​Whispers for Terra
By Nancy Houser-Bluhm
Genre: Magical Realism
 
Suffering from job fatigue, Mary, a speech pathologist, finds herself at a crossroads.  Feeling a diminished sense of purpose, she finds solace in a nearby woods.  It’s in these woods she discovers she is more than she knows.  The earth spirits sense her ability to communicate and choose her to deliver a message that will influence our earth’s soil and everything that comes from it.
 
Seeking to enlighten humanity, an initially reluctant Mary is emboldened by a ninety-seven-year-old patient to embark on a journey of inner healing and outer discovery.  Mary soon encounters others who have also been marked to carry the earth’s message. As their collective efforts turn into an expansive movement, the impact of the earth’s message amplifies, and the earth begins to sense something new: relief.
 
Whispers for Terra is a story of hope, inspiration, and finding one’s path, showing us the impact individual and small group actions can make to heal our earth. 
 
All we have to do is listen. 
 
 

 Nancy Houser-Bluhm has lived in the foothills west of Denver, Colorado for over 20 years with her husband and miscellaneous pets. She hails from Michigan but always had a longing for the mountains after growing up watching Bonanza. Their current piece of heaven is called the Bluhmerosa.  For some years she and her husband, Jon traversed the country moving from Michigan to Oregon, back to Michigan and then to Colorado. Once a rock climber, she now spends time with biking, skiing, camping, enjoying nature and yoga; oh yes and with writing. 
 
Nancy received her first monetary writing award of $3.00 for a poem submitted by her middle school. Coinciding with the late 1960’s it pertained to war.  About the same time, she won a statewide essay contest which took her to a presidential inauguration.  She realizes she has outted herself and can never again use attending a presidential inauguration in the party game One Truth, Two Lies. 
 
Like the character in her first novel, Nancy’s pursuit of personal growth and awareness, led her down numerous paths. In the 1990s, Journey Seminars was her effort to bring entry level knowledge on such topics as dreamwork, Feng Shui, and homeopathy to her community. 
 
Authentic communication with herself and others has been an ultimate life quest, sometimes to the chagrin of others.  A lifelong journaler, Nancy produced her own journal with excerpts from her past journal wisdoms and her husband’s art.  She offered classes highlighting the power of the practice through gathered techniques. Nancy has had numerous prompted memoir-based articles in a local mountain newspaper. After working forty years as a Speech-Language, both in the schools and health care, she retired from being a full-time worker bee. It was then she began a blog and ventured into the arena of writing her first novel. 
 
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Whispers-Terra-Nancy-Houser-Bluhm-ebook/dp/B0936YS5GK
 
 
B&N
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/whispers-for-terra-nancy-houser-bluhm/1139340076?ean=9781736212318
 
 
Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57820979-whispers-for-terra
 
 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jnbpine
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nancybluhm
 
 
 
Excerpt: 
 
 
I didn’t know my World Was about to be rocked. As I prepared to step into the patient’s room, I only knew how my jaw felt as it tightened when I saw the last-minute speech language evaluation order placed at my station. My body had been settling into a feeling of relief for the end of the day. Barbara, a nurse, knew I would be off in ten minutes, but she also knew the policy stated that new evaluations had to be initiated the day they were ordered. Somewhere in me, I knew this wasn’t her fault, but I also sensed too much pleasure in it for her, and irritation was an easier emotion for me right now.
As I entered the patient’s room, I lifted my head and smiled broadly. As a kid, I was told my smile could light a room. And now, Mr. Talbot would never know I was anything but excited to help him. My soul knew the real story.
I reached for the clipboard and my sleeve slid down. I saw Mr. Talbot look at the mole on my arm, then look questioningly at me. He had no idea the mole had developed over a few short months. I shrugged and gave him a look of “Eh,” but my inner self was mirroring his same questioning look. Although most of my patients qualify as elderly and look the frailer part, Mr. Talbot, with his twinkling blue eyes, allowed me to envision the handsomeness he carried when he was younger.
 
I was relieved to read he was NPO, meaning nothing by mouth, and only tube feeding for now. He’d be safe from the risk of aspirating for the time being; he needed more strength and the medical staff needed more time to put a plan in place.
 

​It Happened on Thunder Road
By Susan Antony
Genre: YA Fantasy Romance
 
Brief description
 
When Emmy Russo returns to high school in Moncks Corner, South Carolina after summer break, she discovers some changes. First: Mom has a boyfriend. Second: the cute new student, Charlie Fields, is a Rockabilly greaser with a gang who obeys his every command. Third: attractive Keir Harper wants to be more than just her best friend. And fourth: a perplexed Emmy soon finds herself drawn to two extremely different boys. How do you choose between sweet and smoldering? Then tragedy strikes on desolate Thunder Road. Strange things start happening, with Emmy in the middle of it all. Intent on finding the truth, she must fight for her heart, her life, maybe even her soul. Because someone wants to possess all of Emmy. And they will be together, no matter what the cost. For eternity.

