Alyssa McCarthy’s Magical Missions: Book 1: From Frights to Flaws by Sunayna Prasad

Alyssa McCarthy’s Magical Missions: Book 1: From Frights to Flaws

 Genre:Middle Grade Fantasy 

Author: Sunayna Prasad 

Publisher: FriesenPress (August 22, 2013)

 Pages: 216

 Language: English

 ISBN-10: 1460207017 

ISBN-13: 978-1460207017

Twelve-year-old Alyssa McCarthy can no longer stand the toughness of her uncle and wants a better life. But one day she discovers not only the existence of magic, but also a villain hunting her down. The villain uses magic and magical technology to kidnap Alyssa to the Fiji Islands. As much as she wants to go home, she has to face some dangerous challenges first. Not only that, the villain himself must also be defeated. Can Alyssa succeed, even with the help of her mentors?

Sunayna Prasad has been writing stories for over thirteen years, starting at the age of six. Now nineteen, she will start her junior year of college this fall, and will study accessory design as well as continue to write for children. Aside from that, Sunayna also likes to cook, watch movies, and draw. She lives on Long Island, New York, with her family.

 Her latest book is the middle grade fantasy, Alyssa McCarthy’s Magical Missions: From Frights to Flaws.

 Visit her website at www.SunaynaPrasadBooks.com.

Mommy Couldn’t Find Her Eyelashes by Mary Jane Fizer ~Spotlight & Giveaway~

Mommy Couldn’t Find Her Eyelashes

Author: Mary Jane Fizer

Publisher: iUniverse

Genre: Biography/Memoir

Pages: 110

Purchase at iUniverse

No one knows how unpredictable first graders can be better than a first-grade teacher. In Mommy Couldn’t Find Her Eyelashes, retired elementary educator Mary Jane Fizer shares excerpts from written papers and some of her favorite amusing and poignant conversations with her first-grade students, providing an unforgettable glimpse into the innocent, often uncensored minds and imaginations of children.

Fizer relies on more than forty years of experience in a classroom environment to offer a diverse compilation of funny sayings and heartfelt moments she experienced with her students. From the student who said he wanted to be both the President of the United States and a forklift operator to the boy who announced that he needed to see the nurse because he thought he had head lights, Fizer recalls the unpredictable moments of every day she spent in front of a classroom serving not only as a teacher, but also as a role model, stand-in mother, and a source of information who had to somehow find a creative answer to every creative question.

Mommy Couldn’t Find Her Eyelashes is a delightful collection of quotes from children that encourages all of us to find the pure happiness in every day—even when we are all grown up.

About the Author

Mary Jane Fizer earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Concord College in Athens, West Virginia, and a master’s degree in elementary education from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. She spent the last forty years of her teaching career in Prince William County Schools in Woodbridge, Virginia, where she still resides today.

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My Father and Albert Einstein by Joan Rothman Brill ~Spotlight & Giveaway~

My Father and Albert Einstein

Author: Joan Rothman Brill

Publisher: iUniverse

Genre: Biography

Pages: 160

Purchase at iUniverse

Joan Rothman Brill presents the life story and 1918 marriage diary of her parents, David and Ruth Samuel Rothman. David Rothman was forced to leave school after the eighth grade in order to help support his family. However his thirst for knowledge and self-study led to his friendship with an icon who changed man’s concept of the universe. David Rothman relates, through taped reminiscences, his word-for-word intellectual discussions and musical evenings with Dr. Albert Einstein.

About the author

Joan Brill is uniquely qualified to present David Rothman’s tape-recorded description of his friendship with Albert Einstein, since David Rothman is Ms. Brill’s father. Ms. Brill met Dr. Einstein, and was present at many of the events that are described in the narrative. Joan Brill is also a Juilliard-trained pianist-harpsichordist, with degrees from Long Island University and SUNY at Stony Brook.

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What They Don't Teach You In Sales School by Tony Rea

What They Don’t Teach You in Sales School

Author: Tony Rea

Publisher: iUniverse

Genre: Business/Sales

Pages: 258

Purchase at iUniverse

If you’re a salesperson struggling to close sales when you think you’ve done everything right, you could very well be taking missteps without knowing it. In order to help you avoid those mistakes, Tony Rea, a veteran salesperson, explains the basics of selling in this guidebook that can help you exceed expectations.

Rea offers guidance on:

• Sales fundamentals

• Effectively managing the sales environment

• Honing your perceptive skills

• Communicating to infl uence

• The mechanics of selling to close

While selling might seem straightforward, it’s really a complicated mix of politics, techniques, and psychology all mixed together. Figuring out how each one of those things works requires learning the craft and keeping at it.

This guide can be your go-to reference for advice on fi nding creative ideas, responding to objections, and making a great fi rst impression. The techniques you learn won’t just help you close more sales; they can serve to improve other areas of your life as well.

