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Kindle Deal & Interview with Syrie James, author of Struck by Love series

February 9, 2022 by

Welcome to today’s interview with Syrie James, who’s here to talk about her Struck by Love series of books. Don’t forget to stay until the end for the Amazon Kindle deal.

Syrie James just revised, retitled, and rebranded two of her most popular romance novels as the Struck By Love series: FLOATING ON AIR and TWO WEEK DEAL. The books are set in the awesome 80s and are inspired by the early days of Syrie’s whirlwind romance with her late husband. More on that in Syrie’s new blog “7 Ways My Real-Life Romance Inspired FLOATING ON AIR.”

Before we get to the interview, let’s check out the first in the series, Floating on Air:

A siren called.
He answered.
A successful radio deejay embarks on a thrilling, long distance love affair with a charismatic entrepreneur, a relationship that plays havoc with her carefully controlled life—and heart.

On a hot summer’s day in 1986, Southern California radio deejay Desiree Germain is hosting a contest on the air when she’s entranced by the deeply masculine voice of caller number twelve.

Voices never matched faces. Desiree knows that better than anyone. As KICK’s hottest radio host, she has a sultry voice that leads people to expect a tall, voluptuous bombshell.

Petite in every sense of the word, she hardly lives up to that image. To Desiree’s surprise, caller number twelve turns out to be Kyle Harrison, a handsome, wealthy businessman from Seattle. Kyle has come to claim his prize—and her heart.

They are soon involved in a whirlwind love affair that makes Desiree’s heart sing. Is it worth the risk? All the rules say that long-distance romance and radio don’t mix.

But a man who is answering a siren’s call doesn’t care about rules!

Check out the second book in the series, Two Week Deal:

It’s just business.
Or madness!
In this romantic romp set in wintry Lake Tahoe, a talented graphic artist gets the opportunity of a lifetime working with the headstrong owner of an advertising agency.

But can business and pleasure mix?

At a holiday mixer on a cold winter's eve in December 1987, freelance graphic artist Kelli Ann Harrison gets an unexpected job offer that throws all her plans into disarray. She came to South Lake Tahoe to oversee the final phase of construction on her brother’s glamorous vacation house and hoped to get in a little skiing on the side.

But when Grant Pembroke, a smart, attractive, take-charge advertising executive invites her to team up with him for two weeks on an ad campaign for a local casino, it’s a proposition that’s too exciting to refuse.

Professionally, they make a wonderful team, coming up with one clever idea after another. But privately their strong personalities tend to clash, a situation further complicated by the high-voltage romantic charge that sizzles between them.

Is this two-week deal just business … or madness? If Kelli and Grant play their cards right, can a whirlwind love affair last forever?

Doesn’t that sound fantastic? We all need a bit of romance, don’t we?

Now, let’s sit down for a chat with Syrie James:

What has your writing journey been like? When and how did you start writing and what keeps you going?

I’ve been writing ever since I can remember. When I was in sixth grade, my grandparents noticed my obsession and gave me an old typewriter from their office. I started writing my first book on that typewriter but unfortunately, I never finished it. I had a fun premise but got halfway through and couldn’t figure out what should happen next. It was an excellent lesson about the importance of an outline! Today, I can’t imagine my life without writing. When I’m working on a book, I’m in my Happy Place.

Let’s talk about Floating on Air, formerly Songbird. What inspired you to revisit this series of novels? How has the process been for you?

Floating on Air is inspired by the early days of my romance with my late husband Bill. I miss him dearly and revisiting this book series was wonderful—it was like stepping back in time and reliving the thrilling days when we first met. I had forgotten how much humor there is in these books; they were both so much fun to write!

The new title Floating On Air is an homage both to the joyful state of mind of the heroine as she falls madly in love, and to her profession (she’s a radio disc jockey).

A book set in the 80s has got to pull out the big hair and the ripped jeans. What other delights will readers find in these pages?

I love the 80s! The clothes were so much fun. Desiree’s outfit of choice is a pair of super short denim cut-offs—remember those? It was a simpler time in terms of technology. There were no personal computers, no internet, no cell phones, no Facetime or texting. In some ways I liked that better—people actually called each other and wrote letters or showed up in person! In others way it was a challenge. Desiree and Kyle have to navigate a long-distance relationship, which was trickier at the time. For more on the subject, check out my blog, 8 Things I Love About the 80s!

