Inspirational Author Review Inspiration Self Help Book

Title: Control Your Now
Author: Sharon Salvaggio
Author Website: http://sharonsalvaggio.com
FB fan page: https://www.facebook.com/smcgannsalvaggio?fref=ts
Book trailer
ISBN: 978-1-62854-342-1
Genre: Self help

"This pocket sized book is full of great ideas, tools and
exercises that anyone can use to help them control your now. I
enjoyed reading as the author provided simple but effective
elements throughout the book."


Reviewed by: Teresa Morrow


Sharon Salvaggio  is a life coach that shares her philosophy
that we as individuals can "control our now" through gentle
understanding and patience with life's ups and downs. As a
former corporate financial officer, Sharon takes her business
and personal experiences and threads them into her work as a
coach, speaker and author.  In her latest book, Control Your
Now, she integrates her philosophy and chronicles what she has
learned through various practices such as Accountability and
Allowing Success. She believes that everyone is responsible for
how they deal with their own lives. She briefly lived in Belize
in 2002 for 3 months. Sharon currently lives in Florida with her
husband Steve, their kids and her dog, Apollo.

Sign up to receive free report "10 ways to Control Your Now" at
SharonSalvaggio.com.

Submitted By:
Teresa Morrow aka The Author's Cheerleader
http://teresamorrow.com 
Working with spiritual authors to get their unique message out
to the world. She is also host of "Inspiration Nation Radio"
http://blogtalkradio.com/inspirationnation, Sharing Inspiration through the World of Words, and an
inspirational author, blogger, poet and author of 'Life Lessons from the Heart'
and 'Healing from Broken Trust: A Journey of Transformation'

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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.

Book Review: Fresh Look at Business Leadership

Title:   Hanging the Mirror: The discipline of Reflective Leadership

Book Website/blog:  http://www.hangingthemirror.com/

 

Authors: Alan Scheffer, Mark Scheffer, Nancy Braun

ISBN:  978-1-60047-758-4
Reviewed by Kirkus
Genre/Subject: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development
Soft cover, 171 pages
Available from:  Book website, Amazon, Barns and Noble

KIRKUS REVIEW

Three management consultants take a fresh look at business leadership in a work that will enlighten and inspire.

 

These three debut authors have crafted an impressive book, one that is highly readable, instructional and humanistic in its approach to leadership. The title is derived from a client comment that the authors’ company “pushed each of us to hang a mirror and really take a look at what we saw.” The premise that leaders need to be “reflective” to be effective is played out in finely tuned, well-organized chapters that move through topics including motivation, vision, recognition, involvement and communication. The authors’ keen insights, enhanced by liberal use of authoritative sources, pervade each chapter, offering leaders much to ponder. The authors ask provocative questions—“To what extent do leaders use their authority for employees or onthem?”—and raise deep issues: e.g., “Only when self-reflection incorporates the views and perceptions of others, only when we reach beyond our own beliefs and expectations, can it be said that we have truly hung the mirror” and “The hard reality is that many of us do not really value the thinking of others and do not believe that it can improve our own.” Wisely, the authors devote the majority of the book to self-reflection, guiding readers with relevant examples, sound counsel and end-of-chapter questions. Still, the authors broaden their concept to demonstrate how a reflective leader can help create a reflective organization. They concentrate on the leader’s responsibility to build organizational unity by “defining the culture to which they aspire” and by paying attention “not only to their own effectiveness, but also to the effectiveness of each leader within their scope of authority.” The authors come full circle in the final chapter, “Living the Reflective Life,” in which they describe some of the key characteristics inherent in living a reflective life: “Only through reflection do we become everything we could be.”

Deftly written and researched, perceptive and relevant; an important addition to leadership literature.

 

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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.

Book Review: Imagine a Universe on the Edge

• Title: Rarity from the Hollow
• Author: Robert Eggleton
• Web site link: www.lacydawnadventures.com
• Genre: Nontraditional SF/F, Cross-Genre
• ISBN: 9781907133060; 1907133062
• Name of Reviewer:  Bryan Zepp Jamieson  
• Journal: The Electric Review, A Universe on the Edge
• Publishd 2012 by Doghorn Publishing

 

Reviewed by Bryan Zepp Jamieson originally for Electric Review.net

Lacy Dawn is a little girl who lives in a magical forest where all the trees love her and she has a space alien friend who adores her and wants to make her queen of the universe. What’s more, all the boys admire her for her beauty and brains. Mommy is very beautiful and Daddy is very smart, and Daddy’s boss loves them all.

