#BookReview: The Cruel Dark by Bea Northwick

Synopsis: Millicent Foxboro is haunted.

Not by ghosts but by the anguish of her past and the uncertainty of her future. After all, even in the progressive year of 1928, most people would balk at hiring a woman who’d spent two months in a mental ward for traumatic amnesia. So when an uncommon assistantship to a reclusive Professor of mythology falls into her lap with an ungodly salary attached, her desperation for stability overrides her cautious nature. 

To Millie’s dismay, the widowed Professor Callum Hughes and his estate, Willowfield, are more than she bargained for. The once magnificent home, known for its sprawling gardens and dazzling parties, is falling to pieces after the death of the professor’s fragile wife. What’s more, the staff has been reduced to the only three people not frightened away by rumors of ghosts, leaving the halls empty and languishing in bitter memories.

The professor himself is a grim, intense man with unclear expectations, unpredictable moods, and hungry eyes that ignite Millie’s own dormant passions. The closer she finds herself drawn to Professor Hughes and his strange world of flowers and folklore, the more the house closes in, threatening to reveal her secrets. But the professor is keeping secrets of his own and the most dangerous of all is hers to discover.

#Teaser: The Freaks of Lark Street by Harvey Havel @RABTBookTours

 

Fiction

Date Published: 01-04-2024

Publisher: Pageturner Press and Media

 

Julius T. Downer has lost his job at a prestigious Wall Street firm, his lovely girlfriend who has run off with his best friend, and his shoebox of an apartment where he and his girlfriend have been locked up in Pandemic-stricken New York City during COVID. Without much money left, he has little choice but to dump it all and relocate to Albany, New York, where he lives hand-to-mouth at a Motel 6.

Demoralized, Downer knows he must get on his feet. He ventures to the most cosmopolitan street in Albany, which is Lark Street, hoping to find another girlfriend similar to the one who just abandoned him and also hoping to have a little fun before he searches for another job. Instead, he finds an antagonistic and unwelcoming crowd who snub him at every turn. The only ones who welcome him in are those he terms as "freaks." These are the homeless, the drunks, the addicts, and the sex workers on Lark Street.

But his downward slide is mitigated by an outsider artist who takes up residence in one of the few coffee shops that are established there. With the help of this outsider artist and his group of "freakish" friends, Julius T. Downer finds that he has a special supernatural ability when it comes to viewing art.

And Downer enters Albany already hating artists and everything about them. But after finding that he has this new ability bestowed upon him by this outsider artist, he finds that his new relationship to art and the art world around him can help many people who are suffering and struggling through their own lives. Downer finds a new path to follow with the understanding that he is just a "freak" himself.

#BookReview: The House of Starlight & Shadow (The Mirror Kingdom Chronicles #1) by Coreene Callahan

Synopsis: From Amazon Bestselling Author Coreene Callahan comes a spellbinding novel about a woman born to stand in the breech between parallel worlds where revolution is imminent, honor means little, and the stakes are life and death.

Truly Langford-Bardot has spent her life pretending to be normal. No one knows about the monsters that stalk her sleep, or that she was left inside a cardboard box on the steps of a church as a newborn. Raised in foster care on the tough streets of Philadelphia, she learned to take care of herself and trust no one.

After being forced out of her dream job, she’s working a dead-end one when a mysterious stranger arrives with proof she’s heiress to a Victorian mansion in a ramshackle neighborhood. But upon entering her new home, Truly accidentally unlocks a door to a magical realm, releasing an ancient evil from its prison—along with a dark family secret.

Hunted by those who rule the mirror kingdom, Truly comes face-to-face with Westvane, the queen’s slayer, and is given an ultimatum—help him recapture the monster she set free and kill the queen, or be executed for opening a portal to another world.

#BookBlitz: Improbable Possibilities by @Lrawlingsbooks @RABTBookTours

 

Nonfiction / Entrepreneur / Business Memoir

Date Published: October 25, 2023

Publisher: MindStir Media

 

Observe Possibilities.

Entangle Possibilities.

Create Possibilities.

 

Throw spaghetti against the wall of life and see what sticks.

Multi-business entrepreneur Linda Rawlings is perhaps best-known as co-creator of California-based Otis Spunkmeyer, Inc. Her debut book "Improbable Possibilities", reveals other entrepreneurial quests through childhood, a business career, a dance career, and three marriages--in twenty episodes of you-can't-make-this-up and you-can't-put-this-down true stories.

Diverse San Francisco entrepreneurial adventures include Robert C. Brown and Company, investment advisors; Triple 888 Manufacturing, the sheet metal company purchased created to manufacture ovens for baking Otis Spunkmeyer cookies; and Sentimental Journeys, the DC3 airline that promoted Otis Spunkmeyer Cookies. Her other entrepreneurial activities include founding and producing New Shoes Old Souls Dance Company, producing Yoga Garden Dancers, and working with Heterodoxy Magazine and George Magazine. Rawlings helped develop MANA!, a food brand in Hong Kong.

#BookReview: Magic and Medicine (Amber Legends #1) by @olena_nikitin

Synopsis: Danger doesn’t lurk in the shadows. It barges in and smacks you in the face. After years of working in the Emergency Department, Sara thought nothing could surprise her, but when the deceased victim of a stabbing opened his eyes and demanded his knife back, she knew her life had taken a bizarre turn.

Leszek had guarded the magic of the Nether before the first human set foot in his lands. His power was absolute, his authority unchallenged. The world might change, but even ruling from the shadow, no one, not even hardened criminals, dared to question his judgment.

When he was called to clean up the mess an unruly vampire caused in the hospital, Leszek barely contained his irritation when his power couldn’t make the stubborn doctor forget his existence. Instead, she looked him in the eye, challenging him to leave, and he listened.

Sara’s courage and audacity were intriguing, but her magic captivated him with its beauty. The magic she was unaware of. She may be human, but even humans have their uses, and Sara will soon learn there are consequences to capturing the undivided attention of the Tricity Mafia’s boss.

This fascinating woman might haunt his dreams, but Sara’s magic made her a target for a dangerous, emerging power, and Leszek has to decide if he will sacrifice her to save his domain.

#BookReview: The Queen's Crown (League of Rulers #1) by Jennifer Anne Davis

Synopsis: Eighteen-year-old Princess Sabine Ludwig of Bakley thought her biggest problem was finding a man remotely interesting to dabble with while trying to fill her days with something other than knitting or drinking tea. But when her dear sister is brutally murdered in a foreign kingdom a week before she’s to be married, Sabine suddenly wishes for boring, ordinary days again.

Seeking retribution, Sabine decides to take her sister’s place and marry the mysterious king of Lynk. It’s the only way she can hunt down and find the killer. It’s the only way she can get revenge. When she finds the king far more appealing than she’d intended, it becomes difficult to keep her wits about her and remember why she’s there.

Thrown into a world of lies, power struggles, and seduction, Sabine must learn to navigate through the foreign kingdom’s dangerous court as she seeks her sister’s killer. The closer she gets to discovering who it is, the more she questions who she can trust—including herself.