Desiree is a radio deejay; what are some of the qualities she had to have? And what songs are on her playlist? What songs were on your mix tapes in the 80s?

Desiree is a successful radio deejay due to her cheerful upbeat personality and her deep sultry voice, which in her mind, leads people to expect her to be voluptuous bombshell. She has a complex about that because she’s petite and feels she doesn’t live up to the image.

I LOVE the music from the 80s. In the novel, Desiree plays such classics as Rita Coolidge’s “Be Mine Tonight,” Johnny Mathis’s “So in Love With You,” and Barbra Streisand’s “Songbird.”

My favorite 80s songs include “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Live” (from the film Dirty Dancing), “Walking on Sunshine,” “Uptown Girl,” and Carly Simon’s “Let the River Run” (from the film Working Girl). I smile every time I hear them!

How much of your own experiences are in this romance over the airwaves between Desiree and Kyle?

A lot! Floating on Air is based in so many ways on the early days of my whirlwind romance with my late husband that I wrote about it in my blog “7 Ways My Real-Life Romance Inspired FLOATING ON AIR.”

Book 2 in the series, Two Week Deal, is also full of personal details. It’s set in wintry Lake Tahoe (one of my favorite places). There’s skiing (one of my favorite sports); a red-hot, whirlwind romance; and lots of clever creative energy as the hero and heroine work together on an advertising campaign for a casino. I used to work in advertising and that was super fun to write!

What other projects are you working on? Any hints?

I’m working on a new book—all I’ll say is that it’s set in 19th century England, and I’m excited about it!

Lastly, if you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring writer, what would it be?

Study your craft. Write, write, write. And then rewrite. Listen to feedback. Be patient and persevere. Sometimes it takes a long time and many drafts for a story to reach its optimum potential. Most importantly: outline before you start. I highly recommend the Save the Cat story structure by Blake Snyder. It was developed for screenplays but is an invaluable foundation for every great story. I use its structure beats to outline every book I write.

A NOTE FROM SYRIE JAMES:

I hope you enjoy my Struck By Love novels as much as I enjoyed writing them! To keep up with my book news and blog posts, please visit my website, sign up for my newsletter, and follow my blog! I blog about the inspiration for my books, all kinds of historical topics of interest, and I post reviews of my favorite books. I look forward to seeing you there!

KINDLE DEAL!!

As a special Valentine’s Day promotion, FLOATING ON AIR is on sale now for only $.99 on Kindle. The discount runs Feb. 9 – Feb. 14.

About the Author:

Syrie: pronounced like the App, but spelled better.

SYRIE JAMES is the author of thirteen critically acclaimed novels of historical fiction, romance, and young adult fiction that have been international, USA Today, and Amazon bestsellers and won numerous awards. Her books are published in more than twenty languages. A research and story structure maven, Syrie is committed to taking her characters on challenging journeys of growth and discovery.

Syrie’s novel The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen sold at auction to HarperCollins in a bidding war between three major publishing houses, became an instant bestseller, and was a Library Journal Editor’s Pick of the Year (starred review). Syrie explores Jane Austen’s real-life romance as a teenager in Jane Austen’s First Love, also a Library Journal Editor’s Pick. The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen (starred review, Kirkus) offers the ultimate Janeite fantasy: the discovery of a long-lost Jane Austen novel.

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë won the Audiobook Audie Award and was named a Women’s National Book Association Great Group Read. Nocturne was an Amazon bestseller, Barnes and Noble’s Romantic Read of the Week, Best Novel of the Year by Suspense Magazine and Romance Reviews, and Bookbub’s Best Snowbound Romance.

Syrie’s contemporary romances Floating on Air and Two Week Deal, which she recently re-branded as the Struck By Love series, are set in the awesome 80s and are dear to her heart, because they’re inspired by her real-life romance with her late husband.

Syrie’s interest in the paranormal inspired her romantic thriller Dracula, My Love and the young adult series Forbidden, which she co-wrote with her son Ryan James. Syrie’s love of all things English led to a Victorian historical romance trilogy including the #1 Amazon bestsellers Duke Darcy’s Castle and Runaway Heiress.

