Leaving Triscuit by Will Pollock Excerpt & Giveaway

LeavingTriscuit_BannerWelcome to my tour stop of “Leaving Triscuit” by Will Pollock, presented by Elite Book Tours.  To follow the full tour, please visit here.

“LEAVING TRISCUIT” IS FREE ON AUGUST 9, 10 AND 11!

Leaving Triscuit

Say “hello” to better good-byes! “Leaving Triscuit” is a blueprint on how you can heal the stress of leaving pets while you’re away for work or leisure.

This poignant and personal story is woven with advice from animal- and human-behavior experts who contribute affirming, indispensable strategies to strengthen and even improve the unique bond between pet and parent.

Using picture imaging and harnessing the innate, unspoken connection between pet and parent, your separation anxiety will fade away and a greater understanding will be formed.

Buy @ Amazon

TRAILER

EXCERPT

Triscuit gazed at me with forlorn eyes and a worried mug. Agitated and distressed, she was in effect saying, ‘Good grief, not again.’ Triscuit hopped on the bed and straight into the suitcases, as if to plant her flag and insist I pack her, too.

As a canine parent, you know this doggie agenda: eyes as big as saucers, ears pinned back, shoulders slumped, spirit hanging low. Like Triscuit and so many other dogs and cats of her intuitive ilk, she knew.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Pollock is a freelance multimedia journalist, content wrangler, artist and author based in Atlanta. His love of dogs and animals began early on when his family owned a Great Pyrenees in New York City named Yeti.

He decided to write “Leaving Triscuit” after the stress of leaving his beloved Rat Terrier, Triscuit, while on a three-week trip to Ireland. Separation anxiety is a problem for most pet owners, and the tips and strategies Will learned  from experts will help ease that pain.

Website 

GIVEAWAY

Will is giving away 3 ecopies of his book to the winners of the below Rafflecopter!

The giveaway ends August 24th and is open INTERNATIONALLY!

Giveaway
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Learning to Stutter by Sherm Davis

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Welcome to my tour stop of “Learning to Stutter” by Sherm Davis, presented by Elite Book Tours.  To follow the full tour, please visit here.

BUY NOW @ AMAZON!

Stuttering Awareness

Kenneth Kocher seems to have it all – a good heart, a sense of humor, decent looks, and lots of money. What he doesn’t have is something most of us take for granted – freedom of speech. Kenneth lives with a severe stutter which has wreaked havoc with his life since childhood.

After much embarrassment, pain and soul-searching, Kenneth realizes that to free his inner self he must accept the fact that he cannot be cured, and that he must learn to stutter with grace. Along the way he meets another stutterer and a young widow who are both dealing with the stumbling blocks in their own lives.

Using an experimental syntax to portray the neurological component of the syndrome, the novel gives the reader a unique view of stuttering from the inside out.

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PRAISES FOR “LEARNING TO STUTTER”

This is an extraordinary book. It’s the inside dope on stuttering. And if one person was born to tell the story, it’s David Sherman. And does he have a story to tell. The plot is consummate, the writing proficient, the pacing skillful, with a clarity of detail that renders it very realistic.

After awhile, I found myself caring about all the characters, even (or particularly) the minor ones, oftentimes because they reminded me of myself, and were therefore incredible familiar.

It is a reflection of the author’s versatility –as educator, in math and Language Arts, as musician and writer –and diversity –Jewish, New York born and bred, having resided all over the world –that some parts of the writing even speak to the Oriental in me.

As each of the characters, stuttering and non-, go about their lives, problem-solving, adapting, you cannot help but see the parables at a universal level.

Resonant, poignant, and ultimately elucidatory, this book get an A+ from me.

—- Ling T., Guatemala

In addition to those who struggle with dysfluency and their friends and family, I highly recommend this novel to educators and speech pathologists to ensure their understanding of the multi-faceted impact that this neurological syndrome can have on one’s identity.

—- Shari Mayerson, MS, CCC-SLP

EXCERPT FROM “LEARNING TO STUTTER”

Why is the name so difficult? Perhaps because there is no way to reach into the verbal bag of tricks which every person who stutters carries with him in a desperate attempt to seem normal.

Word substitution (the favorite of all stutterers who block more on certain sounds than others) is impossible when the name is fixed and finite.

Linking the end of one sound to the start of another to increase fluidity is impossible also, because the name begins with a specific sound, and most stuttering occurs on the initial syllable of a word.

But the great author, unaware of Kenneth Kocher’s internal trauma, was in a hurry, and only scribbled his name and gave a cursory nod before moving on to the next person in line. It was only as he was walking away that KK realized that he was fixating on his own name, and hadn’t said a single word to one of his personal heroes.

On the heels of this humiliation, he still had one more errand to run, and it was better to get it over with early in the day. When he entered the toy and game store, he really didn’t know what he was looking for.

He walked up and down the aisles of the small shop, but couldn’t find anything that struck his fancy. Finally the shopkeeper, a jovial man in his fifties, horseshoe bald with a red pate and dramatic waxed moustache like the character from Monopoly, came over and played the part.

