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Where Awesome Book Readers Meet Awesome Writers

1. The Queen’s Blade IV – Sacred Knight of the Veil by TC Southwell - T. C. Southwell was born in Sri Lanka and moved to the Seychelles when she was a baby. She spent her formative years exploring the islands – mostly alone. Naturally, her imagination flourished and she developed a keen love of other worlds. The family travelled through Europe and Africa and, after the death of her father, settled in South Africa. T. C. Southwell has written over thirty novels, ranging from fantasy and science fiction to romance and adventure, as well as five screenplays. Her hobbies include motorcycling, horse riding and art, and she is now a full-time writer.
   
2. Ripple, A Tale of Hope and Redemption by E.L. Farris - Ex-lawyer E.L. Farris is a born-again, marathon-running married mother of three who resides in Northern Virginia. <---That's what it says on the back of Ripple. What else do you need to know about me? I talk a lot. I write a lot. I adore my husband. I adore my children. What else? Well, I run. I've been running since I turned 14. I started to run then and I've been running ever since. Whenever I stop running, I land in a lot of trouble. I ran through a childhood that could well be described as hell. I ran through major depressive episodes and often teetered one step from the edge of a breakdown. Through running, I held onto my sanity, my sobriety, my life and my belief in God. Each step I take, no matter how physically painful, draws me a shade closer into my better angels. And the steps have become painful over the years, which is how I earned the nickname Phoenix. Some mornings I feel like I've been run over by a bus and the truth is, I was. I survived a collision with a metro bus, and it's fair to say that the accident messed me up. And yet I keep rising from the pyre of a burning fire and as I run I realize that as long as I hold the Holy Spirit inside me, my spirit will never die.
   
3. A Bullet For Carlos - I live in Texas now, but I grew up in Cleland Heights, a mixed ethnic neighborhood in Wilmington, Delaware, that sat on the fringes of the Italian, Irish and Polish neighborhoods. The main characters of Murder Takes Time grew up in Cleland Heights, and many of the scenes in the book were taken from real-life experiences. Since this is a bio some of you might wonder what I do. I've had a successful 30 year career as a headhunter, recruiting top talent for some of the world's best companies--Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, and many high-profile start-up companies. During that time I've completed more than 500 searches, which translates into evaluating, editing, and writing thousands of resumes. I have also interviewed and done reference checks on more than 1,000 candidates. I've learned what companies want to see on a resume--and, perhaps more importantly--what they don't. You'll find a lot more information in the book and on my website. Getting back to the bio--when my kids were young I left the Northeast and settled in Texas, where my wife suggested we get a few animals. I should have known better; we now have a full-blown animal sanctuary with rescues from all over. At last count we had 45 animals--11 dogs, a horse, a three-legged cat and 5 others, and 26 pigs. Oh, and one crazy--and very large--wild boar, who takes walks with me every day and happens to also be my best buddy. In the evening I help my wife tend to the animals, and at night--late at night--I turn into a writer. Check out the websites. For fiction books go to: http://giacomogiammatteo.com Non-fiction books: http://nomistakes.org Once you get there, take a look around, click some links, and, if you've got time, tell me what you think.
   
4. Screenshot - John Darrin has worked in the nuclear industry for 40 years, initially as a radiation health and safety professional, and most recently as a consultant for companies focused on nuclear and radiological disasters and homeland security. He has worked on such unique projects as the first-ever decommissioning of a radiological research laboratory, the decommissioning of several nuclear reactors, the recovery after the Three Mile Island accident, the design and manufacture of radiation monitors for First Responders, and even on the treatment of nuclear weapons waste in China. This work has taken him all over the world, from China to Finland, from Central America to Canada, providing a wealth of experience and information that is reflected in his writings. After graduation from Colgate University, he trained as a radiation safety technician and studied further at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Virginia. His full-time life included such experiences as the entire ‘60’s phenomena, the anti-war movement, arrests, running businesses that manufactured electronics in Finland and the U.S., and invented radically new radioactive waste treatment processes, and created one of USA Today’s Top 10 Cyber Cafés. John’s first novel, The Law of the Pack, won an international Best First Novel contest, and was followed in 2009 by Screenshot, a best-selling techno-thriller about pay-per-view Internet assassinations. In addition to his writing, John continues to consult on radiological emergency preparedness and response, and participates in professional groups planning for such incidents. He lives in Frederick, MD with his extraordinary fiancé and a menagerie of rescued animals including cats, dogs, birds, and even a horse.
   
