Review

There’s Been A Change Of Plans by Amy Koko

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from iRead Book Tours in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

There’s Been A Change Of Plans by Amy Koko was a fun book to read. I did find myself smiling through most of the book. Even though I am younger than the author is in this book I understood what she was going through and how hard it can be dealing with the things that she had to deal with. I loved this book because she shared the humor she saw in such a bad situation. It also reminded me that even if life is hard, I need to take the time to find the humor in the situation because that is the best way I have found cope with things that are causing me so much stress. If you or someone you know has gone through a divorce later in life, I know you will enjoy and understand this book even more than I did.

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About The Book

Blogger Amy Koko bears her soul in her witty, bittersweet memoir, There’s Been A Change of Plans: Divorce, Dating & Delinquents in Mid-life. Expecting a trip to Italy, Koko is blind-sided by her husband’s confession that he’s been putting his shoes under a much younger and prettier woman’s bed. After twenty-seven years of marriage and four children, she faces the unimaginable: her life as she knows it is unraveling around her and her family’s future is anything but certain.

In the literary tradition of Nora Ephron’s Heartburn and Jenny Lawson’s Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Koko’s memoir details her journey from hearing the news that her husband is in love with a blonde, thirty-something Swiss pastry chef to trying everything from thong underwear to a mini-facelift to save her marriage, only to see it die in the parking lot of gas station.

With incredible honesty and humor, Koko takes the reader on a wild ride through the tough, emotional times of starting over through divorce, mid-life, finding a job, and Internet dating, all the while trying to keep her four teenagers out of jail.

There’s been a change of plans, and that’s just the beginning.

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About The Author

After 27 years of marriage, Amy Koko went into divorce, kicking, screaming, stalking and drunk texting but lived to tell about it. She is the creator of the popular blog Exwifenewlife and a contributor to Huffington Post Divorce as well as Huffington Post Women. Amy lives in St. Petersburg, Florida where she begins each day with a freshly ground cup of good coffee and ends it with a good glass of pinot noir. Or chardonnay. Or a dirty martini. Whatever’s handy.

Connect with the author:  Website  ~  Twitter  ~  Facebook

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Secret Crush by Victoria Pinder

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Secret Crush by Victoria Pinder was an okay book. I had a hard time getting into this book. At times it felt like the author was rushing things and then at others times I was left wondering why some parts were left in the book. I enjoyed the plot and the characters but like most books I was able to figure out what was going on by the end of the book. I did like the characters and the story line of this book. Like I said before I had a hard time getting into the book, so I was glad that it was a shorter book than some of the others I have read lately. If you love chick lit books, I am sure you will like this book.

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About The Book

Billionaire’s second son John Morgan comes home to his father’s funeral. He joined the FBI to prove his father caused his sister’s death, but now he needs to find out who he is and what’s left of his family that he can trust.

Alice Collins grew up on a farm, but she was best friends with Victoria Morgan before she died. She decides to go to the Morgan family’s funeral to pay her respects.

Surprises ensue as they usually do for the Morgans at the funeral. Alice gets caught in the crossfire of family drama and intrigue, and it’s John’s duty to protect her. While they reconnect, feelings surface. But can a farm girl truly ever capture the heart of a billionaire? Could their love be real? Or is this all just a fantasy while she’s involved with one Morgan plot after another?

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About The Author

Victoria Pinder grew up in Irish Catholic Boston before moving to the Miami sun. She’s worked in engineering, after passing many tests proving how easy Math came to her. Then hating her life at the age of twenty-four, she decided to go to law school. Four years later, after passing the bar and practicing very little, she realized that she hates the practice of law. She refused to one day turn 50 and realized she had nothing but her career and hours at a desk. After realizing she needed change, she became a high school teacher. Teaching is rewarding, but writing is a passion.
During all this time, she always wrote stories to entertain herself or calm down. Her parents are practical minded people demanding a job, and Victoria spent too many years living other people’s dreams, but when she sat down to see what skill she had that matched what she enjoyed doing, writing became so obvious. The middle school year book when someone wrote in it that one day she’d be a writer made sense when she turned thirty.
Besides her full-time job of teaching, in 2013 and 2014, she sold her sold books to three different publishers. The Zoastra Affair, Chaperoning Paris, Borrowing the Doctor, and Electing Love will be published by Soulmate Publishing. Anything the Throne will be published with Double Dragon Ebooks. Favorite Coffee, Favorite Crush will be published with Jupiter Press.
Now she is represented by Dawn Dowdle of Blue Ridge Literary Agency, and she hopes to continue selling her novels that she writes. Moving up to the next level from hard work and determination is rewarding, and partnerships bring new opportunities.
Also, she’s the Vice President of Programs for the Florida Romance Writers. She’s gone to multiple conferences and intends to continue. She learns and meets so many people at conferences. Her website is here, http://www.victoriapinder.com, and she’ll continue to grow my web presence. She is working hard on other projects and found the time to plan her wedding this year.
Before writing, her father had taken her to many star trek conventions and on her own, she grew up as the only girl in the 90s at the comic book store. Science Fiction was her first love, but contemporary romance was her second. She’s sticking with contemporaries for the near future.
Member of Florida Romance Writers, Contemporary Romance, Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal chapter of RWA, Celtic Hearts and Savvy Authors.

