Monthly Archives: October 2021
Book Blast – DIVORCE BUCKET LIST
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Divorce Bucket List is a practical and heartfelt guide that effortlessly blends meaningful exercises and reflections with author Jennifer’s personal experiences through the trials and challenges of divorce. Written as a way to empower others to rebuild their lives as they work through the trauma of a divorce, this illuminating guide explores Jennifer’s harrowing journey through divorce, revealing her creation of her Divorce Bucket List – and how it helped her emerge into a happier, healthier, and more emotionally fulfilling chapter of her life.
Perfect for anyone who feels lost, alone, or broken as they struggle through divorce, Divorce Bucket List will help you rediscover yourself and your values, overcome your fear of the future, and learn to love again. With a blend of real-life anecdotes, reflections, and exercises to encourage you to apply a Divorce Bucket List to your unique situation, Jennifer’s story will inspire you to move past your divorce and make the most of this exciting new time in your life.
Read an Excerpt
Looking back on everything, it’s clear to me that the process of going through a divorce is a complete journey. It can be a journey that ruins you, or it can be a journey that leads you to a brighter and stronger place in your life. For me, it started as a journey that almost ruined me. There were so many points where I found myself spiraling out of control. At times throughout my experiences in the divorce process, I couldn’t even recognize myself.
It’s important to give yourself grace, knowing that there may be a point in your journey where you go through downtimes and possibly even feel like things are spiraling out of control. Set an expectation for yourself that you know the divorce journey will not be easy and that at some point, you may even feel as if you are at rock bottom. Then know that you can rebuild from there. Your rock bottom might look different than mine. Your rock bottom might be one day crying in the bathtub with a glass of wine, or it might look like losing everything you’ve had—friends, family, finances, belongings, maybe even children for a little bit and having to start from scratch. But I need you to know that no matter where your spiral or rock bottom takes you, you are going to come back from it.
The only way a caterpillar turns into a butterfly is by becoming this disgusting, gooey mess inside of a cocoon. If a caterpillar can be completely broken down (literally, tissue is dissolved) and lose its entire identity—the only identity it knew all of its life—then go on to become this majestic, beautiful, flying creature, why can’t you do the same? What happens to the caterpillar isn’t as crazy as it sounds. It’s the same thing that figuratively happens to us in our lives. There are often periods in life when we break down completely from the identity that we knew for ourselves … divorce is no exception.
About the Author:
Jennifer Harris is an author, speaker, divorce coach, and the creator of the Divorce Bucket List. After experiencing her own traumatic marriage and divorce, she went on to become a highly trained and certified Confidence & Transformation Divorce Coach. With over ten years of coaching experience, she’s passionate about sharing her story of the grief and trauma she experienced and how she developed the Divorce Bucket List to help her move forward. Jennifer is dedicated to inspiring others to achieve their desired outcomes through divorce and rebuild their lives to emerge from their separations into happier, healthier chapters of their lives. She currently resides in Pennsylvania with her two wonderful boys.
http://www.DivorceBucketList.com
For More Resources or To Work with Jenn: http://www.Divideguide.com
http://www.Facebook.com/DivideGuideJenn
http://www.instagram.com/DivideGuideJenn
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC5hAyDVsWpT91lMzDPq69w
https://www.tiktok.com/divideguidejenn
The book is on sale for only $0.99.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Divorce-Bucket-List-Powerful-Self-Discovery-ebook/dp/B09HW7H2M1/
Jennifer Harris will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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VBT – GOLDEN SHANA
Golden Shana: The Chase
by A P von K’Ory
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GENRE: Erotic Romantic Suspense
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BLURB:
An evening at the La Scala in Milan twirls the lives of five people into a web of rivalry, intrigues, heartaches, obsession, murder, loss, and revenge.
“… for those who love selective eroticism with substance. An exciting and sophisticated erotic thriller for the astute romance reader, woman or man.”
Love, a word Roman can hardly spell, hits him when he sees Shana one evening. She’s the first woman not dropping to her knees at his mere presence. Used to getting whatever he wants, he chases her. Only to discovers that she prefers the girls. Roman can’t let that deter him. But is he for once up against his own comeuppance? At any rate, he needs assistance, which comes in the form of Alyssa, Shana’s BFF. Trouble crops up when Alyssa is all too ready and willing to drop on her knees for him.
Roman can’t get anywhere near Shana on his own. Would he start anything with Alyssa as long as this finally leads him to meet Shana in person?