5. Gem The Giraffe by Lubam Hanibuf - Lubam Hanibuf is a writer of children's stories.
   
6. Dear Golfman - Dear Golfman is another in the Sned Wiffle series written by Steve Ryan, a writer and humorist of some (little) distinction. Ryan is also a former US Open caddie and a perpetually tired dew-sweeper who plays more than 100 half-rounds a year—unsupervised—throughout New England and around San Diego. Co-author Connor Ryan is an incorrigible younger version of the same but with more skills, more talent and many more years for probable corruption.
   
7. Affirmations: Morning Affirmations That Will Push You To A Positive Day - Affirmations in the morning are the easiest way to get you to where you want to be in life the quickest. People may think that they are silly, or a "trick", it's simply not true. It is proven fact that affirmations will lead you to be more positive and attract special things into your life. This is a full guide for affirmations to start your day.
   
8. New Atlantis Bundle Bk 1-3 by Nhys Glover - Nhys Glover is an Aussie teacher, life coach, historian, and writer who now lives and works in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales where she is inspired by Bronte country to write (little bit hot) romantic adventures that feed her soul and inspire her readers. Nhys has had a varied and interesting life that has included living in the outback, working in a male medium security prison, and travelling the world presenting her spiritual board game, Psyche's Key. Nowadays her life resembles peaceful New Atlantis in many ways, and she does her own time travelling using her imagination and in-depth historical research into each of her books. Fictional Writing has been a way to process many of her more challenging life experiences, (like the death of her son and a breast cancer diagnosis on the same day. Truth is weirder than fiction.) It has therefore been a bit of a shock that her romances have been so well received: She hit the Best Seller top spot for Historical Fiction on the Amazon UK and made it to the Top 5 on Amazon.com with one of her steamier Historical romances, and that now over 300 of her books are being downloaded daily, on average, across the world .
   
9. A Boy, A Dog and a Fly - Kiplyn Garrett wrote A Boy, A Dog and a Fly
   
10. 64 - Patrick Hurley has had ten books published and has won three Emmy awards for television hosting, writing and producing.
    
11. A Guide to The Present Moment - Noah Elkrief has helped thousands of people to experience the unconditional peace of living in the moment through his individual counseling practice in Manhattan, his popular video blog, and his book, "A Guide to The Present Moment", which hit #1 on the Amazon Bestseller List in Stress Management, Happiness, Counseling, and Zen. From the time Noah was just six years old, he started meditating every day. While devoting himself to meditation, Noah also managed to achieve worldly success as he worked on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs in New York, traveled around Europe as a corporate strategy consultant based out of London, and was accepted into the prestigious Mensa society. In the summer of 2009, Noah's life drastically changed when, in one moment, the vast majority of his thoughts just vanished from his mind. Without almost all of his thoughts, Noah was left with the indescribable experience of peace, freedom, and wholeness that he had always been longing for. As it turned out, this wasn't just a passing experience, and almost all of his thoughts barely attempted to return. Once Noah's mind had become predominantly silent, any time a new thought entered his mind and tried to create suffering, he could see very clearly how the thought wasn't true. What he discovered was that when he didn't believe his thoughts, his thoughts stopped creating emotions, and they stopped taking his attention. That left Noah with the virtually uninterrupted experience of peace. Noah then left the corporate world to dedicate his life to helping others to live in peace, mostly by sharing his 5-step process for how to identify and stop believing the thoughts that create everyone's unwanted emotions.
    
12. 8 Unbreakable Rules Workbook - Sean C. Castrina, founder of newbizcoach.org, is a true entrepreneur, having started over 15 successful companies over the last 18 years. His companies have ranged from retail, direct mail marketing and advertising to real estate development and home services.
    
13. Tannic and the last Woolly Mammoth by Jay Grewal - I'm a Writer/Author who has been working tirelessly on many different projects and manuscripts. To me, writing is like a gauge on a pressure cooker, it releases all the emotions pent up inside. I am in love with this journey and I have dedicated my life to it, not because I'm striving to become famous, but because I adore the art and want to learn it. To date I have completed four novels and I am currently working on several new and unique story lines. Deep down inside I will always be a humble story teller, who will continue to write as long as people continue to read.
    