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Motions & Moments: More Essays on Tokyo by Michael Pronko

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Online Book Club in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Motions & Moments: More Essays on Tokyo by Michael Pronko this was such an impressive set of essay’s to read.  I enjoyed this because I felt like got a very good idea of what it is like in Japan.  It is somewhere that I would love to visit, but I don’t know if I ever would be able to visit there.  This left me wanting to go because I was able to get a look at what it is like there.  At times I did get confused, but I know that if I was in Japan trying to figure everything out I would be just as confused by everything that was going on around me.  I was confused, but I wasn’t left worried or scared because it was just an essay and I knew that I would be able to figure stuff out later.  He did have a glossary at the end of the book that explained what things were, but I didn’t even look at it until the end because I wanted to try and figure it out like I would have to do if I ever traveled there on my own.  All in all, I enjoyed this book and I know I will go back and read parts of it again because I loved feeling like I was there and being able to figure everything out as I was reading the different essays.

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About The Book

Motions and Moments is the third book by Michael Pronko on the fluid feel and vibrant confusions of Tokyo life. These 42 new essays burrow into the unique intensities that suffuse the city and ponder what they mean to its millions of inhabitants.

Based on Pronko’s 18 years living, teaching and writing in Tokyo, these essays on how Tokyoites work, dress, commute, eat and sleep are steeped in insights into the city’s odd structures, intricate pleasures and engaging undertow.

Included are essays on living to size and loving the crowd, on Tokyo’s dizzying uncertainties and daily satisfactions, and on the 2011 earthquake. As in his first two books, this collection captures the ceaseless flow and passing flashes of life in biggest city in the world with gentle humor and rich detail.

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About The Author

My new collection of essays, Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo, just out in December 2015, covers different ground from the first two collections. I look at the structures inside Tokyo’s cultural life, but also at the flow of life here, the pleasures, which always seem entangled with aggravations, and the odd instances and situations the city drags me into.

From what I can tell from past reviewers, and from old friends on Facebook, picking up your life and setting it down in Tokyo is kind of a strange thing for a boy from Kansas to do! I have lived, taught and written in Tokyo for eighteen years now. I work as a professor at Meiji Gakuin University teaching American literature, culture, film, music, and art.

Living here all seems so natural to me, though, but not always. My essays spring from that precarious balance of familiar and unfamiliar, from life lived in an intense place. I love having a day job that’s engaging, where students ask questions about literature, art, music, film and life. Going from the classroom out to Tokyo I get even more questions. The city asks me as many questions as the students do.

In that sense, I’m definitely with Thoreau, even though I can’t think of anyplace more different from Tokyo than Walden Pond. Thoreau captured it right when he said: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Tokyo life teaches me a lot of essentials, too.

Over the years, I have written for many publications in Japan: The Japan Times for a dozen years, the once-great Tokyo Q, a learner-oriented weekly ST Shukan, Winds magazine, Jazznin, and Jazz Colo[u]rs (in Italian!). These days, I write about Japanese art for Artscape Japan. That gets me out to galleries, museums and odd cultural spots. My other writing is for my own website Jazz in Japan (jazzinjapan.com). I go out to jazz clubs as often as I can, which isn’t as often as I want.

The new book forms a trilogy of sorts with the first two, Beauty and Chaos and Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens. The essays in those two collections were mostly culled from my regular column in Newsweek Japan in Japanese. Many of the new essays come from that Newsweek Japan column, but many are completely new.

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An Amish Harvest by Beth Wiseman, Kathleen Fuller, Amy Clipston, Vannetta Chapman

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from BookLook in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

An Amish Harvest by Beth Wiseman, Kathleen Fuller, Amy Clipston, and Vannetta Chapman was a great book. I am a huge fan of books like this because I love that the stories are short, and you can read just one and come back weeks later and read another one if you want to. I love books like this because I can read one story and get through the whole so thing, so I am not left wondering what is going to happen.   I can’t pick just one story that I liked the most out of this book because I enjoyed reading them all. If you are new to Amish fiction than I would say that this would be a good book to start out with because the stories are shorter, and it gives you an excellent introduction to Amish fiction. If you love Amish fiction than I know, you will love this book as much as I did.