​About the Author
 
Susan Antony is an aspiring Renaissance woman who never shies from a challenge. Not only does she have a degree in the Liberal Arts, she has a degree in Automotive Technology. She currently works in the IT department at a local Charleston hospital. Susan lives with her teenaged son and two behaviorally-challenged Cairn Terriers. To maintain her sanity, she cherishes her Friday evenings dancing the night away!
 
FB: https://www.facebook.com/SusanAntonyCS
Twitter :https://twitter.com/SusanAntonyCS
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Happened-Thunder-Road-Susan-Antony/dp/1509235329
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57309229-it-happened-on-thunder-road
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/it-happened-on-thunder-road-susan-antony/1139026607
 
 
Excerpt
We faced each other for a beat or two. Then he placed his arm around my shoulder and took my hand in his, positioning his body a respectable distance away. We danced, slow and reserved at first, but as the singer’s wails intensified, so did Charlie’s moves. His hips swayed from side to side, and he inched closer to me, smidgen by smidgen, until his pelvis ground against my hipbones.
Our bodies melded, moving together in perfect synchronicity. Side to side. Back and forth. He moved his hand to my lower back and pulled me closer. I took in a quick, sharp breath. He
“You know, baby,” he murmured, “You and me have more than chemistry. We have fire. Not the easy kind of fire you can make from a box of matches, but the kind of fire you get when you rub two sticks together. I’m all yours if you want me.”
The world around me blurred as if I were watching it through thick lenses. I imagined Charlie’s lips against mine. I imagined him shirtless, propped above me, his triceps bulging as he slowly lowered his chest—mine rising toward his, beckoning him closer. He groaned a low animal-like sound. It drew me to him.
And I wanted him bad.
I wanted our bodies to burn in Hell together for all eternity.
What was happening? Had I lost my mind? I wasn’t ready. Was I?
No.
Spasms of panic surged from my loins to the deepest recesses in my brain. In a sharp snap, the imaginary lenses cracked, and through the broken glass was a clear image of a boy with kind eyes and a halo of yellow hair.
Keir was my angel, and I was dancing with the devil. A devil who would betray his brother. A devil who would convince me to betray him as well.
I shuddered and pressed my free hand, fiercely against his shoulder. He clutched me tighter.
“Charlie, please. We can’t do this.”
“Why not?” he demanded.
I took in a long, ragged breath. “Because I don’t want to hurt Keir. He likes me.”
He forced a laugh and loosened his grip. My hand  slipped from his, and he leaned toward me. His chin brushed against my cheek, and flesh bumps shimmied down my spine.
“That was the right answer, New Jersey,” he whispered in a throaty voice. “Welcome to the gang.”

​Far From Perfect
By Kristina Horton
Genre: Memoir, Self-help, Anxieties & Phobias
 
In 2010, at the age of 40, Kristina experienced a complete mental, physical, and emotional breakdown. Far From Perfect details the aftermath of the breakdown and her painful climb out of the pit of anxiety and despair. Her story is riddled with normalcy, tragedy, and humor. 
Over the past decade, Kristina has been on an expedition of discovery and healing by seeking answers to the questions “Why am I like this?”, “What can I do differently?”, and “Will I ever be rid of this horrible disorder?”. Along the way, she realized that she is not “broken” and she doesn’t need to be “fixed”. She also determined that hiding her “dirty little secret” of dealing with anxiety and panic attacks only made them worse. 
As much as she was anxious about sharing her story, Kristina knew that if it helped just one person know that they aren’t alone, and that someone else does understand what they’re going through, then she had to write this book. Included is a compilation of various methods and products Kristina has tried, as tools, to help manage, and alleviate, symptoms of the anxiety and panic disorders.
 

​Last Star Standing
By Spaulding Taylor
Genre: Soft Science Fiction/Speculative/Dystopian/Post-apocalyptic
 
About the Book
 
A post-apocalyptic Earth under alien rule. A lone wolf assassin with a chip on his shoulder. Can he find his way through a maze of deceit to victory?
 
 Aiden has always felt like an outsider. After the rebel operative is captured and imprisoned by the world’s galactic overlords, he awaits execution. Then a mole working for the occupying regime alerts him to a plot that could destroy the entire resistance... Engineering a daring escape, Aiden’s growing feud with the new rebel leader leaves him out in the cold – and smouldering with resentment. Faced with deceit and betrayals on every side, he recruits a group of overlooked outcasts and stakes everything on one last mission.
 
