First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday! Hosted by Socrates Book Reviews this is where you share the first paragraph of one of the books that you are currently reading.
“Well, the sun was shining. They felt that boded well–people turn any old thing into an omen. It was all just to say no clouds were to be seen. The sun where the sun always was. The sun persistent and indifferent.”
page 1
Book Length: 396 pages
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Genre: Nonfiction, Parenting, Reference, Self-Help
Goodreads’ Synopsis: Guaranteed to help parents reclaim sweet dreams for their entire family New from the bestselling author of the classic baby sleep guide! Getting babies to sleep through the night is one thing; getting willful toddlers and energetic preschoolers to sleep is another problem altogether. Written to help sleep-deprived parents of children ages one to five, The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers offers loving solutions to help this active age-group get the rest they–and their parents–so desperately need. A follow-up to Elizabeth Pantley’s megahit The No-Cry Sleep Solution , this breakthrough guide is written in Pantley’s trademark gentle, child-centered style. Parents will discover a wellspring of positive approaches to help their children get to bed, stay in bed, and sleep all night, without having to resort to punishments or other negative and ineffective measures. The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers tackles many common nighttime obstacles.
Read Start Date: December 26, 2023
Read Finish Date: January 29, 2024
My Review: My daughter is 2 years old and has never been a good sleeper. We have tried everything, but nothing seems to work. I bought this book from Amazon, as it came up in one of my Google searches. I thought it sounded like a good book to read. I only gave it 3 stars because while well written, thoughtful, and informative, I didn’t really find anything in the book that I hadn’t already known from Google. That being said, it was nice to have all the information in one place for simplicity.
Additionally, the suggestions in the book seemed to worsen the situation (e.g., white noise and telling stories at bedtime) rather than improve the situation. My daughter became more stimulated, not more relaxed. So the opposite of the intended result was achieved. I’m sure the book is great when you have a normal sleeper who just needs a little bit more of a routine. When you have a child such as mine, however, I didn’t find it helpful, or I should say, any more helpful than free Google searches.
I don’t know whether the author is a doctor or what her education is in (e.g. whether she has studied sleeping, child development, etc.). However, it seems that she has written lots of books on “No-cry” solutions for everything from naptime to potty training. She does mention a few signs of sleep disorders in children (not sure where she gets this information from) and recommends to seek professional help if your child exhibits any of these symptoms.
In conclusion, I think that this book is good if you have a child who is capable of sleeping normally, but you want to get into a better routine. Then this book will give you some helpful tips as to how to make that happen.
Shelf Control is hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Instead of always looking ahead to upcoming new releases, I thought I’d start a weekly feature focusing on already released books that I want to read. Consider this a variation of a Wishing & Waiting post… but looking at books already available, and in most cases, books that are either on my shelves or on my Kindle!
Title: Crash Course
Author: Julie Whipple
Published: 2018
Length: 296 pages
Goodreads’ Synopsis: On a cold winter night, a passenger jet with 189 aboard crash landed, out of fuel, in a suburban neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. Ten people died. The pilot was blamed and stripped of his career, and a sweeping transformation of flight-crew training took place that made United Flight 173 (in)famous worldwide as the model for failure and change. That was only the half of it.
Hiding in plain sight for years in an attorney’s file boxes, the forgotten truths of the landmark air disaster reveal much more: an emotional journey tethered to the disgraced pilot and a three-year-old girl who survived the crash and became an unlikely hero for justice and public safety in the dramatic legal battle that followed.
Crash Course, by award-winning journalist Julie Whipple, is the long-overdue, true story of a misunderstood airline tragedy that changed more about our daily lives than most people know. Here is why we’re safer today, how we’re not, and what we can do about it.
How I got it: Netgalley
When I got it: 2024
Why I want to read it: I read the description and it sounded really interesting.
Goodreads Monday is hosted by Budget Tales Book Blog. “Goodreads Monday allows you to post about what books are on your “to read” lists, the progress you have made on your current books and reading challenge, and any other Goodreads news!”