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About The Book’s

Faith, hope, and love remain forever in season in this collection of four richly absorbing novellas set amidst the wonder of an Amish autumn.

Under the Harvest Moon, by Beth Wiseman

When Naomi Dienner is suddenly widowed, she never expects to find love again . . . until she meets Brock Mulligan, an English family friend hired at harvest time. As a sinister presence begins to threaten Naomi, Brock seeks to prove himself trustworthy while struggling with growing feelings for Naomi and her children. Will God open Naomi’s heart—and give Brock his own second chance at love?

Love and Buggy Rides, by Amy Clipston

Janie Lantz is a cashier at Lancaster Souvenirs and Buggy Rides, where Jonathan Stoltfuz is a buggy driver. A frightening accident brings Janie and Jonathan together in a blossoming friendship, yet daunting obstacles stand between them and something deeper. Can love kindle into flames that burn away fear and regret—and lead them to a life together?

Mischief in the Autumn Air, by Vannetta Chapman When items start going above market value at his auction house, Eli Wittmer is first thrilled, and then puzzled. But when the house is broken into, Eli and his new bookkeeper, Martha Beiler track down a trail of clues. Will they solve the mystery before the fall festival ends—and discover an unexpected new love?

A Quiet Love, by Kathleen Fuller Dinah Hochstetler, quiet and bookish, longs for marriage but hides in her shyness. Amos Mullett, a simple farmer, knows he’s different but aches for a loving wife. As Dinah and Amos navigate a budding romance, will the power of love—and the blessing of God—be enough to overcome their doubters?

About The Author’s

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Beth Wiseman

“I wish I had the time to review books and chat with you here, but my writing deadlines just don’t allow it. Please like my Fans of Beth Wiseman Page on Facebook where I try to post any news and interact with readers.”
Beth is the best-selling and award winning author of the Daughters of the Promise series – Plain Perfect, Plain Pursuit, Plain Promise, Plain Paradise, and Plain Proposal. She is contracted with HarperCollins Christian Publishing. Her other series–the Land of Canaan Novels–begins with Seek Me With All Your Heart, then The Wonder of Your Love and now, His Love Endures Forever. Seek Me With All Your Heart is the first Amish fiction book selected as a Women of Faith novel in 2011. Beth has also written three contemporary Christian fiction novels, Need You Now published in 2012 and The House That Love Built in 2013. In The Promise, (2014) Beth jumps way outside the box. This story takes readers far away from Amish Country and small Texas towns to a dangerous place on the other side of the world. Inspired by a true story, Beth believes this is the book she’s been working toward for a long time. 2015 brings Beth back to the Pennsylvania Amish with her new series, Amish Secrets. She is currently working on book #2 following much success with book #1, Her Brother’s Keeper.

You can also follow Beth on Twitter: @BethWiseman

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Kathleen Fuller

Kathleen is the best-selling author of over thirty books, including the Hearts of Middlefield Series and the A Middlefield Family Series. She lives with her husband and three children in Northeast Ohio. Kathleen loves to hear from readers.

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Amy Clipston

Hi, I’m Amy Clipston. I am an author of Amish and Christian fiction with HarperCollins Christian Publishing. Most of my books focus on the Amish community, faith, and love. I also write romance novels and young adult inspirational stories.

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Vannetta Chapman

Vannetta Chapman writes inspirational fiction full of grace. She is the author of many novels, including the Pebble Creek Amish series, Shipshewana Amish Mystery Series, and Plain and Simple Miracle series. Vannetta is a Carol award winner and also received more than two dozen awards from Romance Writers of America chapter groups. She currently writes Christian suspense, Amish romance, and Amish mystery. She was a teacher for 15 years and currently resides in the Texas hill country. For more information, visit her at http://www.VannettaChapman.com.

For more information, visit her at http://vannettachapman.com
https://twitter.com/VannettaChapman
https://www.facebook.com/VannettaChap…
http://vannettachapman.com/blog/
https://www.instagram.com/vannettacha…
http://vannettachapman.com/book-list/

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Scapegoat by Emilio Corsetti III

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Pump Up Your Book in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Scapegoat by Emilio Corsetti III was such an interesting book. He went into such detail in this book that the thought of my getting on a plane and going someone where isn’t something I want to do now. I loved all the details though because I really felt like I understood what everyone was feeling and why the crew made the choices that they made in the moment. Like I said now that I have read this book I don’t know that I will be able to get on a plane without having a panic attack. I love that the author gives you all the information and then lets you figure out what you think about everything that happened. I love that he doesn’t talk about what he thinks happened. I really loved this book but it did take quite a while to read because it is a really big book and the font isn’t the biggest. If you love books about true stories than I would say check this book out because it was a great book.

