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Thursday, April 30, 2020

Blog Tour: Hundredth




 Christian, Children’s
 Date Published: March 3, 2020
Publisher: Clay Bridges Press

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Inspired by Jesus's parable of the lost sheep, 'Hundredth' is the second book in the 'Pillow Stories from Heaven' series, sharing an imaginative retelling from the lost sheep's perspective. At bedtime with family or in a group, both children and parents will delight in listening to the unusual adventures of Hundredth as he goes from one personal transformation to the next. In the end, 'Hundredth' will lead the audience into deeper reflection and create opportunity for conversation.





EXCERPT


a sheep tried to eat two flowers at once.

“Such pretty flowers,
I bet they taste yummy!”






About the Author


Tom Aish grew up behind the Iron Curtain where he first met the risen Messiah. He studied studio art (MFA, Academy of Fine Arts) and later intercultural and film studies (MAICS, Fuller Theological Seminary). His many hobbies include photography, film, travel, nature and especially the mountains. He and his wife, Aly, currently live in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he writes children stories in short story format.


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Blog Tour: View Finder



Suspense
Date Published: 11/7/2019
Publisher: BHC Press

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REALITY...

IS IN THE MIND OF THE BEHOLDER

BB Danser, the patriarch of the eccentric and zealous Danser family, narrates his life story in View Finder. Set during Hollywood's Golden Age of greed, corruption, and scandal, his memoir is one of madness, passion, murder, and his desperate, lifelong effort to escape the confines of real and modern life.

The son of the famous actress Elizabeth Stark, BB is caught in the middle of his parent's tumultuous relationship and his father's crushing megalomania and jealousies. Desperate to escape, he becomes obsessed with movie cameras and cinematic storytelling, becoming transfixed with the question: Is it better to view or be viewed?

A roller coaster story of hope and vision, BB searches for about himself and his family in a world of industrialized fantasy making.






Excerpt

It took many short digs and looking around trying to remember before I hazarded my best guess as to where IM was buried. 
I began to dig in earnest. 
I experienced a new form of gratitude that summer afternoon. The sky was hot and blue, and I could hear passing boats in the cooling breezes. I was grateful that rotted clothing covered my father’s bones and stiff muscle tissue. When I located his raised knees, I turned my digging toward the lake in search of his shoes. With his left shoe partially uncovered, I backed up and dug in the area in front of his feet. I was grateful that there was no need to uncover his head, his skull. I was grateful that there was enough room in the hole for me to dig at a new angle. I stopped one time, dirty and slick with sweat, and looked at what showed of IM—his bony thigh and leg bones inside tattered cloth extending out from the dirt wall. And last, I was grateful when I opened the filthy briefcase before him. 
I had worried that the packets of cash would be ruined by years under the soil, but while the money had a foul odor, it was otherwise intact. I thanked the briefcase for its durability and decided to bring it along.




About the Author




Greg Jolley earned a Master of Arts in Writing from the University of San Francisco and lives in the very small town of Ormond Beach, Florida. When not writing, he researches historical crime, primarily those of the 1800s.

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Twitter: @gfjolle

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Also in iBooks


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Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Blog Tour: Clifton Chase and the Arrow of Light



Clifton Chase Series, Book 1
Juvenile Fantasy Thriller
Publisher: INtense Publications
Date Published: 4/11/2020

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There were plenty of other middle schoolers it could've chosen. Six-hundred and eighty-six, if you didn't count Clifton. The Arrow of Light appeared in his closet then whisked him away to a far-off land, where a dwarf and magical bird led him to two princes. He returned their arrow that he had somehow found and went home to his normal life. But the Arrow of Light had other plans. When Clifton found out that the king locked the princes in Drofflic Tower, he knew he must return to the past to protect the future. Enlisting the help of many mythical creatures and the princes' own sister, he managed to find the reason the Arrow of Light chose him. But magic can be wrong. And history longs to be told.



