Tag: book review

Book Reviews

Reposting Original Book Review: The Winds of Malibu: An Unexplainable Memoir by Jeff Lucas

The Winds of Malibu: An Unexplainable Memoir by Jeff Lucas

All he wanted was another 1920s Hollywood Utopia!

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION

The Winds of Malibu is the true story of a boy whose father (a computer engineer with a grudge against Hollywood) has held on to a house in the movie colony of Malibu, California, after a bitter divorce. At the age of eleven, Lucas is fiercely bitten by the Acting Bug and does anything to act. A war between him and his controlling father regarding his Hollywood aspirations ensues amid crippling anxiety attacks. The story of an outrageous upbringing, where friends are preferable to parents, and Lucas relies on his diary to guide him. Lucas’s peers at school will become Hollywood’s top actors in the coming decade. The ultra-quirky, stormy, funny account of an extraordinary boy’s struggle to hang onto his dream.

REVIEW

It is perhaps unavoidably funny that I must now, as a reviewer, attempt to explain The Winds of Malibu: An Unexplainable Memoir to you. However, this is precisely the kind of humor author Jeff Lucas would find amusing himself. After all, what is a memoir but a sustained attempt to translate personal experience into a form that others understand? The book’s subtitle leaves its first hints of dark and sideways humor, the kind of humor that may take you into the trash heaps of Malibu and shadowy memories of childhood fears but also sees the virtue of getting bit in the buttocks by a neighbor’s dog.

I must admit I didn’t grow up in Malibu during the 1970s. Still, Lucas does a great job summoning the place for me, especially its ragtag bands of roving, undersupervised, and extremely hormonal children who found their best entertainment came from shoplifting the candy aisle at Trances Market and one-upmanship in sowing their earliest wild oats. This is not the Malibu of today, or at least not entirely, with horseback riding the unwashed hills still a typical family outing. Upon returning to this Malibu after several years away, Lucas must figure out exactly who he wants to be.

“What kind of juvenile delinquent are you?”

“A different kind, I suppose.”

Meanwhile, the conflict with his father is built up from the barest hints of foreshadowing (“My dad never had a true, trusted friend in his life. I hiked along and swigged water out of a shared thermos and thought about that.”) until the tension in their relationship reaches a fever pitch (“It was beautiful not to see my father’s face.”). All the while, Lucas lays out his days at school in Malibu, growing up and performing on the school stage alongside Emilio Estévez and others. (Ironically, I had just watched Estévez’s movie The Public shortly before picking up this book. Sometimes, the universe lines things up like that.) Lucas manages to sketch the many joys, impossibilities, and trials of youth by including selections from his diaries and other ephemera. The alternation between these sections and more traditional prose forces the reader to slow down and engage with each moment as it takes place on the page.

Although I grew up worlds away from Jeff Lucas, The Winds of Malibu: An Unexplainable Memoir did a fantastic job of acquainting me with the time and place. There’s an artfulness to the simplicity of his sentences and to the dialogue that reflects, in many ways, how young people see the world: deceptively simple on the surface but roiling with emotion and nuance underneath. But far and away, the book’s most compelling part was the

through-line of Lucas’s struggles with anxiety. His world was full of constant change despite his story of repeatedly returning to his father’s house in Malibu, and his mental health struggles make perfect sense in that context—although not the kind of sense that makes anxiety any easier to live through. His struggles feel very real and also very much a part of the larger architecture of this memoir, which chronicles not just a time and place and the boy who grew up within it, but also the sense of something lost that can never quite be found.

A quick reader’s advisory note: This book does deal with a good amount of “adult content,” which makes sense given the time and place (1970s Malibu and Hollywood), so be aware of that.

IN SUMMARY

A deeply personal and yet humorous account of one boy’s coming of age in Malibu, The Winds of Malibu: An Unexplainable Memoir is rich with juicy tidbits about Hollywood’s new elite. The story gathers further interest as it explores the conflict between father and son as the author battles to join his schoolmates’ names on the big screen.

WHERE TO BUY?

Learn more about The Winds of Malibu: An Unexplainable Memoir on the book’s Outskirts Press author page.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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ABOUT KENDRA M.: With nine years in library service, six years of working within the self-publishing world, as well as extensive experience in creative writing, freelance online content creation, and podcast editing, Kendra seeks to amplify the voices of those who need and deserve most to be heard.
Book Reviews, Original Book Reviews

Reposting Original Book Review: A Sense of Urgency by Patrick McLean (Fiction)

A Sense of Urgency by Patrick McLean

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION*

Baseball franchise moves can break your heart.

