Books
The Driver : Greg D’Alessandro
The Driver
THE DRIVER is a quirky comic novel centered on the author’s real-life escapades escorting “dancers” as they make their nocturnal rounds in his faded Cadillac.
It is the debut novel of writer/comedian Greg D’Alessandro, who in addition to his felonious Hollywood loitering – has mesmerized mainland Chinese children in 40+ episodes of Zodiac Island, an animated/live action kids TV series he wrote and produced in a language he doesn’t know.
THE DRIVER is an irreverent, non-PG-13 summer getaway that puts the reader in the shoes of an unlikely protagonist, as he awkwardly navigates the desires of Hollywood’s glitterati and befriends a coterie of beautiful but idiosyncratic dancers.
The lead character, George Donato, is put to the test when the death of a recent dance patron locks him in a struggle to navigate while his moral compass batteries are low.
About the Author:
Besides his stint driving LA escorts, an occupation in which Brad Pitt preceded him, Greg D’Alessandro has worn many hats over the years. Originally from New York City (that’s what they call N’ern New Jersey in New Jersey) sort of, he wrote seven produced plays for off and off-off Broadway. He also performed regularly as a stand-up comedian at Gotham Comedy Club, Catch A Rising Star and Stand-up NY and worked with comedy legend Danny Simon in L.A. He has won a number of screenwriting awards including the Jack Oakie Comedy Fellowship, the Gil Cates Screenwriting Award and the Jack Nicholson Award. His feature scripts, To Russia With Vinny and The Happy Divorce have both been optioned and are in development.
Greg is currently the Senior Editor for Weekly World News, the occasionally satirical online newspaper and is completing a play, Sex In The Suburbs, debuting in 2014. He was head writer and supervising producer for Zodiac Island in Shanghai. Greg holds dual MFA’s in Screenwriting from USC and UCLA and is a member of the WGA, NARAS and of course, AAA. He is the proud owner of a valid driver’s license.
Book Links
Website
CG Media
On Amazon
Playground Duty : Ned Manning
Playground Duty
In the baking heat of February 1973, wearing a purple body shirt and an expression of confidence that belied his nerves, Ned Manning faced down a classroom full of kids in Tenterfield in remote New South Wales. It was the start of many years of teaching, by turns exhilarating, nerve-fraying and inspiring.
Packed with stories of students both recalcitrant and driven, lesson plans, staff rooms and drama – as studied for the HSC and lived every day – the book roams from high schools in dusty country towns to the edgy Newtown High School of the Performing Arts in Sydney’s inner city and a crucible of creativity at EORA Aboriginal Centre. Through the challenges he inevitably faces, Manning finds the common thread of possibility and hope that runs through his profession.
A funny and disarmingly honest memoir of a full life of teaching, Playground Duty has the power to rekindle a spark of glee and optimism about teachers, kids and even schools.
“Ned Manning’s remarkable book is certainly the Australian equivalent of Frank McCourt’s classic Teacher Man. It is written both with passion for teaching and a genuine love of the many children Ned has taught over his long and successful career.” Dr David Zyngier
Book Links
Website
Blog
Twitter
On Amazon
Gunboat Number 14 : Jens Kuhn
It’s 1808 and Sweden is at war with Russia. The war is not going well.
On land, the Swedish army is retreating continuously and all that stands between the Russians and the Swedish mainland are the gunboats of the inshore fleet. The sea war amongst the islands of the Finnish and Swedish archipelagos is a special kind of war, fought in open boats by badly equipped men without proper training. Fighting the weather as much as the Russians, Lieutenant Johan Kuhlin commands a small squadron of three gunboats on special duty.
During the short and wet summer, he learns that an independent command isn’t all glory and that spies can be more dangerous than Russian guns.
Book Links
Twitter
Goodreads
Smashwords
Amazon Author Page
On Amazon
Dead in the Head : Stina Niklasson
Dead in the Head
This story is what I call Auto-biographical Fiction, it is what has happened to me personally. Instead of actually doing what I WANT to do to these perverts I took it out on paper. It is the real thing, though, because I want to share with you my real life. I want people to know that this stuff happens to innocent children all the time and they don’t say anything.
If you are dealing with similar issues of abuse, I wish you strength to reclaim your life.
Book Links
Website
Facebook
On Amazon
9 Miracles : Leigh Watson
9 Miracles
A short and easy read, 9 Miracles is the inspirational, TRUE story of the 9 extraordinary things and incredible people I encountered, on MY way, to and from Florida, seeing my son off to Iraq. It’s not my son’s story, it’s MINE.
#1 happened on my way going TO Florida, the other 8 things happened on my home and #9 will KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF – – but you can’t look ahead! The first time, it must be read in order! As the Chapters unfold, together with the Conclusion, the life lessons learned can be applied to ANY age and ANY life’s difficult circumstances.
This isn’t a military book, nor a Mama’s book. This inspirational book is about hope and encouragement and the realization that God cares and we are never alone when we are going through our darkest hour. HE will provide the strength you need when you have none left on your own. How God’s grace is overflowing and His mercies unlimited!
After the first time (reading it in order), feeling a little lost and blue today? Got 5 minutes? Pick it up – read ANY Chapter and be instantly lifted!
Available through my website, www.9Miracles.com with 3 versions to choose from, softback, e-book or audio book. I’m the one reading the audio book. Yes, that is my Texas accent. 🙂
I hope you enjoy it and that it touches you. It was written/read with love. 🙂
Book Links
Website
Twitter
On Amazon
The Happiness Cure : Winslow Eliot
The Happiness Cure
Happiness for sale! The Happiness Guru offers everyone’s dream… for a price. For Kairi, he offers even more. Much more. Will she bite? Will a charming stranger save her … or lead her deeper into a trap? Is love better than happiness? As whirlwind events escalate, Kairi is plunged into intrigue and danger. She has to determine what happiness really means—for her.
