ESPOUSED by Jean Marie Davis

 

Book Details:
Book Title:  Espoused by Jean Marie Davis
Category:  Adult Fiction 18+
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Literary, Humor
Publisher:  Wren Park Publishing, 264 pages
Release date: July 2021 
Format available for review: Print Softback, ebook (PDF)
Will send print books out:  USA and Canada
Tour dates: August 16 to September 3, 2021
Content Rating:  PG for the subject matter of adult relationships/marriage/divorce, but there is no bad language or explicit sex scenes.

Book Description:

Espouse: (v.) to take in marriage; to make a marriage permanent by court decree; the court-approved process by which couples may stay together beyond the legal 15-year term.

In the contemporary world, fifteen years is considered the legal life cycle of a marriage. If a couple wants to stay together (married), they must hire a lawyer and petition the court to become Espoused.

After 14 years of marriage, Sara and Thomas Healy are still in love. Their decision to go to court to be espoused permanently is a source of great embarrassment for their children. Avery is ready for the benefits of uncoupling, and Sam really doesn’t need the social stigma of parents who decide to stay together, on top of everything else. Lame! Their espouse attorney, Gwen Stevens, has other problems. The judge for the Healy case is her nemesis, Carly Abraham, also known as “the Wicked Witch of the Bench.” Judge Abraham was previously married to Gwen’s husband Dennis, from whom she uncoupled after the allotted 15 years. She hates espouse lawyers on principle, and seems to have an extra dose of dislike for Gwen personally.

While the Healys struggle through the espouse experience—trial separation, uncouple counseling, and ongoing financial burdens—Gwen has to deal with the judge and her own struggles at home. In this fight for love, who has the answers?
​

Buy the Book
Coming Soon!
Amazon

Meet the Author:

Jean Marie Davis was born and raised in Huntington, New York. After graduating from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale, she moved back to Long Island where she worked in the Marketing Research industry for over 30 years. She currently lives in Centerport, New York close to her daughter and son.


Connect with the Author:  ​Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

THE WILDERNESS SPA by Jim Halverson

 

Book Details:
Book Title:  Wilderness Spa: Where Physical Survival Meets Psychological Survival by Jim Halverson
Category:  Adult Fiction 18+, 212 pages
Genre:  Literary
Publisher:  Gail Force Publishing
Release date:  June 2021
Format available for review: Print - Softback, Ebook (mobi file (for Kindle), gifted Kindle copy, ePub, PDF)
Will send print books out to: USA and Canada
Tour dates: August 23 to September 10, 2021
Content Rating:  PG-13: Only language (one f-word, some sh*t, d*mn)

Book Description:
​​
The Wilderness Spa brings people from three quite different sources together to survive catastrophe in the Alaskan wilderness. They amaze themselves in their ability to coalesce and work cohesively in the face of hunger, injury, insecurity, and possible death. With that on their minds, they explore statistics, logic, social justice, and challenges to philosophies and social norms.

After rocky starts when new members enter the group, they learn to find the best in their fellow travelers, how to help, follow, and lead when necessary. Nothing is ever easy. Without attacking each other, they dig deep to reconcile their differences.

Join the group as they make the best of what they have. Struggle along with them and reconcile your own philosophical belief systems with logic and science.

Buy the Book
Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Book Depository
Books A Million ~ Indie Bound

Meet the Author: 

J​im Halverson is the author of Trials & Trails (2019) and Ponce, What Actually Happened at the Fountain of Youth (upcoming, 2021). Jim grew up in the rural, gold-mining town of Mokelumne Hill, CA and received his MBA from Golden Gate University. He spent part of his life on a ranch and is an avid student of psychology. He recognizes the struggles of all men and women seeking equality and respect. Jim and his wife, Gail, spend their time traveling from their small farm in Forestville, CA.

Connect with the Author:  Website ~  Goodreads

My Review

Wilderness Spa: Where Physical Survival Meets Psychological Survival by Jim Halverson was quite the read. As a psychology graduate student I found the book to be quite the thought provoking read even though it was fiction, it still got me thinking about different subject and ordering if thing would have occurred in a similar way if the events of the book were to really take place.