Mark Weber, President & CEO of the St. Louis Cardinals, thought he had landed his dream job. Little did he know it would turn into a nightmare shortly after management changes at the parent company Rheinhold Brewing Company.

Christina Rheinhold, newly installed President & CEO of the company that bears her name, is anxious to keep the small brewery afloat. What better way than to shed nonbeer assets? Especially if you don’t even care about the team, purchased by her father when In-Bev acquired Anheuser-Busch, and they were also in an off-loading situation. Christina [is] well aware of the 125-year-plus tradition of the team in St. Louis, but it [is] very tempting to sell the team to out-of-town parties for top dollar.

Can Mark, with the help of natural and even supernatural support, save the team for the city and its fans?

REVIEW

Baseball! So many different aspects of my life seem to tell me I should brush up on my (nearly nonexistent) knowledge of the sport. I spent my middle and high school years abroad in a country where baseball doesn’t exist, which probably explains why I know so little about the sport—including its history and its significance to Americans today. There are some similarities across sports: baseball and cricket, for example, are both considered “gentlemen’s sports” in that competition coexists with camaraderie, and umpires are as important as the players, their calls are of the utmost importance, and sassing an umpire is as gross a misdemeanor as exists. In many other ways, though, baseball and the culture that has formed around it is utterly unique. In A Sense of Urgency, Patrick McLean captures much of the detail and texture of daily life with baseball and infuses his book with the spirit of the same.

Like the sport itself, A Sense of Urgency is a dialogue-driven read. Thumb your way through the book, and you’re liable to land on a series of pages where most of the text printed on that page is spoken aloud by one character or another. McLean is somewhat unusual in this—in writing, I mean. My personal addiction when writing is to scenic description (sometimes, I think it’s all I know how to write), which was fairly common among the writers I became acquainted with back in college. There are also plenty of authors addicted to what you might call the Infodump, or worldbuilding, without much action in some genres. In moderation, both worldbuilding and scenic description can be useful. Still, as most of you can probably attest, something needs to happen in a book to keep the momentum going and readers engaged. Too much summary description of the action as it unfolds can come off as distant. (“He ran, then he stopped. He ate a sandwich. Then he moved to Alaska to learn how to muster sled dogs.”) It’s almost as if some writers (me included) can completely forget about the power of dialogue—but not Patrick McLean.

One of the benefits of a dialogue-driven book is that it doesn’t come off as teasing or deliberately disingenuous to withhold certain information until the critical moments in which those details are essential. A third-person omnipresent narrator, however, knows everything the character knows and can therefore be something of a tease in books that depend on the timing of those details for plot momentum and reader interest. (For example, if an author knows that it was Lady Scarlett in the dining room with the candlestick but asks me to consider the butler and Colonel Mustard as primary suspects, I start to wonder what else the narrator is hiding from me. And then I start skimming ahead. Because sometimes, I’m a very impatient reader! Whoops.) With dialogue, though, an author is fully justified in only conveying what the characters know or are willing to share at the moment since their voices are the only (or at least the dominant) voices on the page. This comes in very handy in A Sense of Urgency.

Dialogue also conveys personality and regionality like no other text can. Speech patterns, dialect, and idioms tell people who we are when we speak, more than our clothes and résumés since we can put on costumes and brag as much as we like. However, how we communicate and talk to each other will always reveal who we are underneath the affectations and behavioral habits we acquire.

When it comes to plot, there’s not much I can tell you about A Sense of Urgency that’s not already in the description without spoiling key details. Still, as the omnipresent narrator of this review, I’m going to tease you with hints at what you’ll discover when you crack open a copy for yourself. McLean’s command of the details is exquisite. (Who wears loafers without socks??! Who are these people? My mother would be mortified if she were caught out of doors without socks in her sneakers. I, meanwhile, wear sandals until the snow is thicker than the soles of my sandals. Then I switch to boots. I do not loaf. You’ll have to read on to discover why this is important in the book.)