A Writer’s Guild of America member, Syrie has sold scripts to film and television and adapted bestselling books to screen. Syrie’s work as a playwright has been produced off-Broadway in New York City as well as in California and Canada. A member of the Historical Novel Society of North America and the Jane Austen Society of North America, Syrie has addressed dozens of organizations, universities, and literary conferences across North America and in England.

Syrie lives in Los Angeles, where she is currently writing her next book.

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: , , ,

When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories by E. Ethelbert Miller

February 8, 2022 by

Source: GBF
Paperback, 96 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories by E. Ethelbert Miller is a collection that spans not only the love of baseball, but also wider themes of racism, gender issues, and loss. The collection opens with “Hit This” in which a ball curves after falling off a table. What a metaphor for life and baseball! Isn’t that just the way of things, we assume life is headed in one direction and then it takes a turn.

From "Roberto" (pg. 6)

We had gloves. Cheap gloves. Gloves
with no pockets no matter how much
we kept punching into the center of them.

The gloves had missing pockets
like our missing fathers who punched
our mothers and swung bats at our heads.

Our fathers were gone and we outgrew their
absence. Our hands became too large
for small gloves. Many were lost or stolen.

Miller’s plain language and emphasis on the childhood games of baseball in the streets and parks become larger metaphors for the violence and low-income struggles of these children’s lives. His lines pack a serious punch, particularly in “Roberto.” Many of the poems in this collection are like this. Remember that opening poem — the ball curves, and this is how each poem reads in Miller’s collection.

From "Kind of Blue" (pg. 15)

....A player swung
and sent a fly ball toward the outfield
fence. It went foul at the last moment
like love or a marriage striking an
empty wooden seat and bouncing
back to the field.

I had to look up Tommy John surgery, which I found out is the reconstruction of ligaments in the elbow and it’s a surgery most often done on pitchers. I like baseball and have written my own baseball poems, but mine are nothing like Miller’s poems. From a World Series played by survivors of earthquakes and climate change in “The World Series” to the hope that you’ll be remembered after the spring time of your youth in “Free Agent,” Miller’s baseball metaphors are larger than life, much like Whitey Ford and others who have played America’s favorite pastime.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

E. (Eugene) Ethelbert Miller was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1950. He attended Howard University and received a BA in African American studies in 1972. A self-described “literary activist,” Miller is on the board of the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive multi-issue think tank, and has served as director of the African American Studies Resource Center at Howard University since 1974. His collections of poetry include Andromeda (1974), The Land of Smiles and the Land of No Smiles (1974), Season of Hunger / Cry of Rain (1982), Where Are the Love Poems for Dictators? (1986), Whispers, Secrets and Promises (1998), and How We Sleep on the Nights We Don’t Make Love (2004).

Miller is the editor of the anthologies Women Surviving Massacres and Men (1977); In Search of Color Everywhere (1994), which won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was a Book of the Month Club selection; and Beyond the Frontier (2002). He is the author of the memoir Fathering Words: The Making of an African American Writer (2000).

The mayor of Baltimore made Miller an honorary citizen of the city in 1994. He received a Columbia Merit Award in 1993 and was honored by First Lady Laura Bush at the White House in 2003. Miller has held positions as scholar-in-residence at George Mason University and as the Jessie Ball DuPont Scholar at Emory & Henry College. He has conducted writing workshops for soldiers and the families of soldiers through Operation Homecoming.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #669

February 7, 2022 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Velvet, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

This is what we received:

Push by Ashley Audrain, which I purchased.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.

But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter—she doesn’t behave like most children do.

Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.

Then their son Sam is born—and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.

Eternal by Lisa Scottoline, which I purchased.

What war destroys, only love can heal.

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta’s heart. But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy’s Fascists with Hitler’s Nazis and altering the very laws that govern Rome. In time, everything that the three hold dear–their families, their homes, and their connection to one another–is tested in ways they never could have imagined.

As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning. The Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city’s Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.

Unfolding over decades, Eternal is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war–all set in one of the world’s most beautiful cities at its darkest moment. This moving novel will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of readers.