NOBODY'S MULLIGAN by Brian Holt

 

Book Details:
Book Title:  Nobody's Mulligan by Brian Holt
Category:  Adult Fiction 18+, 337 pages
Genre: Spiritual, Inspirational, Religion
Publisher:  Covenant Books
Release Date: March 2020
Tour dates: August 23 to September 3
Content Rating:  G - No excessive sex, profanity or violence

Book Description:

Margaret Sullivan, a troubled college student in her early twenties,
becomes a modern-day Joan of Arc when she is compelled to save humanity as the
pinnacle of evil comes to seize what he believes was his in NOBODY’S
MULLIGAN by Brian Holt.

Orphaned at childbirth and raised by her maternal grandparents, Margaret
feels the sting of loss when her grandmother dies. With no maternal figure in
her life to offer her comfort and guidance, Margaret becomes a borderline
traumatic social recluse and is treated as an outcast, despite participating in
admirable callings, and is left with her ailing grandfather, Paddy Sullivan. What
she doesn’t realize is that evil is actively afoot and identifies her as an
impediment to Satan’s global apocalyptic conquest.

Craig Templeton, an unmotivated, barely graduated gamer existing in his
mother’s basement, seeks employment at a PR firm, assigned to the mailroom,
which he perceives as corporate leprosy and beneath him given his freshly
minted college degree. Templeton’s rust-relic of a car is the perfect prompt
for Satan, as he sees Templeton ogling the high-end vehicles believing that he
is already deserving of such amenities.

Drawn against their will into the town square on the night of the
apocalypse arranged by a series of circumstances under Templeton’s influence,
the citizens of Grace’s Parrish are confronted by the accumulated product of
their own transgressions, and universal suffrage is served. Perplexed by her
grandfather’s apparent immunity to Templeton’s will, Margaret ultimately
realizes that faith will triumph over evil. The price is heavy, as the town
seeks redemption from the only one who can grant it. With it comes a caveat
that one detractor in the group will re-invite the apocalypse with increased
severity.

Margaret’s heroism is handsomely rewarded as she ultimately finds
transcendence that no mortal could deliver—a unification with the one person
whose absence created an emotional abyss, as well as an explanation of her
grandfather’s immunity to Satan’s will which is epic. And she ultimately
finds her happily ever after with a love-match that is intriguingly
coincidental!  The ending nicely sets the stage for the workings of a
prequel.
 

BUY THE BOOK
Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Apple

Connect with the Author:  Website ~ Facebook 

My Review

NOBODY'S MULLIGAN by Brian Holt was a well written Spiritual, Inspirational, Religion adult fiction book without excessive sex, profanity or violence. Margaret Sullivan was inspiring and I felt connected to her with her background as a borderline traumatic social recluse. So often main characters are so strong physically and emotionally that it is hard to connect with them on an even level, but that was not the case with Margaret . I felt drawn into to Margaret's life and fight against evil!

The Shade Under the Mango Tree

 

Book Details:
Book Title:  The Shade Under the Mango Tree by Evy Journey
Category:  Adult Fiction 18+, 396 pages
Genre: Contemporary Multicultural Fiction
Publisher:  Sojounrer Books
Release date:  November 2, 2020
Format available for review:  print - softback, e-book (Gifted Kindle, Mobi file for Kindle, epub, pdf )
Tour dates: August 2 to August 27
Content Rating:  PG13 & M: There's a suicide, reference to a past genocide, and reference to sex about to happen but no description of the sexual act.

Book Description:
​
Gold medalist in Contemporary Fiction at the New York City Book Awards for indie books.

After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home in California and Hawaii where she grew up. An adventure in which she can also make some difference. Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s journal at a café. Though he has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it, they don’t stop him. His decision changes his life forever. Months later, they meet at a bookstore. Fascinated by his stories and adventurous spirit, Luna goes on a Peace Corps stint to a rural rice-growing village in Cambodia. There, she finds a world steeped in ancient culture and the lasting ravages of a deadly history. What she goes through in this village defies anything she could have imagined. Will she leave this world unscathed? An epistolary tale of courage, resilience, and the bonds that bring diverse people together.

