Daily Archives: October 23, 2017

KINGS OF DELUSIONby E.J. Findorff

In the days before, during, and after the flooding of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans there was a serial killer on the loose and looking for a certain female that got away. Paramedic Evan Pelicano’s true accounts of the storm are weaved into this tale of survival while saddled with the sixteen year old daughter of his slain friend Officer Jeremy Scarlet. At first, the paramedics and police officers navigate the floodwater trying to save residents, but then Evan finds he needs to save himself as well as protect his friend’s daughter from the killer among them, all the while determined to reunite with his girlfriend, the Chief Deputy Coroner of New Orleans.

The Daughters’ Baggageby Diane Winger

Every piece of baggage carries the tales of the lives it has touched.

Aaliyah Johnson just wants to live a normal life – finish school, have a career, a family, a future. But when her father takes his own life after his return from the war in Afghanistan, she and her mother are plunged into poverty and a homeless struggle to survive.

The unusual circumstances of her mother’s acquisition of a small, green suitcase seem to mark a turnaround in their luck as they begin to rebuild their lives. Then, in a heartbeat, a devastating blow rocks her world, and young Aaliyah’s baggage may be more than she can bear.

Gasoline, Texasby Joseph Flynn

Gasoline, Texas Laddy Johnson may or may not be the unacknowledged love child of the late President Lyndon Baines Johnson. But one thing’s for sure: After fifteen years of being a Hollywood stuntman, Laddy’s back to run for mayor of his hometown of Gasoline, Texas. His opponent is incumbent Edwin Win-Win Winslow. Win-Win is the quintessential Texas good ol’ boy. A former star lineman at Texas A&M, Win-Win now owns Texas Rolling Stock, an upscale SUV dealership that sells internal combustion monsters like gas was still 25¢ a gallon. Which in Gasoline it still is. The town has its own oil field and refinery. And the Municipal Field is what the election is all about. Laddy vows to keep it. Win-Win wants to sell it to Big Oil, which is getting nervous about the idea of anybody in the country still having access to affordable fuel. Win-Win promises that every homeowner in town will get a windfall payment that will make the sale a good deal. Laddy cautions that Big Oil is way too slippery to trust. Who will win? Will the Winslow dynasty be extended another generation? Will Laddy ever find out who his daddy is? Will he marry his first love, now a famous movie star? Or will he chuck everything to take up with Win-Wins long lost daughter, Hayley? Finding out is a gusher of fun.

Our Home Movies: A Novelby Patrick Cosgrove

Our Home Movies is a story about a storyteller — Marty Nyrop — on the edge of realizing an ambition that only a few obsessive individuals ever achieve. He’s directing his first feature film and it stars Laura Trent-Sampson, a world-renowned celebrity. But instead of transforming his life with this dream-come-true, Marty’s next move is to throw away his hard-won career by bolting from the movie set with the actress’s newborn baby in his arms. What on earth has he done to himself? And to the child? By abducting the son of his negligent, emotionally destructive performers, Marty makes an irrevocable choice: no more actors for this baby he’s suddenly claimed as his own, no more directing for himself, and so, as only a parent would fully understand, no more Marty entirely. He flees knowing only that he’s determined to give this still-nameless child a chance in life that he and his brother, the child’s father, never knew.
Yet seventeen years later, he must fight for his now-teenage son’s future again when Laura, the enduringly famous birth mother, suddenly reappears in their lives with her own reality-TV crew in tow, intent on undoing everything Marty has achieved as a father.
Our Home Movies is a search for connection — with children, siblings, parents, and lovers — even as those connections are misshapen by the moviemaking process and its aftermath. It’s about the desire for celebrity, the price of gaining business and creative power, the real-world meaning to be found in Romantic Comedy, the explosive synergy of an actor’s need for approval twisted together with a director’s need for control, all of it braided with an American character trait that insists we’re entitled to reinvent ourselves. Each issue is bound up with the others to make Our Home Movies a worthy addition to the “Hollywood novel” bookshelf.

Author Sherril Jaffe, a PEN Award winner and Professor Emerita of Literature and Creative Writing at Sonoma State University writes:

Our Home Movies is amazingly accomplished. I am in awe at the intricacy of its construction and all that it offers to a reader — not just entrée into what it’s really like, in all aspects, to make a movie, but also how it gives a way for the reader to grapple with eternal conflicts: work and family, art and life, conflicts between brothers, unresolved traumas, the Japanese internment camps — and how there is a view into the adolescent skater world, a love story, a veritable course in film theory. Like a rom-com, the protagonist Marty wins the directorship, loses it and wins it again. Great themes emerge, doppelgängers merge into each other, and the past is redeemed by the future. By the end of the novel, I will have bonded with Marty on several fronts. Although the story has been about Hollywood and the making of movies, it has also been about the fact that parenting always involves an enormous sacrifice, about the incredible force that bonds one to one’s child, and about how art reflects, redeems and resolves life, and so much more. I’m in awe at how the story is structured like a chiasmus; there’s a great feeling of exhilaration at the end, its lovely final emotional moment leaves me utterly satisfied, as if all of my various parts had been exercised, all the conflicts of my life resolved, all the parts falling into place, the narrative so sure-footed and beautifully structured.

Frumpy to Fabulous: Flaunting It. Your Ultimate Guide to Effortless Styleby Natalie Jobity

In “Frumpy to Fabulous: Flaunting It. Your Ultimate Guide to Effortless Style”, Natalie Jobity, a professional image consultant, shares with women tips, insider secrets and advice they can use immediately to learn how to dress to enhance their image so they look and feel amazing, inside and out.

“Frumpy to Fabulous: Flaunting It” has step-by-step guidance on all the topics you care about: dressing to flatter your figure; determining your personal style; shopping smarter so you fill your closet with the right pieces; working with color; pulling your look together with accessories; dressing to elevate your image at work; and much more. As you read each chapter, Natalie’s friendly, engaging, voice empowers you to unleash your style potential and encourages you to dare to express your fabulous.

With illustrations showcasing “real” women, summarized tip lists (finding the right jeans, picking a cocktail dress and much more!), exercises and anecdotes based on Natalie’s work with hundreds of women, this is a book that you will cherish and refer to time and time again. As you read, you will realize that you are in the midst of more than an image makeover. You are really being taken on a journey of transformation– a wonderful and exhilarating experience that helps you tap into your true essence and express it by the way you dress.

Natalie dishes her advice and wisdom in a down to earth and practical manner that is delivered with motivation and sass. She lets her book lead the way for the woman who is ready for her image to catch up with the rest of her life.

This book is an invitation to change how the world sees you and how you see yourself, on your terms. Yes, you too can become one of those effortlessly stylish women you admire. Wherever you are on your image journey-from fashion challenged to emerging fashionista-with Natalie as your guide you will be inspired to “Flaunt It!”