Category Archives: BOOKS

by Jennifer Reed/ bookjunkiez | September 12, 2023 · 5:00 am

Orange September Release Blitz

LGBTQ+ Poetry

Date Published: September 12th 2023

Publisher: Just Breathe Jasmine

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Witness a love that transcends societal norms, and immerse yourself in this
poetic tale of love’s enduring power.

Unafraid and bare, as the autumn leaves fall over Brooklyn, a young woman
discovers a love that was, is, and will be. Orange September gives us a peek
into her heart as she navigates a budding union. Through lines brimming with
passion, romance, and a few giggles, each word paints a vivid portrait of
their love.

About the Author

I have always embraced the power and beauty of words. From my early years
as a bubbly and quiet church girl, I found solace and inspiration in
writing. With a pen in hand and my late grandmother’s memo pad as my canvas,
I began to weave stories and pour my heart into poetic expressions. Of
course, back then it was toddler scribbles and my mother would nod along as
I gave the best baby gibberish to relay my stories—anyway…

Poetry quickly became my niche, a medium through which I could explore the
depths of my emotions and connect with others… As a devoted bookworm and a
secret midnight snacker, I found myself immersed in the literary world,
drawing inspiration from the world around me, music and poets I looked up
to. The elders, who were solid storytellers, shaped my love for language and
storytelling.

Throughout my journey, I have six poetry collections, each representing a
chapter of my growth and self-expression. These collections have allowed me
to share my unique perspective with readers, delving into themes of love,
loss, de-conversion from Christianity, self-discovery, and the beauty of the
human experience. Additionally, I recently published my debut novel, marking
a significant milestone in my writing career. Still working on the second
installment.

Amidst my literary path, I stumbled into re-self-discovery that led me to
challenge and ultimately de-convert from Christianity. Graduating from a
Christian college, I found the courage to question my beliefs and embrace a
new path of authenticity and self-acceptance. This transformative experience
revealed profound aspects of my identity, including my late blooming
realization of being a lesbian, a revelation that holds immense significance
for someone who grew up in a strict fundamentalist Christian
background.

Today, I stand proud in my newfound self-awareness. Alongside my loving
spouse, our delightful cat named Aubry (She’s the ruler of our home.
She just lets us live with her. Which is nice and stuff), and a home filled
with random kitchen twerks to various genres of music, I embrace the vibrant
colors of life. As bland as it may sound to some, this represents a
monumental shift from the constraints of my past, and I celebrate every
aspect of my journey.

Outside of writing, I find joy in exploring the world through books,
traveling to new destinations, cherishing moments with loved ones, and
immersing myself in the magic of live theater (AKA a Broadway Heaux). These
experiences fuel my creativity and shape the stories I tell.

With the upcoming release of my poetry collection, “Orange
September,” in September of this year, I eagerly invite readers into a
world mushy love and poetic romance. I am also actively engaged in other
writing projects, constantly driven to explore new themes and genres, always
seeking to captivate and inspire my audience. Growing. Learning. One page at
a time, really.

Thank you for reading my about me page and stuff. I am grateful for the
opportunity to share my poems, stories and word vomits with you, and I hope
that my words touch your heart and ignite your own creative spirit.

Contact Links

Purchase Link

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by Jennifer Reed/ bookjunkiez | · 5:00 am

Antler and Bone Teaser Tuesday

(Celtic Magic 5): Mabon –Autumnal Equinox

Paranormal / Fantasy / Women’s Fiction

Date Published: 09/15/2023

Publisher: Changeling Press LLC

Maine artist Libby McNulty’s dreams are haunted by the terrifying Wild Hunt
of Celtic legend. As if that isn’t bad enough, the landlord threatens her
and her friends with eviction in order to turn their apartments into more
profitable condos.

Tom O’Sylvan is a reclusive combat vet who serves as the building manager.
When Libby discovers Tom is also the Huntsman, legendary leader of the Wild
Hunt, myth and ordinary life begin to collide. Can the two of them face
their demons to save each other from danger?

