Monday, May 22, 2023

Write Out Loud by Naomi D. Nakashima

 

Write Out Loud

 


Are you still struggling with your book? Feeling overwhelmed or creatively blocked with self-doubt, fear, and general anxiety about what it means to write a book? Are you still wondering if you have what it takes to even write a book?

 

Not all fears are created equal.

 

Write Out Loud is a step-by-step guide to help you identify the fears that are keeping you from sharing your story so you can beat them back and finally write your book with confidence. In Write Out Loud, you’ll learn how to:

 

• identify the source of your self-doubts and fears

• validate your book idea

• gain self-belief (in your story and in your ability to write your story)

• start writing your first draft with confidence

• feel comfortable talking about your book idea

• And, yes, much more!

 

Amazon bestselling author and ghostwriter Naomi D. Nakashima brings her experience of helping authors to write and publish their books along with her training as a psychotherapist to walk you through the sometimes painful process of facing your fears and sharing your story. If you're ready to finally sit down and start writing your book without the fear and anxiety, read Write Out Loud: How to Get Over your Fears and Build the Confidence to Finally Write Your Book.

 

ISBN-10: 8987209820

ISBN-13: 979-8987209820

ASIN: B0BXTCZ7Y6

Print Length: 207 pages

 

Purchase a copy of Write Out Loud on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Bookshop.org. You can also get an autographed copy (and put more money back in the author's hands) by purchasing it on Glitz and Glamour. Make sure you also add it to your GoodReads reading list.

 

About the Author

 


Naomi D. Nakashima is a bestselling author of nonfiction, a ghostwriter with 20 years experience, a trained psychotherapist, and a TikTok writing coach with thousands of followers who attend her coaching events and regular Q&As. Everything I Need to Know About Parenting I Learned from Watching Star Trek, her first book published under her name, became an international Amazon bestseller and stayed on the bestseller list for step-parenting and blended families for three years.

 

As a single mother of two, Naomi daydreams about spending her free time reading books, diamond painting, and traveling the world.

 

Follow her online at:

 

Website: https://helpmenaomi.com/

Shop: https://shop.glitzandgrammar.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helpmenaomi

Twitter: https://twitter.com/helpmenaomi

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helpmenaomi/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/helpmenaomi/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helpmenaomi/

 

Thursday, May 11, 2023

I Can't Wait to Love You Forever by Patricia Eckerman Ambas

 


A new baby in the family is so exciting! But what do you do if YOU are the “baby” of the family? Will Benjamin be ready to be a big brother when it’s time?

 

Full of playful love, follow Benjamin on his daily adventures with Mommy, which just might prepare him to be a big brother.

 

Publisher: WordLife Press

ISBN-10: 1958497010

ISBN-13: 978-1958497012

ASIN: ‎B09W69TT11

Print length: 36 pages

 

Purchase a copy of I Can't Wait to Love You Forever on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org. You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list.

 

About the Author

 

Patricia Eckerman Ambas loves sharing stories - everything is a story waiting to be told! Her interest in languages led her to become a teacher and she has been striving to instill her love for reading with youth for over fifteen years in that role. As a mom of three, bedtime and really, anytime-stories fill her world. She also shares stories with her community in Oshkosh, WI as she showcases the stories of her husband's family heritage while teaching guests at their family restaurant about Filipino food. Displaying beautiful multicultural families in her books' illustrations is at the forefront of her goals as an author in order to allow her own children, and others like them, a mirror of mixed families and a window for other children to see into a different lifestyle from their own. "I Can't Wait to Love You Forever" is her first children's book and she hopes you have as much fun with it as her second child had inventing the actual game played. Look for more heartfelt books coming soon.

 

Find her online:

 

PatriciaEckermanAmbas.com

https://www.instagram.com/patriciaeckermanambas/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090573001629

Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Hope Always Rises by Kathie Giorgio







About the Book

In Heaven, there is a gated community for those who end their lives by choice. This is a complete surprise to Hope, who ends her life one morning on the banks of the Fox River in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Hope has always dealt with deep sadness. From childhood on, she visited therapists, doctors, alternative medicine practitioners, Reiki artists, etc., to no avail. In Heaven, God reassures her that he knows what caused the sadness, but he won’t reveal it yet.

All community residents are required to attend weekly group therapy. Hope’s first group is led by Virginia Woolf. Several of the book’s chapters tell the stories of other members of this group.

