Book Catch Up and Stuff

Alright people, I'm a slacker. I admit it and that's the first step, right? I planned on catching up last weekend when I went to the Tour de Safford with my husband. (Whoever thinks it's fun to ride a bike for 104 miles, I question their sanity but a couple hundred people did it that day! More power to them.) Well, instead of catching up I was asked to help with registration which took up my entire free day. Oh well, such is life. The race went well and it was nice to get away.

Then this weekend I had my sister's baby shower and a Pre-Thanksgiving dinner since I've cancelled Thanksgiving this year (hoping I'll be in the hospital having a baby). Needless to say, I

haven't had much time in between.

So here's the plan. There's a great book I know just came out that I'm going to buzz about, then I'm picking a couple of books to do a review on. If I don't get to all my reviews this year, I

'm not going to stress. You can always take a look at the books I've read on my books read page. Then, depending on the length of this post, I might put my Mary Kay sale in this one or the next tomorrow. We'll see.

Anyway L. C. Lewis' fourth book Oh, Say Can You Can You See? I believe is out and going. Here's

the backliner blurb.

Although the British raids

have left Washington a devastated, blackened city, the battered Constitution has held and the presidency has survived!

But the struggling government has no home. The British saw to that. Gone is the Capitol and her magnificent library, the chambers of the Supreme Court, the President’s House, and every relic and document not secreted out of the city.

Next on the list of British prizes—the rebellious port city of Baltimore! A victory here would assure the Americans’ defeat, but a loss would dilute the importance of the destruction of Washington.

But has the raid on Washington stiffened the backs of the Americans? This is the question gnawing at the leaders on both sides.

The Willows women are mourning their absent men—gone to war, or wounded, or captured—as they await the birth of a blessed child.

Mere miles away, attorney Francis Scott Key embarks on a diplomatic mission that will leave an everlasting mark on America. Proving that a pen can be more powerful than a sword, Key records his fears and hopes—the fears and hopes of his embattled people—as he watches the bombardment of Baltimore while detained in the midst of the British fleet.

What changed in this noble man’s pacifist heart, empowering him to pen the powerful anthem, known today as “The Star Spangled Banner,” an epic poem that rallied a shattered nation to rise from its knees to claim the dream of “one nation under God?”

Experience the personal sacrifice of five families placed in the firestorm of the War of 1812, citizen

heirs of the sacrifice of the Founding Fathers.

It sounds like a wonderful book. I've had several family members read it and absolutely love the series. It is definitely on my list of books to read. Take a look and let me know what you think! Here's the book trailer.

Now to book reviews.

I've read three by Janette Rallison, Trial of the Heart, Deep Blue Eyes and Other Lies, and Masquerade. Trial of the Heart is a darling love story that

was a fun read that I just enjoyed. It is clean and just good fun about a cleaning gal who gets left a multi-million dollar vineyard. She then gets stuck with the family that hates her because she is talking about the vineyard into something else, believing she is fulfilling the wishes of the person who left her the vineyard. Just delightful.

Deep Blue Eyes and Other Lies threw me back into high school. I forget sometimes how cheesy high school was, however I loved how Rallison portrayed the real consequences of people's actions and how sometimes you can't solve everyone's problems. Good lessons learned in this book.

Masquerade is written under the name Sierra St. James. It's another fun romance. I loved the interaction of the characters with the two young children in the story. It was very realistic and made it for a good read that is also clean.

And now I'm amazed at how quickly my energy level depletes. So I'll do more later. Life shouldn't be as busy now. Ha, ha, ha. I think I've said that before.

Book Reviews

It's just not working for me to catch up. Between my sister and I, we've had three baby showers this week. Plus, I've played for a wedding, taught lessons, helped clean and prep for some of the showers and the list goes on. I promise I will catch up, I just don't know when.

