authenticity of their journey is never lost in glib phrases or overnight solutions. We see the courage of Freya as she battles her own connection with the material life she loves. We experience the raw terror of crossing the tight rope between old and new. Sometimes we flinch. Even as they cut the umbilical cord to their former selves, fresh revelations of are made and further unravelling is revealed, until Freya and Edward reach a point where we see a glimmer that the best is yet to be for this family. There will be no return to the dysfunction of the old. Reconnection with each other and their children will not be abandoned. We know this as we see both Freya and James glimpse the change in their children. The black cow becomes a symbol of their renewal.

There is an authenticity and honesty about the revelation of their characters and the torment of the children that is the inevitable collateral of a lifestyle that is decaying. And yet Ball doesn’t demonise the lifestyle, but skilfully reveals the people Freya and James had meant to become before they became lost. The dreams they let slip away, the hopes that died.

Secondary characters are deliberately peripheral. Their lives have become too shallow for real life, real connections. Ball peels back the layers of the relationship as she brings Freya and James back from the brink of their own carefully scripted disaster, giving hope in change to sustainable solutions for their lives, both environmental and emotional. It is a hope we cannot help but savour. A hope that compels us to re-examine our own lives and seek meaning, and the courage to sacrifice in order to live without compromise, or regret. To check the compass of our own yesterdays, todays and tomorrows.

~The author also wrote Sleep Before Evening and is the author of several books of poetry. She also runs The Compulsive Reader, www.compulsivereader.com.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using this little green retweet widget :