Out of the Shadow by J.S. Winn

This is a classic Whodunit story accompanied with tragedy and loss.

It is based on a story of a girl named Rachael (I will refer to her as Becca, because that is what she is referred to as for most of the story) and her struggle with repressed memory. It begins with the tragic loss of her husband as well as her being raped in her own home. She begins seeing a Psychologist, Sarah, for help. She feels as though her recent rape has a connection to abuse that occurred when she was just a child.

This book runs two story lines at the same time. Sarah, the psychologist, is holding a weekend convention speaking about Becca's case. This is how we hear about her story. It isn't told in real time. It is told by Sarah to her audience.

Sarah describes many men that Becca comes in contact with through the course of her story. You never exactly figure out who the rapist and murder is until it starts being revealed towards the end. It keeps you guessing throughout the whole thing and really holds your attention. I felt like it was every guy at one point or another. It took me til the end, when it was explained to truly figure it out.

I love how this book was written. I was hooked from the beginning and didn't want to put it down. I was sad when it ended because I wanted it to just keep going. 

Overall, 5/5 stars. This story was fun to read (despite the rough topics) and I would recommend it to suspense lovers like myself.

To hear more from J.S. Winn visit her blog at: authorjswinn.wordpress.com
To purchase the book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008PYM59C it is inexpensive, and you will not regret buying it, I promise!

A Child Lost in Flight: Moving On After Tragedy on Flight 229 by Mohan K.

From tragedy to moving on, this story takes you through it all.

It was one of the saddest books I have read in a while. It is a non-fiction memoir about the loss of a child. It is very heartfelt and touching, and I am sure it will hit home to all young parents who worry about their newborns. While, hopefully, the occurrences in the story will not happen to them, having a newborn child always leaves parents with a small sense of paranoia with everything they do.

This book was very well written. It was short – only 60 pages but took you basically through hell and back. Overall, it is a story about recovering from a terrible tragedy, and while time may heal some wounds, you need support from friends, family, and sometimes religion to be able to heal enough to move on with your life. This story is very inspirational, and reminds you not to take the simple things in life for granted. 

Overall, this book receives a 5/5 for me. It was very well written, and I was hooked from the first page. I needed to know what was going to happen.  I encourage everyone to pick up this book. It is very short and inexpensive, and the struggle that Mohan and his wife went through needs to be brought to light. You will not regret this purchase.

Once I finished this book, I contacted Mohan and asked him to express his motivation for writing this book:  “I found it cathartic to write about my experience, grief and attempt to move on. The book is intended to demonstrate how my wife and I moved forward after the tragedy, perhaps an inspiration for others undergoing life crisis. Although I delve into my grief and loss, the goal was also to demonstrate human triumph over tragedy.”

To hear more from Mohan visit his blog and Twitter:  http://achildlostinflight.blogspot.com/

@authorchild_los 

This book is available through Amazon as an ebook. You can check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008E9KKCW

A Small Update!

Hello, everyone! 
I was searching around on the gadgets here on blogger, and I found one that allows you to add a photo. 
You will find this on the right side of the page next to the most recent blog post. The title for it is "Currently Reading:" This allows you to know what I am reading right now, and which review to expect next! One really cool thing about this is that if you click on the book cover, which is the photo I will post with it, is that it will take you directly to the link where you can purchase the book.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone, and keep reading!

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I am going a bit off topic for this post. But I think you all will be able to handle it. 

As you all know, or maybe not, it is October, and October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The month to bring to attention the struggle that many women go through. While a lot of you may know someone who is currently going through a difficult time with cancer, breast or not, others of you do not.
That is what awareness months are put in place for. For the individuals that are diagnosed with Breast Cancer, their lives are changed all in one moment. 
While some of us will have the luxury of never finding out what that is like, too many people do. 
I want to encourage you all to visit this website http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/breast-cancer-awareness-month?gclid=CImKy8jC5bICFYQ7Mgod1igAyA and donate if you can. I know not everyone will be able to, and that is fine. But, every little bit helps. 

Note: I did not make that photo. i found it on google images. if you know who made it, let me know and ill give proper credit.

On a side note - October is also book month! So keep reading and writing!

Have a wonderful October, everyone, and there will be new reviews coming soon!

I.M. Revolution by Matt Lloyd

Have you ever wanted to make money online but didn’t know how or didn’t have the patience to learn? This handbook was written just for you. It is short and inexpensive. No reason to pass it up.

This handbook is an extremely easy read. It isn’t filled with ten dollar words when a one dollar word will do. Because, honestly, no one would read it from cover to cover. The purpose of this handbook is to help you. Matt uses extremely real numbers and situations. He isn’t trying to pull a blindfold over your eyes and make you think that you are going to get rich in a week. He even admits to not being a wealth guru. I think starting off his handbook by acknowledging this upfront will encourage someone to keep reading. There is no reason to feel deceived by what he is trying to tell you.

Matt is very real with his story. He opens himself up to the reader in his handbook. That is something that many businessmen are not willing to do because they want to come across as having no flaws. Matt is willing to tell his hardships that got him to where he is. That, in my opinion, is very respectable. You have to be honest if you want people to take you seriously.  He makes sure you know his personal story so that you can relate with him. He didn’t start making big money overnight, and he wants to push that point. There are dozens of books and web ads that state differently, but with this one, you get the truth.

One of the most important lines I found in this handbook is: “But here’s the thing: Most of these guys don’t make money doing the things they teach. They make money online by selling ‘how to make money online’ stuff. That’s it.”