Excerpt

Libby McNulty reached a paint-spattered hand toward the chipped mug on the
counter, not turning her gaze from the six-foot-tall canvas standing on a
low easel. Her brush remained poised in the air. A drop of chartreuse paint
clung to its tip, quivering as if envious of the heavy raindrops splattering
the studio windows.

The image of the woman in the center of the canvas looked a lot like Libby,
or rather what Libby would have looked like if she were a goddess of the
hunt in medieval Ireland. The painted huntress wore a green velvet gown
instead of threadbare Lee jeans rolled up around her calves, and her auburn
ringlets bounced free under the canopy of autumn beech leaves, rather than
tucked haphazardly under a bandanna. In her left hand, the woman on the
canvas held a bow, while her right clenched an arrow rather than a
paintbrush. Their luminous chestnut eyes were exactly the same though;
alert, intent, seeing something beyond the edge of the picture.

Libby took a sip of her tea and grimaced. It had gone cold, and the milk
was sour. Its taste spread across her tongue and pulled her mind back inside
the white-washed wooden walls of her studio. She shivered.

The air was cold and damp, colder than it ought to be in September. Soon it
would be Mabon, the autumnal equinox, when the equal length of day and night
brought balance before the long winter slide, through the pumpkins and
trick-or-treating of Samhain, into the darkness of Yule on the longest night
of the year. Usually, the Mabon season meant sunny T-shirt days and warm
sweater nights, but the persistent rain this year had Libby shivering in her
plaid flannel shirt.

She set the mug back down on top of a folded letter pocked with tea stains.
The letter was signed by Dave Wolf, Vice President and Senior Partner of
James Carbill Real Property LLC. In other words, her landlord. It said
something about selling the building.

Despite the fact that she had a five-year lease with a renewal clause, the
letter made Libby uneasy. That lease had so much fine print, so many pages
she hadn’t read. Her anxiousness to sign something that said
she’d have a home and a place for her art for five years had her
putting blinders on, made her impatient.

She ran a chipped fingernail over the thick paper. It was signed in real
blue-black ink from an expensive fountain pen. Libby knew ink and pigments
better than leases; she made most of her own from bits of trees, flowers,
mushrooms, and stones that she gathered from the forest and rocky shore
surrounding this little town of Lisna, Maine. She was able to make ink and
paints from the plants and barks and stuff she found walking through the
woods — materials that were free to anyone who could read the land. Yet
that blessing was so easily used for evil rather than beauty. She pondered
how many people’s lives around the world had been changed, even
eliminated, by the stroke of ink on paper, wielded for power rather than
art.

But I have my lease, Libby reminded herself again. They can’t kick me
out, at least not for another five years. Over the drum of rain, Libby could
hear the creaking floorboards that rested overtop of her studio’s tin
ceiling, footsteps of her little band of apartment neighbors. Straight
overhead was the apartment of dear little KatieMor. Next to that, retired
lobsterman Jim Johnson lived with Mario Perkins. Jim with his cane and Mario
with his walker both relied on the Limerick Block elevator as the only way
they could stay living out their end days in their own hometown. Donna
Constantine, the librarian. The Halls, who had a business training
nonprofits how to organize. And Tom O’Sylvan — Tomayo — the building
manager. Libby often heard his distinctive footsteps heading down the stairs
and out the door late in the evening, his big black Irish wolfhound padding
by his side.

Fingering the triskele medallion she wore around her neck, Libby stepped
back and took another look at the painting. Behind the Libby-as-Huntress
stood a cloaked and hooded figure, its face obscured. They stood at the
edge-line between a harvested field and a late-autumn beech forest. The
Libby-Huntress looked off-canvas, toward where, in the real forest just
north of town that it was painted to resemble, a mysterious standing stone
jutted out of the ground in a mossy clearing. The stone — a foot taller
than Libby, and covered with a patchwork of pale green and orange lichens —
had become a grounding point for Libby in her many hours of wandering
through the woods, gathering fiddleheads, ramps, and nettles to eat, along
with oak galls and dyer’s polypore mushrooms to make ink and
paints.

