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Showing posts from February, 2022

Book Spotlight - Jaxon and the Naughty Secret Monster - Madeline Pratchler

Today we're pleased to be hosting Madeline Pratchler and her book Jaxon and the Naughty Secret Monster , as part of her Goddess Fish book tour! Let's meet the book... Jaxon's enthusiasm for the simplest things bubbles out of him, and ideas continually pop out of his very large brain. His delight in helping plant the garden with his family creates a magical learning opportunity, and he's well on his way to being as smart as his dad. But sometimes his zest needs to be clamped down, and his blurting embarrasses others. When Dad shares a surprise for Mom, Jaxon discovers the secret monster: a naughty guy who lives inside him, waiting to blab as soon as his mouth opens. Jaxon swallows him down and tells him to be quiet inside his head, but will that monster listen? And what about the next time when Jaxon plots a prank on the ice cream man? And here's an excerpt to whet your appetite... Our family gathered at the garden’s edge the next morning. Bossy and Pepper eagerly ...

Book Review - Alexander the Great versus Julius Caesar - Simon Elliott

Today's #HistFicThursdays blog is not fiction at all! Instead, I'm delighted to be sharing a Book Review for Simon Elliott's book Alexander the Great versus Julius Caesar - Who was the Greatest Commander in the Ancient World? I'm so grateful to Pen and Sword Books for providing me with a copy of this book. These are two men I knew about vaguely, all the myths and legends and very little of the facts. And this book certainly took me deep into the intricacies of their military campaigns. It debunked a few of those myths I thought I knew, setting the record straight, and quite honestly making this pair a whole lot more engaging. From the word go, I liked this book. Even before I got to the introduction, I loved the dedication. From it, I thought I might just have an inclination of which way the competition would go! The honesty of the author made the book very accessible, as he listed the fellow possible challengers for the title and why he had chosen these two. There ar...

Book Tour: The Gecko Without An Echo

Out now! The Gecko Without An Echo by Cheryl Bannerman (Author) and Anushka Bansal (Illustrator) Blurb: In a hollowed tree, in the woods, by the bay, lived Earl the Squirrel and Tim the Gecko. With his best friend right beside him, Tim wandered through the forest, calling out high and low – hoping to hear his echo. But sometimes what we are looking for is right in front of us! Let's find out how Tim discovered that when you need someone to listen, all you need to do is reach out to those who love and surround you. Author Bio: Cheryl Denise Bannerman is an award-winning, multi-genre author of seven self-published books. She is the winner of the 2018 Book Excellence Award for her book of poetry, Words Never Spoken, and winner of the Best Books Awards in the category of African American fiction in 2020 for Black Child to Black Woman. She is also a Semi-Finalist in the MLC Audiobook Awards with a 2020 IMDb Nomination for Book 1 of the Anna Romano Mystery Series, Cats, Cannolis, and a C...

#HistFicThursdays - The Crossing - Ashby Jones

This HistFic Thursday, I am pleased to be teaming up with Goddess Fish Promotions in hosting Ashby Jones and his evocative historical novel, The Crossing . Let's meet his book: The Crossing is a powerful and haunting love story of surprising discovery set in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen during Prohibition. Its mission seeks to reconcile love and guilt, grief and promise. Set apart from other stories, it combines history, fact, surrealism, and reality into an ever-recycling boost of the human spirit. Irish-born Johnny Flynn, a former British soldier, is banished from his homeland and sent to America on a ship so riddled with disease that he realizes the voyage was meant to murder him. When he survives the trip, the captain forces him to walk the plank into the Hudson River. Miraculously, Johnny is rescued by a rumrunning Irish gang, the Swamp Angels, and given a job running whisky in Hell’s Kitchen just as Prohibition makes liquor a hugely profitable, dangerous business...

Book Review: Even Heroes (by G. A. Bassier)

Just to start off with a point of clarification: this book was advertised to me as Upper Middle Grade. It is definitely not Upper Middle Grade. The first clue is the length (around 93k), but it also contains drug taking, domestic violence and school shootings, as well as including curse words. Reading it, I stubbornly continued to see Vincent as being 15, rather than 13. The review which follows – and the stars awarded – views it as a Young Adult book. I have so much I want to say about Even Heroes. The first thing is that I was desperate to know how it ended, which is a sure sign of a good book. I was invested in the characters from early on, but I really did not like Vincent. He’s exceptionally judgmental about everyone around him and, because it’s all from his point of view, you get every sniping thought which goes through his head. But that’s not a bad thing at all – for a protagonist who fancies himself a superhero, the antihero vibe works very well. I felt particularly so...

#HistFicThursdays - Horrible Histories 2 - Mary Seacole

Images conjured up by the phrase "Crimean War" tend to include the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale as the Lady of the Lamp single-handedly fighting back cholera and treating the wounded. These are certainly what we were told about in school and were reflected in the children's history books. I ended up being amazed that the allied forces ever managed to beat the Russians... These sort of odds were bound to make a great book! Medical history tends to make an appearance in all of my books, so it's no surprise that I opted to make my heroine a nurse. I began researching Florence Nightingale's work and was surprised to find it was not the story I'd been told in school. I'd been led to believe she was a battlefield nurse, but her hospital was so far behind the lines many wounded men would have died long before they reached it. No, this was no good for my heroine. She had to be a roll-up-her-sleeves-and-get-the-job-done woman. Sh...

#HistFicThursdays - The Scribe (The Two Daggers, Book 1) - Elizabeth R. Andersen

Today for #HistFicThursday, it is my absolute please to welcome Elizabeth R. Andersen and her fantastic series, The Two Daggers . Here, Elizabeth takes us into 13th century Acre, dispelling a few misconceptions and welcoming us to the world of The Scribe and The Land of God ... Acre Harbour, present-day. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Imagine you are in that sacred space between sleeping and waking when your body slowly becomes aware of its surroundings, and the deliciousness of sleep is still with you. As you emerge into consciousness, you notice the hardness of your bed and the chill in the air. Instead of a soft, spring and foam-filled mattress, you feel an unfamiliar crackle of straw when you shift your weight. Something’s not right. You open your eyes and stare at the ceiling – wooden poles and thatch instead of painted drywall. You went to bed in the 21 st century and woke up in the 13 th . Will you be able to blend in, or will you be immediately noticed as an ...