Now, he is exposing the truth to how these so called business masters get their riches: from selling their ideas, not actually putting their ideas to work. Their ideas might not even work at all, but they don’t care because they are making huge profits off of their so called “success stories.” Before you starting becoming skeptical and asking “well, isn’t that what this guy is doing?” No. That is why he laid down the basis of his personal story before he goes into the details of how to make your profit. Plus, his handbook sells pretty cheap.

Matt sets you up with detailed steps to help you through the difficult process of starting up an online business and actually making money. His steps are very easy to comprehend and follow.

At the end, he goes on to explain his own business more in depth and invites you to become a partner. While he cannot possibly accept everyone, everyone has a fair shot. And if you are dedicated to working, why not give it a shot, right?

Overall – 5/5 stars. It was not boring at all like some handbooks could be. I found it actually very interesting. If you want to learn how to make money online, this is a must read for you. Trust me. 

Arn? Narn. by Bruce Meisterman

“'Arn? Narn.” It is said to be

the shortest conversation

in Newfoundland.'”

While reading this book and looking through the photos, I had to wonder whether the author lived in Newfoundland, or had extreme interest and visited in order to document his story.

Arn? Narn is a photography novel filled with black and white photographs taken in Newfoundland. The supporting text tells the story of the struggling culture. They thrived off of fishing for cod. Without an abundance of cod, now, they are trying to make end meet however they can. It also expresses the culture of the people. Through the photos of citizens you get a hint as to what the people are like that live there.

While there is text surrounding the pictures telling the story of the suffering culture in Newfoundland, I feel like the photos are telling the real story. You can feel great emotion just looking at the photos. More than you would feel with just text alone. That is the beauty of these types of book. They incorporate two different ways of telling a story to make you truly understand their meaning. Without the text, the pictures would have no place. You wouldn’t know what you were looking at. Without the pictures, the story would be emotionless.

This book is a beautiful representation of how these types of book are supposed to be laid out -- Beautifully written text to accompany the truly emotion-filled photos of the struggles in Newfoundland.

Not knowing much about Newfoundland, I found this book informational and well as a pleasing to the eyes. I feel like a have knowledge of a new culture that I never knew about before.

Arn? Narn is a beautiful story told through words and breathtaking photography.

5/5 stars for me

Please take a moment to click through to learn more! http://fjordsreview.com/featured/arn_narn.html 

Read ahead for spoilers

Arn? Narn. Preview

Hello everywhere! Here is a neat little trailer for Arn? Narn. I am going to post a review of this book in a few moments, but please have a look at the video too!

Thanks for reading!
-Courtney

Hello Readers!

I came across this interesting thread in my email this morning, and it applies with my blog here. 
http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11570
Here is the link. Take a look! Tell me what you think!

Have a great day everyone!

-Courtney

Casting Stones by Laurencia Hoffman

Casting Stones seems like your average story of a dysfunctional family with a bit of a romantic twist thrown in. That is, until you realize there are werewolves involved! Usually, books involving werewolves, vampires, and other creatures are not my reading material of choice. So I figured that my opinion on this book would be a good one to have.

Avery Stone is a cast out from most of his family except his parents and his brother Chance. He never really had a stable relationship with his lover, Simone. His life was a mess, but no one took the time to get to know him. When clans of werewolves started getting murdered, everything got worse. His family blamed him, but little did they know, they were completely wrong and onto the wrong person.

What I really liked about how Hoffman told this story is that the fact that the family is made up of werewolves is not the main story line. It is sort of a subtle detail, except when they transform of course. It is sort of a new way of writing these types of stories. I haven’t read many things in this fashion before. I really liked that.

Another thing I liked about this book was the characters. Okay, I didn’t like all of the characters. But, I liked how they were developed. They all had separate story lines tied into the main story, Avery Stone being the main character. The interesting thing about the character development is that this book is relatively short – under 100 pages on the Nook version. So, the fact that she was able to develop the characters in this short of a story, while actually have the story progress is something that some well-known authors can’t even do with 300+ pages.

So for me, this book fully earns 5/5 stars. It was a really great read.

A Boy Named Ray by Marissa Marchan

A Boy Named ray is a story about Ray, of course, and his parents Theo and Mary.

The beginning of the story is a perfect set up for tone and flow of the story. It sheds background light on Theo and Mary’s lives together and apart. From the start, I thought that the story would be one filled with sadness. Once the story picked up however, it took on a different tone. It became happy.

After many years of wanting; Theo and Mary are blessed with a son. What they don’t know at first is that Ray is a gifted child. They were afraid that because they are disfigured, that their child would be as well. But, that wasn’t the case. Instead, he was an angel. A true gift from God. 

A Boy Named Ray teaches you to never judge someone by how they appear on the outside. They could be the most disturbing looking person, but have the kindest heart and be the most loyal person you will know. This ideal is often lost in our world and people are judged based upon their appearance every day.

This story also teaches us that we should really value our family.  They are the ones who will help you and guide you through the rough times in life. You have to accept that they may not always be perfect. But they love you and want you to be happy. Life is complicated. But, if you can set issues aside, your family will be there for you the majority of the time.

A Boy Named Ray was a very nice story, and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t expect to finish it in one day – even though it’s pretty short, but I did.

There was one thing that was wrong throughout the story and that was the tense of some of the words. Some words were in the past tense where it made no sense for them to be. I would just suggest a quick read-through and fix of those words. It isn’t too big of a deal, but it was just one thing that bothered me while reading.

4/5 stars for me. The tense needs to be looked at.