Della Comb is the queen of her hive. She’s only in her early twenties, but she’s already managed to build an empire selling drugs to junkies who are looking for the ultimate escape. The key to her success is that she manufactures her drugs with a secret ingredient: a very specific blend of pesticides.
Her only problem is the two bumbling exterminators she’s come to rely on for product. They spend more time playing video games and making armchair philosophies than actually working. Thankfully, they realize they too are short on supplies—pizza and breakfast burritos—so they give her a call, asking to meet up at the Chase High Rise, a building known for its unique brand of squalor.
Immediately, she feels sick to her stomach. Not only is the place absolutely disgusting, but it’s also home to Bill Krang, a man who claims to hear insects speaking. The things they say don’t make sense, even to him, but the words are causing him to physically deteriorate at a rapid pace.
Della’s ultimate fear is meeting this man and contracting his disease. However, business is business, and Krang’s apartment is abundant of product. Before long, she finds herself thrown straight into her worst nightmare, and the experience…changes her.
HEARERS OF THE CONSTANT HUM challenges its readers to work against instinct by exposing the dangers of our own curiosity. It’s more than just a story, it’s a warning of a much needed social change. We either take its advice, or risk rewriting what it means to be human in a world ran by insects.
See my review of this book here.
OUR PROTAGONIST is pretty sure he’s just committed a murder. The body is newly dead, he’s the only one around, and a quick look at the evidence suggests he’s guilty as sin.
Also, he’s totally insane.
A rare brain condition causes his memories to reset every day, and because of this, he often wakes up in strange places with no memory of how he got there. He can’t even remember his own name. When he’s not racking his brain over his shoddy memory, he’s arguing incessantly with a disembodied voice that doesn’t seem to belong to him, one he can only hear inside his head.
He may not know much about the troubling situation he just woke up to, but he knows, without a doubt, that he’s completely f*cked.
While the odds are certainly stacked against him, there may be hope for our protagonist yet, for clutched in the corpse’s cold, clammy hands is a handwritten tome that suggests not only his innocence, but also reveals some bizarre and dangerous secrets, leading him to believe his own apartment building may be to blame… or is, at the very least, an accomplice.
That sounded better inside his head.
Luckily he’s not the only one trying to solve the case. The book also leads him to a group of outcasts who are in the midst of their own investigation. The only problem? They all suspect one another!
One thing’s for certain, someone inside the tower is a cold-blooded killer. Can our protagonist solve the murder before he falls asleep and his memories reset? Or worse, before the killer strikes again?
Find out in HOLUS BOLUS. You’ll be pushed to the very edge of sanity!
See my review of this book here.
Given the fact that there are perhaps 400 billion stars in our Galaxy alone, and perhaps
400 billion galaxies in the Universe, it stands to reason that somewhere out there, in the
14-billion-year-old cosmos, there is or once was a civilization at least as advanced as our
own. The sheer enormity of the numbers almost demands that we accept the truth of this
hypothesis. Why, then, have we encountered no evidence, no messages, no artifacts of
these extraterrestrials?
In this second, significantly revised and expanded edition of his widely popular book,
Webb discusses in detail the (for now!) 75 most cogent and intriguing solutions to
Fermi’s famous paradox: If the numbers strongly point to the existence of extraterrestrial
civilizations, why have we found no evidence of them?
Progress: page 176 of 434. (Jan 6, 155, Jan 15, 164, Jan 29, 171, Feb 5, 176)
With The Three-Body Problem, English-speaking readers got their first chance to read China’s most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu. The Three-Body Problem was released to great acclaim, including coverage in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and reading list picks by Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg. It also won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, making it the first translated novel to win a major SF award.
Now, this epic trilogy concludes with Death’s End. Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent.
Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early twenty-first century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle?