Scapegoat

About The Book

“This is the kind of case the Board has never had to deal with-a head-on collision between the credibility of a flight crew versus the airworthiness of the aircraft.” NTSB Investigator-in-Charge Leslie Dean Kampschror

On April 4, 1979, a Boeing 727 with 82 passengers and a crew of 7 rolled over and plummeted from an altitude of 39,000 feet to within seconds of crashing were it not for the crew’s actions to save the plane. The cause of the unexplained dive was the subject of one of the longest NTSB investigations at that time.

While the crew’s efforts to save TWA 841 were initially hailed as heroic, that all changed when safety inspectors found twenty-one minutes of the thirty-minute cockpit voice recorder tape blank. The captain of the flight, Harvey “Hoot” Gibson, subsequently came under suspicion for deliberately erasing the tape in an effort to hide incriminating evidence. The voice recorder was never evaluated for any deficiencies.

From that moment on, the investigation was focused on the crew to the exclusion of all other evidence. It was an investigation based on rumors, innuendos, and speculation. Eventually the NTSB, despite sworn testimony to the contrary, blamed the crew for the incident by having improperly manipulated the controls, leading to the dive.

This is the story of an NTSB investigation gone awry and one pilot’s decades-long battle to clear his name.

Emilio Corsetti III

About The Author

Emilio Corsetti III is a professional pilot and author. Emilio has written for both regional and national publications including the Chicago Tribune, Multimedia Producer, and Professional Pilot magazine. Emilio is the author of the book 35 Miles From Shore: The Ditching and Rescue of ALM Flight 980. The upcoming book Scapegoat: A Flight Crew’s Journey from Heroes to Villains to Redemption tells the true story of an airline crew wrongly blamed for causing a near-fatal accident and the captain’s decades-long battle to clear his name. Emilio is a graduate of St. Louis University. He and his wife Lynn reside in Dallas, TX.

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Scapegoat: A Flight Crew’s Journey from Heroes to Villains to Redemption is available at Amazon and B&N.

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Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Margaret Margaret

Mummy’s Little Angel by JW Lawson

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from iRead Book Tours in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Mummy’s Little Angel by JW Lawson was a great book. I am huge of TV show’s that are like this book, so I knew when I read the back of the book that I had to review it. From the start of the book, I didn’t want to put it down. I loved how this book was written and how it went back and forth between the characters because it gives you an insight into what each of the characters is thinking. I also wasn’t able to figure out what was going to happen in the book which something that I usually am to do so I loved that about this book. I would think I had figured it out and then a chapter later I would change my mind, and I did that throughout the entire book. If you love thrillers than I know, you will love this book as much as I did.

Mummy's Little Angel

About The Book

Mummy’s Little Angel is the first place winner of World’s Best Story!

Worlds Best Story

Joanne didn’t believe that her life could become worse than it already was. She had lost everybody and everything she had loved. She was alone. Surely she had suffered enough? The press had called her identical twins psychopaths. Her Maggie. Her Annie. But she still loved them, even though one of them had killed her husband, Jeff. Joanne believed that his murder had been an accident. How could one of her girls be a murderer? She knew them better than anybody else. They were good girls really.

She just had to prove it.

The brutal murder of her god-daughter Laura had never been solved. Items were missing when Laura’s remains had been discovered: clues that could lead to the capture of her killer. One of them was Laura’s doll … the doll that Joanne later discovered in her home. Joanne is facing the most horrific dilemma of her life. Has the wrong woman been imprisoned? Could her child have used such brutality against her best friend? Or could both women be innocent after all?

She needs to find somebody for her daughter to confide in; somebody she will trust. She needs a miracle. There is only one person who can help. He is compassionate and caring, with an amazing ability to gain the trust of the most difficult patients. He is Joanne’s only hope. He is Jonathan Davies.

JW Lawson

About The Author

Award Winning Author, JW Lawson is already gaining recognition for her writing talents in the US and world-wide. The second of a trilogy of sensational thrillers,Mummy’s Little Angel is the winner of the highly acclaimed Worlds Best Story competition and has also received some outstanding reviews from the professional team of judges in the competition. She is currently writing her third thriller, Crossroads which will be available in 2017 and the final book of the current series, Hush Little Baby will be available in 2018.

Connect with the author: Website  ~  Twitter  ~  Facebook

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