Then there’s Marie, his current companion, who has a life-changing surprise for him.
Roman: I never chased after a woman. Then I caught a glimpse of the woman I would kneel for, but didn’t even know her name. Heck, I determined to find her if it took me the rest of my life.
Shana: He stood in the room with her. The frisson in the currents freaking between them knocked her senseless. The mutual force of predator and prey, blasting into her core … her soul … Danger. Keep far away from him
Golden_Shana_Der_Jaeger
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EXCERPT
Was it love I felt for Svadishana? A woman I’d spoken three whiny words – Please call me! – to? Was it more than simple lust and desire? Did I want to possess more than just her body? Pondering these questions alone was so unlike me. That woman had turned me into an alien even unto my own self. What I felt, my inner voice said, was more than the thrill of the hunt. More than lust, desire, need, passion, the excitement of possession, and subjugation. Of course all that was part of it. But the basis or the source, the seedbed on which all that sprouted and was growing to full blossom in me, could well be something else.
When I thought of her, saw her image from Milan in my mind, watched how she moved in long smooth strides in YouTube, my brow beaded with sweat. I couldn’t pull my gaze away from the few photos I’d fished out of the Internet. Group photos at a family birthday or the authorized biography of her father. Her movements in a YouTube conference clip were springy and powerful even in their smoothness. She exuded strength all over the place, laughing, talking, gesticulating.
A breath-taking beauty. Such beauty that I dared not believe it at times.
And brains to go with it.
In love or not, I knew what I wanted and Svadishana was the answer. I wanted her and would do anything short of suicide to get her. Who knows – perhaps when it came to that as the only means available, I’d really murder too. I didn’t in the least care about the consequences, as long as they got me to where I wanted to get to.
Svadishana’s arms and knickers and… heart?
What obsession, Roman. Get back to real.
No chance. Real was Svadishana.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
A P von K’Ory writes the kind of books she herself would like to read and is passionate about, whether romance, psychological thriller or nonfiction. She is the winner of six awards from four continents, the last one being the Achievers Award for Writer of the Year 2013 in the Netherlands. The Selmere Integration Prize was awarded her in 2014 for her engagement in helping African Women in the Diaspora cope with a variety of domestic and social problems. The Proposal, a short story, won the Cook Communications first prize in 2010 and is published in an American anthology Africa 2012. In 2012, she won the Karl Ziegler Prize for her commitment to bring African culture to Western society in various papers, theses, and lectures. Again in 2012, her book Bound to Tradition: The Dream was nominated for the 2012 Caine Prize by the Author-me Group, Sanford, and in 2013 she was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
Von K’Ory is married to an aristocrat and politician of Franco-German descent, has a large extended family. She lectures Economics and Sociology in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. She’s migratory and – weather willing – lives in Germany, France, Cyprus, and Greece.
She may be reached at any of the following:
Visit My Website: http://Akinyi-princess.de
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Want to join up and receive ARCs from my next (or current) books? Please join the discerning readers at the link below: https://www.facebook.com/AkinyiReadersReviews/
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It would be equally wonderful if you could Like my Author page and read more about Shana and Roman new releases, cover reveals and what I’m up to lately on Facebook at:
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English Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkGuFzsRgsM
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BookBub:
https://www.bookbub.com/authors/a-p-von-k-ory
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/APvonK’Ory
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RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY
One randomly chosen winner via rafflecopter will win a $50 Amazon/BN.com gift card.
Enter to win a $50 Amazon/BN GC – a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Interview With …
Have you ever had an imaginary friend?
I’m afraid not. I guess it has something to do with my childhood obsession with choosing my own friends, who often weren’t “the right social sort”, as my parents put it. Even at the elite boarding school in Yorkshire, back in 1980s, the friends were the “right sort” but at least I chose them myself, with no parents around.
Do you have any phobias?
Yep, acrophobia! I’m so scared of heights that I avoid those panoramic glass lifts whooshing outside tall buildings. If I’m forced to take one, I ride facing the building with my eyes closed and my back to the “outside” scenery. Curiously, I feel perfectly safe inside aeroplanes, and I even fly helicopters as a hobby.
Do you listen to music when you’re writing?
Yes, but it has to be classical (love Grieg and Vivaldi). I also listen to Indian sitar classical (love Ravi and Anoushka Shankar), or instrumentals like the ones for meditation or autogenic training. I don’t want to hear any lyrics or something that makes me want to dance in my seat!