Progress: page 608 of 724 (Feb 5, 328, Mar 4, 345)
Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) has earned a reputation as one of the finest horror writers of the modern era, but his work has been out of print and nearly unobtainable for many years. His seminal volume In a Lonely Place collects eight of his best tales, including “In the Pines,” a classic ghost story evocatively set in the Tennessee woods, “Beyond Any Measure,” an original take on the vampire story, “River of Night’s Dreaming,” a surreal and nightmarish masterpiece inspired by The King in Yellow, and the author’s most famous tale, “Sticks,” a disturbing story thought by many to have been the basis for The Blair Witch Project.
This new edition includes all the stories from the original 1983 edition, plus an additional rare tale and the author’s afterword from the Scream/Press limited edition, and features a new introduction by Ramsey Campbell.
Progress: page 173 of 270 (Feb 5, 42, Mar 4, 92)
Writing a book is hard. Marketing it can be even harder.
Marketing a book in 2021 can seem like a full-time job, what with the crazy number of things authors seem to be expected to do: social media, blog tours, advertising, price promotions, mailing lists, giveaways, you name it.
But here’s a little secret: you don’t need to do all those things to successfully set your book on the path to success. What you need is a solid plan to find the one or two tactics that will work, and start to drive sales… in a minimum amount of time. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in this book.
Instead of drowning you in information or inundating you with hundreds of different tactics and strategies that eventually prove fruitless, this book will guide you through a step-by-step framework to find the ones that actually work for you and your book, so that you can start marketing more efficiently.
In particular, you’ll learn:
• How to change your mindset and sell more books with less effort.;
• How to write books that guarantee a lasting, profitable career;
• How to get Amazon’s Kindle Store to market your book for you;
• How to get thousands of readers into your mailing list before you even release the book;
• How to propel your book to the top of the charts at launch; and
• How to automate your marketing so that you can spend less time marketing and more time writing,
After helping over 150,000 authors crack the marketing code through a popular weekly newsletter, Reedsy’s Co-founder Ricardo Fayet is sharing everything he’s learned over the past few years in this beginner-friendly, jargon-free guide to book marketing.
Progress: Kindle Book 48% (Feb 5, 9%, Mar 4, 45%)
A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong
Amanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But with a late-night knock on the door, the spell is broken. Ruth and G. H., an older couple who claim to own the home, have arrived there in a panic. These strangers say that a sudden power outage has swept the city, and – with nowhere else to turn – they have come to the country in search of shelter.
But with the TV and internet down, and no phone service, the facts are unknowable. Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple – and vice versa? What has happened back in New York? Is the holiday home, isolated from civilisation, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another?
Progress: page 34 of 241
“She took the record out and put it on. As it started to play, she simply didn’t know if good memories would come back. Maybe bad memories would overtake them. Whichever way she felt, she just knew that it was ‘absolutely necessary’ to purely have it play.”
Elsie Ragusin started out in life with everything laid out. She was passionate about God, music, and her family. However, life would soon test her in the most unimaginable ways. She would realize that during the worst atrocities that human history has ever witnessed, she had to rely completely on her Christian faith to get by. Some days, she never ate or felt too weak to work in the concentration camps. Her mental strength in using music and the hope of getting back to her family helped her get through it in 1945. Yet, those haunting memories are what she still has to overcome. Will she use the talents that God has given her to show her present family that one can truly overcome anything? Listen and follow along with Elsie’s Tune.
Progress: page 60 of 334
Rabbitlike aliens from outer space colonize Earth during humankind’s Second World War in a delightfully funny and thought-provoking science fiction adventure The Quozl just need somewhere to call home. A gentle race of extraterrestrial rabbits, they have a propensity for reproduction that has left their home planet, Quozlene, dangerously overpopulated, and in their search for greener and less-crowded pastures, they have discovered the perfect place to start the third planet away from a healthy, warming sun. What they don’t realize is that this world they call Shiraz is already inhabited by a species of violent sentient creatures known as humans. But there’s no going back now. In the midst of the brutal and helpfully distracting global conflict the Shirazians call World War II, the colony ship lands undetected, and the space rabbits immediately go into hiding. But a secret like the Quozl can be concealed for only so long, especially when their numbers start to increase and certain rebellious members of the long-eared society decide the time is ripe to claim their place in a world they believe is rightfully theirs. One of the most admired and prolific authors in the science fiction arena, Alan Dean Foster will delight readers who hunger for something different with this funny, thoughtful, and wildly inventive novel of first contact and coexistence. Once you meet the Quozl, you will never forget them.
