Connecting Reviewers with Authors
That’s How It Was by Hazel Pacheco
Best described as slyly funny and heart-warming, That’s How It Was: Operation Finders Keepers is uniquely written in letter format. Written from a ten-year-old boy’s perspective, Randy Ray’s letters prove to be captured moments in time just waiting to be discovered by his daughters thirty-seven years later. These treasured memories allow his daughters to get to know the boy who became their father.
Mayhem 337: Memoir of a Combat Advisor in Afghanistan by Chad Rickard
In 2008, Senior U.S. Army Infantry Sergeant Chad Rickard embedded within the Afghan Army as a Combat Advisor. During a yearlong deployment, he slugged it out with Haqqani Taliban on Afghanistan’s eastern border, along Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier. Follow Rickard as he engages in mountain warfare against numerically superior enemy forces. See urban combat through the eyes of a Soldier that was there. Follow along as his team directs airstrikes and artillery fire. From hostage situations, to IEDs, and air assaults, this memoir leaves nothing to the imagination. Don’t miss this award-winning book and author.
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Wheels of Injustice by Susan Louise Gabriel
It began with one woman’s fight to save her child and ended in a national movement—
Six weeks into a blissful honeymoon, life turns into a nightmare when Susan’s 9-year-old daughter is taken away and her husband is falsely accused of child sexual abuse.
A simple misunderstanding is reshaped by the powerful, out-of-control child protection machine of the 1980s into something sinister, and Susan is dragged under its churning wheels. She is given the choice to cooperate in prosecuting her innocent husband or lose her daughter.
It’s the decade of unfounded abuse accusations, hysterical claims of orgies at daycare centers, families controlled by courts, and a child protection system that has become the very thing it was created to eradicate.
No one wants to hear the facts.
No one wants to know the truth.
When the couple doesn’t cave to the pressure, Susan loses custody of her daughter, and her husband is charged with a felony that carries a 16-year prison sentence.
Wheels of Injustice is a curtains-pulled-back, true account of the child protection system of the ’80s and its victims, who risked everything to expose its egregiously unjust acts and reform it.
“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
This memoir is a tribute to God’s faithfulness and a message of hope and inspiration to others who struggle to overcome adversity, fight injustice, or turn an upended life the right way around again.
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All Is Not LOST by Shannon Kenny Carbonell
All Is Not LOST is the story of what happened when one woman set aside a lifelong dream in favor of her kids, only to find herself battling her own ego and unfulfilled ambition. Shannon Kenny Carbonell — wife of actor Nestor Carbonell of LOST, Bates Motel, and The Morning Show fame — knew she was making the better choice for her, no matter how painful, when she decided on full-time motherhood over career. Little did Shannon know she would soon find herself desperate to feed the part of her that was suddenly starved of creativity and accomplishment.
When she found out her family would be relocating to Oahu, Hawaii, while Nestor shot LOST, Shannon helped uproot their lives with as much true love and support as she could muster, thinking, ”I’ll just have to be lost in the midst of LOST.” But not long after the move, a torturous family fight revealed the burden of her loss was also weighing upon those closest to her. Just like the LOST survivors, she had crashed on an island that would test her, heal her, and surround her with the people who would eventually show her the way home.
With a no-holds-barred honesty that is raw, sometimes heartbreaking, and often hysterical, former working actress Shannon Kenny Carbonell tells her tale of attempting to reconcile her growing feelings of failure and sudden loss of her identity. This is her journey.
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Finding Heaven In The Dark by William L. Ingram
FINDING HEAVEN IN THE DARK – A MEMOIR ABOUT LIFE’S MEANING
The Story of a Boy’s Journey from Rebellion To Redemption.
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What if you have to survive undercover in a hostile land?
A single slip can lead to arrest, torture, execution. Who can be trusted? Discover what kept Churchill’s secret saboteurs alive in occupied France, Holland or Thailand – or didn’t!
‘A fascinating and important study of a long-hidden corner of SOE history.’ Dr Roderick Bailey, Pembroke College, Oxford, Advisor to BBC TV series ‘Secret Agent Selection: WW2’.
The men and women who served as agents of the World War 2 Special Operations Executive were courageous. But courage was not enough. They also needed to learn the caution and suspicion that might just keep them alive, deep undercover in enemy territory.
Guardians of Churchill’s Secret Army tells the stories of the extraordinary men who taught them those skills and thought processes. They helped trainee agents learn how to seem innocuous while preparing resistance, subversion and sabotage. Each spoke several languages. Many became agents themselves and faced danger with great bravery; that’s part of their story too. All played a crucial role in the global effort to undermine the enemy.