That man whose face lay hidden below the dark hood haunted Libby’s
restless dreams. She could feel him now, pulling her out of her studio
again, out past the brick walls of the Limerick Block, beyond the small
bounds of the village of Lisna, back into the painting, back into the
trees.

The bright green drop of paint let go and landed with an audible plop on
one of Libby’s black canvas sneakers. Libby looked down.

I just need a good long walk, she thought. If only this rain would let up.
A few hours in the forest would set her back to rights, let her get some
sleep, some real sleep, a night without fractured bits of nightmare shocking
her awake. Visions of the stone, the hooded man, a hunt, and all-consuming
flame.

About the Author

Siondalin O’Craig writes romance with the slow burn of a peat fire on an
autumn night deep in the woodland hills. Sip a glass of Irish whiskey, turn
the page, and let the magic overtake you. Siondalin lives in the mountains
of New England where she walks under the trees celebrating the wheel of the
year, grows a luscious garden full of magical herbs, and plays a wicked
Irish fiddle. Follow her on Facebook and email her at
siondalinocraig@gmail.com to sign up for her newsletter.

Author’s Facebook

Publisher on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter:
@changelingpress

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by Jennifer Reed/ bookjunkiez | September 11, 2023 · 5:00 am

My Unexpected Life Virtual Book Tour

Finding Balance Beyond My Diagnosis

Memoir

Date Published: September 7, 2023

Publisher: Acorn Publishing

Jennifer Gasner is seventeen when her dreams are shattered overnight.
Receiving a diagnosis of Friedreich’s Ataxia, a rare genetic
neuromuscular disease, means she must prepare herself for a life of loss.
When she starts college, she can still walk on her own, but as her disease
progresses, she spirals further into sadness, denial, and alienation. She
turns to alcohol and a toxic relationship to distract her from what she
refuses to accept—that her body, her self-esteem, and her hope for her
future are failing.

When Jennifer develops a friendship with rock star Dave Matthews, her
outlook changes. She begins to understand that using a wheelchair
doesn’t mean her life is over. In fact, when she discovers disability
culture, she realizes it’s not her body that needs to be fixed but her
assumptions about being disabled.

In her captivating memoir, My Unexpected Life: Finding Balance Beyond My
Diagnosis, Jennifer invites you into her world, where she must learn to view
her changing body with compassion and choose gratitude over anger as she
finds strength and acceptance in a whole new way of moving through
life.

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

My palms dripped with anxiety as I lay in a hospital bed in Manitowoc, WI. I was sixteen and my mind raced, thinking of how I got here.

Six weeks ago, I had danced to the video “Buffalo Stance” by Neenah Cherry at my best friend Sonja’s house, worrying about nothing. But then Mom picked me up and I lost my balance walking a few feet to the car.

I didn’t get hurt but had confessed to Mom that walking in particular had been getting difficult. I seemed to sway, stagger, and swerve often. Recently, my handwriting had become sloppy and I dropped things a lot.

She took me to the pediatrician who sent me to a neurologist. Dr. Bhatt, a graying Indian man in a white coat, had told me an hour ago, he was going to do a spinal tap and I’d have to spend the night.

Now, I dwelled on my fear of needles, which most kids had. The idea of having one stuck into my back terrified me. How long will it take? Will it be a big needle? What if he misses the mark and I end up paralyzed? I imagined a metal sliver sliding through my skin and up my spine and shivered.

I dreamed of getting up and running away. But I knew I’d prolong whatever was going to happen and I needed to get it over with. The doctor offered to have me postpone the procedure, but waiting three days seemed agonizing. So I chose to do it today.