Buy the Book:
Amazon ~ B&N 
Kobo ~ Apple iBooks

Meet the Author:
Evy Journey writes. Stories and blog posts. Novels that tend to cross genres. She’s also a wannabe artist and a flâneuse. Evy studied psychology (Ph.D. University of Illinois) so she spins tales about nuanced characters dealing with the problems and issues of contemporary life. She believes in love and its many faces. Though she has traveled to many places, she has one ungranted wish: To live in Paris where art is everywhere and people have honed aimless roaming to an art form. She visits and stays a few months.

Connect with the Author: website ~ facebook ~ pinterest ~ twitter

My Review

The Shade Under the Mango Tree by Evy Journey was a great adult Contemporary Multicultural Fiction novel. I felt like I really connected with Luna as I could understand her desire for adventure and I enjoyed immersing myself in her adventure. 

Art of Time: A Mother-Daughter Sprezzatura on the Spirit of Time - Martine Terese/Martine Franca

 

Book Details:
Book Title:  The Art of Time by Martine Therese & Martina Franca
Category:  Adult Fiction 18+
Genre: Art, Poetry
Publisher:  The Twenty-Sixth Residence, 76 pages
Release Date: July 2021
Tour dates: August 16 to September 3
Content Rating:  G.

Book Description:
​In The Art of Time: A Mother-Daughter Sprezzatura on the Spirit of Time, Martine Therese and her daughter, Martina Franca, invite you into a lush world where time has no limits. Consisting of paintings, meditations and poetry, The Art of Time merges maternal & youthful wisdom into a one-of-a-kind artistic showcase with a powerful message: humanity's experience can be enhanced by developing our minds into sensual thought.

A gorgeous book to be treasured by everyone from art connoisseurs to children, The Art of Time offers concepts and images that introduce readers to a new—and wonderful—realm of being.

Buy the Book
Amazon

Meet the Authors: 

Martine Therese was a practicing Certified Public Accountant when she became pregnant with her daughter, Martina Franca. She decided to leave her accounting job and focus on her daughter instead. The transition, while “brutal,” completely transformed Martine’s life, and opened up a whole new world of possibility.

For Martine, who has been writing poetry all her life, motherhood expanded her creativity, and she finally felt the courage to bring her work to the world. Martine and her daughter discovered a love for painting, and their artwork, combined with Martine’s poetry, form the basis of The Art of Time; A Mother-Daughter Sprezzatura on the Spirit of Time. The book is a token of their shared loves and talents.

Martine and Martina Franca are putting together a follow-up collection on the topic of what it means to be human, exploring the theme of building the potential of humanity. Martina Franca embraces her maternal side on a daily basis, be it with caring for her baby dolls or her puppy, Marcello. She gets a kick out of tailgating with Mom and watching people's reactions, and playing practical jokes like hiding Daddy's shampoo bottle, and she loves having conversations. She regularly chills out with Mom during yoga in their special "rainbow room," a room just for the two of them to recharge. On sunny days, gorgeous rainbows fill the wall of the Rainbow Room, and Martina and Mom bask in those colors—which is why Martina loves infusing her art with rainbows.
​
Connect with the Authors:  Facebook ~Instagram

WORDS KILL

 

Inside the Book

Title: WORDS KILL
Author: David Myles Robinson
Publisher: Terra Nova Books
Pages: 250
Genre: Thriller / Suspense

BOOK BLURB:

Famed reporter Russell Blaze is dead. It appears to be an accident, but after Russ’s funeral, his son, Cody, finds a letter in which his father explains that the death may have been murder. It directs Cody to Russ’s unfinished memoir for clues as to what may have happened. The opening words are: On the night of October 16, 1968, I uttered a sentence that would haunt me for the rest of my life. The sentence was, “Someone should kill that motherfucker.”

As Cody delves into the memoir, a window opens into a tragic past and thrusts the still-burning embers of another time’s radical violence into the political reality of the present. History that once seemed far away becomes a deeply personal immersion for Cody into the storied heyday of the Haight: drugs, sex, war protesters, right-wing militias, ground-breaking journalism—and the mysterious Gloria, who wanders into his father’s pad one day to just “crash here for a while until things calm down.”