Progress: Audiobook 40%
Title: Crash Course
Author: Julie Whipple
Published: 2018
Pages: 296
Genres: Nonfiction, Aviation
Goodreads Synopsis: “Relive the story of an ill-fated commercial flight that was doomed before it was ever airborne; and find out how it may one day save your life – if it hasn’t already.” (Chris Mendenhall, air traffic controller, Tinker Air Force Base)
On a cold winter night, a passenger jet with 189 aboard crash landed, out of fuel, in a suburban neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. Ten people died. The pilot was blamed and stripped of his career, and a sweeping transformation of flight-crew training took place that made United Flight 173 (in)famous worldwide as the model for failure and change. That was only the half of it.
Hiding in plain sight for years in an attorney’s file boxes, the forgotten truths of the landmark air disaster reveal much more: an emotional journey tethered to the disgraced pilot and a three-year-old girl who survived the crash and became an unlikely hero for justice and public safety in the dramatic legal battle that followed.
Crash Course, by award-winning journalist Julie Whipple, is the long-overdue, true story of a misunderstood airline tragedy that changed more about our daily lives than most people know. Here is why we’re safer today, how we’re not, and what we can do about it.
Audiobook Length: 5 hours and 31 minutes
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Autobiography
Read Start Date: January 22, 2024
Read Finish Date: January 23, 2024
Goodreads’ Synopsis: The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.
In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.
Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.
My Review: Let me start out by saying that Britney Spears is an astonishing woman who has lived an amazing yet tragic life. I am not here to make any comments on Spears as a person or artist. I am simply reviewing a book. I know what might come next is not the popular view, but I have to be honest. I am only giving this book 3 stars because while I found it interesting, it felt like something was missing. With only 5 hours and 31 minutes of listening time, there was not enough time to tell Spears’ story beyond the facts. For example, she barely touched on her time at the Mickey Mouse Club. What was it like to be a child star? What was it like to perform at such a young age? I think back to the book I read a few months ago, I’m Glad My Mom Died by iCarly star Jennette McCurdy (see my review here), and I can’t help but compare the two books.
McCurdy’s book was highly emotional, introspective, raw, and satirical. Spears’ book pales in comparison and feels more like an outline than a fully fleshed-out book. Don’t get me wrong. I think that what happened to Spears is atrocious, and the people in her life should be ashamed of themselves. Spears seems like a very sweet and sensitive person who was taken advantage of by the people around her. That being said, and because of that, Spears’ book feels like we are seeing only the surface of a very deep ocean.
Additionally, the book was published on October 24, 2023, and ends with the fact that Britney Spears was very much in love with her husband Hesam and was looking forward to her future with him. However, in July 2023, the couple separated and were getting divorced. Poor Britney. I feel so bad for her. Couldn’t the publishers have allowed a rewrite at the end of the book to get rid of that part? Or were they just another group of people taking advantage of Britney? In fact, I couldn’t help but think that throughout my reading of this book. The publishers wanted to strike while the iron was hot — Spears has been in the news recently due to the ending of her conservatorship — and she was in the spotlight again. I feel like they rushed the book to the presses to make money off her name. This book was good, but it could have been much better if there had been more time to flesh out the stories and give more time to explore Spears’ emotions and provide for her introspection.
All the above being said Britney’s journey to reclaim her agency and fight for her freedom is incredibly inspiring, and her book provides a behind-the-scenes look at the often exploitative nature of the music industry, particularly for young women. It sheds light on the pressures, manipulation, and control exerted on artists. I just wish there was more.
I hope Britney Spears comes out with a longer and deeper memoir in the future. If she does, I will definitely read it.
