Category: iRead tour

August 16, 2021

The Art of Time: A Mother – Daughter Sprezzatura on the Spirit of Time Spotlight

The Art of Time offers concepts and images that introduce readers to a new—and wonderful—realm of being.

About The Art of Time: A Mother-Daughter Sprezzatura on the Spirit of Time

In The Art of Time: A Mother-Daughter Sprezzatura on the Spirit of Time, Martine Therese and her daughter, Martina Franca, invite you into a lush world where time has no limits. Consisting of paintings, meditations and poetry, The Art of Time merges maternal & youthful wisdom into a one-of-a-kind artistic showcase with a powerful message: humanity’s experience can be enhanced by developing our minds into sensual thought.

A gorgeous book to be treasured by everyone from art connoisseurs to children, The Art of Time offers concepts and images that introduce readers to a new—and wonderful—realm of being.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

About the Author

Martine Therese was a practicing Certified Public Accountant when she became pregnant with her daughter, Martina Franca. She decided to leave her accounting job and focus on her daughter instead. The transition, while “brutal,” completely transformed Martine’s life, and opened up a whole new world of possibility.

For Martine, who has been writing poetry all her life, motherhood expanded her creativity, and she finally felt the courage to bring her work to the world. Martine and her daughter discovered a love for painting, and their artwork, combined with Martine’s poetry, form the basis of The Art of Time; A Mother-Daughter Sprezzatura on the Spirit of Time. The book is a token of their shared loves and talents.

Martine and Martina Franca are putting together a follow-up collection on the topic of what it means to be human, exploring the theme of building the potential of humanity. Martina Franca embraces her maternal side on a daily basis, be it with caring for her baby dolls or her puppy, Marcello. She gets a kick out of tailgating with Mom and watching people’s reactions, and playing practical jokes like hiding Daddy’s shampoo bottle, and she loves having conversations. She regularly chills out with Mom during yoga in their special “rainbow room,” a room just for the two of them to recharge. On sunny days, gorgeous rainbows fill the wall of the Rainbow Room, and Martina and Mom bask in those colors—which is why Martina loves infusing her art with rainbows.

You can connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.

Giveaway!

Enter to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card here.

Disclosure: This is a spotlight tour, I did not receive compensation for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.

August 3, 2021

The Shade Under the Mango Tree

The Shade Under the Mango Tree is an epistolary tale of courage, resilience, and the bonds that bring diverse people together.

About The Shade Under the Mango Tree

After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home in California and Hawaii where she grew up. An adventure in which she can also make some difference.

Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s journal at a café. Though he has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it, they don’t stop him. His decision changes his life forever.

Months later, they meet at a bookstore. Fascinated by his stories and adventurous spirit, Luna goes on a Peace Corps stint to a rural rice-growing village in Cambodia. There, she finds a world steeped in ancient culture and the lasting ravages of a deadly history. Will she leave this world unscathed?

My Thoughts

I fell in love with this powerful story of finding yourself, your history, forgiveness, hope and so much more.

Our two main characters, Luna and Lucien, are brought together over the loss and found of a special journal. A journal that describes a young woman’s journey dealing with family, love, loss and change. We watch as Luna’s grows from a youth to a bright young woman with fears and emotions that we can all relate to. We are witness to her vulnerability, her hopes and her dreams. How she grows with each change in her life and her courage to put herself out there and to want more. We are also witness to Lucien’s past, his fears and how he has arrived to where he is today. It is this journal that will change his life together – especially after he meets the author of the powerful words.

I fell in love with this story – I could not put it down. I loved Luna, she felt like a close friend as I read each page. Your heart hurts for her at times and at other times you are praying for her to fly and chase the dreams and the future that she deserves. I loved how the two came together at such an important time and turning point in each others lives. They give each other the hope to dream again, to reach for the stars and to have faith in love and soul mates. This is a definite must read novel!

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon, B&N, Kobo and iBooks.

Enter the giveaway here.

