guest post: Author Angelia Almos

Hi guys! Today I would like to introduce you all to Author Angelia Almos, the author of Unicorn Keep. The tour is brought by Enchanted Book Promotions. Please Click on the banner if you like to read more of post, interviews and of course, GIVEAWAYS!

"Writing Books of the Heart"

When people ask me why I write young adult fantasy, my answer is almost always, “I write the books I would have loved as a pre-teen and teen.”

 I was your classic horse crazy girl who also happened to be a book crazy girl. As such, I read a lot and one of my favorite things to read were horse books. It didn’t take me long to get through all of the well-known horsey authors and start to stalk the shelves looking for any book cover with a horse or unicorn on it.

One of my all time favorite “horsey” books as a teen was the series The Secret of the Unicorn Queen by Josepha Sherman, Gwen Hansen, Suzanne Weyn and Dory Perlman. It might not have had many horses in it, but it had magical horses – unicorns. It had just a smidge of romance, lots of adventure and mystery, and pretty unicorns with distinct personalities. I re-read those books for years before I finally wore my copies out. I also adored Thoroughbredseries, The Saddle Club series, and Walter Farley books. Finding horsey contemporary fiction was fairly easy, but finding horsey fantasy fiction was a lot harder which is probably why I love to write it so much.

It’s been a lot of fun writing the books I would have loved as a teen. After Horse Charmer, I was trying to come up with an idea for another fantasy story and I wanted horses to have a prominent role again. But this time, I was thinking unicorns, I wanted to write about unicorns. There are more unicorn books on the market now thanks to Bruce Coville, but I remember having to hunt and hunt to find any books featuring unicorns when I was a teen. It took me several weeks of on and off brainstorming to finally come up with the idea of Unicorn Keep.

The first idea presented itself to me as a middle grade fantasy, but several chapters in I learned the book was actually a young adult fantasy romance. It isn’t so unusual to find your book taking a very unexpected turn when you’re a pantser (writing by the seat of my pants/no-plotting). I fought the change at first, but then decided to go with it and I’m very glad I did.

Unicorn Keep was both fun and a challenge to write. It’s a little different in style than my other books – the challenge, but very much a book of the heart – the fun.

About the Author

Angelia Almos formed a lifelong passion for horses at the age of five when she talked her parents into riding lessons. Horses often play a prominent role in her young adult fantasy books. She also write horsey nonfiction and space opera. She lives in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with her husband, two daughters, two dogs, two cats, and one pony (she often thinks of bumping that number up to two).

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guest post: Author Steven C. Eisner

Welcome to THEMINEFIELDS Blog Tour, brought to BookTrib by the Media Muscle team and a plethora of amazing book bloggers, Including the awesome me! Hahaha. Well, beginning April 1, a section of chapter 1 of the new release The Minefields by Steven Eisner will be featured each day by a book blogger until the entire first chapter has been provided to you. So my turn today would be the 28th Chapter, 28th blog participating in this ohhh-some blog tour. Today, the author is sharing the idea of would it be good to use personal stories in writing. So check his out. And, after reading this, you might want to check other blog involved in the tour as well. Just click HERE.

Using personal stories in writing: do or don’t? 

While THEMINEFIELDS is most definitely a novel, it draws heavily on stories I know, understand and have experienced, in part both in my business life as well as my personal. And as these stories evolve in my writing, there is no question they take on a life of their own. My tales become more interesting, often more vivid, at times more provocative and generally, speaking, more imaginative when they gain new rhythm, speed and texture. So often real life can bog down on us. And then meander back on itself as if to slow the forces of good storytelling to a crawl. I’ve learned that readers don’t take to languishing in the details all that much, unless it is in the details that the reader learns more important things about the story. I think the author’s “ job one” is to keep the story flowing, connecting all the dots concisely and to wander little. You wander only when the overriding theme is about wandering. A writer, certainly this one, needs to curb the inclination to become overly indulgent about back story, unless, of course, back story is the primary driver. I keep finding myself repeating as I write “less is more.” As for real life giving the nourishment to new stories, this is absolutely a truism And there is nothing like reliving a moment in your head that pecks away at you… so as to capture it just as you’re recalling it with what you’re seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling. It’s one of the greatest joys for me as a writer to get what I remember down … from head to paper with authenticity.

