Tag Archives: book review
The Society (Elizabeth Grant Thrillers Book 1) by C.G. Abbot
Reviewed by Suzanne Odom
While Elizabeth Grant is housesitting her grandmother’s house in Mississippi, she is plagued with returning nightmares. Seven years earlier her best friend Loralei, the closest thing she had to a sister, disappeared without a trace. As a child, Elizabeth spent every summer visiting her grandparents. During her first summer visit, she met Loralei and they became best friends spending all their time together.
The summer that Loralei vanished, Elizabeth did not visit Mississippi. Could she have done something to prevent her disappearance? The night her friend went missing, she had a vision of Loralei in her bedroom in Colorado. Loralei appeared bloody and beaten, terrifying Elizabeth. She asked her mother to call Lorelai’s house and learned that she was missing. Loralei was never found and Elizabeth began to have nightmares and visions of her. What terrible thing happened to Loralei?
Now, while at her grandmother’s house, she receives an early morning visitor, Madame Antionette. Madame Antoinette needs to speak to Elizabeth about Loralei as she was having visions of her too. Soon after her visit, the woman is killed and Elizabeth is now in danger too. Someone is watching her, possibly the same person or persons who hurt Loralei and Madame Antoinette. Elizabeth discovers that her friend was in possession of some important documents that endangered her life and puts the nation in jeopardy. Throughout the book, Lorelei appears to her friend helping her figure out the mystery.
bLU Talks – Business, Life and the Universe Compiled by Corey Poirier
Reviewed by Lisa Brown-Gilbert
More than just an assortment of self-help lectures, BLU Talks Presents: Business Life and the Universe offers a thoughtfully produced collection of unpretentious, coaching soul-help discourses. Compiled by Corey Poirier, this is the first book in the series, which contains an expansive variety of lectures and intimate anecdotes which together culminate into an overall varietal hosting of meaty subjects created to guide, edify and inspire.
Brimming with sparks of cogent knowledge, each “talk” primarily focuses on a different element, situation, or practice in life. The inspiring lessons come across powerfully but are related in such a warm and welcoming style that allows for easy and authentic resonance between the author and reader.
Additionally, the expertise involved is vast, your instructors come from all walks of life, including mothers, authors, business owners, advisors, leaders, spiritualists, Reiki masters, overall intelligent thinkers, and go-getters, with many of them wielding expertise in multiple disciplines. Some narratives are based on life experiences that touch the heart as well as expand the self, such as Alli Mackenzie’s A Day We Will Remember Forever or Carey Lowe’s chapter which presents character flaw identification titled, Self – Improvement. Others sharpen the business acumen from a very different perspective like The Secrets They don’t Teach You at Business School by Dr. Allen Lycka. Similarly, the Universal element emanates from the enlightened perspective in Aurora Light’s Intention, Synchronicity, and Love Co-Creation with the Universe, which is absolutely one of my favorites. Likewise with lectures like Grow by Jennifer Eckel which discusses stopping negative attachments or Caroline Stewart’s Radical Honesty as well as Cultivating Resilience Through Trauma by Gary Benoit.
Pillars of Success by Jack Canfield, Harriet Tinka, and Dr. Allen Lycka and Other Business Professionals
Reviewed by Dianne Woodman
Pillars of Success is a fantastic resource for people who are interested in learning about beneficial ways to enjoy success and happiness in both their professional and personal lives. The book is penned by Jack Canfield, Harriet Tinka, and Dr. Allen Lycka, along with a number of highly respected individuals. Each of the nineteen chapters focuses on different writers and their individual perspectives on how to live one’s life to the fullest potential every day. The individuals who contributed to this book are encouraging but do not sugar coat the challenges people will face and need to overcome in order to reach the major goals they have set for themselves. Readers not only can pick and choose which chapters appeal to them the most for incorporating the changes suggested by a particular co-author, but they will also gain an inside perspective on how the contributors to this book made changes in their lives. The writers share stories that are related to both their personal and professional lives of how they overcame adversity and how the actions they put in place made a difference in a life of positivity versus one of negativity. The book addresses the importance of positive thinking in all aspects of a person’s life; albeit career and financial stability, family and social relationships, physical and emotional health, and spiritual/religious beliefs.
The Secrets to Living a Fantastic Life: Two Survivors Reveal the 13 Golden Pearls They’ve Discovered by Dr. Allen Lycka and Harriet Tinka
Reviewed by Douglas R. Cobb
The Secrets to Living a Fantastic Life by Dr. Allen Lycka and Harriet Tinka is a very inspirational and thought-provoking book written by two people who lived through extremely traumatic and trying experiences. The authors learned from those experiences and grew to understand that they did not have to allow what happened to them to influence the rest of their lives negatively. Instead, they both chose to move on and have successful careers and happy lives, and decided to collaborate and write a book to help others also live “fantastic lives.”