Anyway, I'm finding I read library books faster than the books I own (probably because I have to return them in a certain amount of time). The latest is Gena Showalter's Unraveled. I really liked the first one Intertwined and I enjoyed the second one. The concept is really interesting, but in Unraveled I felt like there were almost too many subplots. Is that possible? I also felt like one of the characters whined a lot. I know why now, but it was a bit much for me. I enjoyed the story and it was an easy read besides that. Let me know what you think!

Book Buzzin' and Book Review

Ok, so I'm way behind in everything. I'm not going to make any excuses, I just haven't done it. I have been hard at work on my book Encoded Secrets and am really excited about the progress. Anyway, here a book I'm buzzin' about and at least one review. (I haven't decided if I'm going to do more than one right now. :)

Save the Child by Margaret Turley is now out. It is about what a family does when their child contracts cancer. I

had the opportunity to help with the line edits and have to say it's a tear jerker, but a good book. Margaret and several other authors are having a book launching party on Nov 4 from 7-10pm at the Wright House, 636 W. University Dr. 85201 in Mesa, AZ. It should be a lot of fun, so stop on by and take a look. Here's a link to the book trailer and an interview with the author below.

Question: Why do you write?

Answer: I must. I am compelled to put my thoughts down in paper.

Question: Do you have a particular goal you aim to achieve with your writing?

Answer: Are the goals different for other projects?

Question: What is your book titled?

Answer: Save the Child

Question: What genre are your books and who is your target audience?

Answer: I wrote my book as a fiction novel. I felt that I would reach a larger audience that way. I am aiming for Parents, Grandparents, Law Makers, attorneys in Family and Health Law, and Healthcare givers.

Question: Was there a particular person or event that inspired you to write this story?

Answer: In 2003 I heard about the Parker Jensen case in Utah. I felt great sympathy for the parents. I have followed that case and others since then and started my project to write a book about parents rights to choose their children’s healthcare at that time.

Question: Tell us about the hero / and or Heroine in your book/s.

Answer: Nancy and Robert Johnson are the parents of Sharon Johnson – an eight year old girl who is diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Nancy is vehemently opposed to chemotherapy, considers it poison. Robert is a law student and asks his professor for help with their case when CPS comes in and removes custody away from them and gives it to the state.

Question: Tell us about the villain. Is it a person, thing, or circumstance?

Answer: The villain here is cancer a vicious disease. The Johnsons are also opposed by the doctors and by the law.

Question: How do you discover the characteristics of your characters? Please elaborate on one or two of those.

Answer: I relied upon many of my own personal experiences and observations of parents in similar circumstances of patients I’ve cared for over the years. I also interviewed several parents who had children who have had cancer. I used the char

acteristics I observed and wove them into the characters in my book.

Question: Do you write your book from beginning to end, or start with the end or in the middle? Why?

Answer: I started writing my book from beginning to end. But I hit a major block, not being able to move forward when there were parts that needed to happen in the middle that I didn’t know how to orchestrate. After taking the Crafting the Character-Based Novel from Dr. Pamela Goodfellow I stopped trying to write in a linear plot based fashion and instead focused of fleshing out characters and creating scenes she taught us about in her uniquely designed Scaffold process. By doing that the story more or less took care of itself.

Question: After you wrote the book/s how long did it take you to get it published?

Answer: I gave the manuscript files to my editor last year August. So it is a little more than a year later now that the book is published.

Question: Who was the first person you told when you found out your book was being published?

Answer: My daughter Serena. I was so excited and she shared my joy enthusiastically.

Question: Where can we purchase a copy of your book/s?

Answer: You can order the books from my website: Save the Child. It will also be available through Amazon.com soon.

The launch for Save the child will be at the Goodfellow Book Celebration on Thursday evening, November 4^th, 2010 from 7:00pm until 10:00 pm. Our event will be held in the Wright House Reception Centre on 636 W. University Dr. Mesa, Arizona 85201. I am one of eight authors who will have books in this event. We have joined together with our book producer Dr.