Audiobook Length: 5 hours and 37 minutes
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Genre: Fiction, Bizarro Fiction, Horror,
No. of Book in Series: 6
Publisher: Doom Fiction
Published Date: June 1, 2023
Goodreads’ Synopsis: OUR PROTAGONIST is pretty sure he’s just committed a murder. The body is newly dead, he’s the only one around, and a quick look at the evidence suggests he’s guilty as sin.
Also, he’s totally insane.
A rare brain condition causes his memories to reset every day, and because of this, he often wakes up in strange places with no memory of how he got there. He can’t even remember his own name. When he’s not racking his brain over his shoddy memory, he’s arguing incessantly with a disembodied voice that doesn’t seem to belong to him, one he can only hear inside his head.
He may not know much about the troubling situation he just woke up to, but he knows, without a doubt, that he’s completely f*cked.
While the odds are certainly stacked against him, there may be hope for our protagonist yet, for clutched in the corpse’s cold, clammy hands is a handwritten tome that suggests not only his innocence, but also reveals some bizarre and dangerous secrets, leading him to believe his own apartment building may be to blame… or is, at the very least, an accomplice.
That sounded better inside his head.
Luckily he’s not the only one trying to solve the case. The book also leads him to a group of outcasts who are in the midst of their own investigation. The only problem? They all suspect one another!
One thing’s for certain, someone inside the tower is a cold-blooded killer. Can our protagonist solve the murder before he falls asleep and his memories reset? Or worse, before the killer strikes again?
Find out in HOLUS BOLUS. You’ll be pushed to the very edge of sanity!
Read Start Date: March 1, 2024
Read Finish Date: March 7, 2024
My Review: I received this audiobook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This is yet another unique and brilliantly written novel from William Pauley III. The fantastic Connor Brannigan returns as the narrator. While it is the sixth book in the Bedlam Bible series, the main character, along with a few other characters, are from another book, The Doom Magnetic Trilogy.
The story opens with a bang, throwing you headfirst into the nightmarish reality of the protagonist. Waking up next to a dead body with no memory is a terrifying proposition, but add a dash of amnesia that wipes the slate clean every night, and you have a recipe for heart-pounding suspense. Is he really the killer? Was it someone else? How did he come to be in this situation? And what the hell is Holus Bolus, and what will happen when the counter gets to zero?
The supporting cast is quirky and enjoyably weird, and the last portion of the book twists and turns in a way that I never saw coming.
As with all of Pauley’s books, this one is a must read for fans of the weird and those who can handle descriptive violence and gore.
To see my review of the above book, please click on the following titles: The Tower, White Fuzz, The Astronaut Dream Book, Fight Tub, The Ballad of Old Joe Booth, Twelve Residents Dreaming.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
Time Travel Thursday is hosted by Budget Tales Book Blog. This is where I take a look back at what I was reading this time last year (or the year before or the year before that…) and compare it to what I am reading now.
From New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell comes Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert, a comprehensive and intriguing exposé of one of the world’s most chilling cases of serial murder—and the police force that failed to solve it.
Vain and charismatic Walter Sickert made a name for himself as a painter in Victorian London. But the ghoulish nature of his art—as well as extensive evidence—points to another name, one that’s left its bloody mark on the pages of history: Jack the Ripper. Cornwell has collected never-before-seen archival material—including a rare mortuary photo, personal correspondence and a will with a mysterious autopsy clause—and applied cutting-edge forensic science to open an old crime to new scrutiny.
Incorporating material from Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed, this new edition has been revised and expanded to include eight new chapters, detailed maps and hundreds of images that bring the sinister case to life.
See my review of this book here.
In this true story—a haunting saga of medical murder set in an era of steamships and gaslights—Gregg Olsen reveals one of the most unusual and disturbing criminal cases in American history.