The little things aren’t always little in this book. But that could also be a hint of misdirection; a Colonel Mustard moment of mine, if you will. (See? Don’t you hate it when a narrator tortures you? McLean doesn’t do this thanks to his dialogue-driven approach.) The Cardinals are more than just a team. Security is called to escort people out . . . and there are several moments where things get “a little dicey,” to steal an expression from the book. There’s plenty of drama to go around. But I won’t embarrass myself by trying to replicate McLean’s command of how baseball works and will simply state, instead, that this is a book focused on the game and what the game makes possible in the lives of those involved in it.

If you like baseball, or even if you know nothing about baseball but enjoy seeing just desserts dished out by knowledgeable and passionate characters, this is a book to add to your reading list.

IN SUMMARY

While the world keeps reminding me that Americans play baseball and not cricket, A Sense of Urgency pairs the sport with storytelling bound to appeal to fans and newcomers alike. And yes, Patrick McLean really does convey . . . a sense of urgency . . . in this compelling slice of life narrative.

WHERE TO BUY?

Learn more about Patrick McLean’s work on the book’s Outskirts Press author page.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

* Courtesy of Outskirts Press book listing.

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ABOUT KENDRA M.: With nine years in library service, six years of working within the self-publishing world, as well as extensive experience in creative writing, freelance online content creation, and podcast editing, Kendra seeks to amplify the voices of those who need and deserve most to be heard.
elizabeth speaks

The Importance of Securing Amazon Reviews

The Importance of Securing Amazon Reviews Outskirts Press

When I’m looking for a new book on Amazon, I often wish I had the psychic ability to look at a novel and know right away whether I’d enjoy it—or not.

But, sadly, I don’t have psychic powers. But I do have Amazon’s Customer Review section, which is why I’m here to teach you the importance of securing Amazon reviews.

Why in the world do you need Amazon customer reviews? Wouldn’t your book be able to sell itself from the title, the cover design, the blurb, the store category and keywords, and the preview of the first few pages? All of those are important, but they’re NOT enough.

Amazon itself encourages shoppers to leave customer reviews. The power of reviews pans out in practice, as successful self-publishing authors observe that sales increase with positive reviews.

Generally, readers are reluctant to buy the book of an unknown author. It’s understandable, as a reader spends both money and time when purchasing and reading a book. But, conversely, readers love to buy books from their favorite authors—so what can you do when you’re starting?

That’s where customer reviews can bridge the gap. If they see that the book has stellar reviews, customers are much more likely to take a chance buying it.

Now, reviews are a pain point for many self-publishing authors. Reviews are vital for attracting sales, yet they’re one of the factors authors have the least control over. You can write a great story and craft a solid product description, but you can’t write reviews of your own book.

(Seriously, don’t pretend to be a reader and review your own book. Amazon will catch you and kick you off their storefront.)

Don’t know where to begin with reviews? Fortunately, you have several methods for soliciting reviews, and you should employ multiple approaches simultaneously.

  • Ask your friends and family not only to read the book (which they should!) but also to post a review on Amazon. Yes, friends and family are allowed to leave reviews.
  • Run an office contest for your coworkers. The first colleague to leave a great review gets lunch on you.
  • Post on social media channels, especially Facebook and Twitter, asking your followers to leave a review. Emphasize to your readers that reviewing is a fantastic way to support their favorite authors and that you appreciate each review. You could even read some positive reviews and share them on your feed, engaging your most supportive fans in a fun way!
  • Research book reviewers and review blogs in your book’s genre and category, then send complimentary copies. Recurring and professional reviewers have an audience of their own who read their writing, making them a great publicity asset. Just be careful to contact reviewers and bloggers who read the type of book you’re publishing. For example, if you send your steamy, erotic romance novel to a Christian memoir reviewer, she’s not going to be happy!
  • Keep publishing more titles. With more books, you’ll get more opportunities to obtain reviews from regular readers. There are few other people you want on your team than a power customer who recommends all your books!

Don’t be stingy in giving away free copies to potential reviewers. If a reviewer is willing to buy your book, awesome! If they’re not, it doesn’t hurt to be generous to reel in a reader who would’ve otherwise passed up your book.

Keep in mind that under Amazon guidelines, you can’t force a reader to leave a review in exchange for a free copy, so don’t take it personally if some prospective reviewers don’t follow through.

This is an excellent place to emphasize one perk of digital publishing. You don’t have to spend money to produce galleys or advance reviewer copies when you have eBooks. Instead, you can send a reviewer an eBook with a single email. In addition, Amazon provides options for you to gift a reader an eBook to make it easier on both ends.