The Secrets to Living a Fantastic Life is subtitled “Two Survivors Reveal the 13 Golden Pearls They’ve Discovered.” Those “golden pearls,” or life lessons, aided them to get past the traumatic events in their lives and to move on. The self-help book that they wrote, detailing what those 13 golden pearls are, is full of revelations that the authors hope will inspire readers of the book. The negative things that everybody experiences in their lives, to one extent or the other, do not have to define who we are as people.
I really liked it that Dr. Allen Lycka and Harriet Tinka opened up in The Secrets to Living a Fantastic Life and revealed the nature of the traumatic experiences they went through. Dr. Lycka was diagnosed as having Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and he was told he only had six months to live. Harriet Tinka was a fashion model and a Woman of Distinction who lived through the terror of being kidnapped by someone she knew, stabbed by the man, and left for dead. Dr. Lycka and Harriet Tinka could have let these things embitter them and alter the course of their lives and careers for the worse. Instead, they moved on, grew, and didn’t let the negative things they went through define them.
What are the 13 golden pearls that the authors discovered and relate to their readers in The Secrets to Living a Fantastic Life? Being an author myself, I don’t want to reveal too many “spoilers.” I’d rather that potential readers of the book get the pleasure of checking out what the pearls are on their own, by reading Dr. Lycka and Harriet Tinka’s book. They reveal what the pearls are in a captivating and entertaining manner by both telling stories from their own lives and also by utilizing a myriad of quotes from famous authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson and celebrities like Sir Paul McCartney, Christopher Reeve, and Bruce Lee.
I will mention a couple of the pearls that I loved reading about the most, though, and those are the importance of forgiveness and laughter. I will talk more about a few of the other pearls with Dr. Lycka and Harriet Tinka in an interview that they graciously agreed to do with me, which can be read elsewhere at this same site.
GREEZERS: A Tale of Establishment’s Decline and Fall by Simon Plaster (Review #2)
Reviewed by Dianne Woodman
Henrietta, a former newspaper reporter, answers a want ad and is given the opportunity to play amateur sleuth when she is hired by erstwhile lawyer Leroy “Lero” O’Rourke to help in his surveillance case involving the prominent DeGrasso family. What starts out as a simple case turns complicated when Henrietta and Lero find themselves in the middle of a high-stakes competition. The race is on as to who might take over the reins of the family owned lube business when the ninety-five-year old family matriarch, Nanette DeGrasso, gives up her position of leadership either due to retirement or death. There are two main contenders for assuming control of the Oklahoma City based company. Charles DeGrasso, Nanette’s son, considers himself not only ready to undertake the role of Chief Executive Officer but also firmly believes that he has been the rightful heir apparent for decades. However, Joe DeGrasso, Nanette’s nephew, is of the opinion that he is a better choice as the successor, and he has already launched a business venture that could impact the company’s bottom line if customers embrace it. With the venture off to a disappointing start, will sales revenue increase? What risks, both personally and professionally, are the two competitors willing to take in order to achieve their dreams of running the family business? As Henrietta and Lero get pulled deeper into the intense family rivalry, how much will the stumbling blocks they encounter hinder their efforts to bring the case to a satisfying conclusion?
Regaining Paradise: Forming a New Worldview, Knowing God, and Journeying into Eternity by Paul Corson
Reviewed by Timea Barabas
Do you feel a sense of incompleteness? A longing to return to a place you have never been to? Regaining Paradise: Forming a New Worldview, Knowing God, and Journeying into Eternity might not have the answers to all of your questions, but it will help you find the answers you are searching for. Prepare yourself to be taken on a “hero’s journey” by Paul Corson on the vehicle of imagination.
Regaining Paradise is about regaining what we once all had, but then slowly grew out of, the light of Paradise. A light that many of us have turned a blind eye to. In a world in which materialism gains ever more ground, it is a challenge to see beyond the mirage of the tangible. But, as Paul Corson notes, the solid is mostly intangible energy. The author has peeked behind the veil of our reality and not just seen but experienced what lies beyond. If you accept his invitation to journey together, so will you.
Although Regaining Paradise heavily draws on the author’s personal transcendent experience, that is not the only source of inspiration. The curious nature of the author comes across in the rich references that embellish the book, from a great variety of fields: literature, mythology, philosophy, psychology… the list goes on.
The Greatest War Stories Never Told: 100 Tales from Military History to Astonish, Bewilder, and Stupefy (The Greatest Stories Never Told) by Rick Beyer
Reviewed by Allen Hott
A really great read! The book is made up of many stories of strange but true happenings during wars. Some of these go back to 371 B.C. and some are as recent as 1991. The stories cover all sorts of happenings, some of which we are all aware of happening but we didn’t know the whole story behind the happening. It is a non-fiction book but reads almost like fiction when the stories are told….some are hard to believe.
In 371 B.C. the Spartans from Greece lost a major battle to Thebes in the battle of Leuctra. As good as the Spartan army was at that time the Thebes army of 300 soldiers really outclassed and outfought the Spartans. Strangely those three hundred soldiers were composed of 150 couples. That is right ….the Thebes had an army of 300 gay folks and this “band of lovers” knew how to fight!