Book Links
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Google+
Amazon Author Page
On Amazon
Feral Youth : Polly Courtney
Feral Youth
Growing up on a south London estate and excluded from every school that would take her, Alesha is the poster girl for the nation’s ‘feral youth’.
When a young teacher makes an unexpected reappearance in the 15-year-old’s life, opening the door to a world of salaries, pianos and middle-class housemates, Alesha’s instinct is to pull up her hood and return to the streets.
But fuelled by a need to survive, she falls into a cycle of crime, violence and drug-dealing, her one true ally deserting her when she needs him most. While everyone around her is rallying against the authorities in a war of haves and have-nots, Alesha finds herself caught in the crossfire, inextricably linked to the people she is trying to fight against.
Can she see a way out? And as riots sweep the nation, whose side will she take?
FERAL YOUTH is Courtney’s sixth novel and her first since walking out on her publisher, HarperCollins, over the ‘girly’ titles and covers assigned to her books. She wrote Feral Youth ‘to give a voice to the thousands of frustrated youths who, like Alesha, feel marginalised and ignored by the rest of society’.
Book Links
Website
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Amazon Author Page
On Amazon UK
On Amazon
Conquest Defiled : Robert Wagner
Conquest Defiled : Triumph of Evil
This novel is historical fiction set in fifteenth century Spain. The Inquisition thrived and terrorized those who deviated from church teaching (heretics). During this era King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ended eight hundred years of Arab occupation and re-fashioned Spain. Seen through the eyes of a Christian knight and his Jewish wife, the novel is of enduring love against a background of intrigue, war and religious arrogance.
To inherit the throne of Castile, Isabella was required to marry a suitor chosen by the king (Henry IV, her half-brother). She refused, and in spite of consanguinity laws, married her second cousin, Ferdinand of Aragon. Upon the death of Henry IV, Isabella crowned herself Queen of Castile and secured the crown by victory in the war of succession.
Appointed by God, the monarchs won the war of the Reconquista and purged the infidel from Christian Spain. Ferdinand conducted the war. Isabella formed alliances, gave land grants to nobles and received vast sums of money from the church. After the war the monarchs issued The Edict of Expulsion. All Jews and Muslims were banished. Only Christians remained. Spain was now one country, of one faith, under God and pure of blood (Limpieza de Sangre).
Entwined in the novel are the fictional characters, Casiano, a Christian knight and Perla, his wife, a Converso Jewess. Unable to relinquish her traditional beliefs, she was denounced to the Inquisition and sentenced as a heretic. Casiano rescued her from the stake and fled. Freed from their imposed god, they found within themselves, God in whose image they were, the essence of their souls.
The Unwanted Heiress : Amy Corwin
The Unwanted Heiress
An American heiress nobody wants; a Duke every woman is after; and a murder no one expects.
When Nathaniel, Duke of Peckham, meets Charlotte, he’s suspicious of her indifference. Too many women have sought—and failed—to catch him. However, Charlotte is more interested in dead pharaohs than English dukes.
Unfortunately, a debutante seeking to entrap Nathaniel gets murdered, and his reputation as a misogynist makes him a suspect. On impulse, Charlotte comes to his aid, not realizing that her actions may place her in danger, too.
Both are unaware that a highwayman interested in rich heiresses is following Charlotte, and that another debutante lies dead in Nathaniel’s carriage.
Some nights just don’t go as planned.
Book Links
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Amazon Author Page
On Amazon
Coffee and Vodka : Helena Halme
Coffee and Vodka
‘Nordic Noir Meets Family Saga’
‘A rich story that stays with us….with moments of brilliance.’ Dr Mimi Thebo, Bath Spa University.
‘The descriptions of the difficulties of childhood, sisterhood, relationships and parenthood transcend national borders.’ Pauline Masurel, editor & writer.
Eeva, a tall, ambitious teacher of Swedish to immigrants, is sipping coffee in her orderly flat in Stockholm, when the phone rings. She recognises the voice immediately, though she hasn’t spoken with Pappa for over thirty years. He has news that Eeva’s beloved grandmother is dying. Immediately Eeva decides to travel to Finland alone. She tries to call her sister Anja to tell her the news, but can’t get hold of her. However, Eeva decides against telling her boyfriend, Janne, about her journey.
On the overnight ferry to Finland, Eeva is haunted by memeories of her childhood and the dramatic events which follwed her family’s move in 1974 from a small Finnish town to Stockholm. The story shifts between the past and the present.
Eeva is excited when Pappa announces the move from Tampere to a brand new flat in the Swedish capital, where ‘Everything is bigger and better’. But in Sweden Eeva’s world falls apart. Mamma finds feminism and Eeva’s feisty older sister, Anja, quickly becomes fluent in the language and starts to pretend to be Swedish. But the domineering Pappa feels angry at being called a ‘Fucking Finn’ by the more affluent Swedes. He feels inferior and resents his family’s newfound independence.
On the overnight ferry Eeva meets an old lover she thought’d she’d forgotten, Yri. They share a drink and Eeva finds he hasn’t lost any of his charm. The next morning, when Eeva drives towards Tampere, a town she left behind as a child, she dreads seeing Pappa again. She’s anxious to see her grandmother and puzzled that she can’t get hold of her sister. How will Eeva overcome her fear of Pappa, her anger at his past actions and the haunting memories from her childhood? And what is she going to say to Janne?
Book Links
Website
Facebook
Twitter
About Me
Amazon Author Page
On Amazon UK
On Amazon