Excerpt

Lacy Dawn, the eleven year old protagonist, perches precariously between the psychosis of childhood and the multiple neuroses of adolescence, buffeted by powerful gusts of budding sexuality and infused with a yearning to escape the grim and brutal life of a rural Appalachian existence. In this world, Daddy is a drunk with severe PTSD, and Mommy is an insecure wraith. The boss is a dodgy lecher, not above leering at the flat chest of an eleven-year-old girl.

Yes, all in one book.

Rarity From The Hollow is written in a simple declarative style that’s well- suited to the imaginary diary of a desperate but intelligent eleven-year-old – the story bumping joyfully between the extraordinary and the banal.

The central planet of the universe is a vast shopping mall, and Lacy Dawn must save her world from a menace that arrives in the form of a cockroach infestation. Look again and the space alien has made Daddy smart and happy – or at least an eleven year old girl’s notion of what a smart and happy man should be. He has also made Mommy beautiful, giving her false teeth and getting the food stamp lady off her back.

About the only thing in the book that is believable is the nature of the narrative voice, and it is utterly compelling. You find yourself convinced that “Hollow” was written as a diary-based autobiography by a young girl and the banal stems from the limits of her environment, the extraordinary from her megalomania. And that’s what gives Rarity From The Hollow a chilling, engaging verisimilitude that deftly feeds on both the utter absurdity of the characters’ motivations and on the progression of the plot.

Indeed, there are moments of utter darkness: In one sequence, Lacy Dawn remarks matter-of-factly that a classmate was whipped to death, and notes that the assailant, the girl’s father, had to change his underpants afterward because they were soiled with semen. Odd, and often chilling notes, abound.

As I was reading it, I remembered when I first read Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” at the age of 14. A veteran of Swift, Heller, and Frederick Brown, I understood absurdist humour in satire, but Vonnegut took that understanding and turned it on its ear.

In the spirit of Vonnegut, Eggleton (a psychotherapist focused on the adolescent patient) takes the genre and gives it another quarter turn. A lot of people hated Vonnegut, saying he didn’t know the rules of good writing. But that wasn’t true. Vonnegut knew the rules quite well, he just chose to ignore them, and that is what is happening in Eggleton’s novel, as well.

Not everyone will like Rarity From The Hollow. Nonetheless, it should not be ignored.

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Purchase Links:

 http://www.amazon.com/Rarity-Hollow-Robert-Eggleton-ebook/dp/B007JDI508

 http://www.doghornpublishing.com/wordpress/books/rarity-from-the-hollow

 http://inpressbooks.co.uk/products/rarity-from-the-hollow

 http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/robert-eggleton/rarity-from-the-hollow/paperback/product-20203207.html

 http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rarity-from-the-hollow-robert-eggleton/1118420669?ean=9781907133060

 http://www.mediander.com/books/9781907133060/rarity-from-the-hollow/?source=googleps#

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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.

Linguistics Professor Recommends Historical Fiction Novel

Title: Sydney's Story
Author: Eileen Clemens Granfors
Word Joy Publishing
Genre: Historical Fiction
250 pages
Buy: Paperback or Kindle

Reviewed by B. A. Goodman, Ph.D., originally for Amazon

A Great Literary and Historical Contribution

 

With this book, Eileen Granfors has managed to transport us with words and imagery to the bedlam that was 18th century England and France. She has also managed to show us the events within this context that happened to young Sydney Carton that explain his actions in the Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities. As a teacher, I would hold this volume up as required reading for all students after reading A Tale of Two Cities, to inspire them to think and write beyond the page of a single story. Having developed this entire history of Sydney Carton with only the slightest hints from the original about Carton’s upbringing reveals Ms. Granfors’ excellent research and dazzling imagination as Sydney grows from an abusive childhood to rebellious teen and finally, the loving hero of Luci Manette and of those who love the original Dickens’ book. Taking on modern tones, Ms. Granfors wisely incorporated themes of domestic abuse and domestic equality as well as the eighteenth century’s discrimination against the Romany people.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER
 Dr.  B. A. Goodman has a PhD is in Educational Linguistics. She is teaching multilingual education at Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education in Astana, Kazakhstan.




