Saturday, April 3, 2021

Through the Eyes Of the Soul by Sophie T. Henderson

Synopsis taken from Amazon


Psychologist and hypnotherapist Sophie T Henderson shares an anthology of her most revealing and unconventional cases. Through The Eyes Of The Soul places the reader alongside Sophie in the therapist's chair, making them a part of real-life healing sessions. All of these stories are based on cases that highlight phenomena that call to society for more acceptance of the untraditional. Through this book, you will read about past lifetime regressions that proved to be therapeutic. Henderson worked in neuroscience research before dedicating herself to therapy in 2006. She has been practicing ever since.



Hi, and welcome to my stop on the tour!! Thanks for stopping in today! You will find info on the book and My Thoughts (cause I love to share!!). Oh, and make sure you check out other stops on the tour for author interviews, guest posts, and lots more fun! 


Schedule Tour


Monday 29 March

Books.with.hannah


Tuesday 30 March

Donna's Book Blog


Wednesday 31 March

Alex's Books


Thursday 01 April

Bookish Blue


Friday 02 April

thebookwormdiaries


Saturday 03 April

Becca's Book Affair


MY THOUGHTS


The Cover: 

The cover for this book is absolutely beautiful. A blue and green butterfly graces the cover with some simple written text for the title and author name. Just a really simple yet sweet cover. I would have picked this book based on the cover design and title.


The book itself is a very interesting read. Stepping out of my usual novel coverage, this book just sounded great from the synopsis. I really did enjoy it. Some of what Sophie said rang true with m, beliefs that I actually share. Some I had thought about but wasn’t really sure how the ball landed on the issue. Some of it was things that I hadn’t really even thought of. I had always wondered about what interesting stories might be revealed behind those doors and this book shared some awesomeness.


Sophie is genuine and her care for her clients is wonderful to see (and read). I hope anyone who goes into that field has the compassion that she shares. It is interesting that Sophie worked in neuroscience research before practicing psychology. Normally, science does not lead to metaphysical phenomena. Thank you Sophie for sharing a look into the mystical things occurring in your occupation. I highly recommend Through the Eyes of the Soul and give it 4 out of 5 crossbows. 






Friday, March 12, 2021

Rocky Mountain Forever by Vivian Arend

 


Genre: Contemporary, Romance

Release Date:  February 16th 2021

Publisher: Arend Publishing Inc.

Format: E-book         

Series: Six Pack Ranch#12, Rocky Mountain House #17   

Source: Author in exchange for fair review


Goodreads Synopsis:


A return to the bestselling SIX PACK RANCH series by New York Times Bestselling Author Vivian Arend. While this book contains a stand-alone romance, it’s best read as a part of the series.


-------


It’s never too late for love.


Years ago, Mark Coleman made the only possible choice and left Rocky Mountain House before he tore his family apart. When he hears the four clans—Six Pack, Whiskey Creek, Moonshine and Angel—are working together to create a memory book, Mark also discovers the one detail that finally triggers his return.


Because he’s not just coming back to the family. Now that Dana is free and ready to move on, Mark plans to give the only woman he’s ever loved all the devotion and happiness she deserves, no matter how much sweet-talking, or dirty talk, it takes.


Meanwhile, when a shocking truth is shared with the oldest of the Six Pack sons, Blake Coleman begins a journey of assessment. Can he really fill his father’s boots and be the leader his generation turns to for guidance?


With lots of visits with all your favourite Colemans, this is a celebration of love and the lessons learned along the way.


Warning: this book is full of happily-ever-afters. Lots of I love yous, lots of babies, lots of laughter and happy tears. Pretty much, readers familiar with the series have a ton of feel-good hours of reading ahead. If you want angst—this isn’t it.




My Thoughts:


The Cover:

What a delicious cover! The model for this book is gorgeous and I feel guilty for objectifying him (okay, slightly guilty, but it still counts!) The blue background with the mountains and clouds just sets the scene perfectly. 


The Story:

The way this book is written is different from any I have seen from Vivian. She may have used this style before, but I haven’t read all of her books. I have to say, I really liked it. I may not have recognized all of the characters, but the love the family shared is very obvious and very welcoming. This makes it a fun and easy read. My family is very small, but Vivian makes having a big family sound awesome. I have to admit, I am kinda jealous. The story is very entertaining, it flows wonderfully and gives me the warm fuzzies. 


The Characters:

As always, the characters are wonderfully written and makes the reader wish they were part of the family. Dana and Mark, my favorites this time around,  are sweet and wholesome, with Mark having those typical “man” characteristics- thinking he is going to ‘take care of Dana.’ There were quite a few characters in this book, but the small families were all sweet with their own things happening, combining to make a complete whole. It is a pretty dynamic whole that Vivian has created with the individual families coming together to make a complete ranch family. It is the better part of a huge project, after all the hard work of the planning and putting the puzzle pieces into play.