Nevertheless, it’s a good idea to have physical copies on hand to give away, as Amazon lists the reviews from all a book’s formats under one section. Believe it or not, there are still readers out there who want a physical copy. I certainly wouldn’t turn down a print book!

It can be daunting to ask readers to review your book on Amazon. The ask can be intimidating by itself, and the prospect of a negative review can be outright frightening. However, even with those risks, an author is her best publicist . . . and a self-publishing author more so.

With practice, you will get better at asking for reviews. As your titles grow, so does your audience—and so do the reviews. Over time, more readers will review your books without you asking, and even the dreaded one-star reviews will soon be buried underneath an avalanche of five-star praise!

If you’re in self-publishing for a long and exciting career, you need to secure Amazon reviews right now. Fortunately, you can start today.

Maybe someday I’ll find your book, be impressed enough by its reviews to click that “buy” button, and leave a review of my own. I look forward to the opportunity.

Now, I’ll turn it over to YOU. As a reader, what leads YOU to review a book? As a writer, what tips and tricks do YOU have to secure Amazon reviews?

elizabeth

ABOUT ELIZABETH JAVOR: With over 20 years of experience in sales and management, Elizabeth Javor works as the Director of Sales and Marketing for Outskirts Press. The Sales and Marketing departments are composed of knowledgeable publishing consultants, customer service reps and book marketing specialists; together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Elizabeth Javor can put you on the right path.

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ORIGINAL BOOK REVIEW: “A New Lease on Life” by James Ocansey

A New Lease on Life by James Ocansey

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION*:

We all have only one life to live. It is safe to assume that we all want to live a long and healthy life free from pain, disease and untimely death. A New Lease on Life helps us to do that based on research by various authorities mostly in holistic medicine. It shows you how the body works and what you can do to help it do its work of self-repair or healing. We learn that the body balances its alkalinity and acidity at 80/20% ratio. The foods we eat need to follow that ratio of 80% alkaline foods and 20% acid-forming foods. Because we are unable to follow this 4:1 ratio, the body has to break down healthy structures and tissues in a process called catabolism. This is needed to keep us within 7.4pH (slightly alkaline range), especially in our inner cavity to keep our vital organs from dying. Every fat mostly cellulose is pushed out and stored elsewhere in the body to keep us from dying prematurely.

Since health is dependent on detoxification and nourishment, we need to find the best means to detox and nourish our system. Detoxification is best achieved by ionized, alkaline, micro-structured hexagonal water, which is able to easily penetrate our cells to deliver oxygen and nutrients while cleansing our cells on its way out. Without good water, not just any water, the cells are unable to easily receive nutrients and keep them clean. This results in excess tissue acid waste which is the root cause of pain and numerous diseases. It also deprives our cells of needed nutrients that cause nutritional deficiency diseases leading to untimely death. Your longevity depends on how well you take care of your cells since the cells are not supposed to die and you could live to over 100 years, as is known in Japan and in many other cultures.

REVIEW:

Oh, boy, am I not drinking the right water.

This, my friends, is exactly what went through my head when I first picked up James Ocansey’s A New Lease on Life, which is blurbed entirely accurately in the description from Bookshop.org that I’ve included above, which is where I first found this book.

But first, to back up a minute: Those of you who have read my last review will remember that my response to that book was largely the product of my recent experiences in and out of area health facilities as my family battled its way through a long, strenuous, and even to some extents ongoing medical emergency of the most dramatic kind. As with many people, it took something of such medical gravity to force me to re-evaluate my own life choices, particularly in what I eat and drink. And while there are plenty of books out there on the former, the latter doesn’t seem to be talked about or researched to the same extent, outside of studies pertaining to known toxins and “please drink in moderation” sorts of drinks, such as those containing alcohol or caffeine. But if a person were to wonder, as I certainly have found myself wondering, whether there might be something more basic and elementary going on when it comes to “drinking well” in the same way that nutrition is basic and elemental to “eating well,” that person might find a compelling answer in James Ocansey’s A New Lease on Life.