Do you ever read your stories out loud?
I don’t read them aloud to myself, only during a reading. Even when I’m preparing for that, I read “aloud” in my head. Just another quirk of mine.
Tell us about your main character and who inspired him/her.
After trying to read the books touted as bestsellers in the erotic romance genre, I found myself dissatisfied with the plots and protagonists. I wanted to write an erotic romance with a male character that would appeal to me, rather than “write to market”. The “market” had failed me especially in terms of what defined the man and the woman he claimed to desire or even love. And nearly all the women, to me, seemed mere appendages of sorts. I wanted them to get more assertive, and the men as Alpha as they please without being Neanderthals.
Enter Roman, my Atlas Titan of Strength and Endurance. There’s a lot of my husband that I chiseled into him. I have a weakness for the gentleman rogue, that little boy scoundrel, in a man. I’m a Pantser and therefore chisel my protagonists and plots stroke for stroke, by the process of discovery. I gave Roman a personal history that set him as an arrogant god’s gift to women SOB, treating women like ladies outside the bedroom, cherished useful objects in the bedroom. Commitment wasn’t in his vocabulary, so he changed his women at will.
Then I gave Atlas one heck of a Titaness Rhea, in the form of Svadishana (Shana) Lindqvist to challenge his Alpha arse. She’s go-to-hell gorgeous, brainier than Einstein with a handful of doctorates, owning her own gazillions. A challenge Roman simply had to “bring down under my command”. He soon realized he’d better Alpha up a lot differently. Like Stephen King advises, “Put interesting characters in difficult situations and write to find out what happens.” As a reader, I’d felt cheated in the erotic books I read, because most lead characters didn’t even develop and grow; it was always the women who had to “save” them because they were “damaged”. Well, what about the women’s “damages”, preferences and demands? Who’s saving them while they’re saving him?
Book Blast – LADY AND THE TRIBE
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
Wives, mothers, and career women—we have all fallen victim to the silent epidemic that is, literally . . . letting ourselves go. Not the makeup free, yoga pants, weight gain routine. Little by little, we have allowed our preferences, interests, and individuality to slip away until we no longer recognize ourselves outside of our role as wives, mothers, or professionals. Who we are has become what we do.
In the process, our friendships have become the casualty of a “busy life” and lack consistency and depth. We have a gaping hole inside us that longs to be filled. How do we reclaim who we really are and fill this empty space that seemed to appear from nowhere? The answer lies in our Tribe. Our best friends see us more clearly than we see ourselves and are representations and extensions of our individuality. They are our companions, cheerleaders, and counselors—always in our corner. They are the branches of our tree of life that lift and support us, so we can flourish. Our Tribe is the family with whom we choose to live our life . . . with no strings attached.
Lady and the Tribe is a blueprint for building deep connections. As you read, you’ll be swept away on a journey of friendship as the author shares her own personal stories and those of other women. In the process, you’ll discover how to find, nurture, and deepen friendships and create a Tribe culture that is unique to you.
We can become whole again through the power of connection.
When three or more gather, we are Tribe.
Read an Excerpt
Loneliness Can Be Lethal
Since we live in this global, socially connected world, how is it possible for anyone to be lonely? Psychologically speaking, loneliness does not necessitate social isolation. Being lonely means feeling detached from others yet having the desire for a connection or a relationship.
Why is loneliness so lethal? As human beings, one of our greatest needs is to be seen, acknowledged, and cared for. We want to belong and be a part of something larger than ourselves. More so than men, women need to maintain close connections. Relationships increase serotonin and oxytocin, the bonding hormone. In times of stress, women don’t just experience the drive toward fight or flight—they also release oxytocin. This hormone surge can compel women to “tend and befriend.”
Research is clear. Close friendships are necessary for optimal health and well-being. A longitudinal study of aging found that strong social networks lengthen survival among older people. Dr. Amir Leving suggests that social connections are the most powerful way for us to regulate our emotional distress and that proximity to someone you are securely attached to is the most effective way to calm yourself.
An article in the New York Times reported that close relationships create positive mental and physical reactions in our body, mind, and heart. We are less likely to experience high levels of loneliness when we feel supported by intimate and close relationships. Strong relationships with close friends or family benefit us greatly and fulfil our social needs.