Was it Worth Reading?:

Rocky Mountain Forever is a sweet, light read with lots of feel good moments, lots of love, laughs, and lots of babies. I really enjoyed the book; it was a great distraction during quarantine and I highly recommend it to readers of contemporary romance. I give Rocky Mountain Forever 5 out of 5 crossbows.


       

Thursday, March 11, 2021

The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham



The Home for Unwanted Girls meets Orphan Train in this unforgettable novel about a young girl caught in a scheme to rid England’s streets of destitute children, and the lengths she will go to find her way home—based on the true story of the British Home Children.

2018

At ninety-seven years old, Winnifred Ellis knows she doesn’t have much time left, and it is almost a relief to realize that once she is gone, the truth about her shameful past will die with her. But when her great-grandson Jamie, the spitting image of her dear late husband, asks about his family tree, Winnifred can’t lie any longer, even if it means breaking a promise she made so long ago...

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Love Spells and Other Disasters by Angie Barrett

 


Goodreads Synopsis:

I didn’t know when I wrote the first love spell that it would actually make things happen. Like, actually make people fall in love with each other…


How could I have known something like that? I mean, magic isn’t real, right?


But here’s the thing—the spell does work and so does the next one and the next one...and suddenly I’m getting a whole lot of attention from everyone at my high school. Me, Blend-into-the-Walls, Please-Let-Me-Introvert-in-Peace Rowan Marshall. And not only that, but I’ve also caught the attention of Luca Russo, a godlike, football-playing hottie who claims he likes me just the way I am. Ummm...


But as I’m about to learn, playing around with things you don’t understand means when things go wrong—like really, very awfully wrong—you don’t know how to fix them.

Saturday, August 15, 2020

Unwritten Letters to Spring Street by Jacquelyn Friths

 Unwritten Letters to Spring Street by Jacquelyn Friths 

 

 

Information about the Book 



Title: Unwritten Letters to Spring Street 

Author: Jacquelyn Frith 

Release Date: 30th July 2020 

Genre: Historical 

Page Count: 474 

Publisher: Clink Street Publishing 


Summary: 


December 1941. Jack Frith left his family and his life to go to war like so many others, uncertain whether he would come home. Whilst in a convoy bound for the Middle East the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, triggering Allied entry into the Pacific War. Hastily regrouped and ordered to the Far East, the now ill-equipped convoy peeled off for Java and elsewhere. Slipping the moorings, Jack could not have known that years of captivity and brutality, starvation and forced labour, and yet worse, awaited him. 

 
 

This is no cry for revenge but justice, laying bare actions and exposing inaction, demanding long overdue apologies and uncovering past atrocities. It is also a moment of reflection on the forgotten armies of the Far East, in remembering each subsequent generation owes a great unpaid debt of gratitude to those who gave so much for our present freedom. The price of that freedom was by no means free. 



Author Information


 

Jacquelyn Frith is a postgraduate archaeologist and writer previously specializing in medieval metallurgy and scientific finds analysis, and although she has written many papers, articles and an MPhil thesis, this is her first actual book. 

She begins PhD study on the International War Crimes Tribunals in the Far East 1945-1949, and the memorialisation of British Far East Prisoners of War from Java and Ambon: Suez Maru case study, in the autumn. She has also begun her second book, on the so-named ‘D-Day Dodgers’ of Salerno, which may also take ten years to complete. 


  

1.   When did you know that you wanted to be an author? 

I’ve been writing since I was small, I wrote plays and scripts with my brother when we were about seven or eight, and I won a regional school prize for a short story I wrote in 1979. I’ve always written, whether academically for my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, or in museum and conservation work within my archaeological and conservation career. I’ve written dozens of short stories, papers and articles but not until discovered the truth in 2010, about my namesake great uncle did I seriously consider writing a factual novel. I expected it would probably not be a long book, but the published 474 pages of Unwritten Letters to Spring Street would seem to say otherwise. 

  

2.    What inspired you to write this book? 

I describe the dawning of this story in my book, Unwritten Letters to Spring Street as I walked across the railway track at Tha Makham, and later as I came to understand the Far East PoW story at Kanchanaburi museum in Thailand. That evening I sat on the deck of my rented wooden house overlooking the Indian Ocean and discovered injustice heaped upon tragedy piled upon war crime, concealed and concealed again, then forgotten and I knew at that moment I would write this story. 