In 1911 two wealthy British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, arrived at a sanitorium in the forests of the Pacific Northwest to undergo the revolutionary “fasting treatment” of Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard. It was supposed to be a holiday for the two sisters, but within a month of arriving at what the locals called Starvation Heights, the women underwent brutal treatments and were emaciated shadows of their former selves.
Claire and Dora were not the first victims of Linda Hazzard, a quack doctor of extraordinary evil and greed. But as their jewelry disappeared and forged bank drafts began transferring their wealth to Hazzard’s accounts, the sisters came to learn that Hazzard would stop at nothing short of murder to achieve her ambitions.
See my review of this book here.
Your Expert Guide to Writing and Publishing a NovelIn this revised and expanded edition of Your First Novel, novelist Laura Whitcomb, seasoned literary agent Ann Rittenberg, and her knowledgeable assistant, Camille Goldin, team up to provide you with the essential skills needed to craft the best novel you can–and the savvy business know-how to get it published. Complete with updated references, analysis of new best-selling novels, and the same detailed instruction, Whitcomb will show you how • Practice the craft of writing, using both your right- and left-brain • Develop a flexible card system for organizing and outlining plot • Create dynamic characters that readers love–and love to hate • Study classic novels and story structure to adapt with your ideasFeaturing two new chapters on choosing your path as an author and understanding the world of self-publishing, Rittenberg and Goldin dive into the business side of publishing, • What agents can–and should–do for your future • Who you should target as an agent for your burgeoning career • How the mysterious auction for novels actually goes down • Why you should learn to work with your agent through thick and thin. Guiding your first novel from early words to a spot on the bookshelf can be an exciting and terrifying journey, but you’re not alone. Alongside the advice of industry veterans, Your First Novel Revised and Expanded also includes plenty of firsthand accounts from published authors on their journeys, including Dennis Lehane, C.J. Box, Kathleen McCleary, David Kazzie, and more.
See my review of this book here.
Given the fact that there are perhaps 400 billion stars in our Galaxy alone, and perhaps
400 billion galaxies in the Universe, it stands to reason that somewhere out there, in the
14-billion-year-old cosmos, there is or once was a civilization at least as advanced as our
own. The sheer enormity of the numbers almost demands that we accept the truth of this
hypothesis. Why, then, have we encountered no evidence, no messages, no artifacts of
these extraterrestrials?
In this second, significantly revised and expanded edition of his widely popular book,
Webb discusses in detail the (for now!) 75 most cogent and intriguing solutions to
Fermi’s famous paradox: If the numbers strongly point to the existence of extraterrestrial
civilizations, why have we found no evidence of them?
Progress: page 176 of 434.
With The Three-Body Problem, English-speaking readers got their first chance to read China’s most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu. The Three-Body Problem was released to great acclaim, including coverage in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and reading list picks by Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg. It also won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, making it the first translated novel to win a major SF award.
Now, this epic trilogy concludes with Death’s End. Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent.
Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early twenty-first century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle?
Progress: page 599 of 724
Karl Edward Wagner (1945-1994) has earned a reputation as one of the finest horror writers of the modern era, but his work has been out of print and nearly unobtainable for many years. His seminal volume In a Lonely Place collects eight of his best tales, including “In the Pines,” a classic ghost story evocatively set in the Tennessee woods, “Beyond Any Measure,” an original take on the vampire story, “River of Night’s Dreaming,” a surreal and nightmarish masterpiece inspired by The King in Yellow, and the author’s most famous tale, “Sticks,” a disturbing story thought by many to have been the basis for The Blair Witch Project.
This new edition includes all the stories from the original 1983 edition, plus an additional rare tale and the author’s afterword from the Scream/Press limited edition, and features a new introduction by Ramsey Campbell.
Progress: page 132 of 270
Writing a book is hard. Marketing it can be even harder.
Marketing a book in 2021 can seem like a full-time job, what with the crazy number of things authors seem to be expected to do: social media, blog tours, advertising, price promotions, mailing lists, giveaways, you name it.