Late in the 1200’s the Chinese built the best weapons in the world and were using them to expand their empire. However the weapons eventually did move to other parts of the world. And that begat problems for the Chinese. Their problem was that their ammunition was not as effective as others began to use. The reason was they had fewer domesticated animals!
Harbor’s Edge by Sanne Rothman
Reviewed by Lisa Brown-Gilbert
Sanne Rothman’s young adult thriller, Harbor’s Edge, piques the curiosity while romancing the imagination, with a story that offers mystery, the supernatural, budding romance, and an intelligent 14-year-old heroine on a profoundly insightful journey to self-discovery.
The story is set in beautiful Hawaii with which author Sanne Rothman does a wonderful job of detailing the beautiful environment. She brings forth both its timeless natural beauty as well as artfully presents intriguing aspects of Hawaiian life and culture especially with her incorporation of the lore of the dark and ancient sea monsters called The Mo’o, the legend, and mystery of which is initially contemplated by Harbor early on in the story.
Initially, as the story unfolds, we meet Harbor, a young, resilient, intelligent teenager who finds her life shrouded in mystery and sadness. Having lost both her parents under mysterious circumstances, she fights with feelings of abandonment as she seeks to solve the mystery of what truly happened. She lost her F.B.I. agent father to a cold-blooded murderer and her mother, who disappeared without a trace, leaving her and her younger sister Fig in the care of their TuTu (grandmother). TuTu owns a popular, local restaurant, featuring Hawaiian hamburgers and Harbor works at the restaurant in the drive-thru which allows her the opportunity to practice analyzing the faces of customers based on techniques from her father’s FBI profiling manuals. She works on her skills at analyzing faces in the hopes of finding clues to her father’s murderer and clues to her missing mother.
Travels Through the Years: A Life Story by James McGee
Reviewed by Dianne Woodman
Travels Through the Years: A Life Story is a wonderful retelling of James McGee’s life as he takes readers on an inspirational and fascinating chronological journey from childhood through adulthood, marriage, fatherhood, and retirement. McGee spent his childhood in the small town of Lomita, California, before he took a gap year during college to travel. This marked the beginning of a lifetime exploring all 50 states in the United States along with 86 countries. During McGee’s travels, which were tied into military service and business and leisure trips, he became acquainted with relatives and visited ancestral and historical sites in conjunction with cultural places of interest. McGee has written captivating descriptions of the people and places he encountered and provides great insights into the different lifestyles he was exposed to in all of the locales that he visited either once or multiple times. The recollections of personal and family history will tug at people’s heartstrings, especially the sudden loss of his beloved wife and son. Anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one will relate to McGee’s difficult, unpredictable, and slow j.urney through the grieving process and the changes one goes through while struggling to cope with devastating loss. He writes about the mechanisms that helped him through his bereavement, which can provide inspiration to others who have lost someone they love.
The book is extremely well-organized, and the chapter titles and headlines within the chapters make the text easy to navigate and also give readers the opportunity to engage with subject matter they may want to revisit. Black and white family photographs add extra meaning to the story. Readers will appreciate the reference material at the end of the book as it is helpful in providing a snapshot of the wealth of material that is covered in the book. In the Postscript there are quotations that fit in marvelously with McGee’s intimate thoughts about his life together with a list of books that were an indelible part of the journey. The Afterword is comprised of his reflections on life experiences as well as opinions on differing topics from the years 2002 through 2020. Appendix 1 lists the 86 countries he visited and the year(s) that he traveled. Appendix 2 is a chronological summation of all the jobs he has held throughout his working and retirement life. Appendix 3 lists the places where he has lived and the timeframe. Following Appendix 3 are past reviews of books used in the writing of this remarkable book that will take readers on a spellbinding journey through the past and into the present.
McGee eloquently articulates his feelings and insights in this beautiful life story that is inspiring, thoughtful, and encouraging to all who set aside the time to read the book. Readers will also find the personal and family history along with the descriptions of places, whether historical or modern, of great interest. Reading this story is a genuine treat and will embolden people in their own travel plans, and those who prefer armchair travel will find the book delightful and a great way to learn about the history, traditions, and hospitality of many cultures.
Big Numbers (Austin Carr Mystery Book 1) by Jack Getze
Reviewed by Allen Hott
Austin Carr is having some problems with his life. Because of monetary problems and a split with his wife, he is living in an old truck-mounted camper. The camper is parked in the lot of a bar where he spends a lot of time and the owner of the bar wants him out of the lot but seems to always succumb to Carr’s charm. Carr has also given him a few stock tips that paid off and he is hoping for more help in exchange along the way to pay for the parking.
Mostly Carr gets along well with Luis who is the bartender at Cruz’s bar and grill so that keeps him pretty well fixed for food and beverages. However Cruz still is very watchful because he isn’t happy with the camper truck in the lot.
It seems as a stockbroker he isn’t doing overly well although he has one client, Gerry Burns, who has been putting quite a bit of work Carr’s way. One day Gerry comes in to see Carr and first complains a bit about the market, like everyone else is doing in this particular slowdown. But then he drops a bigger bomb when he tells Carr that has pancreatic cancer and supposedly is dying.