“What are you looking for, son?”

“A gift for my six-year-old nephew,” was the sentence that formed itself with perfect clarity, sonority and resonance in his brain. But just after the sentence was formed, he scanned ahead and found a stutter reflex embedded in the /g/ in gift.

Automatically, he sought to substitute a synonym, but in this case he couldn’t even substitute the word present, because the /p/ was his nemesis, the hardest sound in the lexicon and one to be avoided at almost any cost.

So he got past the opening vowel and then hit the hard /g/ like an electric fence.

His larynx locked and he started pushing against it with brute force, but it wouldn’t budge.

His face and neck started twitching, and his left eye was blinking out of control. The harder he pushed, the harder he jerked and twitched.[1]

Finally he caught hold of himself and let go of his breath. Inhaling anew, he substituted one sound for another. “^Ssssssomething fffffor mmmmy nephew.”

It was stilted and spasmodic, but got the point across, more or less.
He could see the surprise in the storekeeper’s face, but he was used to seeing this.

All his life, he had been watching people try to figure out how to respond to his twisted speaking voice.

“Well,” the man said, maintaining an amiable front, “what is your nephew like?”

The second interaction of the day, and it wasn’t going well, either. He was floundering in a neurological rut, and he couldn’t make it stop.

His larynx slammed shut on its own accord, his left arm shot into the air like it was connected to an invisible string, and the muscles in his face and neck began quivering under the strain.

He pulled himself together and responded slowly, too slowly, “^~I…. ^d-d-don’t know. I nnnnnever see him.”

“Hmm,” the shopkeeper tugged at his moustache. “That makes it a bit more difficult, but I’m sure we have something.

Are you looking for something educational, mechanical, sports-oriented, or just plain fun?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Sssomething he ‡can ^g-grow into.”

The paunchy man nodded sagely from behind his suspenders and his bowtie. “I’ve got just the thing,” he said, and went into the back roozm. The shopkeeper returned with a magnetic construction set, simple enough for a young boy but advanced enough for his father to enjoy as well, and handed him the box. “What do you think?”

KK nodded his appreciation and gave a thumbs-up, too taut to say anything. On other days, he might have made the effort to ask the man to gift-wrap the box, but when a day began like this, every word was precious.

“This is a gift for a nephew who lives far away?” the man deduced.

“Would you like me to wrap it for you?”

Exhaling a sigh of relief for the man’s telepathy and compassion, KK nodded his head and handed him a credit card. Walking out of that toy store, he was unable to even thank the man.

Cursing himself and vowing to never shop in a store again for as long as he lived – he’d shop online instead – he stuffed the gift in his backpack and started power walking through the streets.

OTHER BOOKS FROM SHERM DAVIS

This bilingual English/Spanish collection contains pieces ranging from flash fiction to folktale.

Set in New York, New & Old Mexico, Guatemala, Italy, and the future, eight morsels of Zap Fiction lead off the collection, and five longer stories close it out.

The Spanish translations, the product of a team of professionals, are as true to the original English as possible.

Buy NOW @ Amazon | Createspace

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Howard Sherman Davis is a writer, musician and international educator who has taught in five countries on four continents. Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised on Long Island, he currently lives by Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. His journalism and fiction have appeared in the United States, Canada, Guatemala, and online.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Soundcloud

Review – A Gathering of Butterflies by Sean C. Wright

 

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Review for A Gathering of Butterflies

by Sean C. Wright

 

From the depths of Lucifer’s office to the heights of heavenly solace, this quartet of vignettes offers snapshots into intimate moments in the lives of three souls and one demon. Sean C. Wright’s A Gathering of Butterflies shows a masterful command of succinct language while creating vibrant characters with whom we can understand on the most basic of human levels, even when one is God’s fallen angel himself: Lucifer, a fun-seeking devil; Hazel Hogan, an overweight woman who is befriended by aliens; Fan Nealy, a 12-year old on her special day, and Genie Slayton, an accountant who does the world a favor.

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Each story captures an “encounter” that addresses quiet triumphs of justice in a threatening world. “Devil Does Dallas” is a playful jab at the challenges a seemingly righteous Lucifer faces when dropping in (or up) on mortals to collect the souls of the sinful (Sadam Hussein makes a cameo appearance). “Hazel Hogan” relates the pitiful and purposeless existence of a mistreated compulsive eater, Hazel, who is raised to greater heights of confidence through a clandestine exchange. “Bubble Bath 12” is afloat in the innocence and wonder in the power of kindness from a stranger and the sharing of the small things in life that can make a lifelong difference.

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Finally, Wright closes the collection with “Heaven’s Halfway House” that shakes off earth’s mortal coils to explore the pauses in life that propitiate reflection and recognition of our purpose in the world.
There is a Sandra Cisneros-like voice in the style of Wright who exacts a character portfolio without unnecessary flourishes in the writing. Her resourceful use of figurative language, “…his voice didn’t have the feathers and bubbles that were in the voice of the other boys his age,” and “Question marks sprouted on the bushes of their brains…” for example, provides an effective balance between pointed storytelling and imaginative imagery.