Rating: 5/5

Book Trailer

About the Author

Evy Journey writes. Stories and blog posts. Novels that tend to cross genres. She’s also a wannabe artist and a flâneuse. Evy studied psychology (Ph.D. University of Illinois) so she spins tales about nuanced characters dealing with the problems and issues of contemporary life. She believes in love and its many faces. Though she has traveled to many places, she has one ungranted wish: To live in Paris where art is everywhere and people have honed aimless roaming to an art form. She visits and stays a few months. Connect with her on her website and Twitter.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

July 6, 2021

Road to the Breaking Book Review

Nothing survived “The Breaking” unchanged; lives and fortunes, love and hate, freedom and slavery.

About Road to the Breaking

It’s early 1860, and war hero Captain Nathaniel Chambers, commander U.S. Army Fort Davis in the west Texas wilderness, has received shocking news – his father is dead. He must return home to Virginia and claim his inheritance before a maniacal neighbor can murder his widowed mother and seize the family plantation.

But he’s torn by a terrible dilemma – to stay in the army and turn his back on his fortune, his mother and his beloved childhood home, or become the thing he despises; a slave master! Is there no other choice?

An epic journey across a young nation seething with debauchery, brutality, corruption, and political intrigue, unwittingly on the brink of an unimaginable disaster; the American Civil War. Nathan Chambers has left the violent army life behind in Texas, never imaging he’s on the very Road to The Breaking.

My Thoughts

In Road to the Breaking, we are introduced to Captain Nathaniel Chambers – a stubborn man with quite the past who also struggles with his own demons and keeping them at bay.

Nathaniel struggled with an anger inside of him most of his life – when he allowed his anger to get the best of him, he could not hold it back. But he wasn’t a mean person – this was always in retaliating to others bullying or hurting him or others around him. He never appeared to get along with his Father or have much of a relationship with him (keeping in mind that this was during a time period when those relationships were not strong, instead children were taught more to fear a parent). His Mother sensed this and sent him away to boarding school and from here he never returned home to a place that he felt he does not belong. His Father had a successful family farm but this success came on the backs of slaves, something Nathaniel despises.

Near the beginning of the story, Nathaniel receives a telegram from his Mother notifying him of the death of his Father. It is followed up by two more telegrams requesting him to return home with what appears to be secret messages contained within that something is not quite right at home. Is his Mother being taken advantage of being a widow on a farm all on her own? As Nathaniel sets on his journey to return home after choosing his family over the army, we are introduced to a bit of his history through a series of flashbacks to various stages.

This is a well written story following the story of a young man during a very troubling time. The story jumps through several time periods but it did not make it hard to follow as the story flowed well. It covers a time period in American history that was marked with slavery, plantations, war and the fight for freedom and what is right. A great read from start to finish.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon, B&N and Bookshop.

Rating: 4/5

About the Author

Chris A. Bennett grew up on the shores of Klamath Lake in southeastern Oregon. For a young boy it was a dream world of water, hills, forests, and abundant wildlife. His love for action and adventure morphed into a lifelong love for books when his Mom read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to the family on a long road trip.

Chris’s thirst for adventure never faded and he began to live out his love of history onto the pages of his first book, Road to the Breaking. Once he started writing he just couldn’t stop and the result is The Road to the Breaking series; an epic journey across a young nation seething with debauchery, brutality, corruption, and political intrigue, unwittingly on the brink of an unimaginable disaster: the American Civil War.

Chris currently lives near Seattle with his wife Patricia. His three adult children Nick, Rachel, and Josh also live in the Puget Sound area.

You can connect with him on his website.

The Giveaway

You can enter to win the giveaway here.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review, all opinions expressed are my own.

July 6, 2021

Darkness Hides

Someone she knows is watching.
Someone she knows is stalking.
And something hides in the darkness.

About Darkness Hides

Someone she knows is watching.
Someone she knows is stalking.
And something hides in the darkness.

With a Category 4 hurricane about to make landfall, boat safety instructor Kate Parks is running out of time. Bodies are piling up–and they’re not from the raging storm. An injury may have ended her career as a Fish and Wildlife officer, but nothing can keep her away from the investigation.