Whether you’re a newbie salesperson or high-level closer, you can start selling more by learning What They Don’t Teach You in Sales School.

About the author

Tony Rea holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Windham College and a degree in electrical engineering, specializing in computer science, from Northeastern University. He has been in high-tech sales for more than thirty years. He has worked in start-up companies and global corporations and has received numerous achievement awards. He lives with his wife, Melinda, and their two children in Massachusetts.

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The Secret on the Island by Dorcas Mladenka ~Book Blast & Giveaway~

The Secret on the Island

Author: Dorcas Mladenka

Publisher: iUniverse

Genre: Mystery/Suspense

Pages: 166

Purchase at iUniverse

As a research assistant for a Texas detective agency, Maggie Haslo has a knack for connecting the dots. She can see that the facts don’t add up in the suspicious death of her friend Mando. A history professor at the local university, Mando was killed in what the police are calling a drive-by shooting—but Maggie’s not buying it.

Before his death, Mando had invited Maggie to the diving site of a sunken Spanish galleon off the Gulf coast; when her friend, Sister Clare, asks her to come investigate suspicious circumstances at her convent on nearby Mustang Island, Maggie decides to combine trips. A few days later, a nun is murdered, and Maggie makes a shocking discovery: the deaths of Mando and the nun are related.

As she drives back and forth between the city and the island with her faithful German shepherd, Zoe, Maggie must put aside her sadness for the friends she has lost in order to be strong for friends that are still living. In the process, she meets more trouble than she could have imagined, but also a blue-eyed detective—who turns out to be trouble of different kind.

Maggie’s detective skills are about to be put to the ultimate test. Can she crack the case before another dead body shows up?

About the Author:

Dorcas Mladenka is a retired university professor who has spent a lifetime writing in personal journals, in workbooks for her students, and numerous unfinished collections of poetry and short stories. With retirement, she has finally completed her first novel. She currently lives in Texas.

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Gratitude Giveaway Hop

I was a part of this hop last year and it was so enlightening that I had to join it again this year.

I'm personally grateful for many things...

I have a wonderful family..

Friends that are AMAZING...

and I have all of you.

I'm gonna keep this short since there are quite a few blogs that are a part of this awesome hop.

I do hope you visit each and every one.

Complete list HERE

Thank you to Kathy at I Am A Reader, Not A Writer for once again putting together all these blogs for this hop.

Now to the good stuff.....

I have up for grabs a $10 Amazon E-gift card or a book up to $10 from the Book Depository.

It's simple to win just enter thru the rafflecopter.

Thanks to all of you for making this blog what it is today!!!

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Cover Reveal of Give Me Hope by Zoey Derrick

Welcome to the Cover Reveal of Give Me Hope 

by Zoey Derrick

An Angel is he...

From the first moment he saw her, MIKAH BLAKE was seized by an inexplicable need to protect Vivienne Callahan, a fragile but fiery young woman who’s awakened a slumbering power within him. With his encouragement, Vivienne has begun to turn her life around, and things seem to be heading in the direction of a slow but certain happily-ever-after. But that happy ending is side tracked by a rising evil that is determined to destroy her. 

When her dark past comes back to claim her, Mikah is caught in a whirlwind of events that lead him down a path he was born into but never understood. Until now. 

Can Mikah save Vivienne?  Will his love be enough? Will he be able to control his angelic powers and use them to protect his new found love?

Buy It Now  Amazon   Barnes and Noble   

It is from Glendale, Arizona that Zoey Derrick, writes stories as hot as the desert sun itself. It is this passion that drips off of her work, bringing excitement to anyone who enjoys a good and sensual love story.
 
 

Not only does she aim to take her readers on an erotic dance that lasts the night, it allows her to empty her mind of stories we all wish were true.
Her stories are hopeful yet true to life, skillfully avoiding melodrama and the unrealistic, bringing her gripping Erotica only closer to the heart of those that dare dipping into it. 
 
 

The intimacy of her fantasies that she shares with her readers is thrilling and encouraging, climactic yet full of suspense. She is a loving mistress, up for anything, of which any reader is doomed to return to again and again.


ONLINE LINKS:
• Website WWW.ZOEYDERRICK.COM
• Facebook WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/ZOEY.DERRICK
• Facebook WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/ZOEY.DERRICK.1
• Twitter WWW.TWITTER.COM/ZOEYDERRICK
• Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7060851.Zoey_Derrick
• Amazon Page http://www.amazon.com/Zoey-Derrick/e/B00CNZYGZU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

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Becoming Alice by Alice Rene ~Book Blast & Giveaway~

Becoming Alice

Author: Alice Rene

Publisher: iUniverse

Genre: Memoir

Pages: 284

Purchase at iUniverse

“Strongly recommended a deftly written memoir that will hold the reader’s rapt attention from beginning to end.”