Cody discovers aspects of his father’s life he never knew, and slowly begins to understand the significance of those words his father spoke in 1968.

Words Kill is a story of loss, violence, and racism; love, hate, and discovery. It is a story of then … and now.

ORDER YOUR COPY

Amazon → https://amzn.to/3Bqov0c

**********

Meet The Author

David Myles Robinson has always had a passion for writing. During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, while in college, Robinson worked as a free-lance writer for several magazines and was a staff writer for a weekly minority newspaper in Pasadena, California, called The Pasadena Eagle. However, as he himself admits, upon graduating from San Francisco State University, he decided against the ‘starving writer’ route and went to law school, at the University of San Francisco School of Law. It was there that he met his wife, Marcia Waldorf. After graduating from law school in 1975, the two moved to Honolulu, Hawaii and began practicing law. Robinson became a trial lawyer, specializing in personal injury and workers’ compensation law. Waldorf eventually became a District Court and ultimately a Circuit Court judge.

Upon retiring in 2010, Robinson completed his first novel, Unplayable Lie, which was published by BluewaterPress LLC, in 2010. He has since published five more novels, three of which are legal thrillers set in Honolulu: Tropical Lies, Tropical Judgments, Tropical Doubts, and Tropical Deception. His other three novels are The Pinochet Plot, Son of Saigon, and Words Kill. Robinson has also published a book of short travel stories, Conga Line on the Amazon.

Robinson and Waldorf divided their time between Honolulu and their second home in Taos, NM for seven years before finally deciding to see what it’s like to be full-time mainlanders again. They now live in Taos, where Robinson can pursue his non-writing passions of golf, ski, and travel.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

Website: davidmylesrobinson.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DMRobinsonWrite

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DavidMylesRobinson

Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/davidmylesrobinson

******MY REVIEW****

WORDS KILL was a great read! When Code begins to read his father's memoir the first words he sees are " On the night of October 16, 1968, I uttered a sentence that would haunt me for the rest of my life. The sentence was, “Someone should kill that motherfucker.”" It was this sentence that gripped me and kept me reading wanting to know more about the situation surrounding those very words.

GROUP

 

Inside the Book

Title: GROUP
Author: Lynne Turner
Publisher: FriesenPress
Pages: 102
Genre: Mystery / Crime Thriller

BOOK BLURB:

Dr. William Osgood, a Beverly Hills psychologist, must make a quick decision. Seventeen-year-old Loretta, his most troubled patient, has just fainted on his couch, and his Thursday night group is about to arrive. Knowing that allowing Loretta to stay is ethically murky and potentially perilous to the group’s dynamic, Dr. Osgood begins to consider what might happen once Loretta opens her eyes. He feels that Loretta will be safe – but even the good doctor can’t possibly predict the results of his decision.

Loretta, as it happens, has come to be Dr. Osgood’s patient under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Her story rivets the six members of Dr. Osgood’s weekly group, who themselves struggle with inner demons and life conflicts; when a bigtime talent agent is shot, the doctor recognizes that each of the group’s members may have had a motive. These psychological twists and turns – as well as Dr. Osgood’s own as he copes with a bitter divorce and downsized

lifestyle – pave the way for the captivating story told in the debut mystery GROUP, by Lynne Turner. The thriller’s author knows her subjects well: she herself is a psychotherapist in Beverly Hills, and deftly weaves the lives and maladies of her characters with elements of mystery and surprise, set against the backdrop of the fringes of Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

“None of the characters in the book are based on my actual clients. However, the many compelling cases in my work, along with my deep love for Los Angeles, inspired me to write GROUP,” explains Turner, a lifelong fan of mystery writers. “My years of practicing psychotherapy have enhanced my ability to create characters that readers experience as real people, as opposed to caricatures.

“What is underscored in GROUP is the discrepancy between outward appearance and the actual genesis of one’s dynamics and one’s pain. In writing it, I wanted to give readers a ringside seat inside a therapist’s office and allow them to ‘hear’ the intimate details of each group member’s life, as well as to give them the rare opportunity to hear a therapist’s internal dialogue and witness his private life.”