And it doesn’t take long for her to see that the clues have one thing in common: a connection to the recent death of her five-year-old nephew.

In a brewing storm of rage, guilt, and family secrets, Kate fights to protect her grieving sister just as the hurricane threatens everything she knows and loves. But before her world is completely ravaged, she must uncover one final truth:

Run from the water.
Hide from the wind.
Flee from the shadows where a weeper seeks revenge.

My Thoughts

Darkness Hides is an intense novel from start to finish, that leaves you on the edge of your seat and never knowing quite what to expect next.

At the center of our story is Kate’s family and the death of her nephew. Her nephew was killed in a car collision due to a drunk driver on the wrong side of the road. This has split the family apart but as you read the novel, you don’t realize exactly how far and how many people his death has touched. Slowly, individuals involved in the legal team that defended the man who killed her nephew, start to turn up dead and an item is left at each crime scene, one that Kate is not quite sure how to interpret but is pointing to her own family.

Who is the killer? With so many possibilities, you are left on the edge of your seat. Kate wants to protect her family but can she mentally handle the outcome when the evidence points at the possibility of one of her own family members taking revenge into their own hands?

Who is trying to protect her family? In all of this madness, death and even an incoming hurricane, there appears to be someone trying to protect Kate and her sister. But who loves them enough to do so? Who knows enough about their past to want to protect them?

I loved how our characters and plot developed throughout the story. I did not want to put the novel down as the story evolved so quickly. You learn a little bit more about each person’s past and the connection they have to Kate and her nephew. You are guessing who you think could be the murdered but you realize that you don’t ever truly know what is going to come next (which to me is the best part!). It is an intense story of guilt, forgiveness and even mental illness. The ending blew me away but it was a perfect ending for this story. This is a definite must read novel.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon and Sun Bury Press.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

JC Gatlin lives in Tampa, Florida, and writes mystery novels that include sunny Florida locales and quirky locals as characters. His last novel, H_NGM_N: Murder is the Word, won the coveted Florida Royal Palm Literary Award for Best Mystery in 2019. He is active in the Florida Writer’s Association and is a board member on the Florida Writer’s Foundation, a charity organization that fights illiteracy.

You can connect with him on his website and Facebook.

Book Trailer

The Giveaway!

You can enter to win here.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

June 22, 2021

James Dreadful and the Spell-Guardian (The Dreadful Series Book 1)

Can James survive a dangerous, mystical land haunted by his father’s blood-stained deeds? Or will he choose the path of the Dark Lord and meet the same abysmal end?

About James Dreadful and the Spell-Guardian (The Dreadful Series Book 1)

Fourteen-year-old James Dreadful is living a normal life in a small Colorado town. But his past is anything but normal. Born in Nobrocoso—a mystical land of magic and myths—James was brought to earth at the age of three to escape sorcerous assassins after the death of his parents.

When a powerful and evil goblin arrives years later to steal a secret book that once belonged to his father, James discovers his father’s true identity—Jack Dreadful was the Dark Lord who waged a terrible war in Nobrocoso.

Now, dark forces are stirring, and James must return to Nobrocoso to confront the legacy of blood left by his father. But as James learns his father’s secrets, he fears saving himself might just cost him his soul.

Can James survive a dangerous, mystical land haunted by his father’s blood-stained deeds? Or will he choose the path of the Dark Lord and meet the same abysmal end?

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

About the Author

Alan Creed fell in love with storytelling after seeing Star Wars for the first time as a child. When he was ten years old, his tutor asked him to write sentences containing three words: Ocean, Desert and Jungle. Instead of sentences, Alan wrote a 103-page story entitled Journey through the Desert. That’s when he knew he wanted to be a writer. His 103-page story served as the source material for the Dreadful Series. Alan is currently working on the next installment in the James Dreadful series. You can connect with him on his website.

Book Trailer

The Giveaway!

Enter to win here.

Disclosure: I did not receive compensation for this post, all opinions expressed are my own.