-Midwest Book Review

“Her ability to authentically capture the bewilderment and pain of dislocation through a child’s eyes – including the disharmony in her immediate family – makes for engaging reading that will resonate with young adults everywhere.”

-Beth B. Cohen, Ph.D., author of Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in America, 1946-1954

Six-year-old Ilse watches Nazi soldiers march down her street in Vienna, Austria. It is the beginning of an odyssey that will take her to Riga, Latvia, and finally to Portland, Oregon. Becoming Alice chronicles her Jewish family’s harrowing escape and struggle as immigrants to fit into the American landscape. The added problems of growing up within a troubled family cloud her childhood and adolescence.

Ilse changes her name to Alice. Not until she moves into a boarding house in Berkeley, surrounded by girls from a patchwork of cultures, does she make peace with her true identity. Becoming Alice brilliantly showcases Rene’s triumph over adversity, identity crisis, and the sometimes debilitating power of family ties.

About the Author:

Alice Rene holds a master’s degree in social welfare. She lives with her husband in Southern California.

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Java Man by Harris Gray ~Review & Giveaway~

What do you do when a nightmare threatens your dream? In the disturbingly funny new novel from the authors of Vampire Vic, Brian Lawson receives a dread diagnosis: cancer. But he won’t spare a moment from saving his struggling coffeeshop, even if success comes with his dying breath.

Divorced and ostracized in the rural community, Andrea Goldine sets her sights on the charismatic java man. Brian’s doctors ravage him with chemo and radiation, yet the tumor on his shin grows. Brian drafts Andrea into his battle with a competing coffeeshop, desperate to tap the college campus’s retail gold mine. But Andrea yearns for a different partnership…

Passions simmer below the surface of the tight-lipped community. Fresh from prison, North Dakota’s legendary basketball goddess dangles a ticket to Brian’s campus coffee dreams, and a disgraced scientist’s toxin treatment tantalizes. Two miracles for two maladies—with one cure more deadly than the next.

Java Man: Goodreads | Amazon | Nook | Kobo | iBooks

My opinion

As I sit here drinking....surprise...Coffee!! I can't help but be in awe of the newest Harris Gray mind melding.

It's a wonderful journey into the everyday unknown.

Brian (wholly boogers!) is beyond. Yes, he has Cancer, but screw it...the Chemo may be tearing down his body, however he's gonna save his coffee shop!!!

I think it's all the ups and downs that takes this book to new levels. Unlike Vampire Vic (which I loved), this book could be happening right now, maybe right there in North Dakota....which I have to say was a rather odd state to pick....I keep picturing hot cowboys...LOL

As the story progresses one can't help but root for Brian (I swear if I write Brain one more time...lol). He's just that person that you want to make it, you want him to take his trials and overcome!!!

It's a shame coffee just isn't a cure all.

In my truest opinion Harris Gray once again delivers a stand out story. One that has you on a coaster enjoying every single word.
Well Done!!!
I look forward to reading more from this duo....

About the authors

In the nook seat of Jason Gray’s coffee shop, Allan Harris wrote. And eavesdropped, as Jason told stories. One day Allan found waiting for him a little yellow notepad, crammed to the margins with Jason’s tales. Allan typed them, touched them up, and called it good. Jason had other ideas.

A collaboration began. The writer and the storyteller. As their tales converged and became inseparable, as they were fused by the stories they told…all the king’s horses & men can’t un-make Harris Gray again.

Author Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon | YouTube

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Soul Prints by Norman Hines ~Spotlight and Giveaway~

Soul Prints

Author: Norman Hines

Publisher: iUniverse

Genre: Mystical

Pages: 148

Purchase at iUniverse

Set within the backdrop of a mystical battle between good and evil, the lives of two young people unknowingly struggle to complete their soul prints on earth. The local high school has taken on the onerous task of mounting the musical MAN OF LA MANCHA. Infiltrating the lives of the members of the production is a force that threatens to exert a mind boggling influence on the cast. Nuri Lemuel, a girl with a sweet soprano voice, and chosen to play Aldonza, the tragic lead of the play, has always longed to touch the heart of her unavailable father. Nathaniel is a fellow student with whom she is ill-fated for involvement. Unknown to her, he is a lost soul from the world beyond. So much of his life and memory is an unsolved mystery. Their efforts to fulfill the demanding reason for existence take them into a fearful world of the unknown.

Soul Prints is a poetic tale of grief, enlightenment and an underlying hope for peace.

About the Author:

Norman Hines is a graduate of Acadia University and the Nova Scotia Teacher’s College and has worked as a high school counselor and director of school and community theatre. Norman is one of the founders of the NOSCO Academy of Theatre Arts and is the recipient of awards for his work with children and community service. He currently lives in Truro, Nova Scotia.

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