----- 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.

Tales2Inspire ~ The Sapphire Collection

TALES2INSPIRE ~ THE SAPPHIRE COLLECTION

Timeless Memories 

Title: Tales2inspire ~ The Sapphire Collection

Subtitle: Timeless Memories

Publisher: Lois W. Stern for Tales2Inspire®

Authors: Lois W. Stern plus winning authors: Tom Eliopoulos, Ashley Howland, Jenna Ludwig, Mary Romero, Sharon S. Johnson, Maurice Nadjari, Mark Newhouse, Janice Emeneau, Micki Peluso, Pauline Hager, Rod DiGruttolo, T. H. Everingham, Mort Laitner, Susan C. Haley

Genre: Anthology of inspiring true stories

ISBN-13: 978-1499539516
ISBN-10: 1499539517

ASIN: B00MER58YA

Page count: 127

Price 

Paperback: $11.25

Kindle: $4.99

BUY HERE:

____________________________________________________

REVIEWS

A READERS FAVORITE 5 STAR REVIEW  By Mamta Madhavan 

. . . a collection of insightful & inspirational stories (to) help bring about positive changes in the minds of readers. These stories will move the hearts of readers with their personal experiences . . . helping to change one's perspective. The author's idea of bringing different writers together to share their inspirational & motivational stories . . .  gives varied echoes to the stories, (each with) an individual voice revolving around the human spirit & the conditions that prevail in human minds. Gives readers a sense of hope and peace. 

LIGHT AND HOPE

By multi-published author, Russ Heitz

     This is a time of 24-hour TV newscasts. It is a time of screaming headlines and explicit videos. Whether it is the latest slaughter of innocents or the most catastrophic of natural disasters. Whether the images are of starving babies or dying epidemic victims. The tragedies and pain and suffering that we are confronted with every day are sometimes overwhelming. And because of this unremitting onslaught we sometimes forget that there is another side to this ongoing biography of the human race. Not all of its events are horrendous. Not all of its members are monsters. Not all of its behaviors are deplorable. And not all of its thoughts are centered on darkness. On the contrary, there are glimmers of light and goodness scattered everywhere, in all directions. But they can be seen only by those who look carefully and watch with patience.

     The writers of these little Sapphire Edition essays are those kinds of careful lookers and patient watchers. Their stories are varied; their experiences run the gamut. Maybe it's a dog with a goofy grin or a cardinal plunging through an evergreen. Maybe it's a lost but rediscovered letter. Maybe it's a calamity that did NOT happen. Maybe it's a gift that only a grandson can give to a beloved grandfather. Or maybe it's a birthday card that carries warm memories for years afterwards, both for the sender and for the receiver.

     These are the kinds of positive human experiences that are illuminated by the essays in this small but overflowing collection. Each piece has its own message of inspiration. Each piece has its own way of delivering that message.

INSPIRATIONAL STORIES THAT ENRICH THE SOUL AND NOURISH THE MIND

by William Engels 

     Tales2Inspire - The Sapphire Collection: Echoes in the Mind by Lois W. Stern certainly delivers just what it promises from its title -- inspirational stories of universal appeal that enrich the soul, nourish the mind and offer us valuable lessons about living a fulfilling life. This book contains a collection of fourteen non-fiction stories written by authors from a wide range of backgrounds, including different educational levels, religions and geographical regions. But despite these differences, all of the tales deal with common themes that connect us all with each other: serendipity or destiny, spirituality, religion, cherished items that remind us of our heritage ("Just A Pickle and A Chair," written by Editor Lois W. Stern), lost opportunities, new beginnings, the importance of bringing joy to loved ones and devotion to animals and understanding how they help to make people's lives better.

     Additionally, these stories contain valuable lessons for all of us. In "What is Life," Melissa Noel shows us how to overcome incredible adversity and hardship with courage, perseverance, hope and faith. In "Doorways," Susan C. Haley demonstrates how to learn from the challenges presented by confronting and conquering grief and other obstacles. In "At Least Nothing Bad Happened," Janice Emeneau teaches us the importance of positive thinking as a way to improve the quality of our lives, even our health. Finally "In All That Glitters...," Maurice Nadjari shows by example how following a path of morality, honesty and integrity is an effective way to live a free and independent life.