  

3.   If you could sell this book in one sentence what would it be? 

Jack Frith and the PoWs of Ambon were forgotten men, on a forgotten island, part of a forgotten army subjected to forgotten atrocities, if this book can help shed light upon those lost crimes and offer remembrance to these brave men, their sacrifice will be all the less in shadow. 

  

4.  What are you up to next? 

I begin PhD study on the International War Crimes Tribunals in the Far East 1945-1949, and the memorialization of British Far East Prisoners of War from Java and Ambon: Suez Maru case study, in the autumn. I have also begun a second book, on the so-named ‘D-Day Dodgers’ of Salerno and southern Italy, which will probably now also take ten years to complete, this is based on the forgotten armies of Italy; the D-Day Dodgers who dodged nothing and of which my maternal grandfather was one. 

  

5.   Who is your biggest inspiration? 

Without a doubt my parents. With little money but a fierce energy for learning, reading and adventure they brought me and my brother up to know no bounds of your dreams or goals, whilst also being loving and fun parents. One of my first memories is walking barefoot through the Sistine Chapel, aged four and looking up at the incredible frescoes. I am following their lead daily in bringing up my six year old son, Joe. 

 

Tour Schedule 



 

Monday 10th August 

Celticlady Reviews 

 

Tuesday 11th August 

Alex’s Books 

 

Wednesday 12th August 

Bookworm and Theatre Mouse 

Jazzy Book Reviews 

 

Thursday 13th August 

A Daydreamer’s Thoughts 

 

Friday 14th August 

Turn the Page Blog 

Big Book Little Book 

 

Saturday 15th August 

Becca’s Book Affair 

 
Sunday 16th August 

Donna’s Book Blog 




- 29 November 1943 -


Jack hesitated for a moment, breathing heavily. Through his mind passed a lifetime of consideration and terrifying visions. Within a    few frantic displaced seconds his thoughts swung from demanding   he leap into the boiling sea to distractedly wondering if he would survive the fall. His mind swam with images of home and his family, and of all he had endured, all he had survived. Now all to be washed away. Disconnected to the unfolding horror before him, he pondered in that single blink, the dark depth of the water and worrying height of the deck, the inevitable long plunge and the lurching list of the ship. He was not aware if he spoke yet he noticed his mouth flapping open like a fish suffocating in air. Frighteningly, his thoughts became magnetically absorbed by the ominous throb and sucking power of the ship’s propeller. Its laborious heaving rumbled unseen, deep under the ship, vibrating the metallic hulk and pulsing every cell in his body. He breathlessly imagined himself exposed, drowning, being helplessly drawn face to face with its hypnotic danger as a second explosion abruptly caused its shuddering halt, shattering his thoughts. He gathered himself, his mind wild and alight with indecision. He hardly noticed peripheral flickering fire and spectres of men leaping in the edge of his vision as he swayed unsteadily, terrified to make his choiceless decision. Then, clear through the cacophony a solitary voice pierced his frightened deliberation. “Abandon ship!” it screamed in Japanese. Jack didn’t understand the words but heard their desperate meaning. He had fumbled to the conclusion that the unknown ocean depths and sickening fall were marginally safer than the imploding deck of their torpedoed ship.


Off guard and caught in immobile motion as the voice rang out, Jack startled into action. He began the deep inhale, the drawing of breath in preparation for his plunge, but was cut short as a final fireball explosion rocked the ship, sending a bellowing reverberation along its length. The concussive blast hurled Jack overboard so ferociously he had hardly taken breath in his lungs and had no understanding he had fallen until he was deep underwater, falling in a cascade of light and fire. The slowing of time and the drawing out of each action happened simultaneously. The fearful hesitation, decision to jump, shout to abandon ship, inhalation, explosion and plunge, all punctuated by wrenching doubt. And yet throughout, not once had he considered the temperature of the water. It had been hot and clammy as the ship lurched somewhere on the Flores Sea. Sweat had clung to him like     a damp rag, and Jack could not have imagined the sea would be so numbingly cold. Darkened time washed over him and he was lost.


In that same moment the ship shuddered, the inky sea swallowed him instantly, just one greedy gulp and he was gone. He could not grasp he was underwater or that he was sinking as he dropped down and down, a falling deadweight. The slight impact of his thin body slicing the thick surface of the water disassociated itself from the sharp sting of salt clenching his eyes shut. He keenly sensed the cold, oily sensation of water as it slid over and completely covered his parched sunburnt skin but he watched from another place, some other life. A moment earlier he’d watched himself arc overboard, bare feet high in the air, buckled knees bent, hands rounded as if still gripping the gunwale rail. Jack had watched himself, mute and expressionless as the rail fell away, disappearing into sparkling black, as the ocean submerged him. The thick water thundered round his ears like a steam train in a tunnel, all oil and smoke and exploding fire, and hell it was cold.