Equally authentic is the geographic setting Turner provides, in part because another of her passions, Los Angeles street photography, gives her a literal close-up view of the city and its denizens.

“The many cultural references drawn from life in Southern California are, on the surface, funny and absurd,” Turner notes. “However, they also reveal a great deal about the values and aspirations of many Americans. The social injustices are gently exposed with humor and compassion. I’d like to think readers will be entertained, especially in these troubled times.”

By book’s end, not only is the mystery solved, but the characters – psychologist and patients alike — have grown and begun to heal, and a romance has bloomed. “GROUP is indeed a story about a particular group,” Turner says. “However, the word ‘group’ accrues meaning as the story develops. It demonstrates what can be accomplished with group effort, strength and understanding.”

ORDER YOUR COPY

Amazon → https://amzn.to/3zLojYJ

**********

Meet The Author

Lynne Turner is a psychotherapist in practice in Beverly Hills, California, where she has practiced for over 30 years. She grew up on the East Coast, in the aptly named seaside town of Point Pleasant, New Jersey. After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Montclair State University, she moved to Los Angeles, where she earned her Master of Science degree in psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. In addition to her practice and her writing, she is a Los Angeles-focused street photographer, which has afforded her the opportunity to take a closer look at the human condition from yet another perspective. She lives with her daughter and two dogs in the Hollywood Hills. Visit her WEBSITE or connect with her on INSTAGRAM.

*****MY REVIEW*****

GROUP was a great read! I really liked Dr. William Osgood as the main character if the book. As a psychology graduate student I personally really liked the form this book took and how it felt so real!

WHAT'S NOT SAID by Valerie Taylor

 

Book Details:
Book Title:  What's Not Said by Valerie Taylor
Category:  Adult Fiction 18+,
Genre:  Women's Fiction, Chick Lit 
Publisher:  She Writes Press, 300 pages
Release date:  September 2020
Tour dates: August 9 to August 27
Content Rating:  PG-13 + M 

---

2021 International Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Women’s Fiction
2020 Canadian Book Club Awards Finalist in Fiction
Chosen as an August 2021 Pulpwood Queens Book Club selection
Featured by the international NoMo Book Club in May 2021

“Taylor’s dialogue is snappy and contemporary . . . A witty and often amusing marriage drama.”
―Kirkus Reviews

---

Book Description:

What’s Not Said is a story about Kassie O’Callaghan, a middle-aged woman on a mission to divorce her emotionally abusive husband and start a new life with a younger man she met while on a solo vacation in Venice. When she learns her husband has chronic kidney disease, her plans collapse until she pokes around his pajama drawer and discovers his illness is the least of his deceits.

Then again, Kassie is no angel. The separate lives they lead collide head-on into a tangled web of sex, lies, and DNA. As she helps her husband find an organ donor, Kassie uncovers a secret, forcing her to decide whose life to save: her husband’s or her own.
​

 BUY THE BOOK:
Amazon ~ Book Depository
Indie Bound ~ Bookshop.org
B&N ~ GooglePlay
Add to Goodreads

You May Also Enjoy (available for Pre-order):

Book Details:

Book Title:  What's Not True by Valerie Taylor
Category:  Adult Fiction 18+,
Genre:  Women's Fiction, Chick Lit 
Publisher:  She Writes Press, 321 pages
Release date:  August 2021
Tour dates: September 15 to October 12
Content Rating:  PG-13 + M ​

---

“What’s Not True…is an enthralling, character-driven story that will appeal irresistibly to fans of women’s fiction…Taylor’s prose is crystalline…she does not waste words, rather using them to create a tense, nerve-shredder that offers full entertainment to readers.” — Readers’ Favorite 5-star review

Book Description:

With her court date set for her divorce and her plans with the younger man in the rearview mirror, Kassie O’Callaghan shifts attention to reviving her stalled career. But things get complicated when she unexpectedly rendezvous with her former lover in Paris. After a chance meeting there with a colleague and a stroll along Pont Neuf, Kassie receives two compelling proposals. Can she accept them both?