14. Too Fast - Too Fast is Alexia's debut NA novel. She is an award-winning author and member of RWA.
    
15. A Sunday Kind of Love: A Short Story – Part 1 of the Novel Series, STONY THE ROAD - Before turning to fiction, Andrew Hill worked as a reporter and TV news anchor at KPIX-TV in San Francisco and WQXI-TV in Atlanta. Radio listeners in Monterey heard his voice each morning as host of “Baroque ‘n Eggs” on Classical KBOQ-FM. Early in his career, he also hosted two daily talk shows on Atlanta’s Ring Radio (WRNG-AM). Widely published as a journalist and essayist, his nonfiction has appeared nationally in Readers Digest, Playboy, the Christian Science Monitor, and in the San Francisco Examiner, where he won an award for his coverage of the United Farm Workers.
    
16. The Great Leap Forward by Armand Burke - Armand Burke was born in the 1950s in a place whose name he does not care to remember. In his early twenties he found himself living in New York City and increasingly baffled by an obsession with China. At that time the Middle Kingdom was off-limits to Western travelers and in the midst of a political upheaval. After countless hours in the Far Eastern Collection of the New York Public Library, Burke realized that he would never find the truth about China in any of the usual places, least of all in China itself. Like Joseph Conrad describing a continent he had never visited, or Pierre Menard recreating Don Quixote word by word, he relocated his search, beyond outward appearances, to the deepest recesses of his own imagination. Sensing correctly that his discoveries in that chaotic region would be suppressed by the military/industrial/publishing complex, he wrote on the run—in an apartment in the Bronx, a basement in Colorado, a farmhouse in Vermont—while working as a bank messenger, an investigator and a storekeeper and reading the Illuminati trilogy. The result was The Great Leap Forward, which has been called “unequalled,” “unparalleled” and “extraordinary,” among other things. Today, except after a night of heavy drinking, he denies having written it. He lives on an island off the coast of Maine with two Siamese cats, three dogs, four pot-bellied pigs, and a Komodo dragon.
    
17. The Emerald Queen (A Vieux Carré Romance) - Karen Jones Delk, who has also written as Kate Kingsley, is author of six historical romances published by HarperMonogram and Harlequin Historicals. Emerald Queen is the first of her novels to be published as an ebook. Brought up in South Louisiana near the mouth of the Mississippi River, Ms. Delk now lives in Northern California where she spends most of her time being a partner in a broadcast consulting firm and keeping up with her actor/voice talent husband of nearly forty years.
    
18. A Walk in the Snark - You can find Rachel most days on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, providing social media tips on her own interactive Twitter stream and popular blog, consulting with social media clients (See BadRedhead Media), or promoting her books A Walk In The Snark and The Mancode: Exposed, both Kindle bestsellers! On December 20, 2012, she released Broken Pieces, her first non-humor collection of essays, prose and poetry to terrific reviews! Pick up a copy today! Rachel lived in the OC, aka Orange County, CA (home of Disneyland) for over seventeen years and recently moved back to family and friends in the Sacramento, CA area. Somewhere in there, this redhead in a sea of blondes fits in being a full-time wife and mom to her two young children and just one husband. She loves coffee, the occasional dirty martini, and misses sleep. Rachel was profiled by Sean Gardner (April, 2011) in the Huffington Post Books section regarding social media and ePublishing, was chosen by BlogWorld as one of twenty-three 'Brilliant Bloggers' in March, 2012, and recently shouted out on Forbes (August 2012) -- wait for it -- three times! She's also a monthly San Francisco Book Review columnist and guest writer for 12Most and BitRebels. Check it out!
    
19. The Mancode: Exposed - You can find Rachel most days on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Goodreads, Pinterest, or Instagram, providing social media tips on her own interactive Twitter stream and popular blog, consulting with social media clients (See BadRedhead Media), or promoting her books A Walk In The Snark and The Mancode: Exposed, both Kindle bestsellers! On December 20, 2012, she released Broken Pieces, her first non-humor collection of essays, prose and poetry to terrific reviews! Pick up a copy today! Thompson is also the Blog-To-Book expert for Triberr, giving regular webinars on taking your blog to book and how to ensure it sells! She also started four popular book promotion sites for all types of authors. Rachel lived in the OC, aka Orange County, CA (home of Disneyland) for over seventeen years. In Fall, 2012 she moved back to the Sacramento area where she was raised. Somewhere in there, this redhead in a sea of blondes fits in being a full-time wife and mom to her two young children and just one husband. She loves coffee, the occasional dirty martini, and Nutella. She misses sleep. Rachel was profiled by Sean Gardner (April, 2011) in the Huffington Post Books section regarding social media and ePublishing, was chosen by BlogWorld as one of twenty-three 'Brilliant Bloggers' in March, 2012, and recently shouted out in Forbes THREE times (August and September, 2012)! She's also a monthly columnist for the San Francisco Book Review and guest writer for 12Most and BitRebels. Check it out!
    