Can the restless, reckless Aiden take a stand long enough to save humanity from enslavement?

​

​About the Author
 
Alice McVeigh was born in South Korea, of American diplomatic parents, and lived in Asia until she was 13, when the family returned to Washington D.C. She then fell in love with the cello, winning the Beethoven Society of Washington cello competition, and reaching the finals of the National Music Teachers Association Young Soloists national competition. After achieving a B.Mus. with distinction at the internationally acclaimed Jacobs School of Music, she came to London to study with Jacqueline du Pré and William Pleeth. Since then she has performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique all over Europe, America and Asia.
 
Her first two contemporary novels – While the Music Lasts and Ghost Music – were published by Orion Publishing/Hachette in the late 90s, and her first play (Beating Time) put on at the Lewisham Theatre. (The film rights to her first book were also sold, to Channel 4, but Mozart in the Jungle got there first!)  As well as performing, Alice has ghosted or edited over 200 books. She has also scribbled a witty guide to the orchestral profession: All Risks Musical, cartoons by Noel Ford. Her most recent novel, Last Star Standing, will be published by Unbound Publishing under her pen name, Spaulding Taylor, on February 21st, 2021.
 
Alice is married to Professor Simon McVeigh, and lives in London. They have one daughter, who just graduated from the University of Oxford, and a second home, by the sea in Crete. Apart from fiction, Alice’s greatest enthusiasms involve playing chamber music, dachshunds and tennis. (She is a powerful but notably inaccurate tennis player, with the distinction of being ladies’ singles runner-up four years in succession at the - very - local Farnborough Tennis Club.)
 
 
Website: www.alicemcveigh.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alicemcveighauthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcveigh.alice/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/astmcveigh1
Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/Alice-Mcveigh/e/B07TDKZPVT?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1610184384&sr=1-1
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1108881.Alice_McVeigh
 
 
 
Excerpt:
 
I caught hold of something, something which must have blended into its
background so perfectly that I hadn’t even spotted it. Something
alive, nestling under the co-pilot’s seat.
 
I couldn’t believe it. A live gromeline. Trembling, possibly with
fury, and trying in vain to squeeze back. Grabbing my trophy – I
could feel its hot little heart throbbing like an injury against my
palm – I hopped out of the plane so fast that my wound protested.
 
‘Bully!’
 
Bully raised one eyebrow. Two would have been overkill.
‘Bully, you are not going to believe this. I found a gromeline!’
The gromeline – only about fifteen centimetres – bit my finger,
hard, even though I could have easily crushed its entire body with
my fist – and probably would have, were I a real tester.
 
Feisty little gromeline. I flicked it lightly with my sausage-
sized finger. When it protested, I growled, ‘Cheese it, munchkin,’
though I could feel it struggling obstreperously against my palm.
 
Bully was intrigued.
‘Is it genuine?’
 
‘Of course it’s genuine. It just fucking bit me.’
 
Bully probably considered this no proof. But they’re rarer than
clean air these days and his fascination was obvious. (Gromelines come
from the farthest galaxy so far discovered, can speak any tongue
and own enviable mental powers. They are also brave to the point
of stupidity and ludicrously small. This one was mouse-coloured
– they can be spectacular – with tiny red eyes. Few humans have
ever seen one.)
 
‘What on Earth was Ho Chi doing with a gromeline?’
 
It was a reasonable question. A mission was no place for such
a valuable alien. Could have been bounced to pieces, even during
that feather-silk landing. I leaned down. ‘Did you stowaway on
Ho Chi’s blinguard?’ I asked, but it just slit its eyes, pursed its lips
and glared at me.
 
Bully trotted to his backpack and removed a small bag.
‘Shove it in here. Not even a gromeline could tunnel out of that.
Once we’ve had something to eat, we can find out what it knows.’
 
With some difficulty we succeeded in loosing the little creature
inside, where it immediately started gnawing on a corner.
 
‘You sure it can’t just chew itself out?’ I asked.
 
‘Not unless it’s got a small but serviceable nuclear device.'

Continue Breathing
By Josh Greenfield
Genre: Fiction
 
 
Book Description
 
“Continue Breathing: A Novel” follows the adventures and misadventures of its protagonist, Jordan Fineman, as he seeks to fight his way out of the depths of an emotional breakdown.  Jordan is diagnosed as both a manic-depressive, during the days when that term was still in use, and a severe obsessive-compulsive.  Before he can find his place in the world as a writer, before he can know a relative amount of peace, he must go through his trials; two hospitalizations for mental illness, a psychotic episode, more than twenty-five years of psychotherapy and swimming pools full of psychiatric medications.  In the end, it is a story of perseverance and victory, and of striving to live in the present day, made possible by one particularly skilled psychiatrist and his able successor. If Jordan begins his journey with one particular gift, it is his sense of humor.  He is able to laugh at himself.  This, in the end, is what brings him home.