Pamela R. Goodfellow to form the group: Writers Unite to Fight Cancer. We are holding a silent auction during our event to help raise money for the American Association for Cancer Research.

Thank you for allowing me to share Save the Child and Writers Unite to Fight Cancer with you today. I hope you and your family will remain healthy and cancer free.

Margaret L. Turley RN

Book Review

Since we have a baby coming into our life we've been given countless suggestions and lots of advice. Someone suggested to my husband that we read On Becoming Babywise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, neither of which have websites of their own, but rather lots of sites that reference them and their work. With a title like that who could not be interested in this book because we all know that if baby is awake, mommy is awake. So we read it

and really like the principles found in it. We will try and it and see if what they say really happens, but it was great information either way.

I do have to admit that the first time through the book I became very overwhelmed. So my disclaimer is read it twice. The first time everything will seem daunting, but the second time around it becomes clearer and seems more doable. I think it's so overwhelming the first time because you already have a lot to think about and this is just one more thing, but looking at the principles it makes sense and I don't see why it wouldn't work. So take a look and let me know what you think!

October Mary Kay Sale

October

.

MK Men skin care, Men's fragrances and MK Suncare. All of it is 20% off this month. (As always, if you are a follower or become a follower, you get an additional 5% off orders of $40 or more.) Pamper your man with a set or something new from any of the Mary Kay Men's collection. The man in your life will love any of it! Order on my website or leave a comment here. Questions, let me know!

Also, Christmas is around the corner. Mary Kay is a wonderful gift for anyone on your list. There will be gift packages posted soon with discounts of course! It's never too early to begin thinking of the holidays!

Please have orders in by noon on October 31st.

So I didn't make it last week

Ok, so I didn't make my goal of catching up last week. I'm amazed at how quickly life can pass by. One of my excuses is I went to the LUW Writing Conference this weekend in SLC. Fabulous. I loved it, met a lot of wonderful people and learned a ton. Now I'm really gunho about getting my WIP polished and ready to go. So I'm starting new this week. Here's one book I finished awhile ago.

Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex by Eion Colfer. I remember really enjoying the Artemis Fowl series and figured I stick with it. The story was a good, quick read that was just fun. It's interesting to think what would happen if our subconscious decided to take over. I enjoyed Colfer's take on that and how Artemis' friends had to deal without him to save the world this time. I would recommend this book for all ages as a good, fun read.

I'll do more later, but I'm really excited to get working on my book. So TTFN! (I had someone ask me what that meant today. Anyone know? I do, I'm just curious if anyone else does. :)

Enjoy the Ride!

Once again I had all the wonderful plans to get all caught up on book reviews and life happens. Actually it helped me put life into perspective. We had a good friend of my husband's pass away this week. He's been transferred to three different hospitals and was finally called home. We helped with everything we could and participated in a wonderful Celebration of Life for him on Thursday.

Needless-to-say my focus hasn't been on book reviews. It was another reminder of how precious life is and how quickly we can be called home. Cherish those you love. Tell them you love them. Don't let anything go unsaid. You never know what the future holds. Don't live with any regrets and enjoy life. It's quite a journey, enjoy the ride.

So I am setting the goal to do one book review a day until I'm all caught up-with the disclaimer that if anything else happens this will be the thing on the back burner. Prayerfully we will have a break from such an emotional week and I will be able to fulfill that goal. :)

September Mary Kay Sale

September

Colors, Colors, and more colors! Anything and everything that has color in it. Eye shadows, Cheek colors, Lipsticks, Glosses, Liners, and Bronzers.

All colors are 20% off with a free gift on orders $40 or more. Then to get an additional 5% discount, simply become a follower of my blog. Already a follower? Not to worry, you get the discount automatically for a grand total of 25% off your purchase. Can't beat that! Hope on over to the Virtual Makeover and have fun with new Colors! As always you can order via a comment here or at my website. Any questions, let me know!