What Flies Want by Emily Perez from the publisher.

In What Flies Want, disaster looms in domesticity: a family grapples with its members’ mental health, a marriage falters, and a child experiments with self-harm. With its backdrop of school lockdown drills, #MeToo, and increasing political polarization, the collection asks how these private and public tensions are interconnected.

The speaker, who grew up in a bicultural family on the U.S./Mexico border, learns she must play a role in a culture that prizes whiteness, patriarchy, and chauvinism. As an adult she oscillates between performed confidence and obedience. As a wife, she bristles against the expectations of emotional labor. As a mother, she attempts to direct her white male children away from the toxic power they are positioned to inherit, only to find how deeply she is also implicated in these systems. Tangled in a family history of depression, a society fixated on guns, a rocky relationship, and her own desire to ignore and deny the problems she must face, this is a speaker who is by turns defiant, defeated, self-implicating, and hopeful.

The Damage Done by Susana H. Case from the publisher.

The “damage done” in Susana H. Case’s remarkable poetry thriller set in late 1960s New York City is of two orders. On the surface, this is the story of Janey, a fashion model whose death under mysterious circumstances serves as an opportunity for a corrupt FBI agent in the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to frame Janey’s Black Panther lover for her death, making them both collateral damage in J. Edgar Hoover’s clandestine war on anyone he deemed un-American. But on another level, as Case instructs us, the greater damage done is to democracy itself, to trust and faith in government, an enduring legacy of suspicion and division that serves as a cautionary tale at a moment when those divisions and distrust are more enflamed than ever. That’s a tall order for a volume of poetry, but Case more than succeeds in this audacious, breathtaking collection.

Ashes to Justice by R.E.I.L. from the publisher.

Ashes to Justice is a poetic lightning bolt tracing the path of love, abuse, betrayal, and recovery toward self-love. In this debut collection DC-area spoken word performer and poet educator R.E.I.L. releases the demons of this world while holding onto love for her family of birth, and the family she’s found.

Written with a whisper and a hammer” – Kim B Miller, Poet Laureate Prince William County, Virginia

“The sorrow of abuse pulses under these poems. But so does the joy of double-dutch, a grandmother’s love, and the truth of rebirth” – Joseph Ross, author of Raising King, and Ache

R.E.I.L. started her poetry career at open mics in the D.C. area and at 16 competed in the Brave New Voices slam in New York City. A poetic performer, visual artist, and arts educator teaching in D.C. schools, R.E.I.L. seeks inspiration from past and present life experiences to help the lives of other unsung souls.

Ashes to Justice is published by Day Eight with support from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Cover art for the book is (c) Luis Del Valle, used by permission of the artist.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Black Under by Ashanti Anderson

February 2, 2022 by

Source: Coriolis Publicity
Paperback, 30 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Black Under by Ashanti Anderson is a poetry collection that will knock you back. In the opening ode, Anderson illuminates what it means to be Black and how beautiful it is. She equates it with the dark comfort of the womb, she alludes to the segregation of blacks and whites by evoking images of piano keys, but ultimately, her ode praises blackness. There are no monsters under this bed.

Anderson uses several different poetic forms to celebrate blackness, including a resume format that highlights the horrifying violence perpetrated against people because of skin color and the monetizing of those deaths for the sake of art and media. It’s that double-edge sword of calling attention to the unfair and unjust violence against Blacks, while at the same time feeling exploited. American capitalism at the forefront.

 from "Slave Ship Haibun" (pg. 11)

But she thinks not of how we watched the birds circle overhead,
bomb beak-first into the ocean. Each in our own way, we 
began to imitate. A few of us induced feathers. 
I plucked a plume, made a quill.

One of the most powerful poems in this collection, “The Body Recalls,” crescendos on the 3/5ths compromise where slaves were considered 3/5ths of a person for population counts related to taxation and representation in the House. Anderson makes readers aware of how each violent death of a Black person compounds the historic wrongs of America.