Filled with many moments of striking humor, uplifting realizations, and difficult challenges, Hope finds her way in Heaven. She meets many people like herself, who help her restore her forgotten artistic talent and passion, and God himself, who is amazingly human in the most inhuman of ways. Hope finds understanding and forgiveness, and most importantly, friends.

 

Publisher: Black Rose Writing

ISBN-10: 1685132421

ISBN-13: 978-1685132422

ASIN: B0BV36PQKL

Print length: 342 pages

Purchase a copy of Hope Always Rises by visiting Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Bookshop.org. Make sure you also add Hope Always Rises to your Goodreads reading list.

 

Excerpt

I never knew God slept. I certainly never expected him to wear pajamas or have rumpled hair. But if he looked like the God I always imagined, the God with long white hair and a beard and a mustache and a serious, serious face, I never would have been able to rest my head on his shoulder, like I was able to do now.

I was very glad he wore blue flannel pajamas.

“You knew you couldn’t expect them to be happy, right, Hope? You knew that,” he said, and wrapped his arm around me. “It was part of your choice to end your life.”

I turned my face into his chest and wept.

It had been my choice. I didn’t expect them to be happy.

But I never thought I would witness their sadness.

For the first time, I regretted Heaven. I wished for the black void that I thought death might be, that day that I swallowed each pill with a gulp of wine.

“It’ll be okay, Hope,” God said. Not a booming voice from a burning bush or a dark cloud. A soft voice that soothed me as I cried.

 

Praise for Hope Always Rises

“Giorgio's Hope Always Rises leaves the reader with the one thing it promises: hope. While tackling an emotional subject, suicide, Giorgio doesn't shy away from the pain that brings her characters to the brink, but rather dives into the fragility, confusion, and motivations that accompany the human spirit on that difficult journey. Rich with empathy, humor, and imagination, Giorgio paints a beautiful picture of the afterlife that is a balm for anyone who has ever lost someone.”

--Marisa Dondlinger, author of Open and Gray Lines

 

 "Hope Always Rises is a beautiful, heartfelt, and surprisingly funny take on the normally uncomfortable topic of suicide. Kathie Giorgio manages to balance Hope’s newfound peace and the harsh reality of the pain she left behind, so that the reader is happy to be pulled into the ups and downs with her.

– Nora Murray, author of Kingdom Come

 

"In Hope Always Rises, Giorgio’s detailed, surprising afterlife is populated with happiness, heartbreak, and small mercies in loving, ever-unfolding measure. Hope’s story, along with those of others in her section of Heaven, offers an intriguing variation on the theme of salvation, this one with a fallible God who enjoys a sangria.

– Angela Bier, author of The Accidental Archivist 

 

About Author Kathie Giorgio


Kathie Giorgio is the author of seven novels, two story collections, an essay collection, and four poetry collections. Her latest novel, Hope Always Rises, will be released on February 28, 2023. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in fiction and poetry and awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, the Silver Pen Award for Literary Excellence, the Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence, and the Eric Hoffer Award In Fiction. Her poem “Light” won runner-up in the 2021 Rosebud Magazine Poetry Prize.  In a recent column, Jim Higgins, the books editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, listed Giorgio as one of the top 21 Wisconsin writers of the 21st century. Kathie is also the director and founder of AllWriters’ Workplace & Workshop LLC, an international creative writing studio. 























Tuesday, April 25, 2023

A Jewel of a Home by Carmen Leal

 

A Jewel of a Home

Carmen Leal

 

I joke that my character home is the consolation prize for moving from sunny Hawaii to gloomy Wisconsin in March. Maybe that wasn’t the right time to make such a drastic move, but life spiraled out of control after a car wreck and the ensuing concussion and traumatic brain injury. Moving was the only viable option. My son married a girl from Wisconsin and they moved to Oshkosh, If I could not live in Hawaii where I wanted, I might as well move to where we had family.

 

The 1875 two-story home with both a front and side porch had every must-have on our list; brick, two story, a first-floor bath and laundry room, a separate office, and a large enough kitchen. What wasn’t on the list was a yard full of weeds, most of them invasive to Wisconsin.

 

Buying a house long distance meant hours on Zillow scrolling through countless properties where I learned that some people are not very good at decorating. We did our walk throughs at obscene times like 6:00 in the morning because of the time difference and we never got to see the neighborhoods. We researched issues such as school districts, walkability, and safety, but it’s impossible to get a feel of the of the community without physically being there.