This is a research-based take on water, the most basic of all molecules necessary to life barring only the Carbon atom, which enables complex life. Water is where we all started, the science seems to say, whether we’re talking literally or in a profound metaphorical sense. Our bodies are largely made up of water, after all, and I could drill down into the protean images of the womb and of creation narratives featuring a separation of land and sky from water–but I’ve only budgeted one on-the-nose metaphor for this review, and I don’t want to try your patience before even getting to the real, er, elemental components of this review.

I know, I’m the absolute worst when it comes to puns, irony, and dad jokes. If our bodies are made of 90% (or some large percentage) of water, my soul is made of 90% dad jokes. Terrible, awful, unbearable dad jokes.

Luckily, Ocansey is made of sterner, more academically reliable stuff than dad jokes, and I mean what I say. This book draws upon the results of a 12+ year study of pollution’s effects on the cellular level, a study involving scientists and researchers across multiple fields and disciplines. Dr. Joel Wallach, for example, conducted over 17,500 animal and 3,000 human autopsies (making for a total of 455 species, I think) in order to collate information on pathologies, and concluded that “every animal and every human who dies of natural causes dies of a nutritional deficiency disease”–and the culprit is not the food these creatures consumed but rather the water the

In an over 12 years Interdisciplinary study on Pollution in which Dr. Joel Wallach was the Chief Pathologist, he conducted autopsies on 17,500 animals of 454 species and 3.000 humans for comparison. His conclusion was that “it was apparent that every animal and every human who dies of natural causes dies of a nutritional deficiency disease,” and that this malnutrition is the result not of poor food quality or quantity but rather the water these unfortunate creatures consumed.

I mean, as we millennials like to say, this is mind-blowing stuff!

Water, as Ocansey puts it, is the “missing link” to good health, and the fundamental component missing in world devoid of strong water knowledge (much less good water quality and infrastructure). I am, of course, no water expert (or true scientist, much as I love to participate in citizen science research and to promote STEM learning for all), but the science in A New Lease on Life is well presented and easy enough to understand, particularly if a reader is already familiar with the scientific method.

“You’re not only thirsty but starving,” declares Ocansey in the subtitle to A New Lease on Life, and this is the basis of the book’s argument: Water detoxifies, and water also nourishes. It not only washes the body clean of toxins, but it also can contribute significantly to good nutrition if consumed in the right way and if made up of the right kind of water. I’m still parsing some of the finer points of Ocansey’s argument, but the research does seem clear on what it is indicating. There is such a thing as “hexagonal water,” a specific molecular arrangement of ordinary H2O which can make a potential difference in not only longevity but general quality of life.

A New Lease on Life also contains arguments for several other potential health-boosting supplements and aids, but it is largely concerned with the aforementioned H2O. It contains everything from doctor to patient to scientific testimony about the efficacy of all of the above, and is well worth a read if you are looking to delve into a brave new world of nutrition that is dramatically different from those diets, regimens, and other fads that come and go with the years. You may or not find yourself convinced–that is always a risk when it comes to an argument-based book–but you will most definitely find yourself asking important questions that need to be asked about the ways we have been doing things and where we want to go from here, health-wise.

WHERE TO BUY?

You can find A New Lease on Life by James Ocansey wherever good books are sold, including Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. You can also find out more about it on the book’s Outskirts Press listing.

WHAT NEXT?

Next week I will be posting my review for Cooper C Woodring’s book, Expert Design Witness 101. I have no idea what to expect!

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

* Courtesy of Bookshop.org book listing.

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ABOUT KENDRA M.: With nine years in library service, six years of working within the self-publishing world, as well as extensive experience in creative writing, freelance online content creation, and podcast editing, Kendra seeks to amplify the voices of those who need and deserve most to be heard.
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ORIGINAL BOOK REVIEW: “The Enchanted Rope” by David D. Bernstein

The Enchanted Rope by David D. Bernstein

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION*:

Young Jack’s mother has become an angel.

He misses her singing him to sleep, misses her reading him fairy tales and misses her love of wildflowers and dragons.

Under the Alaskan sun, in a field of dreams, Jack gathers up one hundred wildflowers and starts to weave an enchanted rope so he can climb up to the world of angels his mother is in. A school of salmon, a clan of wolves, a brown bear, and one bold eagle watch him as he weaves and weaves and finally sends the magic rope far up into the air.

When he returns from his adventure, he sees one red flower is missing from the rope. Jack smiles. He knows what that means.