"Acrostic for My Last Breaths" (pg. 15)

If I’m ever out of oxygen

Cut the comms. Switch the radio, play
A song by Whitney or Aretha, something
No sense can pause my throat from parting for.
’Gon throw my sorrows into this vast, black void
That don’t even have space to hold tune, or blues,

But I don’t sing to be heard. I do it to keep on.
Ring diaphragm and rattle lung like sickness, each
Eighth-note a reason to stay living. Can’t take
A rest, might hear the sensor’s whining,
That worried, heaving falsetto of siren.
How I hate the sound of dying. Rather riff
Even if everything in me stops screaming.

Black Under by Ashanti Anderson explores what it means to be Black in America and the world, but it also looks to acknowledge and tackle the inter-generational trauma of Blacks in a way that is a searing commentary on our society as well as a celebration of resilience.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Ashanti Anderson (she/her) is a Black Queer Disabled poet, screenwriter, and playwright. Her debut short poetry collection, Black Under, is the winner of the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition at Black Lawrence Press. Her poems have appeared in World Literature Today, POETRY magazine, and elsewhere in print and on the web. Learn more about Ashanti’s previous & latest shenanigans at ashanticreates.com

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya K. Grant

February 1, 2022 by

Source: Media Masters Publicity
Paperback, 32 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya K. Grant provides early readers with some background on our current vice president and her background. My daughter read this one on her own, but she was interested in how Kamala and her sister protested the rules at their apartment building as children and successfully helped change the rules, allowing kids to play soccer on the law.

We talked about how individuals can come together to make change when things seem unfair. She learned about the different jobs that lawyers can hold from district attorney to attorney general and senator, as well as vice president of the United States. She found it amusing that Harris used a portable ironing board as a desk.

The book includes some firsts for Harris, as well as some fun facts, and kids will learn new words dealing with government and democracy. There’s also a short quiz at the end to help kids see how much they learned while reading this short book. The photos are high quality, as expected and really round out the story.

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya K. Grant is another short, early reader book that can help kids learn more about our modern heroes and activists, among others who are making history today.

RATING: Quatrain

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #668

January 31, 2022 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Velvet, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

This is what we received:

National Geographic Readers: Stacey Abrams (Level 2) by Melissa H. Mwai from Media Masters Publicity for review.

Learn about the voting rights advocate and politician Stacey Abrams and her groundbreaking achievements in this appealing Level 2 reader. Young readers will find out about Abram’s childhood and her early career as a city attorney and as minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives. The reader also explores her run in Georgia as the first Black woman to be nominated by a major party for governor, and how losing that race inspired her to devote her life to making elections and the voting process more equitable for everyone.

The level 2 text provides accessible, yet wide-ranging information for independent readers. Explore Abrams’s life, achievements, and the challenges she faced along the way to leading the fight against voter suppression and becoming a champion for change.

National Geographic Readers: Kamala Harris (Level 2) by Tonya Grant from Media Masters Publicity for review.

Explore one of the most powerful and highest-ranking female figures in American history with this biography of Vice President Kamala Harris in this Level 2 reader.

On January 20, 2021, Kamala Harris made history. That day, she became the first woman, the first Black American, and the first South Asian American to be elected as Vice President of the United States. Young readers will learn about Harris’s childhood, her early career, and her journey that led to winning the vice presidency. This early reader also explores how Harris devoted her life to helping others, from serving as the Attorney General of California, to being elected as a U.S. Senator, to working alongside President Joe Biden on the campaign trail and in the White House.

Speak Up, Speak Out!: The Extraordinary Life of Fighting Shirley Chisholm by Tonya Bolden from Media Masters Publicity for review.

Before there was Barack Obama, before there was Kamala Harris, there was Fighting Shirley Chisholm. A daughter of Barbadian immigrants, Chisholm developed her political chops in Brooklyn in the 1950s and went on to become the first Black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. This “pepper pot,” as she was known, was not afraid to speak up for what she thought was right. While fighting for a better life for her constituents in New York’s 12th Congressional District, Chisholm routinely fought against sexism and racism in her own life and defied the norms of the time. As the first Black woman in the House and the first Black woman to seek the presidential nomination from a major political party, Shirley Chisholm laid the groundwork for those who would come after her.

