Book Review: “Minutes Before Sunset” by Shannon Thompson

By: Amira K.
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Minutes Before Sunset was perhaps the worst book I’ve ever fallen in love with. When author Shannon Thompson emailed me and asked if I’d like an e-book copy of her urban paranormal romance, Minutes Before Sunset, I was initially hesitant. Urban paranormal is not a genre I’ve read much in, and romance is a word that typically…

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Book Review: The General In His Labyrinth by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

By: Amira K.
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Here again is another book about death. I apologize for reading such morbid books recently, especially around the holiday season, but there you are. It can’t be helped. The General In His Labyrinth is a departure from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ typical subject, or so I am told. His writing style, normally in the magical realism world…

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Book Review: “Red Phone Box” Edited by Salome Jones

By: Amira K.
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A few months back, I got connected with TLC Book Tours because of my love for Doctor Who. So when my TLC contact asked me if I would be willing to read a fantastical, mysterious, dark story featuring as one of its central aspects a time- and space-traveling red phone box (which is actually much…

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Author Interview: Debbie Young

By: Amira K.
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Meet Debbie Young, the editor of the Alliance of Independent Authors Self-Publishing Advice blog (www.selfpublishingadvice.org), and the author of the book promotion handbook Sell Your Books! She blogs book marketing tips at Off The Shelf Book Promotions (www.otsbp.com), while her personal blog, short stories, flash fiction, travelogues, memoirs, and reviews of other indie authors’ books…

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I Wanted To Love You

By: Amira K.
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In the snow, we whistled, chased birds, threw ourselves down hills, ran along railroad tracks and chased trains blindly through the soft senescent light of streetlights. We drank tea and coffee and ran together and fought and I broke the spines of your books as an act of vengeance. In the flowers, we bled, we…

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Book Review: “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making” By Catherynne Valente

By: Amira K.
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Fairies, golems, wyverns, magical swords, talking furniture, flying cats, and evil sorceresses. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making has all of these and more, critical elements of a soon-to-be childhood favorite that, I hope, will stand among the classics of the genre. The Girl Who… seems to me best described by elements…

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Author Interview: Dan Holloway

By: Amira K.
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Meet Dan Holloway, a novelist, performance poet, and journalist. He is the MC of spoken word show The New Libertines which has toured festivals across the UK, and was winner of Literary Death Match in 2010. His new book, Self-publish With Integrity, helps writers to discover why it is they really write, and then achieve it.…

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Book Review: “Tinkers” by Paul Harding

By: Amira K.
Book Review5 Comments on Book Review: “Tinkers” by Paul Harding

In the style of The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy, L’Etranger by Albert Camus, and Native Son by Richard Wright, Tinkers by Paul Harding is a novel about death. It’s a story of the connected lives of a generation of men, from grandfather to father to dying son, and, ultimately, it’s the story of each man’s death. Most books that…

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The Sowing is an “Irresistible Read”!

By: Amira K.
Musings2 Comments on The Sowing is an “Irresistible Read”!

I rarely toot my own horn on my blog, but recently something big happened that I just have to announce and share with the world. A few weeks ago we submitted The Sowing to a new website called Compulsion Reads, which reviews and endorses independently-published books. I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that The Sowing has…

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