 

What I wish I had done was to hire an independent contractor to come and look at the house before we made an offer. I would have known about front porch that collapsed after we arrived, the need to rewire the back of the house so that we could run the washer and dishwasher at once, the windows that did not open because of the decades of paint that sealed them shut, and that the back of the house has no heat source! That coveted first floor bath is like using an outhouse in the winter.

 

What I did right was to listen to my gut. My Italianate home with massive curved windows and hard wood floors is made of cream city brick with the trim and ledges painted the traditional dark green and maroon reflective of many homes in the state.

 

The building was structurally sound and, with sweat equity and an interest-free loan from the city, we now have all new double pane windows, a driveway, a walkway, a new furnace, and insulation. We found a loan for a rain garden, front landscaping, and next month we are getting the trim painted thanks to another grant.

 

We painted the interior with brighter colors to offset the fact that the house is North facing. All new kitchen and laundry appliances, ceiling fans, upgraded electrical and plumbing, refinished floors, and rebuilt both porches

 

Antique and consignment shops are where I found furniture, pictures, mirrors, Tiffany-style lamps, and more to truly make our house into the prize it was meant to be.

 

Now, if I could only move it Hawaii.


Carmen Leal

Author of I Chose You, Imperfectly Perfect Rescue Dogs and Their Humans

https://www.amazon.com/author/carmenleal

www.carmenleal.com

I Chose You by Carmen Leal





 

 

Book Summary

For every pet parent who knows there's no such thing as 'just a dog,' this collection of uplifting glimpses into the lives of ordinary-turned-extraordinary dogs and the people who love them is a tail-wagging good read.

Thanks to the rescue dog who saved her life after a traumatic brain injury, Carmen Leal went from saying she'd never have a dog to becoming an advocate for man's best friend. Carmen volunteered at the local rescue shelter by writing bios and social media posts, applying for grants, and helping to save and re-home over 6,500 dogs from a high-kill shelter. This endearing anthology includes stories that celebrate the bond between canines and humans including:

Buddy the beagle who went from living chained under a porch to becoming the town's only therapy dog

Heavenly Joy, the frightened Chihuahua who changed the life of a grumpy old man

Bogey, an abandoned mixed-breed trained by prison inmates and adopted by his forever family

I Chose You is a collection of memorable, beautifully written stories of dogs rescued by people and, ultimately, people rescued by dogs. If you like four-legged friends and happy endings, you'll love Carmen Leal's touching collection of heart-warming stories.

Fetch a copy of I Chose You, the feel-good book that resonates with anyone who has ever loved a dog. 

Publisher: EABooks Publishing

ISBN-10: 1955309035

ISBN-13: 978-1955309035

Print Copy Pages: 264 pages


Purchase a copy of I Chose You on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Bookshop.org. You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list.


About the Author, Carmen Leal





Carmen Leal is a storyteller and the author of multiple books, articles, devotionals, and human-interest stories. Carmen relocated from Hawaii to Oshkosh, yes, there is a story behind the move, and has become an awesome dog mom. Carmen and her husband have become reluctant gardeners and know a crazy amount about Wisconsin weeds. She is the mother of two sons, two incredible grandsons, and Coconut, the best imperfectly perfect rescue dog in the world. Learn more about Carmen and Coconut by visiting carmenleal.com


Find the author online:


http://carmenleal.com/blog

https://wagawaypublishing.com

https://wagawaypublishing.com/interviews (more to come)

https://www.facebook.com/Rescuemoredogs

https://www.facebook.com/carmen.leal.794


Praise About the Book


“I’m so thrilled to discover this beautiful collection of stories featuring these imperfectly perfect rescue pups. I Chose You has won my heart!” — Janice Thompson, author of Paws for Reflection: 50 Devotions for Dog Moms 


“Great read! Nothing in life is perfect except unconditional love. I Chose You captures that choice!”  — Adrian Palmer Board of Directors Medical Advisor Australian Shepherds Furever Rescue 


“The best prescription I can write for trauma survivors, veterans with PTSD, and others with mental health issues, is the healing power of dogs. I Chose You is the perfect gift for yourself or a dog lover and a wonderful reminder of the unbreakable bond between canines and their people.”  —Angela Miller, Licensed Professional Therapist

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

The Algorithm Will See You Now by JL Lycette Starting

 

Book Summary

 

The most dangerous lies are the ones that use the truth to sell themselves.