Extensively researched and reviewed by experts, this inspiring biography traces Chisholm’s journey from her childhood in a small flat in Brooklyn where she read books with her sisters to Brooklyn College where she got her first taste of politics. Readers will cheer Chisholm on to victory from the campaign trail to the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol, where she fought for fair wages, equal rights, and an end to the Vietnam War. And while the presidential campaign trail in 1972 did not end in victory, Shirley Chisholm shows us how you can change a country when you speak up and speak out.

Flowers Grow on Broken Walls by Farena Bajwa for review from Author Marketing Experts.

Flowers Grow on Broken Walls is a unique collection of poems and prose that talks about healing and finding yourself in a world that constantly tells you that’s who you shouldn’t be.

The poems/story goes over our everyday human emotions; from being heart broken and questioning our self-worth in a world of judgment and scrutinizing social media, to finding ourselves and appreciating those really important in our lives – especially our inner, true selves. It is story that is everyone’s story at one point or the other.

The collection displays a raw and honest portrayal of an artist who cannot help but create something beautiful in the midst of the ugliness she has been put through, and who continues to hope against all odds, as she lets go of what she has been told is important and finds herself in one truly is.

The story that starts with heart ache ends with healing, it starts with rejection from someone but ends with self-acceptance, which is the only way for true healing.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

National Geographic Readers: Stacey Abrams (Level 2) by Melissa H. Mwai

January 27, 2022 by

Source: Media Masters Publicity
Paperback, 32 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

National Geographic Readers: Stacey Abrams (Level 2) by Melissa H. Mwai is a wonderful introduction to a modern activist that provides information on her formative years, her college years, and her ambitions. We loved that this was easy to read for my daughter and the glossary in the back for terms like “district” and “election.” These will help kids who struggle with large, unfamiliar terms and those who want to learn more than the context clues provide. This book also has a short quiz to help kids and teachers review what readers have learned.

Readers will “meet” Stacey Abrams in the first pages, and learn how to phonetically say “election.” This introductory page sets the stage for why Abrams actively fought to improve voting in Georgia and allows children to see how elections are integral to democracy and how voices can be quieted through discrimination. There also are a set of “firsts” for Abrams and a fun story about how she selected the college she eventually attended.

National Geographic Readers: Stacey Abrams (Level 2) by Melissa H. Mwai is a great introduction to the election process, Stacey Abrams’ advocacy to improve voting access, and the role we all can play in ensuring democracy continues throughout the country. My daughter was not that interested when she started reading, but as she read more, she realized that things are not equal for everyone and she said that is unfair.

RATING: Quatrain

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Red Widow by Alma Katsu (audio)

January 26, 2022 by

Source: Purchased
Audible: 10+ hrs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Red Widow by Alma Katsu, narrated by Mozhan Marnò, is a thriller but from a female CIA analyst’s point of view. Don’t let the word “analyst” make you think this is all data focused because it isn’t.

Lyndsey Duncan, the so-called human lie detector, is called into CIA headquarters by Eric Newman to investigate the murder of a Russian asset and a potential mole within either U.S.-based CIA or its Russian counterpart agency. She is warned to stay away from the widow, Theresa Warner, who is obviously the mole referenced by Katsu’s book title. For me, the story is not about the hunt for the mole, but about the clandestine agency’s backstabbing, infighting, lack of loyalty, and agents’ expendability. It’s about the high-wire act that agents dangle on every day, attempting to protect our freedoms and stave off attacks and other horrible events.

The narrator of Katsu’s book is fantastic with all of the voices. Each character is well fleshed out and discernible in conversations and interactions. I loved the narrator. I loved that this book showcased female protagonists, but the story was a bit too predictable, which I chock up to reading too many other spy novels and police-based books. It’s hard to surprise me with twists and turns in these kinds of books. One other thing that bothered me, is that Lyndsey is slow to realize she’s a pawn. I felt like she was smarter than that. We all have flaws and blindspots, and perhaps that is what trips up Lyndsey in this novel.

Red Widow by Alma Katsu, narrated by Mozhan Marnò, is a spy thriller I wanted to love, but I just ended up liking. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth reading because it was, and I hope this is a genre that Katsu continues to explore, though I admit I prefer her horror and paranormal books.