About the Author:
BRENDA RIDGLEY is an author, speaker, and girlfriend guru who loves helping women connect, find success, and discover joy through friendship. Her mission is to start a movement: women coming together to build thousands of new Lady Tribes around the globe. Through her workshops, vlogs, blogs, and book clubs, Brenda helps women connect and communicate with respect, love, and trust. She holds an MA in human resources and has spent decades cultivating her own Tribe. A Colorado girl at heart, Brenda lives in the Carbon Valley area with her husband, Parker, two kids, Parker Jr. and Gillian, and pooch, Perry. She enjoys hiking and has conquered Longs Peak and several other 14’ers.
To connect with Brenda, visit her website at http://www.BrendaRidgley.com
Invite Brenda to speak at your next event: mailto:brenda@brendaridgley.com
Order: Lady and the Tribe – https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Tribe-Empowering-Friendship-Circles/dp/1737289709
Subscribe:
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/BrendaRidgley
Podcast: https://www.podserve.fm/series/website/the-connection-connoisseur,3341/
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Brenda Billings Ridgley will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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Book Blast – THE CAIRNS OF SAINCTUARIE
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
The Cairns of Sainctuarie
Volume I – The Bleikovat Event
Volume II – The Missing Planets
Volume III – Inanna PhantomFrom a rocky outcrop a battle-widowed Etkaa, gazed down at the death and upheaval. Rancid green Murian blood stanched the dusklit breezes from the haze-dimmed river marshlands. Nothing has been spared by the Green Dragon forces of Bleikovia. In skirmishes along the Feldon River, Etkaaâ’s mate is fatally wounded with deadly selvon poison. Through a gruesome mountain trek of icy blizzards, they elude the Green Dragon. The battered starving Feldovats reach the coast at Eedov City only to be confronted by their implacable enemy determined to destroy the remaining Klarvkon rabble. Taking passage on crowded Maalon freighters, the refugees escape toward a new life among their Maalon hosts. Enraged Bleikovats move against the Klarvkons, bringing indiscriminate bloodshed. War once again surfaces, as it did in the muddy filth along the Feldon River of Malfesov, and becomes a different kind of war.
Generations after the great Murian upheaval of the Malfesian War against the Bleikovats, the Accords between planets Terato and Myr are signed.
Provisional Outpost Terato is under construction near a farm where Teratoan orphan Eklam a’Qoc lives with his uncle and cousin. Inquisitive strong-minded Eklam, Ek to everyone in the village, is captivated by the off-worlders technology, and becomes an apprentice to the Outpost Terato’s Murian commander, Grand Duke Korvo. Uncle a’Qoc disapproves; wants nothing to do with these outlanders, wants their shimmering doorway portals-of-travel banned from Terato. As Outpost Terato becomes operational it seems to become a harbinger stirring ageless secrets of The Old Ones and their frightful weapons, of ancient Teratoan ruins, mysterious glowing lights, unexplained killings, a sacred book in a language no Teratoan can read, a moon that doesn’t behave like a moon in its wobbly orbit.
From cosmic reaches beyond space and time the ominous secrets of Terato’s ancient ruins become more threatening. Ek and Korvo realize both their worlds face extinction with any hope buried somewhere in unknown galaxies far beyond a pastoral Terato or the sophisticated star-empire of the Murians; of missing planets in a star system with its single star in a galaxy far-removed unknown to Terato or Myr. They travel across the universe to a place long forgotten to fight this unknown foe with weapons only dreamed of. Together they face the beast that wishes to consume the entire universe.
The threat of rift invasions seems long passed. Plentiful harvests abound. The Murian first-contact Terato Outpost has grown into the sprawling Terato-Murian Terminus Terato with a hub of relay portals reaching across the vast uncharted galactic expanses and connecting with its eon-extinct Lantaraan prehistory. An exploratory Terato-Murian Jupiterr outpost is established on the gas giant seventh planet, and its quantum and gravitational energies are used to power outpost portals for an archeological survey of the fourth planet, Eorthe. The Lantaraan database aboard Terato’s ancient Downday moon shows that one or more planets of the Solaris planets have apparently been lost. Expanded archeological records on other Lantaraan orbital bodies in the Solaris system show the fourth planet from the star—Eorthe—to be a sterile wasteland. Except it is not. Eorthe’s civilization is not to the level of the Murian Empire, but it is far advanced to those of a pastoral Terato. Terato and Eorthe form the confederated United Terran League under the nominal figurehead leader of League High Judikarr Eklam a’Qoc. Jupiterr outpost expands into a major League stronghold, Jupiterr Base, when civil unrest erupts in the League, the unexpected return of rift intrusions threatens, and the Murian Emperor Klarvko Celo is assassinated. As they prepare for confrontations with an unknown ancient enemy, the internal tensions on Myr and Eorthe push Murians and Teratoans to dangerous discords.