Chapter One
The Boy and the Arrow


The thought that this was a brainless thing to do hadn't crossed his mind until now. He fumbled to fit his bow, his fingers like gelatin, as classmates lined up beside him in Wickham Park. The rest of the seventh graders gathered around to see who would win the bet between Clifton Chase and the new kid, Ryan Rivales. The instructor counted down the seconds from his stopwatch, and Clifton swiveled around to see if a certain pair of green eyes watched him. Yup. Even Ava Harrington had come to see.
"Ready…" the instructor said.
As sweat stung his eyes, Clifton remembered why he'd taken the bet. It was this arrow. He'd found it mysteriously in his closet, and then it lit up for a split second. At least he thought it had. It seemed so otherworldly at the time, and when Ryan started in on him, the only thing he could think to do was show that kid up.
"Take aim…" the instructor continued.
Now he wasn't sure.
He pulled the notched arrow back. He had one chance, a single-shot test for precision, straight to the bullseye or whoever came the closest. Ryan wagered his sleek emerald green binary compound bow, but they both knew this bet was not about the antique arrow or the slick bow. It was for bragging rights, for pecking order.
For making it through middle school as king.
"Loose!"
On command, arrows arced through the air, landing on the targets or the wooden posts they were nailed to. Some struck the 3D molded deer, which now resembled a porcupine. A few arrows passed their marks altogether, landing out of sight in the tall grasses of the hilly sand dunes. 'The Hinterland' as it had been nicknamed. And that's where Clifton's arrow went.
"Archers….Halt!" the instructor shouted. "The range is now cold. You may retrieve your arrows."
Clifton lifted his backpack and stepped onto the range with the others.
"What happened?" Ava asked. "You usually have perfect aim."
Clifton's hands went clammy whenever she came around. It hand't always been that way, just recently. "Yeah well, I guess that crappy arrow wasn't as good as Ryan thought it was."
"Why'd you make that bet with him? Didn't you say you found that thing in your garage or something?"
"My closet, actually." Sunlight brightened her eyes and he stared a moment longer than he'd meant to.
"Well, it seems weird for you. I don't get it."
"There's not much to get, Ava,"
"Except my arrow," said Ryan as he neared them. "Nice shot, by the way." He snickered, and the few kids who'd tagged behind him laughed.
"Wasn't my fault," Clifton said. "I'd never shot it before."
"Doesn't matter now. I won the bet. My arrow didn't even need to land near the bull's eye, just on the target."
More laughter erupted, and Clifton turned away.
Ryan shoved him. "Where you going, Chase?"
Clifton did a one-eighty. "Going to get that worthless arrow you won. Must feel good to know your shot beat an antique."
Ryan's smile dropped. "My shot," he said in a clipped tone, "beat your shot. Now go find my arrow and hand it over."
Clifton's hands balled into fists as he left the circle to reach the edge of The Hinterland. Ava followed.
"I can't believe what a jerk that guy is," Clifton said. "Can you believe how epic he thinks he is? Like he's the greatest archer of all times...Robin Hood Rivales."
Ava's hands perched on her hips. "You're the one that tried convincing him your arrow was something special, when you knew it wasn't. Seems like maybe Ryan's not the one being the jerk. See you later, Clifton."
Clifton lowered his head, defeated. He'd lost the arrow, lost the compound bow, lost his dignity, and Ava thought he was a jerk. Now, he had to trudge through The Hinterland looking for the ridiculous arrow that started it all. He swore under his breath and headed up the dune.
Across the way, Juan Sanchez, another victim of inaccuracy, scanned the brush facedown like Clifton. He was about to suggest they join forces when something sunk through his sock into his ankle. Sandspurs. He'd run through a whole patch and took a few minutes to pick them off, which hurt his fingers as much as his ankles. As he avoided a red ant pile, he almost tripped on a root that jutted up like a step.
And still, he hadn't found his arrow.
About to give up and turn back, he glimpsed something copper-colored in the tall brush up ahead. Clifton spread back the grass to reveal the fletching. Were the feathers swaying? Nah, they couldn't be. There wasn't even a breeze. Then, he remembered how the shaft had glowed in his bedroom. No, way. This arrow was as plain as any other. And what did it matter?
It wasn't his anymore.
He grabbed the arrow, and as soon as he touched it, a wave of dizziness passed over him while a CRACK filled the air. Clifton stood, turned to head back toward the range, but froze. He was standing in the middle of an open field covered in yellow flowers that rolled like carpet into the base of  the surrounding snow-capped mountains.
The Hinterland was gone, replaced with a shimmer in the air like heat off a highway. And with a sudden sweat he realized that Wickham Park was gone too. 