About the Author
​
Josh Greenfield is a graduate of both Phillips Andover Academy and Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences. He holds two master’s degrees from the City University of New York, one in history and one in English literature. He also completed the better part of a doctorate in English at Fordham University.  In his writing he attempt to address the recovery from mental illness with humor and honesty.
 
His work has been featured in The Cornell Daily Sun, The Riverdale Press, Appalachia, Word Catalyst Magazine, Better than Starbucks, Chaleur Magazine, The B’K Magazine, Prometheus Dreaming and Adelaide Literary Magazine.  His story “And the Doors of the Ambulance Closed,” was nominated for a Best of the Net 2019 award.  His novel “Continue Breathing,” was published by Adelaide Books in 2020.
​
Website: www.JoshGreenfield.us
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joshgreenfieldwriter
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1954351291/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Continue%20Breathing%20by%20Josh%20Greenfield&qid=1609414163&s=books&sr=1-1&fbclid=IwAR0l66zaPftnGyNtYwwUn2G3x2PvpBm_GW4bwCZYEVnErqWXHJMEva6RwtU
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56756845-continue-breathing?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=BuLjFs05f2&rank=1
 
 
EXCERPT:
 
The only way to look back at all this is with something resem­bling a smile. The breakdown happened when I was twenty-one years old. It was June of what should have been the end of my senior year. I’d finished three and spent one screwing around. I had a part-time job in a vegetarian restaurant. I was a waiter, though on some days I helped in the kitchen. It was com­munal in that way. I was staffing the dining room one Sunday morning, but there wasn’t a whole lot to do. The spinach had been washed, and the fruit juice bottles carefully arranged, all by people more functional than myself. The wooden interior was inviting, with the morning sun flooding in through the large picture window. In the kitchen, the corn was quietly sau­téing in garlic sauce, and the brown rice was nicely puffed. All we needed were some customers.
A man and a woman entered to the sound of the tinkling bell above the door, not that we would have overlooked them in the rush. They took a seat at a table for two against the wall. The woman wore a long maroon skirt, and the man had his hair pulled loosely back in a ponytail. Ready to serve, I approached the table and offered the couple menus. I looked at them. The woman smiled, the man nodded. They consulted the bill of fare in silence.

I stepped back behind the wait station and began to contem­plate the water glasses. Five filled, two empty glasses on the end.

I could fill them, or not…
If I fill them I’ll have to refill the pitcher, which means walking into the kitchen.
If I don’t fill them I’m going to run out of water glasses. Unless I fill them later…
It might get busy and I won’t have time. I could fill the glasses but let the water level in the pitcher drop. How much would it drop? If I got a smaller pitcher, it wouldn’t drop as much. At least it wouldn’t look like it had dropped as much.
No one is going to look at the pitcher.
I could take the empty glasses off the end of the shelf. Then at least I wouldn’t have to think about them. I could also put them under the counter.
There, now all the water glasses are filled. But three don’t have any ice. The empty glasses under the counter don’t have any ice either. They don’t even have any water.
What will people think when they see empty glasses under the counter? Nobody puts empty glasses under the counter.
Better put them back on the shelf...
There.

The couple had been ready for ten minutes. I walked over to take their order.
“I’ll have the soup and salad. With cornbread, right?” the woman asked.
I looked at her but did not fully comprehend the question. I nodded. I made some effort to write down her request. The writing was not coherent. These people had water. But the man had no ice, or very little. They needed ice.

“The choices?” she asked again, smiling a little more force­fully.
I tried to focus. “There’s blue cheese. There’s also Russian and… a French.” She ordered the French. I got something down on paper about the man’s order and retreated to the wait station. The ice glasses were still there. I counted them again: five filled, two empty. Of the five filled, three didn’t have any ice.

It’s getting warm outside. It’s going to get hot.
No ice. The ice is in the kitchen. I could fill the pitcher and get the ice at the same time. What would Corey think? Doesn’t everyone fill the glasses with water and ice before the meal, during set up? There are two glasses filled with ice. That’s enough for one more table of two. What if it’s a table for four? Two would get water with ice and two would get water without ice. Maybe they wouldn’t notice…Better get the ice now.

This process proceeds indefinitely, or until interrupted. Some prisons have no walls.
The order slip with the pencil scratch marks on it was crumpled and placed in the front left pocket of my denim apron. It remained there. The couple was quietly looking at one another across the table for two. The kitchen staff were leaning against the stove perusing the Sunday paper. Nothing was happening. Forty-five minutes went by in this condition of suspended animation. ​