I highly recommend this book. I found it uplifting, encouraging and comforting because it confirms to its readers that they are not alone in dealing with these common human experiences

MEMORABLE THREADS IN THE FABRIC OF LIFE

By Bani Sodermark: an Amazon VINE VOICE and Book Pleasures reviewer

     This book is a collection of memorable incidentby ordinary people with a flair for writing. Editor-cum-author Lois Stern, has in this connection, presented an assortment of stories that "echo in the mind" as these moments are relived over and over again. Some of the contributors are published authors in their own right, others are less well known. The common ground between them all is their passion for the written word.

     The first story "Hand of Destiny" tells of an incredible coincidence in the life of an ex fighter pilot in World War II. Then there is the story of an amazing dog, who was successfully used by his mistress as part of her school management program. Meaningful contact with family members who have passed on is provided by two of the authors, while the editor herself tells the story of a chair with a history. Another moving story, which struck a personal chord is about the memories stirred up by a cup of hot chocolate and how it helped ease discord in parent-child relationships.

     Next comes the story of an attorney who "fought hard to hold on to the things that were of most value to him while investigating the greatest heist in American history. A motivational speaker mentions two close calls and how she survived to tell the tale.

     A son of a Holocaust survivor recalls how reticence prevented him from finding out the truth of his mother's experiences until it was too late. In another story, the author acknowledges the powerful effect of a grateful smile while traveling in foreign climes. Yet another tells the story of a friend with learning disability who overcame incredible odds in order to establish herself in society.

     There is also the heartwarming story of a young boy who plots a secret treat for his grandfather.

     The writing in each of these anecdotes has been painstakingly chiseled to near perfection. Each story is accompanied by one or more photographs and a paragraph about its author. . .  it is clear, that the text has been put together with care and artistry, making it a truly pleasurable read for a lazy summer day.

5

BY LINDA MARIA FRANK

Host of the LTV Show: The Writer’s Dream, Author of the Annie Tillery Mystery Series

     In this latest of Lois W. Stern's "Tales 2 Inspire” collections, we again come to know about the incredible resiliency of the human spirit, and the intricacies of the human mind. Such stories of the individuality, yet common themes of the human condition do inspire. For those of us who find ourselves questioning the conditions of the world around us, Stern's "Tales2Inspire" series gives hope. If it's time for you to find a peaceful place to nurture your own dreams, take comfort in this series. Read, enjoy, and feel good.

5

WOW, GET THESE BOOKS

By Michael Monji, the "Tree Whisperer”

Amazon VINE VOICE Reviewer

Wow!! The author has done a fantabulous job of bringing heart warming stories to life. She has brought together authors that have stories that will make you say how grateful you are for the things and loved ones in your life. You need to read all four books in the series to truly appreciate what each author has to say.

                                       _____________________________________________________________

Lois Speaks About Tales2Inspire®

Tales2Inspire® was a kernel of an idea that I started in 2012 which has grown to proportions even I didn’t dare to envision. My innate curiosity about potentially fascinating human interest stories was the spark that ignited this idea, but it was the confused state of traditional publishing at that time that propelled me forward. Tales2Inspire® delivers exactly what it promises as both an ‘Authors Helping Authors’ project and a contest. Winners get their stories published in print, as e-books, and some even in video formats, with their names, headshot photos, and mini-autobiographies included. Then I spread the word about the winners and their stories on my blogs, social media and monthly newsletter. FREE to enter, this is a great competition for talented newbies and seasoned authors alike.

Click here to learn more about Lois and her Tales2Inspire® 

Authors Helping Authors project/contest at:

Spend some media marketing time with Lois at: 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/tales2inspire

Twitter: www.twitter.com/tales2inspire2

POPULAR LINKS

Tales2Inspire website

Facebook Author page

Twitter

BUY HERE

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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.

University Press Published Fiction Hits a Chord for Top Reviewer

 

Review by Bookreporter.com  
Title: Don't Forget Me, BrBy John Michael Cummings
Publisher: Stephen F. Austin State University Press

Reprinted with permission from Pauline Finch, Bookreporter.com

 

Reviewed by Pauline Finch originally for Bookreporter.com

 

Families: they love us, they hate us, they confuse us, they support us, they believe in us, they hurt us, they forgive us, they never forget our mistakes. . .