About the Author

Jaimie Engle writes fantasy thrillers for teens and tweens. Her anti-bullying message has reached tens of thousands of students throughout the US, and her books have hit #1 on the Amazon New Release List. Metal Mouth, her magical realism for teens, is a contender for the 2020-2021 Florida Sunshine State Book List!  Before publishing her first novel, Jaimie danced at the Aloha Bowl halftime show, was an alien on Sea Quest, and modeled bikinis for Reef Brazil. When not writing, Jaimie can be found on TikTok or cosplaying at comic conventions. Learn more at www.theWRITEengle.com.


Contact Links

TikTok @jaimieengleauthor


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Also available on iBooks


Giveaway

1 paperback & 2 ebooks



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Tuesday, April 28, 2020

PROMO: The Noisy Classroom



Picture Book
Date Published: 5/5/2020

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The first day of school is coming… and I’m going to be in the noisy class. Any class but the noisy class will do!

A young girl is about to enter the third grade, but this year she’s put into Ms. Johnson’s noisy class. Everything about the noisy class is odd. While all the other classes are quiet, Ms. Johnson sings and the kids chatter all day. The door is always closed, yet sounds from it can be heard in the hallway. With summer coming to an end and school starting, the girl realizes that soon she’ll be going to the noisy class. What will school be like now?

Featuring the honest and delightful humor of debut author Angela Shanté and the bold, graphic imagery of debut illustrator Alison Hawkins, The Noisy Classroom encourages those with first-day jitters to reevaluate a scary situation by looking at it from a different angle and to embrace how fun school can be, even in nontraditional ways.










About the Author

Angela Shanté is writer, poet, editor, and educator, with a Masters in Elementary Education and an MFA in Creative Writing. She has taught elementary school for ten years. In her own classroom, she believes in having fun, playing games, moving around, dancing, and enjoying the education experience, even if it occasionally gets loud. Angela lives Los Angeles, California.



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Monday, April 27, 2020

Blog Tour: End Average


Christian, Personal growth
Date Published: March 3, 2020
Publisher: Lucid Books

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Everything we do either gets us closer to or further away from becoming the husbands our wives deserve, the fathers our kids need, and, ultimately, the men God intends us to be. 'End Average' is a reality check for men identifying as Christians. Ryan Hansen dives into what it takes to achieve permanent heart change that leads to balanced and consistent growth in faith, relationships, health, and finances. Through examples from his own hard-learned lessons and from wisdom found in the Bible, you'll see what faith in action looks like between Sunday sermons. 'End Average' will challenge you to start living with intentionality and purpose as you seek to glorify God in everything you do.