Read an Excerpt from BOOK ONE: THE BLEIKOVAT EVENT
There had been warnings…far from the Feldon River, across the flat prairies and far-flung farming settlements, in the grain fields and remote gelf ranches of the far-west reaches of Feldon provinces. Most dismissed them, “…idle gossip from those with too little to do.”
The onslaught struck late and faraway during the last harvesting moons of the growing season, and once again unsettled whispers passed. Among the markets and along trade routes far from the fields and farms of the Feldovat fiefdoms the word spread. That was before dispatch riders and message runners on ponderous muscled claks brought more disturbing rumors: “Heavy raids and ambushes all along the hinterlands this side of the Bleikov-Bormeikovat frontiers.”
One grizzled Murian farmer’s slit-pupils narrowed to thin slivers. Gently tightened the reins. Hooked to the plough, the lumbering gelf plodded to a stop. He laid the planed-wood handles of the plough sidewise onto the fresh furrow. Without moving from the trenched rows the gelf reached its thick neck to nibble the green tufts around its feet. The weathered work-aged farmer carefully slipped the reins off his shoulder. Fingered the split creeping along one sweat-stained handle, “…get this to the woodworker before spring ploughing times. Get it braced before I have to barter for a new plough handle.” Pulled off his wide-brim woven hat; wiped his forehead. Uncorked his gelf-leather water pouch; took long slow swallows. Spit a bitter-chewed slurry of brown chakklu; scowled, “…ill-tempered uplander Bleikovats.” Another long swallow…re-plugged the pouch. Bit off another twist of dried chakklu.
About the Author:
With postgraduate degrees and faculty positions in several medical universities, Hawk MacKinney has taught graduate courses in both the United States and Jerusalem. His professional writing includes articles on chordate neuroembryology, and aerospace research on muscle metabolic behavior in multi-orbital environments.
In addition, Hawk has authored several works of fiction including a historical romance Moccasin Trace which was nominated for both the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award. His Cairns of Sainctuarie Science Fiction Series and his Moccasin Hollow Mystery Series have received national and international attention.
http://www.hawkmackinneyauthor.com
http://www.sagewordspublishing.com
https://www.amazon.com/Cairns-Sainctuarie-Bleikovat-Event-Book-ebook/dp/B00A6BR6YG/ref=sr_1_3
https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Planets-Cairns-Sainctuarie-Book-ebook/dp/B01402PJM2/ref=sr_1_1
https://www.amazon.com/Inanna-Phantom-Cairns-Sainctuarie-Book-ebook/dp/B07Y2DQRT3/ref=sr_1_2
Hawk MacKinney will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram suffer outage
Social media services Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram have been hit by an outage lasting more than an hour.
All three services are owned by Facebook and could not be accessed over the web or smartphone apps.
Downdetector, which tracks outages, logged nearly 80,000 reports for WhatsApp and more than 50,000 for Facebook.
More of the story here:
Book Trailer Blitz – Healing Depression
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jFMOO5tAhug
About the Book
Title: Healing Depression
Author: C. Daley
Healing Depression is your go-to guide for dealing with a negative mindset and depression. Utilizing strategies designed to help readers shift their mindset and enjoy the benefits of mental and emotional wellbeing, this handbook arms readers with the knowledge they need to take charge of their own happiness and build a happier, healthier future.
By providing an in-depth and honest look at depression and the science behind it, along with an exploration of the common myths and misconceptions concerning these topics, readers will discover how to improve their lives: by setting obtainable goals, learning time management, and by preventing relapse using several tried and tested methods.
Healing Depression is a must read for anyone searching for a way to improve their mental health.
Buy the Book on Amazon
Author
Author C. Daley has battled with depression for many years. Through her battle with depression, she’s discovered a wealth of strategies for overcoming a negative mindset, maintaining emotional wellbeing, and learning to enjoy life. Now, she hopes to share her story with readers and to help other sufferers of depression reclaim control of their lives and build a happier future.
Website: CDPUBLISHING.NET
C.A. Milson 