It’s no good picking and choosing which of the above (in what could be an interminably long list) best applies to your particular family, or mine, because today’s assumption will become tomorrow’s irrelevance.  

As author John Michael Cummings shows with such poignant and searing skill in DON’T FORGET ME, BRO families contain all of it. There’s simply no tidy, predictable emotional or dynamic boundary to draw around these most primal of human units. Even those who don’t know their biological families have collective relationships that daily test their autonomy, individuality, self-worth and dreams. 

Cummings, who’s spent more than three decades writing about human beings, mainly of the everyday American persuasion, excels in uncovering those beneath-the-skin familial stories that realistically probe uncomfortable, often invisible, areas of life. And even in our current decade of sociological transparency, perhaps nothing is more resistant to illumination in this context than mental illness.   

As a broad collection of chemical, biological and/or psychiatric disorders of the brain, it eludes clear-cut treatments and solutions as successfully as families elude pat definitions of who and what they are. When families and their perceptions of mental illness collide, as happens with such gritty persistence in Don't Forget Me, Bro all the discomfort of relationships, normal and otherwise, comes to the fore.

Returning home to West Virginia to deal with the premature death of his older brother Steve, long diagnosed as schizophrenic, Mark Barr carries plenty of his own emotional and psychological baggage, including a deep-seated distaste for a father he remembers as abusive, a mother who seems a passive bystander to life, and a middle brother who comes across as just plain weird. With a number of failed relationships on record – including the one that’s falling apart even as he sets out from New York – he’s not so sure about his own mental health either.

“Going back home” stories are often based on narrow cliché-filled themes that focus on a single character or experience. Like series TV shows, they are easier to control and wrap up in a satisfying sentimental or tragic package at the end.

Fortunately, Don't Forget Me, Bro isn’t one of them. It’s a gripping emotional and literary journey that hits just about every pothole one can expect to find on life’s road; that part is engaging and sometimes oddly familiar. And when Cummings throws in a few unexpected left turns, thanks to his character’s unpredictable relatives and colleagues, there are moments of surprise and difference to ponder as well. That skilfully managed dichotomy in itself sets this author apart, drawing the reader into places that challenge assumption and attitude.

At the outset, Mark does think this back-home story is all about him, but he’s not driven by ego or self-absorption as much as by fear, worry and chronic indecision.  His own identity, perhaps even his future, are on the line.

But as he blunders into memories, people, and artifacts from the chaotic mosaic of his dead brother’s life he rediscovers who Steve really was. In spite of himself he grows into a kind of belated and bewildered stewardship over his brother’s cremated remains, which become a catalyst for revealing ever-deeper layers of family stories he never really knew.

Haunted by the last words he heard Steve utter – “Don’t forget me, bro” – Mark realizes that at the heart of every human existence is the fear of being forgotten, of simply disappearing into cosmic anonymity. After all, even families that can’t stand each other tenaciously remember their own.

With the unexpected complicity of his equally dysfunctional remaining brother, Mark hangs around his hometown, stumbling upon ways to build better memories than the ones he’d fled more than a decade earlier when he went to New York seeking success.

The Barr family changes a little, just enough for its surviving members to actually remain civilly in the same room together. That’s about it. Cummings doesn’t make their story television-comfortable, nor does he eliminate the heavy reality of an uncertain future.

Set against the larger contexts of contemporary economic depression, social despair, fear of the known and unknown, as well as multiple shades of guilt, remorse and anger, in the end Don't Forget Me, Bro can only exhale in a long sigh of acceptance.

Cummings adeptly leaves the reader suspended in that fragile moment before the next breath must be taken, yet strangely satisfied that compassion and justice have been attained. Don't Forget Me, Bro is a rare thing, a brilliant addition to a theme in which so many other novels under-achieve.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 

John Michael Cummings is an award-winning novelist and short story writer from Harpers Ferry, WV.  His fiction has appeared in more than seventy-five literary journals, including The Iowa Review, North American Review, and The Kenyon Review, and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.