 

Medical treatment determined by artificial intelligence could do more than make Hope Kestrel's career. It could revolutionize healthcare.

 

What the Seattle surgeon doesn't know is the AI has a hidden fatal flaw, and the people covering it up will stop at nothing to dominate the world's healthcare — and its profits. Soon, Hope is made the scapegoat for a patient's death, and only Jacie Stone, a gifted intern with a knack for computer science, is willing to help search for the truth.

 

But her patient's death is only the tip of the conspiracy's iceberg. The Director, Marah Maddox, is plotting a use for the AI far outside the ethical bounds of her physician's oath. A staggering plan capable of reducing human lives to their DNA code, redefining the concepts of sickness and health, and delivering the power of life and death decisions into the hands of those behind the AI.

 

Even if the algorithm accidentally discards some who are treatable in order to make that happen...

 

Publisher: Black Rose Writing

ISBN-10: 1685131492

ISBN-13: 9781685131494

ASIN: B0BLD16W7T

Print Length: 303 Pages

 

Purchase a copy of BOOK TITLE on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org. You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list.

 

About the Author

 


About the Author, JL Lycette

 

Jennifer / JL Lycette is a novelist, award-winning essayist, rural physician, wife, and mother. She has a degree in biochemistry from the University of San Francisco and attained her medical degree at the University of Washington. Mid-career, she discovered narrative medicine in her path back from physician burnout and has been writing ever since. Her essays can be found in Intima, NEJM, JAMA and other journals; at Doximity and Medscape; and her website https: //jenniferlycette.com. She is an alumna of the 2019 Pitch Wars Mentoring program. Her other published speculative fiction can be found in the anthology And If That Mockingbird Don't Sing: Parenting Stories Gone Speculative (Alternating Current Press). The Algorithm Will See You Now (Black Rose Writing Press) is her first novel.

 

Find her online:

 

Website: https://jenniferlycette.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/Author.JL.Lycette

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22185205.J_L_Lycette

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JL_Lycette

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-lycette/

Mastodon: https://mindly.social/@JL_Lycette

 

Advanced Praise for The Algorithm Will See You Now

 

“I've been waiting for a book like this: a full-frontal assault on the dangers of artificial intelligence and the failures of our mangled health care system, all wrapped up in a clever, ripping thriller. Jennifer Lycette is an author to watch.” — Rob Hart, author of The Paradox Hotel

 

"In her debut, Lycette explores the darkest realities about the healthcare system and what generations of the near future could potentially face if power shifts to the wrong hands. Perhaps even more gripping is how she delves into the ways grief can shape someone, causing them to make questionable decisions in the name of redemption. With nuanced characters and a truly terrifying premise, The Algorithm Will See You Now is an ambitious debut that delivers."— Heather Levy, author of Anthony nominated Walking Through Needles

 

"Both tense and topical, The Algorithm Will See You Now is a meticulously researched and deeply informed novel about the perils of where healthcare is likely heading, and the agonizing human costs involved. There are no easy decisions here, and Lycette paints a wonderfully complex portrait in an exciting debut." — E.A. Aymar, author of No Home For Killers

 

"Full of intrigue and smart thrills, The Algorithm Will See You Now is a incisive vision of a tech-driven future, amping up the contemporary horrors of our healthcare system to the extreme. Lycette's mastery of the medical field shines through, and her empathetic storytelling invites us to examine where we are headed and how we treat each other as human beings." — Victor Manibo, author of The Sleepless

 

"An AI is putting profit over life. And patients are dying. The Algorithm Will See You Now is a tense, terrifying ride that dives into prescient themes of power, control, and the corruption of Big Medicine. Here’s your wake up call. This disturbing future is closer than you think." — L.P. Styles, author of The Molecule Thief

 

"Get ready to be enthralled! Dr. Lycette poignantly lays out the future of healthcare with impeccable lucidity when AI becomes the center stage of medicine. While AI is promised to improve operational efficiencies, streamline tasks and cut down human error, it comes with its own challenges like overlooking personal preferences, fears and economic restraints for patients. A brilliant book with vivid characterizations!"

— Rajeev Kurapati MD, MBA, award-winning author of Physician: How Science Transformed the Art of Medicine

 

“Bringing the reality of the imminent threat to the healthcare system and the patient sovereignty disheartenment to life… the epitome of patient care sceneries at the end of the slippery slope towards which we are headed.”— Dr. Adam Ray Tabriz, MD Medium Author, Physicians Are Working Like Robots for Robots


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