We find them not only in the Baker Street Headquarters of SOE, but also in night parachute drops, in paramilitary training in the remotest depths of Scotland and in undercover agent training in isolated English country houses. We follow them to occupied France, to Malaya and Thailand under threat of Japanese invasion, to Italy and Germany as they play their part in the collapse of the Axis regimes. Their stories are inspiring.
If you like discovering the true stories that underpin the history of the Second World War, then you’ll want to read this authentic book. Author of Setting the Med Ablaze, Dr Peter Dixon has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and four decades of military and peacebuilding experience. In the tradition of Antony Beevor and Ben Macintyre, he shines a spotlight on a crucial area of the Special Operations Executive.
Targeted Age Group:: Adult
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Many books have been written about the men and women of the Special Operations Executive, but the story of these men was a little-known aspect of World War 2 history.
You Can’t Buy Love Like That: Growing Up Gay in the Sixties by Carol Anderson
How do you live an authentic life while keeping a secret?
This award-winning memoir chronicles one woman’s struggle to be true to herself as she grapples with the ramifications of accepting that she’s gay amid the religious, social and legal norms of the Sixties.
Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household, and fearing the rejection of her parents, she keeps the secret of her love orientation for many years until the unexpected death of her father causes her to face what she’s lost in not telling him the truth.
Candid and poignant, You Can’t Buy Love Like That reveals the complex invisible dynamics that arise for gay people who are forced to hide their true selves in order to survive and celebrates the hard-won rewards of finding one’s courageous heart and achieving self-acceptance and self-love.
This book offers hope to those seeking to live truthfully as well as those who value the triumph of love over fear.
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Evelyn Evolving by Maryann Miller
A novel of real life.
Four-year-old Evelyn Gundrum’s secure and happy world is turned upside down when she and her sister are abandoned by their mother and sent to an orphanage run by the terrifying Sister Honora. An orphanage is not an ideal place for a child to live, even in the best of times, and Evelyn is there in the worst of times, 1923 to 1933.
Evelyn grows up amidst hardship and heartbreak, plagued by unresolved emotions and trauma that follow her into adulthood as she seeks answers in a sea of questions. The most important one being, will anybody ever love her.
Will her uncertain path to self-discovery lead to happiness?
Praise: “Evelyn Evolving is a heartfelt story of one woman’s journey through some of life’s most difficult trials, a coming-of-age that readers won’t soon forget. Maryann Miller captures the spirit of a woman who refuses to be defeated with great tenderness and, what’s more, enduring hope.” — Kristy Woodson Harvey, bestselling author of Slightly South of Simple
Aiming High: How a Prominent Sports and Celebrity Agent Hit Bottom at the Top by Darren Prince
The book “Aiming High” is the astonishing and amazing story of sports and celebrity agent Darren Prince, who battled addiction while representing some of the most iconic figures in the world. After a drug overdose, many demoralizing nights, and mornings where he couldn’t get out of bed without a prescription in hand, Darren hit rock bottom – and in the process discovered the true meaning of success. Darren learned the hard lesson that no matter who you are, addiction will not discriminate on who it will drag to rock bottom next.
Review: “There are very few books that I have read that keep my eyes glued to every page. I can’t put this book down and I want to read it again. Darren has opened up his amazing life to us. Hitting bottom at the top is the complete opposite of what we normally read about rags to riches stories. His book gives us life lessons and business lessons we can use today to make our own lives better, more productive, and understand that the human connection is more important than the money we make. Darren’s book should be part of every college business course. Real-life, real situations, real people. If you desire to be sober, Darren Prince is an example that you can make it. There are a few times in this book that I had tears in my eyes while reading his story. It is not every day people like Darren open up their lives and have the audacity to share the pitfalls of addiction just to help others.”
Well Earned 5-Stars for this one I highly recommend everyone to read.
Mayhem 337: Memoir of a Combat Advisor in Afghanistan by Chad Rickard
Chad Rickard was a decorated, multi-tour Iraq War veteran with hundreds of combat missions under his belt. He was a seasoned infantryman with a desire to join the fight in Afghanistan against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces bent on keeping American influence out of the region. In 2008 the opportunity arose to deploy as an infantry advisor to the Afghan Army and he seized the chance. After months of intensive training he embedded with an Afghan Army Infantry Battalion in Khost, Afghanistan. There he began a fierce and deadly nine-month fight against Haqqani Taliban along the Pakistan border of Eastern Afghanistan. His gripping memoir guides you through intense mountain warfare from an austere outpost as well as street to street fighting and hostage situations in downtown Khost City. This skillfully written, award winning memoir, is one you are sure to enjoy as Rickard shares the thrill of victory and the agony of losing men in battle.
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