Excerpt

Introduction

This book is for the guy who is sick of being average.
What are you doing with your life right now?
Will it matter in five years?
As I started my journey to become the man God intended me to be, my answer to that last question was a resounding no. I was average. Perhaps below average. I was a mediocre husband. We were living paycheck to paycheck, and my closest friends hardly realized I thought of myself as a Christian. Deep down, I knew there was more to life. I knew there had to be more. The hard part of being average and trying to become more is that average is comfortable. It’s what culture drives us to be, but as Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”1 The average man is complacent and lethargic. It ruffles feathers to speak your mind and stand by your worldview, so it’s easier to do and say nothing. Men, not only can we be better than that, but we need to be better than that!
Gentlemen, as believers in Christ, we are called to glorify God in all we do. We are supposed to reach unbelievers with the gospel. We’re called to sharpen each other through community. The next generations need us to lead by example.
Being average simply wasn’t good enough for me. This book is about learning what it means to end average in our lives. It’s also about learning how to stay on course once you’ve figured out what biblical “right” looks like.
My journey has been made up of countless hours of studying the Bible, learning from academic studies, and being mentored. As I learned new concepts, I experimented with new habits and mentalities, testing the things I was learning in order to see whether they worked in the real world. Some things worked, and some did not. As I sifted through information and ideas, I realized that it would be impossible to cut through all the expert advice we’re overwhelmed with either online or in bookstores. Spirituality, relationship management, fitness, money management—there are thousands of directions the gurus want to take you. I had to go back to the source. I decided that the Bible is where I needed to start.
When Secret Service agents are trained to detect false currency, the first thing they do is learn and study real currency. They learn the feel, the look, the smell, and the nuances. Only upon mastery of the real bills do they move on to learn about various ways false currency is printed and how to spot it.
In the same way, learning the truth directly from the Bible made it easier to see through all the noise and misinformation. A clear pattern of biblical habits and mentalities started to become clear. It boiled down to this: I learned that a real personal faith in Jesus Christ is the single most important thing in our lives. The Bible tells us exactly how to get that faith and how to grow it.
I also learned that there are clear guidelines about how to glorify God—how to glorify Him in the way we choose our crowd and influences, use our money, and take care of our bodies. These are very practical lessons that help us see that we get to glorify God in everything we do.
As you’ll discover, attempting to control and change behavior for the wrong reasons is more useless than a cup of decaf. It simply doesn’t matter, and you’ll chase your tail until you’re ragged, and then you will give up. Ask me how I know. Heart change is what we’re after. Change your heart to seek what is holy, and the thought patterns and behaviors will follow.
Gentlemen, this book is about flexing our faith between Sunday sermons. Practical living as a Christian man is not that complicated, but it does require intentionality and vulnerability.
In this book, you’ll find the real-world habits that keep me growing in my walk with God, my relationships, my physical health, and my finances. They are all very much intertwined. You’ll also find out that there is no life-hack, sermon, course, or seminar that will turn your life around with one simple trick. If that’s what you’re looking for, then this book isn’t for you. I can teach you the life lessons I learned the hard way so your learning curve won’t be as steep as mine was at the beginning.
Understand this, though. I do not claim to be perfect. I’m far from it, but I feel compelled to write this book because I see the potential that is completely dormant in a huge percentage of Christian men today. Hopefully, I can combine the experiences I had growing up abroad as a missionary kid with the lessons learned as a special operations operator in the Army and deliver these concepts in a new way that will make sense to you. I hope to give you real, practical, and actionable advice that you can implement today.
I served in my Army unit in psychological operations for several years over the course of multiple deployments with men I consider brothers. One Saturday, those men invited me to go bowling with them the next day. I declined and said, “Sorry guys, I’m going to church tomorrow morning.” With a confused look, one of my buddies looked at me and said, “Dude, you’re a Christian?” It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was ashamed. I have identified as a Christian since I was a child, but my behavior, language, interests, and attitudes told a whole different story.
That was the moment I realized I needed to correct my course and begin to end average in my life. Mediocrity and complacency had to go. I started that day, and I’ve never looked back.
Join me as I tell you what I’ve discovered since that moment.
Let’s do this.






About the Author


Ryan Hansen is a coffee-loving author and speaker with a calling to help those around him find Jesus. He is married to his lovely wife, Jenna, and together they are raising their four children in California. After growing up as a missionary kid in Italy and Germany, Ryan joined the U.S. Army and spent eight years as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and as a psychological operations staff sergeant. After leaving the Army, he earned an MBA while pursuing a sales career in the medical industry. Aside from daydreaming about being able to one day play the guitar well, Ryan spends his time playing with his kids, improving his beer-brewing abilities, and (unsuccessfully) talking his wife out of more Disneyland trips.

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Blog Tour: Stumbling Toward God



A Prodigal’s Return, 2nd ed.
Spiritual/Religious
Date Published: March 11, 2020

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STUMBLING TOWARD GOD traces a woman’s spiritual search with an unusual twist – from an “atheist who prays” to unorthodox membership in two contrasting churches: Unitarian and Episcopal. In the second edition of her forthright memoir, McGee shares new adventures on her spiritual quest, culminating in personal encounters with a God of love. An honest, satisfying read for anyone questioning or seeking a spiritual path. First Place for Nonfiction Book in the PNWA Literary Competition. Includes Reading Group Guide.

"An offbeat, engagingly written, appealingly uncertain spiritual memoir." – Publishers Weekly