RATING: Tercet

Filed Under: audiobooks, fiction, purchased, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Model Home by Jay Hall Carpenter

January 25, 2022 by

Source: GBF
Paperback, 61 pgs.
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Model Home by Jay Hall Carpenter is a collection reflecting on the homes we build, beginning with the landscape of “Common Ground,” in which the inside of a home may not be tenable but the land around it may be familiar and a place to start when building connections.

One of my favorite poems in this collection also speaks to connection, but in a way that kids and the kids within us will understand — the moments of our days. “Like Kids” explores the spontaneity and the curiosity of childhood, allowing us to shrug off adulthood and its responsibilities to run with the kids after the ice cream headache. These moments are fleeting, and as the string of our kites breaks and the kite drifts off into the air, we are made aware of the past and the present all at once. It is hopeful yet saddening.

“Model Home” speaks to the surface seen by others, but opens the doors wide to expose the fissures of family and the imperfections that we house. Carpenter has a deft hand in these poems, and even as many of them rhyme (something I don’t prefer as a reader), I was captivated. His ability to rhyme without distracting me as a reader was a welcomed surprise (though I have read a children’s manuscript he wrote and that rhymed, so I’m not sure why I should be surprised).

You’ll want to take your time touring Jay Hall Carpenter’s Model Home, scrutinizing the decor, exploring the dark corners, sledding down the snowy hills, examining the model home we, as America, pretend to be for the rest of the world. Our home may not be as perfect as we market it to be.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Jay Hall Carpenter is an author and artist living in Maryland. His written works include plays, musicals, children’s books, and poetry. For several years he published The ACE Occasionally, a small literary humor magazine. “Dark and Light” is his first collection of poetry.

Carpenter’s career in the visual arts spans forty years and began at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where he designed 520 of the Cathedral’s sculptural embellishments, including gargoyles and angels. His public sculptures, monuments, smaller bronzes, and drawings can be found throughout the United States and at JayHallCarpenter.com.

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Mailbox Monday #667

January 24, 2022 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Velvet, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

This is what we received:

Scale Model of a Country at Dawn by John Sibley Williams for review.

With an impressive mastery of sound matched only by his alchemical imagery, Williams guides readers along mythic highways, above oceans, and towards the reimagining of a bridge no one remembers. To conjure is a recurring theme in this impressive collection—as if language holds the power to reconfigure a past, a mother, a child. And perhaps it can. Williams’ words are that convincing. Recasting home as conch shell, as ghost house, and as fire, we learn that we are held together by the tensile strength of our own narrative. I’ve circled and underlined lines on nearly every poem in Scale Model of a Country at Dawn. This is a book you’ll want to read, and then turn to the first poem to enter again. Even if no one is safe from the wolves in our hearts, John Sibley Williams helps us live within these contradictions. – Susan Rich

In Scale Model of a Country at Dawn, John Sibley Williams illuminates a world that while filled with tragedy and ruin is likewise blooming with life and celebration. Here, we navigate the “new constellations” and “vanquished sky” after a friend’s suicide; we contemplate the absence of earth and wonder if it can be “filled with prayers” again; and in between the oncology ward and the wildfires raging in Northern California, we see the quiet moments worth spending time with: a father witnessing his children coming into their own, a house in need of repair but still providing shelter, and the plethora of American landscapes where Williams’ speakers have a chance to reflect and be themselves. Although in the course of this collection we may come to realize that there are “far fewer gods” than we thought before, Williams’ poems are a gift that offer us something to believe in again and again. – Esteban Rodriguez

Black Under by Ashanti Anderson for review.

The poem from which BLACK UNDER derives its title opens with a resounding declaration: “I am black and black underneath.” These words are an anthem that reverberates throughout Ashanti Anderson’s debut short collection. We feel them as we navigate her poems’ linguistic risks and shifts and trumpets, as we straddle scales that tip us toward trauma’s still-bloody knife in one turn then into cutting wit and shrewd humor in the next. We hear them amplified through Anderson’s dynamic voice, which sings of anguish and atrocities and also of discovery and beauty.

BLACK UNDER layers outward perception with internal truth to offer an almost-telescopic examination of the redundancies–and incongruences–of marginalization and hypervisibility. Anderson torques the contradictions of oppression, giving her speakers the breathing room to discover their own agency. In these pages, declarations are reclamations, and joy is not an aspiration but a birthright.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , ,