30 June 2016

The Shift by Genevieve Scholl


Nothing about me is normal… 
…but what exactly is ‘normal’? Just because I have two dads and no mom, my name is Elliot Marcus Smith even though I’m a girl, and I was born from a test tube… 
Does that mean I’m ‘abnormal’? 
I say no. 
But the sudden abilities that have been appearing since I turned eighteen sure do. Wounds are healing quickly, my vision has changed, as has my strength, and my sensitivities to other people’s emotions have become severely heightened. Add all that to the fact that I have been forgetting moments of my day as if they never happened, and it’s obvious that something strange is happening to me. 
But what? What am I becoming? 



Also available on iBooks, Baker & Taylor, Scribd, and more!




I'm just a small town girl with a heart for the country life. I'm very shy and pretty much a loner, but my writing helps me be more outgoing and talk to various people that I would otherwise have a hard time approaching. I don't write for the money or the fame, but rather to tell a story that needs to be told; whether that is my story or a character's story. As a lot of people know, from my various interviews, I started writing to express my anger and hurt over the bullying that I experienced in High School, but eventually I just realized that I loved to tell stories. I was born in Texas, grew up and still live in Upstate New York, and want to retire in Ireland.

Photo Credit: Jill Cadena David 








18 June 2016

Student Bodies by Susan Israel

Student Bodies

by Susan Israel

on Tour June 1-30, 2016

Synopsis:

Student Bodies by Susan IsraelDelilah Price is still dealing with the consequences of her recent abduction, but she needs to keep her life on track. In order to survive as an artist in New York City, she has started working as a substitute teacher, which leaves her navigating between two worlds that are foreign to her – students and educators.
Detective Patrick Quick has taken up a big place in Delilah's life. That is, when he isn't consumed by a case. And right now the case that is taking Quick away from Delilah involves a serial rapist and is striking very close to home.
On her way to her first day of work, Delilah witnesses a young girl falling in front of a subway train – or was she pushed? The victim turns out to have been a student at the middle school where Delilah has been assigned to teach and the teacher she is subbing for is a missing person herself. As Delilah gets to know her students and befriends a teacher on staff, she realizes that many have been hiding dark secrets that suggest abuse and worse. And when yet another girl who has hinted strongly that she was abused is a no show to class, Delilah stops counting on police help and follows leads on her own. Putting a dangerous predator on her trail.
The dramatic follow-up to Susan Israel's debut suspense novel, Over My Live Body, Student Bodies is a novel rippling with tension and twists.

Read an excerpt:
There never seems to be a train lighting up the tunnel when you need one in a hurry, but today one is there and the doors close just as the red message at the turnstile commands me to swipe my MetroCard through again. And again. Damn! I drop my MetroCard and get shoved by someone behind me. I turn around to give whoever it is a dirty look and see a dark-haired young girl wearing a pleated white dress. Late for her confirmation or something like that, I’m thinking. How long is that dress going to stay pristine down here? She looks dazed. I pick up my MetroCard and get through the turnstile on the next swipe, then step out of her way. She swipes hers, too, her hand shaking.
I head for the public phone to my right to call the school I’m supposed to be at to say I’m running a little late. Nobody answers. I’ll apologize profusely when I get there. When I turn back toward the platform, the girl is on her knees, her head bowed. She must really be late if it’s come to this. I’ve never seen anyone kneeling on a subway platform before. She closes her eyes. Commuters make a part around her. A street person starts singing “The Greatest Love Of All” in front of the newsstand, palm extended, asking for handouts. Commuters make a part around him too. They’re just obstacles, like the red, white and blue poles along the length of the platform. I turn back to look at the girl. Behind me I get a whiff of cheap cologne. The same cologne I smelled in Sachi’s bedroom. I whirl around. Anyone here could be wearing that cologne. And a lot of it too. I’m at a disadvantage. I don’t know who I’m looking for. Who here would be Sachi’s type? Do I know Sachi’s type?
I go over to the newsstand to get a bag of M & Ms, sniffling so much from the cologne that the news-vendor gestures to a pile of pocket tissues. “You got a cold? You want these too, miss?” I shake my head. My feet sense the vibration of the approaching train first and I start dropping change in my hurry to pay the vendor before I miss this train too. A scream punctuates the approach of the train. Trains don’t make noise like this. I whirl around and see a man with his hands extended in front of him. I can’t tell if he’s been grabbing at something or pushing something. The girl in the white dress literally flies in front of the train as it hisses to a stop. I cover my eyes for a split second and then force myself to look around me. A crowd forms around where the girl was kneeling just moments ago. More people scream. A couple of people lean over the platform and gag. I turn away again. I don’t want to believe what I think just happened actually happened.
“She jumped.”
“She was trying to get away from that person who grabbed her elbow.”
“It looked to me like he was trying to keep her from jumping.”
“It looked to me like he pushed her toward it.”
“Well, she’s gone anyway.”
“Call nine-one-one, someone, hurry!”
All of these accounts turn out to be soliloquies because nobody’s here to question these people, not yet. I take several deep breaths. I’ve lost the urge to sneeze. Whoever was wearing that cologne is gone. I take a good look at the faces on the platform. Quite a few of them have a distinct greenish tinge, blending well with the mosaics of beavers on the subway wall. I imagine mine must look that way too. I hear the squawk of police radios on the stairway. Suddenly blue uniforms swarm the platform and start buzzing orders. “Okay, everybody, stay back, give the EMS guys a chance to get through.”
“She’s beyond EMS,” one onlooker says.
“You a doctor, sir?”
“Uh, no…”
“Well then, stand back with everyone else and let someone qualified make that determination.”
A few people back up toward the turnstiles. Another officer stops them. “No one’s going nowhere just yet. We got a report this girl was pushed.”
“She wasn’t pushed. Looked to me like she was trying to get away from somebody and lost her footing.”
“That ain’t all she lost.”
“People, I’m going to have to ask you to stay over there by the newsstand out of our way till somebody asks you some questions about what happened here.”
A man standing next to me clears his throat. “I didn’t see anything, can I go?”
“No one’s going nowhere,” the officer snaps.
“Candy, gum, magazines,” the newsstand vendor chants in a heavily accented voice. “Get something to pass the time.”
“We want to talk to you too,” the officer says to the vendor.
I can’t see beyond the wall of blue lined up along the platform. I realize I still have the bag of M & Ms clutched in my hand. I’ve lost my craving for them and it’s so hot on the platform that I’m sure they’ll have melted before I leave. I look around for a trash can to throw them in and see more scuffed shoes descending the stairs. Then I see someone that makes my hand squish the life out of that bag of M & Ms altogether.
“Delilah,” Quick says as he starts toward me. “Did you see anything?” I have a distinct feeling just from the tone of his voice that he would rather I didn’t see anything.
It may be more a question of what I smelled. I shake my head. “I’m not sure. I don’t know if what I noticed would be very helpful.”
“Try me,” he says. Under other circumstances there is nothing I’d rather do. “Wait here. I’ll want to talk to you at the station.”
“I have to wait here?”
He nods. “Afraid so.” He mumbles a few asides to a uniformed cop to his right and then turns back to me. “I can’t say how long we’ll be. We’ve got to talk to a lot of witnesses.” He looks around. “As you can see. We want to talk to anyone who’s handicapped and elderly first, so they can go. We don’t want anyone having heat stroke down here.”
Another detective saunters up to him. “Girl did an Anna Karenina, from what I understand.”
Where did he come up with that? I wonder if an all points bulletin is going to be posted for someone named Vronsky. The uniforms start beckoning potential witnesses away from the platform, toward the benches against the wall and through the turnstiles. A detective sidles up to the newsstand behind me. A baby begins to wail loudly. “I got to nurse,” his mother protests, pulling at one of the policeman’s sleeve with her free hand.
He whirls around. “Hey, don’t do that.”
“I got to nurse. My baby hungry.”
“Sit over there,” he points to the row of benches behind me, next to the newsstand.
I look over at the pay phone, thinking I better call the school to say I’m not going to be able to make it, period, that they’re going to need a substitute for this substitute, and probably call Heidi Obermeyer, too, to tell her to get another model, but the line is longer than the line to cash checks in banks the first of the month. I hate doing a no-show but expect everybody will understand. At least I hope they will. The girl on the tracks is never going to show up for anything again. I’m beginning to smell vomit. I don’t know how long it takes for a dead body to start to smell and I don’t want to find out. I look over at Quick who’s deep in conversation with yet another witness. How can he stand this, dealing with death all the time? I start to walk farther down the platform, as far away from the mayhem as I can, until I can’t go any further.
“Miss, where you going?” someone calls out. I ignore him.
Then, “Delilah!”
I reel around. Quick waves me back and points to the congregation of witnesses clustered around the newsstand. “I need air,” I whisper to him, clutching my stomach. “I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
“Okay, hold on, I’ll get someone to escort you.” I wish I could hold on to him, witnesses be damned. “I want to talk to you at the house, not here. I’ll be there as soon as I’m finished up here.” He keeps watch on me as he takes a uniformed officer aside and then says something to him I can’t hear and gestures for me to go with him. I’d gladly follow someone into a cell as long as it meant getting away from this. But I’d rather it be Quick.

Author Bio:

Susan IsraelSusan Israel lives in Connecticut with her beloved dog, but New York City lives in her heart and mind. Her first novel, OVER MY LIVE BODY, was published by The Story Plant in 2014. A graduate of Yale College, her fiction has been published in Other Voices, Hawaii Review and Vignette, and she has written for magazines, websites and newspapers, including Glamour, Girls Life, Ladies Home Journal and The Washington Post. She’s currently at work on the third book in the Delilah Price series.

Catch Up: Susan Israel's twitter Susan Israel's facebook

 

 

Tour Participants:


Don't Miss Your Chance to Win :

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours for Susan Israel and The Story Plant. There will be 3 US winners. There will be THREE (3) winners for this tour. Each winner will receive one copy of Student Bodies by Susan Israel. US Residents may have their choice of eBook or Physical and worldwide winners will receive an eBook copy. The giveaway begins on June 1st and runs through June 30th, 2016.
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Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

 

Meet Nirvaan Desai from My Last Love Story by Falguni Kothari


About the Book

Perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes’s, Me Before You, My Last Love Story is a heartbreakingly romantic tale about the complexities of trauma and whether love can right a wrong.

I, Simeen Desai, am tired of making lemonade with the lemons life has handed me.

Love is meant to heal wounds.
Love was meant to make my world sparkle and spin.
Love has ripped my life apart and shattered my soul. 

I love my husband, and he loves me.
But Nirvaan is dying.
I love my husband. I want to make him happy.
But he is asking for the impossible. 

I don’t want a baby.
I don’t want to make nice with Zayaan.
I don’t want another chance at another love story. 


Book Links

Character Interview with Nirvaan Desai

If you had a free day with no responsibilities and your only mission was to enjoy yourself, what would you do?
You know what? I like my responsibilities. And they have never come in the way of my having fun. :) I live everyday as if its my last one. I always have. So, I guess I’d start the day making love to my wife, turn her legs into jelly like she loves. Next we’d have breakfast on the deck, watching the seagulls flirt with the waves and strawberry kiss the sun. Zai would be done with his prayers by then and would join us. Then, the three of us would take the Jet Skis out and we’d race with the dolphins. Good start to a fun day, yeah?

If you could spend the day with someone you admire (living or dead or imaginary), who would you pick?
I admire life. I’d choose to spend my day with every person I know and have loved. I don’t need to imagine them or bring up the dead. Admirable people are all around me. 

What is your idea of perfect happiness? And, what is your current state of mind?
Lying on white hot sand and ogling bikini babes with double d-sized boobs. **laughing hysterically** Simi will kill me when she reads this. Seriously though, LIFE is my idea of perfect happiness. Life and soul mates who don’t quit. 
I am in a very good place right now. I have made peace with my disease and now I wish my wife and family would too.

What do you consider to be the most overrated virtue and why? 
Staying within societal boundaries because you fear judgment. The “what will people think” brand of politeness that society has packaged as a virtue when it’s an act of cowardice. No one should live by that mantra. People should live and love and act as they please so long as they aren’t hurting anyone. How Simeen, Zayaan and I choose to live our lives should be no one’s business but our own.

Tell us 3 things about yourself that the readers do not know about.
One, I am not as frivolous as I seem. Two, I may be a bully but it comes from a good place. That place where I want Simi and Zai to stop caring what the world thinks and start living. And three, I am totally going to come back as a ghost and haunt all the assholes who’ve pissed me off in life.