In this magical and touching tale for children ages 6 to 8, David Bernstein explores the loss of a loved one by a young boy and offers an imaginative and comforting view of the possibility of reconnecting with someone who may have gone from earth, but who is not, in truth, gone.

REVIEW:

This week is something of a reunion for me, in that I’ve actually read the book I’m reviewing several times before, and am only now ready to post the review. I have also reviewed a book by this author before, and you may remember his name from my review of the middle grade novel The Portal several weeks ago.

So, why the delay?

The Enchanted Rope is a story of loss, grief, and what comes after. In particular, it depicts a child who has lost his mother and who desperately seeks to stay connected with her by weaving a rope made from her favorite wildflowers. It has a happy ending, in that he meets his mother in “the great beyond” (to quote Soul), albeit in a transformed state, and they do end up maintaining the connection he was so desperate to recreate. Those who know me well already know this, but my own mother has undergone a “health journey” of her own over the last five months, one that she is lucky to have survived––and yet she is changed, fundamentally, as the result of months of cascading problems totaling to a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). The first few months I spent by her side, I thought we might have lost her. I am so, so grateful that her story didn’t end there, though, and that despite her total transformation as a person as a result I have another chance to forge my own new connection to her before facing the struggle that Jack, the boy at the heart of Bernstein’s The Enchanted Rope, must go through at the beginning of this book.

Yup, I read a children’s picture book about a child grieving the loss of his mother while I was at the bedside of my own precious mother, not knowing her fate. And as the weeks ticked by with little apparent progress, my ability to handle fictional portrayals of grief and loss over sick or lost mothers took a bit of a nose-dive. (Thus the delay. I’m so sorry about that.) I was already the kind of person to cry over a really good Christmas commercial, or anything involving injured animals, but this experience has sensitized me to a whole new range of possible emotional triggers. Including Disney (Disney+?) movies. Mothers don’t tend to last long or be very caring/capable in most of the animated classics. Even the new live-action Beauty and the Beast highlights the fact that Beauty’s mother has passed away and that she and her father grieve daily for her. My heart, my heart.

I should note at this point that The Enchanted Rope was not itself triggering for me, merely that its subject was one I wasn’t terribly well equipped to handle for a while, and yet I’m so grateful to get to review it now. In my years as a librarian, I came to realize that there are relatively few books for toddlers through elementary school that grapple with loss. There aren’t even a huge number of books on the subject of losing pets! (One good one, though, is Big Cat, Little Cat.) I continue to hope that authors and illustrators will add to the general canon more beautiful, sincere, and helpful books on grief. That David D. Bernstein goes down this road is in and of itself a rare thing for a children’s author, and that he finds a way to give voice to a child in need of connection to a lost loved one is rarer still. Sally Taylor’s illustrations are colorful and eye-catching, too.

I think I’m one of those people who will always have a soapbox on balancing the text-to-page ratio in picture books, and I can’t even blame the typography professor at my alma mater, since I cleverly (and errantly) arranged to skip that class, despite my minor in Illustration. As Bernstein’s book goes on, there is simply more story that he wants to share than in its early pages, where he communicates much with very few words. I try to remind myself in many ways, though, that any objections I have on this front come down to taste, and not necessarily even all that educated of a taste, if we’re talking about my own. (Just imagine a self-conscious laugh-cry emoji here!) I doubt many of Bernstein’s readers would even notice the shift in text-to-page, much less object. It’s just … a thing that is there. There are one or two typos to get excited about, but nothing that detracts from what I believe to be an invaluable central message:

As Bernstein might put it, one’s connection to people gone or transformed is not necessarily severed by death, and in remembering and cultivating the kinds of beautiful things that our loved ones loved, we maintain our relationships with those who leave us for what comes next. Love, imagination, and a bit of arts-and-crafts know-how can be healing to the hurting heart. More of this, please!

WHERE TO BUY?

You can find The Enchanted Rope by David D. Bernstein wherever good books are sold, including Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. You can also find out more about it on the book’s Outskirts Press listing.

WHAT NEXT?

Next week I will be posting my review for Kevin Fodor’s memoir, Turn it Up! Confessions of a Radio Junkie.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

* Courtesy of Outskirts Press book listing.

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ABOUT KENDRA M.: With nine years in library service, six years of working within the self-publishing world, as well as extensive experience in creative writing, freelance online content creation, and podcast editing, Kendra seeks to amplify the voices of those who need and deserve most to be heard.