20. Homecoming King (Diary Entry #1) - Luke Mallory was born in Dublin, Ireland. After completing his university degree (some businessy thing) he meandered over to Paris, France and briefly worked as a trader. Unsure as to why he did this, he made his way back to Ireland, took off his shirt and started writing books. Following the launch of his debut novella, Singleton, Luke has put his shirt back on - something his employers are particularly happy about. Luke is currently working in an antiques store while he plans his first full-length novel. Indeed, he can often be seen scribbling away at an unsold Victorian writing desk in the store, much to his employer's annoyance. After work, Luke regularly walks the famous pier in Dun Laoghaire. He definitely does not do this during work hours. A fan of Girls, Guinness, Rugby, Girls, Nightclubs and Dayclubs if there is such a thing, Luke Mallory's modus operandi is to make the most out of life. If he can make a few others smile and laugh at the same time, then it's all the better!
    
21. Enjoying Genesis: The Bible in Rhyme by Marcia Goldlist - Marcia Goldlist is the author of five books all of which are in rhyme to serve a purpose. Her Express Yourself in Rhyme series are books which help anyone who wants to write a greeting card or give a toast. Marcia started writing rhyming cards for friends and family but was soon asked to write for others. As a result she has put together a collection of books which will help others know just what to say when they want to get across their message. The books in this series are: ~ Birthday Cards & Toasts ~Cards & Toasts For Almost All Occasions ~Cards, Toasts & Notes For the Office ~The Big Book of Cards & Toasts For Almost All Occasions (This book is all three above books in one.) Marcia's B.Ed is in religious education from McGill University and her M.Ed. is from the University of Toronto. Making religious education meaningful and fun has always been Marcia's passion. Marcia felt a great accomplishment publishing Enjoying Genesis which she believes makes the Book of Genesis approachable and fun. She is almost finished Enjoying Exodus: The Bible in Rhyme and looks forward to writing more books of the Bible in rhyme. Besides writing poetry Marcia also maintains a blog where she gives discussion and activity ideas related to the Bible. You can find her blog at enjoyingthebible.wordpress.com.
    
22. Firstborn (The MaCall Prophecy Trilogy) by Carrigan Fox - Carrigan Fox began developing her passion for writing during her gruesome middle school years, where the prospect of escaping into a world of her own making was infinitely more satisfying than that of the petty pre-teen dramas that baffled her. When she was nineteen, someone had the audacity to suggest that she consider writing romance. Instead, her writing took a backseat to her budding teaching career, where she spent twelve years struggling to comprehend how someone couldn't love Dickens, Twain, and Wilde. And with the ongoing shifts in education and her young child's constant reminders of the joys that life has to offer, Carrigan felt compelled to finally more aggressively pursue her passion for writing. After all, she could hardly encourage her own child to pursue her dreams unless she was doing the same. And fifteen years after she snorted at the preposterous suggestion of writing romance, she decided to do exactly that...and she is loving it!
    
23. Homemade Beauty Treatments and Skin Care Recipes by Vesela Tabakova - Vesela Tabakova lives in a green heaven with her family of five, a crazy Jack Russell Terrier, some other dogs and all the birds in the world. Her passion is reading, cooking and preparing homemade beauty products for family and friends willing to experiment
    
24. Step Into Your Power: 6 Things TEENS Wish They Knew - Curiosity may have killed that feline fur ball, but she or him learned a lot before exiting number nine. I too have been curious, wondering why we, I or they acted this way, looked or did it that way or were otherwise human. But curiosity is such a casual word, and the truth is my desire to know was almost desperate. There were times in life that I felt angry when there was no one around, unhappy when life was just fine, times I had trouble with relationships for seemingly no reason, times I felt sad when…well, you get the idea. That desperate curiosity, along with forty years of inner work, has lead to some interesting answers and some surprising books. Also, I love talking with those courageous people who are going for a positive change, and I live to see that eye-widening moment of understanding. Besides curious, I am also a writer who began with a column in the San Jose Mercury News, nationally syndicated. My current project is this 6-book series, “Things That Make Life Better.” So from the central coast of the North American west, I submit these curious jottings of curiosity to be browsed by those who will hopefully find them as entertaining as they do just plain helpful.