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Gothic
It was a night like no other, a night that would go down in literary legend. To be precise, three days in June 1816, the Year Without a Summer. Severe climate abnormalities were caused by a combination of an historic low in solar activity and major volcanic eruptions, capped by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in the…
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THRILLER: Reckless – Susan Kiernan-Lewis
(Subtitled – A Mia Kazmaroff Mystery Book 1) Reckless was provided to me by Kindle free of charge and is the first of a series of Mia Kazmaroff Mysteries, written by Susan Kiernan-Lewis and published by San Marco Press. The books that follow on in the series are “Shameless”, “Breathless”, “Heartless” and “Loveless”. Checking out…
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Lightning Bolt George
Back in the day, there was a guy named Grunt who went wandering in the wilderness. Everyone assumed that he had gotten lost because he was such a prolific dumbass. When he stumbled back into camp his eyes stared wildly, which disturbed people at first. Racing to the stream, he drank gallons. His body was…
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From My Bookshelf: Featuring Emma Donahue
By Lynn Willoughby Astray by Emma Donahue This is the most interesting concept for short stories I have ever read. Each is only 4 or 5 pages long and at the end is the newspaper story that inspired Donahue to write the fictional story that lead to the headline. Brilliant!! Each character from the pages have gone…
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Author Interview: Maria Gibbs
Maria Gibbs is the author the romantic novellas, A Lifetime or a Season and As Dreams are Made On. See my review for the latter here. She’s currently working on a number of pieces, as she’ll discuss below. What inspires you to write? Do you find that certain moods/states of mind drive you to write…
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Little League Nightmare
Growing up 12 miles from Fenway baseball was a very big deal in Lexington and I was determined to give it my best shot. Opening day was a major event with a parade through the center of town and players from all the teams lining both baselines (think opening day at Fenway for all its…
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How to Get Rid of Subvocalization When Reading
Speed reading is one of the most beneficial things you can master in today’s busy world. Just imagine the perspectives that it would open to you! By processing 2x, 3x or even 5x more information, you would move to another, much higher professional level. In the lines below, I want to share with you essential…
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YA FANTASY: Marking Time – April White
Seventeen year old Saira Elian’s mother has gone missing – again. But this time, she doesn’t come back and Saira has to go looking for her. It’s during this time that she learns about the Immortals: Time, Fate, Death, Nature, and War and about their descendants. She discovers that she is actually a Descendant of…
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FICTION: Fall Guy – Janet Gogerty
This time I was determined to get to the end of the book. Last time I was out by chapter three, without my name even being mentioned. Then there was the time I was the lead character in the sub plot, all was going well until the editing stage… The clothes were uncomfortable, it was…
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An Attack of the Freebie-Jeebies
As some of you know, I have views on the ”Free / 99p book and Ebook!” promotion thing. My views are that it creates the expectation in readers that something you sweated blood over for years is worth less than a small cappuccino. Happy to retweet your promo if you insist on doing it because…
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CHIC-LIT: Muse by K. French
According to all standard and logical thinking, I did this all wrong, I read French’s second book in the series; Desire, before I read her first book Muse. Big Mistake? Actually, no it wasn’t. Desire was an excellent stand-alone novel that I enjoyed immensely, as you would see if you read my review of it.…
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HUMOUR: Farmer Giles and His One Wish – Riley J. Froud
Farmer Giles farms sheep. I mean farmed. He farmed sheep. And not very well, I might add, but he’d managed to keep a few of them alive until the night of the storm. That’s when he employed my assistance, of course, and everything changed. Everything always changes when they employ my assistance – that’s what…
Bookshop Bistro 