But Kassie’s decision process screeches to a halt when her soon-to-be ex-husband has a heart attack, forcing her to fly home to Boston. There, she confronts his conniving and deceitful fiancée—a woman who wants not just a ring on her finger but everything that belongs to Kassie. In the ensuing battle to protect what’s legally and rightfully hers, Kassie discovers that sometimes it’s what’s not true that can set you free.

Though a standalone novel, What’s Not True is the sequel to What’s Not Said (September 15, 2020).

Buy the Book
Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Indie Bound
Book Depository

Meet the Author:

Valerie Taylor was born and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. She earned a B.S. Marketing degree and an MBA from Sacred Heart University, as well as a graduate certificate in health care administration from Simmons University (formerly Simmons College). She had a thirty-year career in the financial services industry as a marketer and writer. Valerie is a published book reviewer with BookTrib.com; and a member of Westport Writers’ Workshop, Independent Book Publishers Association, and Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She enjoys practicing tai chi and being an expert sports spectator.

​connect with the author: website ~ twitter ~ facebook ~ instagram ~ goodreads

THE LADY’S REVENGE (Book 2)

 

Title: THE LADY’S REVENGE (Book 2)
Author: Arabella Sheraton
Publisher: Bublish
Pages: 186
Genre: Regency Romance

BOOK BLURB:

This engaging traditional Regency romance is the sequel to Lord Blackwood’s Valentine Ball. Miss Letitia DeVere decides that revenge is a dish best eaten cold when she returns to London after a two-year absence to find her former admirer Lord Charles Blackwood on the verge of proposing to Miss Patience Cherwell. Lord Blackwood’s Valentine Ball proved to be the turning point in his fledgling romance with Patience. Letitia is not the kind of woman who gives up easily, as Patience and Charles soon find out. She stops at nothing to achieve her aims. However, Letitia has a dark past, with secrets that threaten to return and destroy her newfound social success. When Charles proves less malleable than in the past, Letitia resorts to subterfuge, seduction, blackmail, and even violence to force him to propose. Will he see through her tricks and remain true to Patience, or will Letitia’s seductive wiles lure him back?

PRAISE

“The timing is one of the most wonderful things in this read, especially because of the various means of subterfuge and blackmail which are at play. Author Arabella Sheraton has a knack for timing her comedy and her suspense in just the right balance to keep that rompy pace going, just like authentic Regency novels should do. I can’t recommend this two-partner enough, or indeed the author herself and her other super-fun works. Readers with a modern mindset or a lack of historical knowledge might not fully ‘get’ the style, but if you’re someone that does, then you’re going to truly fall in love and want to keep stepping back into this world time and again, so give them a try!” – Amazon Reviewer 5 stars

ORDER YOUR COPY

Amazon → https://amzn.to/3vD5mER

Barnes & Noble → https://bit.ly/3vyAW6O

iBooks → https://apple.co/3fyBPH4

Kobo → https://bit.ly/3vPFZzK

**********

Meet The Author

Arabella Sheraton grew up reading her mom’s collection of Georgette Heyer novels, the queen of modern-day Regency romance, and of course, Jane Austen’s iconic Regency novels. Although Arabella’s literary background was in publishing and editing, she had never written a fiction book. Her first novel started out in response to her mom’s complaint that she had nothing new to read. That first Regency novel was The Dangerous Duke! Since then, Arabella has penned six more authentic Regency novels and a romance self-help guide to finding the right partner, with useful quotes by none other than Jane Austen. Arabella has branched out with a mash-up of genre in her latest work in progress. A murder-mystery, time travel, Regency romance coming soon!

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK

OTHER BOOKS BY ARABELLA SHERATON

The Reluctant Bridegroom

The Wayward Miss Wainwright

Miss Dashwood’s Dilemma

More…

 

****My Review******

The first book was a great read, but in paled in comparison to the tale woven in THE LADY’S REVENGE (Book 2). I simply loved THE LADY’S REVENGE (Book 2) with how Patience and Letitia wage a delicate war for Lord Blackwood. It kept me on the edge of my seat wondering who would be the one holding his heart in the end.