Hey! I survived this interview. Whaddaya know? :) I’m glad I could do this one—for posterity, you know?


Read an Excerpt

Dear Readers, thank you for coming along on the My Last Love Story Blog Tour. Here’s an excerpt to enjoy.

ONE

“Love is a dish best served naked.”
As a child, those oft-quoted words of my father would have me rolling my eyes and pretending to gag at what I’d imagined was my parents’ precursor to a certain physical act. 
At thirty, I’d long ago realized that getting naked wasn’t a euphemism for sex. 
Neither was love.
It wasn’t my father wording the meme just now but my husband. Nirvaan considered himself a great wit, a New Age philosopher. On the best of days, he was, much like Daddy had been. On the worst days, he was my tormentor. 
“What do you think, Dr. Archer? Interesting enough tagline for a vlog? What about ‘Baby in a Petri Dish’?” Nirvaan persisted in eliciting a response from the doctor and/or me for his ad hoc comedy, which we’d been ignoring for several minutes now.
I wanted to glare at him, beg him to shut up, or demand that he wait in the doctor’s office like he should’ve done, like a normal husband would have. Khodai knows why he’d insisted on holding my hand through this preliminary checkup. Nothing of import would happen today—if it did at all. But I couldn’t perform any such communication, not with my eyes and mouth squeezed shut while I suffered through a series of uncomfortable twinges along my nether regions. 
I lay flat on my back on a spongy clinic bed sheeted with paper already wrinkled and half torn. Legs drawn up and spread apart, my heels dug punishingly into cold iron stirrups to allow my gynecologist’s clever fingers to reach inside my womb and check if everything was A-OK in there. We’d already funneled through the Pap test and stomach and chest checks. Like them, this test, too, was going swell in light of Dr. Archer’s approving happy hums. 
“Excellent, Mrs. Desai. All parts are where they should be,” he joked only as a doctor could.
I shuddered out the breath I’d been holding, as the feeling of being stretched left my body. Nirvaan squeezed my hand and planted a smacking kiss on my forehead. I opened my eyes and focused on his beaming upside-down ones. His eyelids barely grew lashes anymore—I’d counted twenty-seven in total just last week—the effect of years of chemotherapy. For a second, my gaze blurred, my heart wavered, and I almost cried. 
What are we doing, Nirvaan? What in Khodai’s name were we starting?
Nirvaan stroked my hair, his pitch-black pupils steady and knowing and oh-so stubborn. Then, his face rose to the stark white ceiling, and all I saw was the green-and-blue mesh of his gingham shirt—the overlapping threads, the crisscross weaves, a pattern without end. 
Life is what you make it, child. It was another one of my father’s truisms.
Swallowing the questions twirling on my tongue, I refocused my mind on why we were here. I’d promised Nirvaan we’d try for a baby if he agreed to another round of cancer-blasting treatments. I’d bartered for a few more months of my husband’s life. He’d bartered for immortality through our child.
Dr. Archer rolled away from between my legs to the computer station. He snapped off and disposed of the latex gloves. Then, he began typing notes in near-soundless staccato clicks. Though the examination was finished, I knew better than to sit up until he gave me leave. I’d been here before, done this before—two years ago when Nirvaan had been in remission and the idea of having a baby had wormed its way into his head. We’d tried the most basic procedures then, whatever our medical coverage had allowed. We hadn’t been desperate yet to use our own money, which we shouldn’t be touching even now. We needed every penny we had for emergencies and alternative treatments, but try budging my husband once he’d made up his mind.
“I’m a businessman, Simi. I only pour money into a sure thing,” he rebuked when I argued.