His debut novel The Night I Freed John Brown (Penguin Group, 2008) won the Paterson Prize, and his short story collection Ugly To Start With (West Virginia University Press, 2011) was an IndieFab Award Finalist.

 

His latest novel, Don’t Forget Me, Bro (Stephen F. Austin State University Press) has been excerpted in The Chicago Tribune.

 

For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Michael_Cummings

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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.

 

 

Marlon Brando's Nephew Takes on the Writing of Fiction

Title: The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality
Author: Gahan Hanmer
Author's book tour Web site link:  http://thekingdomontheedgeofreality.com/thekingdomontheedgeofrealitybooktour.htm
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Action and adventure
ISBN-10: 937293645
ISBN-13: 978-1937293642
Graphics: http://thekingdomontheedgeofreality.com/images/book.png



 

The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality

Sometimes it’s funny how fast things can change, and sometimes it’s not . . .

Welcome to Albert Keane’s beautifully designed medieval kingdom nestled in a completely isolated river valley in the Canadian wilderness. Peaceful, happy, and prosperous, it takes nothing from the modern world, not so much as a single clock.

There is a castle, of course, and a monastery. There is even a pitch dark, rat-infested dungeon – because you simply have to have one if you are trying a rule a feudal kingdom!

Farmers work the land, artisans ply their trades, monks keep school and visit the sick, and nobody (well, almost nobody) misses the modern world at all.

So why has Jack Darcey – actor, wanderer, ex-competitive fencer – been tricked and seduced into paying a visit? And why hasn’t anyone told him that the only way to leave is a perilous trek across hundreds of miles of trackless wilderness without a compass or a map?

Because a tide of fear and violence is rising from the twisted ambitions of one of King Albert’s nobles, and Albert’s fortune teller believes that Jack could turn the tide – if he lives long enough . . .

Seamlessly blending medieval and modern elements, The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality serves up a heady brew of action, humor, romance and satire in a kingdom set apart in time and space where reality is the dealer’s choice.

 

The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality answers the question why the past holds the key to happiness that may be missing in our present day.  That community and connectedness is more important then we realize.  We could very easily leave the present and live in the past.

 

The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality is a modern classic that has an original story line.  The author's vivid storytelling transports you to a world of fantasy, actionl and adventure.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR'S PROCESS
 
When Gahan began writing he found the creative process, as so many artists will attest, mysterious. You make an attempt to create something, the project unfolds, and at the end you wonder, “Did I do that? How did I manage to do that? When writing Gahan drew on his previous experience as a method actor and his working knowledge as a trained stage duelist.

 

Although the novel takes the shape of a fairy tale, it is a serious book about the human predicament, and unlike so much of what is coming out nowadays, it has a philosophy and a moral point of view. The hard part for Gahan was leaving the characters, which became totally real behind. These characters were larger then life. They all had real personalities, quirks, hopes and desires, and their own opinions.

 

WHAT BOOK LOVERS ARE SAYING

"I love the twist on an old fantasy story. To have a modern-day kingdom that is ruled and ran as the original kingdoms of old is ingenious. This is a captivating fantasy story that I would recommend to all fantasy-lovers." Literary R.R.

 

EXCERPT

" I got to my feet and looked Pollux over while he stood there calmly, unconcerned with the dead men in the grass and with the violence that had erupted a short time ago. Embedded deep in the wood of my saddle, I found the second crossbow bolt. That was good—it would support my story. I was still thinking about investigations, and evidence, and criminal courts, as though I still lived in the twenty-first century. But that wasn’t true anymore. I was a knight living in the Middle Ages now. "

 ABOUT GAHAN HAMMER

Gahan Hanmer naturally gravitated toward the arts. He speaks French and Spanish and has a Master of Fine Arts degree from Columbia University. Under the guidance of his uncle actor Marlon Brando, Gahan developed his talent exclusively as a theater artist, working with many inspired teachers and directors. The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality is available at: Amazon, My Book Orders,, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and on his website.  Ask Gahan Hanmer questions by visiting his website at http://thekingdomontheedgeofreality.com/contact.htm.

_______________

SUBMITTED BY
Yvonne WuAuthors Support Services
The YP Publishing
http://theyppublishing.com
You have your own story to tell, our mission is to help you get the message out there.

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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.