But here’s a little secret: you don’t need to do all those things to successfully set your book on the path to success. What you need is a solid plan to find the one or two tactics that will work, and start to drive sales… in a minimum amount of time. And that’s exactly what you’ll find in this book.
Instead of drowning you in information or inundating you with hundreds of different tactics and strategies that eventually prove fruitless, this book will guide you through a step-by-step framework to find the ones that actually work for you and your book, so that you can start marketing more efficiently.
In particular, you’ll learn:
• How to change your mindset and sell more books with less effort.;
• How to write books that guarantee a lasting, profitable career;
• How to get Amazon’s Kindle Store to market your book for you;
• How to get thousands of readers into your mailing list before you even release the book;
• How to propel your book to the top of the charts at launch; and
• How to automate your marketing so that you can spend less time marketing and more time writing,
After helping over 150,000 authors crack the marketing code through a popular weekly newsletter, Reedsy’s Co-founder Ricardo Fayet is sharing everything he’s learned over the past few years in this beginner-friendly, jargon-free guide to book marketing.
Progress: Kindle Book 58%
A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong
Amanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But with a late-night knock on the door, the spell is broken. Ruth and G. H., an older couple who claim to own the home, have arrived there in a panic. These strangers say that a sudden power outage has swept the city, and – with nowhere else to turn – they have come to the country in search of shelter.
But with the TV and internet down, and no phone service, the facts are unknowable. Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple – and vice versa? What has happened back in New York? Is the holiday home, isolated from civilisation, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another?
Progress: page 27 of 241
OUR PROTAGONIST is pretty sure he’s just committed a murder. The body is newly dead, he’s the only one around, and a quick look at the evidence suggests he’s guilty as sin.
Also, he’s totally insane.
A rare brain condition causes his memories to reset every day, and because of this, he often wakes up in strange places with no memory of how he got there. He can’t even remember his own name. When he’s not racking his brain over his shoddy memory, he’s arguing incessantly with a disembodied voice that doesn’t seem to belong to him, one he can only hear inside his head.
He may not know much about the troubling situation he just woke up to, but he knows, without a doubt, that he’s completely f*cked.
While the odds are certainly stacked against him, there may be hope for our protagonist yet, for clutched in the corpse’s cold, clammy hands is a handwritten tome that suggests not only his innocence, but also reveals some bizarre and dangerous secrets, leading him to believe his own apartment building may be to blame… or is, at the very least, an accomplice.
That sounded better inside his head.
Luckily he’s not the only one trying to solve the case. The book also leads him to a group of outcasts who are in the midst of their own investigation. The only problem? They all suspect one another!
One thing’s for certain, someone inside the tower is a cold-blooded killer. Can our protagonist solve the murder before he falls asleep and his memories reset? Or worse, before the killer strikes again?
Find out in HOLUS BOLUS. You’ll be pushed to the very edge of sanity!
Progress: Audiobook 90%
“She took the record out and put it on. As it started to play, she simply didn’t know if good memories would come back. Maybe bad memories would overtake them. Whichever way she felt, she just knew that it was ‘absolutely necessary’ to purely have it play.”
Elsie Ragusin started out in life with everything laid out. She was passionate about God, music, and her family. However, life would soon test her in the most unimaginable ways. She would realize that during the worst atrocities that human history has ever witnessed, she had to rely completely on her Christian faith to get by. Some days, she never ate or felt too weak to work in the concentration camps. Her mental strength in using music and the hope of getting back to her family helped her get through it in 1945. Yet, those haunting memories are what she still has to overcome. Will she use the talents that God has given her to show her present family that one can truly overcome anything? Listen and follow along with Elsie’s Tune.
Progress: page 54 of 334
I became a different person when my brother died.
Dear Reviewers,
I’m thrilled to share the news – my women’s fiction alter ego, Olive McMahon, has finally completed her debut novel and it is now ready to meet readers. Yesterday, I took the significant step of uploading it to Amazon for pre-order, slated for release on May 1st.
As I embark on this exciting phase, I have come to learn through podcasts and other research into book marketing that reviews are vitally important in ensuring a successful launch. That’s where you come in. I’m reaching out to ask for your assistance.