I brought my legs together, manufacturing what poise and modesty I could, and pulled the sea-green hospital gown bunched beneath my bottom across my half-naked body. I refused to look at my husband as I wriggled about, positive his expression would be pregnant with irony, if not fully smirking. And kudos to him for not jumping in to help me like I would have. 
The tables had turned on us today. For the past five years, it’d been Nirvaan thrashing about on hospital beds, trying in vain to find relief and comfort, modesty or release. Nirvaan had been poked, prodded, sliced, and bled as he battled aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I’d been the stoic spectator, the supportive wife, the incompetent nurse, the ineffectual lover. 
And now? What role would I play now?
As always, thinking about our life left me feeling even more naked than I was in the open-fronted robe. I turned my face to the wall, my eyes stinging, as fear and frustration bubbled to the surface. Flesh-toned posters of laughing babies, pregnant mothers, and love-struck fathers hung from the bluish walls. Side by side were the more educative ones of human anatomy, vivisected and whole. The test-tube-like exam room of Monterey Bay Fertility Clinic was decorated in true California beach colors—sea-foam walls, sandy floors, pearl-pink curtains, and furniture—bringing the outdoors in. If the decor was meant to be homey, it wasn’t having such an effect on me. This room, like this town and even this country, was not my natural habitat, and I felt out of my element in it. 
I’d lived in California for seven years now, ever since my marriage, and I still didn’t think of it as home, not like Nirvaan did. Home for me was India. And no matter the dark memories it held, home would always be Surat.
“All done.” Dr. Archer pushed the computer trolley away and stood up. “You can get dressed, Mrs. Desai. Take your time. Use whatever supplies you need. We’ll wait for you in my office,” he said, smiling. 
Finally, I can cover myself, I thought. Gooseflesh had erupted across my skin due to the near frigid clinic temperatures doctors tortured their patients with—like a patient didn’t have enough to suffer already. Medical facilities maintained cool indoor temperatures to deter inveterate germs from contaminating the premises and so its vast flotilla of equipment didn’t fry. I knew that. But knowing it still didn’t inspire any warm feelings in me for the “throng of professional sadists with a god complex.” I quoted my husband there. 
Nirvaan captured my attention with a pat on my head. “See you soon, baby,” he said, following the doctor out of the room. 
I scooted off the bed as soon as the door shut behind them. My hair tumbled down my face and shoulders at my jerky movements. I smoothed it back with shaking hands. Long, wavy, and a deep chestnut shade, my hair was my crowning glory, my one and only feature that was lush and arresting. Nirvaan loved my hair. I wasn’t to cut it or even braid it in his presence, and so it often got hopelessly knotted. 
I shrugged off the clinic gown, balled it up, and placed it on the bed. I wiped myself again and again with antiseptic wipes, baby wipes, and paper towels until the tissues came away stain-free. I didn’t feel light-headed. I didn’t allow myself to freak. I concentrated on the flow of my breaths and the pounding of my heart until they both slowed to normal. 
It was okay. I was not walking out with a gift-wrapped baby in tow. Not today. No reason to freak out.
I reached for my clothes and slipped on my underwear. They were beige with tiny white hearts on them—Victoria’s Secret lingerie Nirvaan had leered and whistled at this morning. 
Such a silly man. Typical Nirvaan, I corrected, twisting my lips. 
Even after dressing in red-wash jeans and a full-sleeved sweater, I shivered. My womb still felt invaded and odd. As I stepped into my red patent leather pumps, an unused Petri dish sitting on the workstation countertop caught my eye. 
The trigger for Nirvaan’s impromptu comedy, perhaps? 
Despite major misgivings about the Hitleresque direction my life had taken, humor got the better of me, and I grinned. 
Silly, silly Nirvaan. Baby in a Petri dish, indeed.


