The Thing Is by Kathleen Gerard

Blurb:

Meredith Mancuso is depressed. Ever since the death of her fiancé, she has shrunk from the world. Even with her successful writing career, she’s not motivated to work. When her sister, Monica, begs for a favor, Meredith wants nothing more than to say no. But she’s ultimately roped into pet-sitting an orphaned Yorkshire terrier named Prozac.

Blessed with spiritual wisdom and a high IQ, Prozac is an active pet therapy dog. To heal broken-hearted Meredith, he rallies his fan club at Evergreen Gardens, an independent living facility, where he visits each week.

Prozac and the community of resilient older folks challenged by losses of their own propel Meredith, often against her will, back into the land of the living. Meredith learns that most people carry some sort of burden, but it’s still possible to find meaning, purpose, and joy—and sometimes, even love—along the way.

About the Author:

Kathleen Gerard is a writer whose work has been awarded The Perillo Prize, The Eric Hoffer Prose Award, and nominated for Best New American Voices and Short Story America, all national prizes in literature. Kathleen writes across genres. Her short prose and poetry have been widely published in magazines, journals, and anthologies.

Her essays have been broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR). Kathleen’s woman-in-jeopardy novel, In Transit, won The New York Book Festival—“Best Romantic Fiction” (2011). Kathleen is a book reviewer for and a contributor to Shelf Awareness and maintains the blog, “Reading Between the Lines.”

Review:

I keep forgetting to say, “I received this book in return for an honest review.” Now that’s out of the way, I have one more caveat for you. This book is a choking hazard—do not eat or drink while reading it.

I love animals, especially furry, cuddly ones. And in books, I love sentient non-human characters with a sense of humor, which Prozac definitely has. He also has a bag of tricks he uses to manipulate the humans around him, and he isn’t afraid to use it! But, he’s still a dog, and he’s still afraid of thunder—enough to jump into the toilet during a storm. Oh yeah; if you live in an apartment building with thin walls, don’t read The Thing Is late at night.

Prozac, Meredith, and the denizens of Evergreen Gardens will grab you on page one and keep you engaged right through to the end. It was a great way to spend Mother’s Day. Fortunately, I finished it before dinner at my daughter’s. I don’t think I could have put it down and been sociable if I hadn’t.

By all means, grab The Thing Is. Prozac is great therapy!

Author Blog:  Reading Between the Lines

Heat Rating:  G

Length:  276 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $11.99

Digital:  $5.99

Buy Link:  http://redadeptpublishing.com/#!/The-Thing-Is/p/52955696/category=12051051

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40-50% of the net proceeds from the publisher. Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40-$2.99. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $1.70-$2.10.

Download the file from the publisher onto your computer as you would any other file. I’ve created a folder for books on my computer, with subfolders by source (Marketing for Romance Writers, Net Galley, Authors who find me on Kindle lists, etc.). That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Some publishers send books in all digital formats. If my Kindle breaks and my kids buy me a Nook, I won’t have to replace all of my books. If you have a Kindle and your hubby has a Nook, you won’t have to buy separate copies, so buying directly from the publisher can save you money.

Moving the file from your computer to your e-reader is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your e-reader charging chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from the folder into which you’ve downloaded the book to Documents/Books directory on your e-reader. You can move the file by highlighting it and dragging it to the documents directory in you Kindle you want to move it to. Or right click on it, and then left click copy or move. Or hit Control/C for copy, Control/X for cut, and Control/V for paste.

Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting.

One More Second Chance by Jana Richards

Blurb:

Dr. Alex Campbell has an agenda—finish his contract to provide medical services in Maine, pay off his medical school debt, and head back to his real life in San Diego. But when he meets Julia, all his carefully laid plans are put in jeopardy.

Julia Stewart, Lobster Cove’s high school principal, swears she’ll never let another man drag her away from the home she loves. Her aging parents need her, and the Cove is where she wants to raise her daughter. When her mother’s illness brings her and the big city doctor closer together, panic sets in. Her marriage taught her men don’t stay.

Can she put aside the heartaches of the past and trust Alex enough to accept the love he’s offering? Or will her fear of abandonment mean she’ll send him away forever?

Review by Rochelle Weber:

I received an advanced copy of One More Second Chance in return for an honest review.

When Julia Stewart’s daughter, Ava, falls down her parents’ basement stairs, and her father refuses to meet her at the ER, she wonders what’s wrong. Things seem even stranger when her mother is too distraught to face her. Then, Alex Campbell, the hot, new doctor on duty in the ER suggests Ava may be the victim of child abuse. Julia’s somewhat mollified when she gets home with Ava and calms down. As an educator, she’s called Child Services a few times herself and she has to admit, in Dr, Campbell’s shoes, she may have made the same decision.

Lobster Cove is a small town, and it’s impossible to avoid Dr. Campbell—especially since he lives next door to her parents and finds her mother on his porch in her nightgown at three a.m. looking for her friend who lived there several years ago. Does her mother have Alzheimer’s Disease? Convincing her father to take her mother to a neurologist for the definitive tests is almost as difficult as convincing the conservatives on the School Board to allow her to set up a day care facility so teenage mothers can continue their education.  Julia finds herself fighting battles on several fronts—with Alex Campbell by her side in all of them.  And worse, Ava loves him.  But Dr. Alex is from San Diego, and he’s made it clear he wants to head back to his nice, warm So Cal climate as soon as his contract is up.  Men leave.  Her husband left and Dr. Alex is planning to leave as well.  Julia can’t let herself or Ava get involved with him.

Alex, meanwhile struggles with his feelings for Julia and Ava, and his desire to escape the horrible climate in Lobster Cove, even while warming to the town and its residents. He finds himself practicing family medicine as well as emergency medicine and finds he enjoys treating the whole person—diagnosing a problem, prescribing treatment and watching the patient improve, or seeing the community come together to support a family when it’s clear the patient won’t improve. That’s something he never encountered in the ER in San Diego, and he finds himself liking it.

I really enjoyed this contemporary romance.  It wasn’t as funny as the other book I read by Ms. Richards.  It addressed much more serious issues—Alzheimers Disease and how it affects both the victim and her family, a patient with mysteriously recurring urinary tract infections, the importance of catching breast cancer early, teenage pregnancy, the importance of sex education in school, the damage a lazy teacher can cause to his students, and the toll exhaustion can take on an ER doctor. The characters were real, three-dimensional people who spoke naturally.  No stilted dialog!  Yea!  Ava actually sounded like a five year-old. Despite the serious issues, the book was warm, witty, and entertaining.  I highly recommend One More Second Chance.

Length:  255 Pages

Prices:

Print:  $TBA

Digital:  $5.99

Buy Link:  http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=195&products_id=6065

You’ll notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher. Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory. You can download your books onto your computer using “Save As” to a “Books” file you create and sort them into sub-folders by genre, author, or however you wish before transferring them to your Kindle. That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on your computer. Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. Rose, Julie, Donna & Rochelle