Excerpt

In the fall of 1986, I was an atheist. All the same, I wrote this prayer: 
Dear God, sustain me in my hour of need.
Stay with me; be my friend.
When I misstep, light my path.
When I hurt, comfort me.
Help me see that I’m not the only one in pain.
Give me the strength to accept myself for what I am.
Amen. 
I didn’t believe the universe was created by the deliberate act of a sentient Being. I believed that no such Being watched over us, heard or responded to our prayers, loved us, felt joy when we were good or sorrow when we were bad, or felt anything at all for that matter. 
Holding that opinion, I wrote my prayer. After writing it, I cried and felt better. I read it again the next day, taped it to my computer monitor, and prayed it on an almost-daily basis for weeks. As an atheist, what did I think I was doing? 
The only thing I knew was that something had changed inside me. Like many people who have a paradoxical experience with God, I was in a mess—a mess that involved other people—and looking for a way out. 
A year previously, I had been invited to join the board of a regional writer’s conference. I got the invitation in response to an angry letter I wrote to the board president explaining what was wrong with the way they did things. I didn’t have much experience with board work at that time, so it was a big surprise to me when they responded to my angry letter by asking me to join up and help them solve all their problems. I accepted the invitation. I was eager to do good. 
As it turned out, I hated virtually every aspect of board work: the endless phone calls and meetings, the political gymnastics required to get more than one person to agree to anything, the shocking realization that not everyone on the board saw me as their savior. After the first year of my three-year term, half of me longed to resign. The other half was sick at the thought. It wouldn’t be the first time I quit a worthy project because I couldn’t take the heat. Was I incapable of teamwork? Too sensitive to get things done with other people? I admired people who succeeded in work like this. Was I too small to be one of them? 
One afternoon, having fielded the third phone call that told me secondhand what some other committee member thought of my latest idea, I sat at my desk, put my head in my hands, and said, “Dear God. Dear God, help me.” Then I lifted my head, picked up a pen, and wrote the prayer. 
Right away, I felt different. As if I’d been drowning in stormy waters and my flailing arms struck something buoyant. Or as if a cool sheet had fallen over me during a fevered dream. The next day when I read the prayer again, I felt better again. I tinkered with the wording a bit, but the essential message didn’t change. I felt as if this prayer had been given to me. It was easy to write, unlike other things I write. I felt that the prayer engaged me in a two-way conversation. My side of the conversation had content. The other side didn’t have any content that I could tell, but neither was it like talking to a blank wall. The conversation moved me from one place to another. It changed me. 

Ripe for grace 

I was in trouble when I wrote that prayer, and the prayer helped. It contained the elements I needed to calm down and focus. It reminded me that I wouldn’t find my way out of the forest until I admitted I was lost. It helped me remember that other people hurt as much as I do, which helped me forgive them for the pain I thought they caused me. And finally, it gave me permission to be myself. To accept myself. Which was not to say, “I guess I’m just a screw up. I can accept that!” No, I had to face wrongs and try to get them right. But when I did that and at the same time accepted myself in all my fallibility, a glimmer of light appeared in the distance, and I wasn’t lost anymore.
In retrospect, the prayer seems wiser than I was at the time—wiser than I am today. I have a certain amount of common sense, but I’m not a dependable source of eternal truths. At the moment I wrote that prayer, I was about as far from eternal truth as you can get. 
It had been years since I’d thought or read much about religion, so the underlying principles in the prayer weren’t on my mind. I resented the people I worked with and their interference in my plans. I hated my job on the writer’s board and longed to quit. The only thing that stopped me was an intense desire not to fail, or not to appear to fail. 
This was not the mountain top where sages see clearly; this was the tangled bog where fools trip and fall in the muck. 
And yet the situation was ripe for grace. It’s easy to see the signs of a fruit ready to fall: the brittle stem, the yellowed skin. I thought I knew best, a frame of mind begging for a fall. I was brittle with anger, and anger is not a bad starting point on the road to grace. Also, I was pushing for change. Mostly I wanted to change other people, but I knew it might be good for me to change, too. 
I just didn’t expect to suffer in the transformation.  
© Margaret D. McGee, 2020


About the Author

Margaret D. McGee writes books about being alive in the cosmos, paying attention, and making connections. Her parents were both preacher’s kids, and her father pursued a successful career in public education. These two themes—applied faith and applied intellect—returned in her middle years when she joined the Episcopal parish and Unitarian Universalist fellowship in her small town. She says, “Going back and forth, week on, week off, between the “prayer-book” Episcopalians and the free-thinking
Unitarians provided an essential bridge in my spiritual path—a bridge that led me to a new place.” McGee has had a varied career, including a time at the Microsoft Corporation, where she was employed as a master writer. She now lives in the Olympic Peninsula with her husband, David. In addition to Stumbling Toward God, her books include Sacred Attention and Haiku – The Sacred Art, both published by Skylight Paths Publishing. Her liturgical prayers and skits have been used by faith communities across the United States, and can be found at her website, InTheCourtyard.com.

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PROMO: Suppose the Relevance of Daniel



Religion
Published: November 2019
Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing

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Too much to be coincidental.

Were Daniel's dreams and visions almost 3000 years ago talking about today?

Not many pages but crammed full of hair raising comparisons to what the world looks like today.





About the Author


Bobby James is a first time author and devoted follower of God, who lives in the Pacific Northwest.

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