February 2015

Book Review: One Last Song

Katie February 27, 2015 0Comment

One Last Song is about Saylor, who suffers from Munchausen Syndrome. The story starts where she recounts swallowing a needle at age 7 in order to get her mother’s attention.  Currently she is injecting herself with saliva in order to create abscesses on her body.  She is seeing a shrink who she tells she would like to work at the hospital. Mainly it’s to gain access to supplies she may need, but no one else needs to know that.  She ends up getting a volunteer position helping to set up and break down the chairs and snacks for support groups that meet there. There is a group, TIDD, meeting in a room she is in reading a book on MS – and one of the guys assumes she has it and she is new to the group.  While she does have an MS (Munchausen Syndrome) she tells them that she has multiple sclerosis.  She ends up becoming very close with the people in this groups, even gaining a boyfriend.  She loves the attention and has seemed to stop making herself sick even.  But what happens when they find out the truth?

*possible spoiler ahead*

Although she wanted to come clean on her own terms, she ends up getting found out before she has the chance to let anyone know. Will her new friends understand? Will they think she used them? Most of all – will they forgive her before she is forced to go away to college in another state?

I really liked this book – it was a bit different than anything else I had read and really drew me in. There are a lot of characters with a lot of things going on and it was interesting to see it all unfold how it did – learning about each other as it went along and seeing them all help each other and try to remain optimistic, even though they know that they are all very near to falling victim to their diseases.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

I was seven when I swallowed my first needle.

My mom freaked out and rushed me to the emergency room.

She stayed by my side all night.

I never wanted it to end.

When you spend your whole life feeling invisible-when your parents care more about deals and deadlines than they do about you-you find ways of making people take notice. Little things at first. Then bigger. It’s scary how fast it grows. Then one day something happens that makes you want to stop. To get better. To be better. And for the first time, you understand what it’s like to feel whole, happy . . . loved. For the first time, you love someone back.

For me, that someone was Drew.

Book Review: Idiots and Children

Katie February 27, 2015 0Comment

Idiots and Children is a book of essays about Diana Estill’s life. The book is fun and easy to read, with a lot of great stories. My personal favorite was the story about how her home was struck by lightning. Her husband’s garage door won’t open so he leaves it up to Diana to see what is going on.  After they think they have the phone lines and everything corrected, the phones ring at all hours of the night, so they end up unplugging them when they go to bed. Then one night they are woken by the doorbell ringing and 2 cops checking up on them. Repeated calls to 911 were coming from their house – but Diana assures the cops everything is ok and the phone lines were unplugged. They end up realizing that the alarm system also got fried during the lightning strike and the system was calling through numbers at night and eventually got the 9-1-1.  When the cops heard the repeated calls but didn’t get an answer when calling the house back, they had to go check things out!

If you are looking for a fast, fun read, then you should check this book out.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review.

About the Book

Award-winning author Diana Estill delivers twisted tales of past and present in this latest collection of humor essays. Having grown up with an absent-minded father and a mother who refused to wear—but nevertheless tried to sell—beauty products, Estill drolly recalls her childhood angst and confusion. Besides poking fun at herself and her kin, Estill unleashes tongue-in-cheek commentary on subjects such as populating Mars, finding the “fun” in funerals, cloning Neanderthals, and store gun policies. (“If you’re feeling unsafe enough to pack a shotgun for your trip to purchase pork rinds, then maybe you ought to stay home and shoot your own snacks.”) Travelogues about crossing the pond (“Looking for the Loo in London”) and commissioning a hot air balloon to fly across a desert (“Fatal Attractions”) offer witty vacation advice.

Book Review: Edgar Allan Poe The Dover Reader

Katie February 27, 2015 0Comment

This Edgar Allan Poe book is separated by his Fiction, Poetry and Non Fiction.  The book is just under 600 pages, but that is to be expected when it contains so much content! This book is full of Poe’s finest works which includes his only completed novel – The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.  I only read a few of the smaller poems, several of his stories I had read in various classes over the years as well and I quite appreciate his works.  A great compilation of his works if you are looking to get all of the Poe that you can in just one place.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

(There are 17 included in Fiction, 43 poems and 3 non-fiction works included in this anthology.)

About the Book

The father of the detective novel and an innovator in American Gothic fiction, Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) made his living as America’s first great literary critic. Today he is best remembered for his short stories and poems, haunting works of horror and mystery that remain popular around the world.
This anthology presents Poe’s finest works in a rich selection of poetry and prose that features his only complete novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Short stories include “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Purloined Letter,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and more than a dozen others. In addition to a few selections of Poe’s nonfiction writing, the compilation offers “The Conqueror Worm,” “Annabel Lee,” “The Raven,” and many other memorable poems.

Book Review: Why Does My Book Not Sell? 20 Simple Fixes

Katie February 22, 2015 0Comment

Rayne Hall has released “Why Does My Book Not Sell?” Which offers 20 simple fixes.  While I do not yet have a book to sell, I hope to one day, so I enjoy reading these types of books so that once I do decide to release something I’ll know a bit more of what to do to get it out there.

The book is broken down into different areas of your book and what might go wrong with them.  I liked that it had several different topics for each item which may be causing a lack of sales and interest in your book and that there is also a section called “Mistakes I Made and Learnt From” which the author mentions some of the real pitfalls that needed to be overcome to increase sales.

The book certainly gave me a lot of things to keep in mind that I otherwise wouldn’t have thought of for when I am ready for writing my own books.  If you are an author and are not finding the sales that you would like with your book, I recommend you check out this book to see if you can figure out where your book is falling short and what you can do to try and remedy that.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Author
Rayne Hall has published more than fifty books in several languages under several pen names with several publishers in several genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. She is the author of the bestselling Writer’s Craft series and editor of the Ten Tales anthologies. She is a trained publishing manager, holds a masters degree in Creative Writing, and has worked in the publishing industry for over thirty years. Having lived in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, she has now settled in a small dilapidated town of former Victorian grandeur on the south coast of England where she enjoys reading, gardening and long walks along the seashore. She shares her home with a black cat adopted from the cat shelter. His name is Sulu and he likes to snuggle into Rayne’s arms with his paws wrapped around her wrist when she’s writing.