About the book
Situated smack between the cigarette-and-martini days of Mad Men and the nihilism of House of Lies, Eisner paints a classic roman a clef in stinging detail. Protagonist Sam Spiegel is the Golden Boy with the New York business world at his feet when he is called home to Philadelphia just as he has begun to make his mark. His father, Holocaust survivor Harry Spiegel, is ailing and it’s with reservations that Sam takes on the challenge to grow his father’s firm, Spiegel Communications, into national prominence. The complex themes of the father-and-son relationship, like those found in the works of Chaim Potok and Mario Puzo, are brought vividly to life as Sam and Harry battle over the future of the family legacy.

Book Excerpt

Harry’s eyes were closed and his breathing was pronounced. He looked peaceful. The trumpet that had started playing the finale to Sunday Morning seemed prophetic under Dad’s staccato snore. “Nurse Ratched” never returned. A chipper young blonde took over instead. The second injection was administered.

About the Author
Before writing his novel and after learning the ropes at Doyle Dane Bernbach, New York, Steven C. Eisner created and led Eisner Communications, a Baltimore-based advertising agency, for more than two decades, creating hundreds of effective ad and PR campaigns for leading corporations and associations including Black & Decker, Marriot, McCormick Spices, PhRMA, US Airways, Lenox China, the Maryland Lottery, the Nature Conservancy, and the United Way. Eisner Communications won numerous industry awards including CLIOs, ADDYs, and EFFIEs, and the O’Toole for creative excellence across its entire client roster. The Minefields is Steven C. Eisner’s first novel.

Website: http://stevenceisner.com/

softly and tenderly by sara evans, rachel hauck

Title: Softly and Tenderly
Author: Sara Evans, Rachel Hauck
Pages: 304
Rating: 4/5

Summary (Goodreads):

Jade Fitzgerald's hope for a perfect marriage shatters when her husband confesses he has an illegitimate son who he wants to raise in their home. With the help of her family and her faith, Jade comes to understand her future doesn't rest on the power of her past, but in the goodness of God's mercy.

My Review:

The book is about an unexpected occasions that occurs in life. I think everyone has their own regrets, redemptions and losses. The story evolves around Jade, who is happily married to Max and owns 2 boutiques and unfortunately still fails to conceive. There is a lot of things going on around her. Her mom is fighting leukemia and refuse to go through another chemotherapy. I think I can understand her mom well since one of my cousin died of luekemia, and she went through a lot of chemotherapy. I can also understand how Jade's feel, to fight for everything so that she could bring her family together no matter what happens. A great thing she has is the ability to forgive, and yet forgiveness is something so difficult for us to handle if it is as big as knowing your husband kind of had cheated on you. I wont give that kind of forgiveness that easy. Or maybe I would. But I guess that is why there is a saying of 'It's easy to forgive but hard to forget'. Jade ran from everything a while and try to compose herself, think of how to move on in the best possible way without losing or hurting others that so dear to her even if it will hurt herself. What I love the most of Jade character is that she always find that there will always be silver lining even in the darkest day, in the hard way. She knows that she should not lose hope and only God knows what's the best for His servants.

I only have one complain for the book, the name Jade and June is likely quite similar and it kinds of making me loses track of the characters. It is obviously sounds like the same, literally. Overall, the book is quite a catch.

When the book ended, I just realized it was actually the second book of Songbird Novel. The first book is The Sweet By and By, followed by the 3rd book, Love Lifted Me. I should try the other two books in the series. You should too.

Disclaimer: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. These are my honest review and receiving a copy in no way will ever reflected my review.