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Unpredictable and entertaining, A Gathering of Butterflies delivers four stories, which like the errant paths of butterflies, entrance the gaze of the reader until the final page!

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

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Tales of steely but vulnerable women of color will melt your heart while lifting your spirits… A fierce grandmother keeps her grandson from the clutches of Old Scratch in Devil Does Dallas. An alien abduction transforms a large, miserable woman in Hazel Hogan. A country girl meets a city girl on her birthday, and struggles to decide if the girl’s heart is dark or light in Bubble Bath Twelve. And methodical

Genie forms an unlikely relationship in Heaven’s Halfway House while in a coma.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Sean C. Wright is native to Dallas, TX, and earned adegree in English from University of North Texas. She is the author of the short story collection A Gathering of Butterflies, the novella Honey Riley. Actress Jessica Biel directed a short film based on her winning essay in 2010: Sodales (18 minutes). For more information about her writing skills and how she can assist you with yours–for business or consumer needs–visit http://www.iwrightaway.com/.

        

 

Review- Your Invincible Power: How to Tame Your Ego and Fuel Your Ambition

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Your Invincible Power: How to Tame Your Ego and Fuel Your

Ambition

BY Pamela Hamilton & W.T.Hamilton

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*****Review*****

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How do you like your steak? Being in charge of your life (the steak) becomes a matter of knowing the answer to this question, as well as not relenting until you get what you want. And if you are not satisfied? “Send it back!” Your Invincible Power: How to Tame Your Ego and Fuel Your Ambition by Pamela Hamilton and W. H. Hamilton provides the blueprint for not only understanding your options in life, but empowers you with the utensils to carve it up and make it taste just the way you want!

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Review- The Opposite of Love by T.A. Pace

Welcome to my tour stop of The Opposite of Love by T.A.Pace.  The full tour schedule can be seen here.

Review

The Opposite of Love by T. A. Pace

Ingredients to a successful relationship? To love? Good sex, according to thirty-something and single Melanie Leon who cannot seem to make the leap of commitment and instead relies on the “friends with benefits” approach… until she meets police officer James Perolo in T. A. Pace’s The Opposite of Love. As witness to a tragic car accident resulting in the death of an infant, Melanie recounts the impressionable details to Perolo who follows up with a phone call offering some emotional consolation that leads to a first date.

 

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Violet Chain by J Kahele

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VIOLET CHAIN

BY J KAHELE

Review

*****

J Kahele has done it again! This was an outstanding read and I enjoyed every bit of it. From the beginning, I was hooked by the believable characters. I instantly felt drawn to Violet and I was thoroughly gripped by the time the character Chain was introduced. The supporting characters were also believable. The hidden passions were cleverly woven in and I really felt captivated by their emotional and sensual discoveries.

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The Replacements (A Bruno Johnson Novel) by David Putnam

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Welcome to my tour stop of The Replacements 

by David Putnam.

REVIEW

*****

It was always about the kids. Just when Bruno Johnson believed he was safe from his past, he is ferreted out in Costa Rica and enticed to return to a world of emotional turmoil, kidnapping, and criminals. The Replacements by David Putnam puts the reader on the fast track to a dangerous mission where three young innocent lives are at stake. Former LA cop and convict, Johnson, remains true to his principles when he grants a favor to a former colleague of the Montclair Police Department and friend, Barbra Wicks, for the sake of three children who are victims of a vengeful serial kidnapping by a suspected Jonas Mabry. Bruno is the only one the kidnapper will deal with in negotiating a deal.

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New Release by Kisha Green

Crazy Sexy Deadly

by Kisha Green

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Book Description

Crazy, Sexy and Deadly is a compilation of some of Kisha Green’s most popular short stories. Take a journey to a place of mental seduction, love, betrayal, deceit with the perfect splash of erotica to entice the reader’s palate. All women have a beast within but only with the right chemistry can one bring one of the three out; the crazy, the sexy or the deadly…

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Review – Taming of the Tida by Eslynne Smith

TAMING THE TIDA
BY ESLYNNE SMITH

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REVIEW

TAMING THE TIDA

Tired of American politics? Author Eslynn Smith has a remedy in the character of Sharmin Smith, the former first female President of the United States in the book Taming the Tida. The story launches with the strange disappearance of Smith, now in her elder years, when a lightning flash signals the tragic event at the White House and her assumed passing to the other side. The news devastates the country.

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Review – Celtic Sister by Meira Pentermann

 

CELTIC SISTER
By Meira Pentermann

Celtic Sister by Meira Pentermann

REVIEW

Anguish of the soul is either the lit fuse of destruction or the launching pad for personal triumph. Meira Pentermann’s novel Celtic Sister is a powerful struggle with both. Amy Richardson finds herself in an abusive marriage where a push down the stairs and subsequent miscarriage serve as the catalyst for seeking a way out. However, her road to true suffering begins soon after with a whisky bottle and a yearbook, and a nagging question of “Who is Emma Foster?” and “What happened to her?”

 

Continue reading Review – Celtic Sister by Meira Pentermann