In exchange for an honest review, I’m offering Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) of Conceiving Hope, a steamy second chance at love contemporary women’s fiction novel about new beginnings and finding hope after divorce.
Margo doesn’t need Mr. Right. She only needs his sperm.
Margo Davis had it all: a successful career, a husband, and plans for a baby. But when her husband’s alcoholism destroys their marriage, Margo is left alone and desperate for a new start. A serendipitous accident involving a peppermint mocha and ruined pants brings Rexford Montgomery into Margo’s life. Kindred spirits, they confront the aftermath of their shattered marriages together, finding solace and support in each other’s company.
Two years later, Margo is done with the empty promises of New York City’s shallow dating scene. With her biological clock ticking and no suitable partner in sight, she takes matters into her own hands by seeking out a sperm donor. Contract in hand and with an offer of sex with no strings attached, she meets Lukas, a hot Austrian photographer with a dark past. Despite Rexford’s disapproval, she and Lukas go forward with their arrangement. Margo tries to keep their relationship purely professional, but soon, she finds herself falling for Lukas and imagining a future where he could be more than just a sperm donor. Caught between her desire for Lukas and her bond with Rexford, Margo must confront her feelings for both men and decide what—and who—her heart really wants.
Your feedback would be immensely valuable as I prepare for the release. If you’re interested in receiving an ARC and contributing to the journey of Conceiving Hope, please let me know. I only ask that you honestly review the book on platforms such as Goodreads, Amazon, your blog, etc., between now and the end of April 2024.
Your feedback would be immensely valuable as I prepare for the release. If you’re interested in receiving an ARC and contributing to the journey of Conceiving Hope, please let me know by leaving a comment on this blog post or contacting me via email at olivemcmahon.books@gmail.com.
Thank you for considering my request, and I look forward to hearing from you.
With best regards,
Olive
Audiobook Length: 17 hours and 7 minutes
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Genre: Nonfiction, Health, Science, Self-Help
Read Start Date: January 8, 2024
Read Finish Date: January 18, 2024
Goodreads’ Synopsis: Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.
For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting.
This is not “biohacking,” it’s science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attia’s aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover:
• Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesn’t tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack.
• That you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging.
• Why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity “drug”—and how to begin training for the “Centenarian Decathlon.”
• Why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern.
• Why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all.
Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.
My Review: Modern medicine focuses on treating diseases after they appear, while longevity science aims to prevent them altogether. Attia argues that traditional medicine, often referred to as “Medicine 2.0,” is stuck in a reactive mode, waiting for diseases like heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and type 2 diabetes to manifest before intervening. This approach, he suggests, can prolong lifespan but often at the expense of healthspan, the quality of life during those additional years. By optimizing our lifestyle choices in four key areas – nutrition, exercise, sleep, and emotional health – we can significantly impact our health span and potentially lifespan. Attia calls this proactive approach “Medicine 3.0.”
The book delves deep into the science behind these areas, exploring cutting-edge research and presenting practical tools and techniques for optimizing each pillar. Key elements include nutrition, exercise, sleep, and emotional health. Attia advises establishing a personalized approach to longevity, encouraging readers to move beyond one-size-fits-all solutions and experiment to find what works best for their unique biology and circumstances. The book aims to empower individuals to take control of their health and chart a course toward a longer, healthier, and more fulfilling life.
What I liked about the book was that it gave me ideas on how to improve my overall health. I even bought a copy for my mom to read. What I didn’t like about the book was all the medical jargon. Especially listening to it as an audiobook, I got lost in all the acronyms and scientific parlance. As someone with a family history of heart disease, I thought that this book gave important tips as to what to look out for and what tests to ask my doctor to perform.
I would recommend this book to individuals curious about the science behind aging and the latest research in longevity and/or those seeking personalized and evidence-based approaches to improve their diet, exercise routine, sleep quality, and emotional well-being.
The Legal Alien 