About the Author


Falguni Kothari is an internationally bestselling hybrid author and an amateur Latin and Ballroom dance silver medalist with a background in Indian Classical dance. She writes in a variety of genres sewn together by the colorful threads of her South Asian heritage and expat experiences. When not writing or dancing, she fools around on all manner of social media, and loves to connect with her readers. My Last Love Story is her fourth novel.







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13 June 2016

A Storm Within

A STORM WITHIN - EBOOK COVER (1)

A STORM WITHIN (An Eternal Bonds Series Novel #1)
There's something dark lurking in the dreams of the students at Calvary High. AUBRIE MARSHALL thought his last year of High School would be filled with memories to last him a lifetime.
Instead, he’s learning his friends are his only salvation, the decisions he has to make could destroy
everything he’s ever known, and the only solution lies within him. MAKAYLA QUINN just wanted to get through her senior year without ‘guy drama’ and to mend things with Aubrie, her best friend.
Believing he was her soul mate she’s now put to the test by another love interest fighting for her attention.
With the two boys confusing her every step of the way… Can she figure things out or will she lose them both? Will they be able to weather the storms or will they lose the battle
with the darkness lurking from within?

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Top Customer Reviews

***** By Summer Girl on May 29, 2016
For her debut novel, C. Tuttle gave us an interesting take on the typical teenage angst, and I found it QUITE enjoyable! Aubrie, Paige, and Makayla have been friends since kindergarten, and now, on the cusp of graduating high school, find themselves faced with not only the uncertainty of the future, the ever changing emotional upheavals of their relationships with one another, but also with the unpredictable forces of Nature.Part coming of age story, part supernatural story, part new adult, A Storm Within is a fun and unique read and I can't wait to read the next one!

***** By Rebecca Moree on June 3, 2016
When I first heard about A Storm Within I was pretty well hooked. The premise for this book is so unique and fun! I'm not normally big on teen books, not sure why...I guess it's just not my thing. However, I knew I was going to be reading this one! While the characters constantly switching attitudes and repeated cheating drove me mad...it was accurate. It was the life of a teen. It was real.

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These characters are developed so beautifully that after only a few chapters I felt like I knew them. I may not exactly like them...I mean come on who really likes a cheater? but I knew who they were, I knew what they wanted, I even knew what their fears were. Put simply: they are good characters. I ADORE a book that can drag me in so deep that I have such strong feelings and reactions to the characters! Trust me when I say that C. Tuttle pulled that off and more. I spent the majority of this book screaming at my kindle trying to figure out what in the world these characters were thinking! The relationship between Brie and Kayla is breath-taking....and annoying as crap! If you two love each other so much...well stop being douches to one another dang it!! It's not that hard I promise! (See what I mean about getting emotional over the characters! I felt like I was back in high school standing between two of my friends that were constantly making bad choices when it came to their relationship.) Okay..moving on from my love-hate relationship with the characters. All you need to know is that they are extremely well developed, have wonderfully individual voices that let you know who each one is and what their personalities are...basically these characters are REAL! They come across as someone you may have gone to school with and just didn't know.


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About the Author:

C. Tuttle is a resident of Upstate NY where she enjoys the beautiful scenery and the wonderful people.
Moving here almost ten years ago, she has explored many of what NYS has to offer, from the amazing mountain views of the Adirondacks to the breathtaking skyline views of the city.
She draws inspiration from her surroundings and all the people she meets in transit. She works for an ambulance agency that covers portions of Central New York and beyond.
She’s been an EMT for close to ten years and enjoys the everyday grind of helping people and knowing she can help make a difference in people’s lives.

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Links to Social Media:

Facebook : www.facebook.com/ctuttleauthor  Twitter : @ctuttleauthor  Instagram : ctut_author  Goodreads : http://bit.ly/1Q2aLrY C.  Tutle's Page on The Owl Branch Book Promotions: http://www.theowlbranch2015.net/#!blank-8/xwrec



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Favorite Color & Hobby: 
My favorite color is Royal Blue. I have many hobbies! I love to hike, be out in nature, read books (a given), photography (I have my own company – MinionImages), color in adult coloring books…. And of course writing! Bringing characters alive, whether its in a short story or a book, I love to get to know the characters that come to me and learn their story. I love comics (Batman is my favorite) and usually Netflix – NCIS, Arrow, Gotham, and Law & Order: SVU – on rainy days.

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The Owl Branch Proudly Represents Author C. Tuttle
Please come come take a look at her page and other authors at
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09 June 2016

All of Me by Jonali Karmakar


ALL OF ME - Book Blurb:
All of Me is a collection of thirteen little stories that have been gleaned from real life as well as imagination. Exploring a range of genres, these throb with everything primal to human nature: fear, angst, joy, love, and longing. Some stories are designed to elicit smiles, chuckles, and maybe even a belly laugh or two whereas some are meant as a reality check. Universal in nature, each story provides a glimpse of what women empowerment or a lack thereof can mean in a person’s life.
From a small hamlet in India to the roads of Australia; from a mother’s betrayal to a daughter’s confession; from an extra marital affair to a same sex relationship learn for yourself the what, how and whys.

Originally written for anthologies and ezines, these stories have been revisited and updated for this new collection.  


About the Author:
Jonali Karmakar is a fiction writer with a Masters in English. Writing is not just her passion but her way of dealing with life. She loves being able to escape into the worlds she creates. Everything that she writes becomes a part of her and she wants her readers to know the woman behind those words. In addition to being an educator, she works as a content editor for a local news portal. She has been providing editing, proofreading and translation services for the past few years. 

Jonali’s work has been published in several journals, anthologies and poetry collections both national and international. An avid reader, she loves flipping pages of anything and everything on the table and reviewing the same on her blog Eclectic Moods. She feels that reading and writing are the flip sides of the same coin. Writing is her way of communicating with the world. When she’s not writing or teaching she loves to experiment with her paintings.


She has quite a few accolades to her name.

Contact the Author:

Blog * Twitter * eMail


This book was fabulous. Full of small stories that were sometimes sad, surprising, happy and explored the human condition. These were imaginative and gripping to read. At first I did not think I would like it because I am not partial to multiple stories in one book. But I have to say this book really threw me for a loop in how much it effected my heart, mind and soul. I appreciate this author's work immensely. The characters were written so well as to be true people and true situations. A must read.


The Owl Branch Book Promotions Proudly Represents 
Author Migraine Central Blog and it's affiliates. 
www.theowlbranch2015.net - theowlbranch2015@gmail.com




01 June 2016

Pieces Like Pottery by Dan Buri

Author Biography

Dan Buri's first collection of short fiction, Pieces Like Pottery, is an exploration of heartbreak and has spent time at #1 on multiple bestseller lists, including for inspirational short stories and inspirational fiction. The writing is uniquely heartfelt and explores the depths of the human struggle and the human search for meaning in life. 


Mr. Buri's non-fiction works have been distributed online and in print, including publications in Pundit Press, Tree, Summit Avenue Review, and TC Huddle. The defunct and very well regarded Buris On The Couch, was a He-Says/She-Says blog musing on the ups and downs of marriage with his wife.



Mr. Buri is an active attorney in the Pacific Northwest and has been recognized by Intellectual Asset Magazine as one of the World's Top 300 Intellectual Property Strategists every year since 2010. He lives in Oregon with his wife and two-year-old daughter.
and TC Huddle. The defunct and very well regarded Buris On The Couch, was a He-Says/She-Says blog musing on the ups and downs of marriage with his wife.


Mr. Buri is an active attorney in the Pacific Northwest and has been recognized by Intellectual Asset Magazine as one of the World's Top 300 Intellectual Property Strategists every year since 2010. He lives in Oregon with his wife and two-year-old daughter.


AMAZON #1 BESTSELLER. The first collection of short fiction from Dan Buri, Pieces Like Pottery, announces the arrival of a new American author. In this distinct selection of stories marked by struggle and compassion, Pieces Like Pottery is a powerful examination of the sorrows of life, the strength of character, the steadfast of courage, and the resiliency of love requisite to find redemption. 


Filled with graceful insight into the human condition, each linked story presents a tale of loss and love mirroring themes from each of the five Sorrowful Mysteries. In Expect Dragons, James Hinri learns that his old high school teacher is dying. Wanting to tell Mr. Smith one last time how much his teaching impacted him, James drives across the country revisiting past encounters with his father's rejection and the pain of his youth. Disillusioned and losing hope, little did James know that Mr. Smith had one final lesson for him. 



In The Gravesite, Lisa and Mike's marriage hangs in the balance after the disappearance of their only son while backpacking in Thailand. Mike thinks the authorities are right—that Chris fell to his death in a hiking accident—but Lisa has her doubts. Her son was too strong to die this young, and no one can explain to her why new posts continue to appear on her son's blog. 



Twenty-Two looks in on the lives of a dock worker suffering from the guilt of a life not lived and a bartender making the best of each day, even though he can see clearly how his life should have been different. The two find their worlds collide when a past tragedy shockingly connects them. 



A collection of nine stories, each exquisitely written and charged with merciful insight into the trials of life, Pieces Like Pottery reminds us of the sorrows we all encounter in life and the kindness we receive, oftentimes from the unlikeliest of places.


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Dan Buri is the son of an indie author. His father has two published books and countless article credits to his name. Dan’s first collection of short fiction, Pieces Like Pottery, is an exploration of heartbreak and redemption. His writing is uniquely heartfelt and explores the depths of the human struggle and the search for meaning in life.

Pictured here with his wife and daughter!