Three hours later, Dr. Bhatt, strolled in with a female nurse in teal scrubs. She carried a tray covered in a white cloth to conceal the necessary tools of torture. I looked away while tears gushed from my eyes in an instant. My entire body stiffened.

“I apologize for taking so long to get here,” the white coat said. “Please lie on your right side.”

As I rolled onto my arm, my blubbering intensified. My body grew hot.

The nurse came to my side and offered me her arm. “Now, you squeeze as hard as you need to,” she said.

Mom was a blur now, mumbling something about giving the doctor space and leaving the room. I wanted to protest—she was leaving me alone when I needed her the most.

But I said nothing and gripped the nurse’s forearm. She caressed my hair. Behind me, I sensed the white coat eyeing my low back, and I was grateful I hadn’t seen the needle.

“Okay, Jennifer.” The white coat let out a massive sigh.

My eyes squinted. I reminded myself to breathe.

There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

The numbing injection came first. A pinch in my back, followed by a stream of heat, signified its arrival. My body tensed, and the tears continued.

“Take a deep breath and let it out,” the white coat said.

I complied, but the exercise didn’t ease my nerves.

“One more nip here, and we’ll be done.”

The sharp bite of the needle made me arch my back and let out a shrill scream. The nurse brushed my hair back with one hand while I dug my nails into her other.

The local anesthesia hadn’t helped. I imagined the screeching of sharp nails on a chalkboard as the needle scraped my lower spine.

The white coat let a colossal sigh escape. I wasn’t sure if the noise was good or bad.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to do it again.”

What? Why?

The scraping scene repeated, and the white coat gave another resounding sigh. Tears soaked my pillow, and I went limp, hoping for it all to end.

“…Again.” The white coat sounded exasperated.

My belly contorted. I wondered whether the white coat had ever done this before. With the third attempt, a maddened shriek bellowed from me.

“Should I stop?” The white coat asked.

What good would it do to prolong this agony? “No. Get it over with.”

The white coat returned to the task, and two minutes later, he proclaimed, “It’s done.”

The nurse left my side, and Mom returned to my room. Her face was red and looked as if it had been splattered with water.

The nurse grappled with the used weapons.

The white coat turned to me. “I will let you know the results in a week. You’ll probably get a headache. We just took a lot of fluid out of your body.”

I said, “Thank you,” remembering my good-girl Lutheran manners through my sobs.

He chuckled as he left and explained that no one had ever thanked him after a spinal tap. That didn’t surprise me.

The white coat and his accomplice exited.

Mom’s fingers glided through my hair like a comb, and her touch was different from the nurse’s touch—there was love, not just obligation. The tension in my body released a bit.

As badly as I wanted to show Mom I was tough and in control of my emotions the way she expected me to be, I gave up trying stop the flow of water from my eyes. Between sobs, I squeaked out, “Mommy, that hurt.”

About the Author

Jennifer Gasner received her BA in English from the University of
Wisconsin-Platteville and her MS in recreation from Western Illinois
University. Her work with Independent Living Centers enabled her to learn
about various disability programs throughout the country and ignited her
passion for disability culture. She relocated to San Diego, California, on
her own at the age of twenty-eight.

As a mentor for What’s Next, a program for youth with disabilities,
and as co-chair of UC San Diego’s Staff Association for staff with
disabilities, Jennifer solidified her role in the San Diego disability
community. In 2020, Jennifer became an ambassador for the Friedreich’s
Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA), raising awareness about Friedreich’s
Ataxia (FA). She participated in Rare Across America, meeting with
legislators to discuss laws affecting more than 25 million Americans living
with one or more rare diseases.

Jennifer is a member of the San Diego Memoir Writers Association, and
her writing has been published in Shaking the Tree, volumes 3 and 4. In her
free time, she enjoys yoga, movies, and traveling. She lives with her
boyfriend Gregory and their dog. My Unexpected Life: Finding Balance Beyond
My Diagnosis is her first book.

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by Jennifer Reed/ bookjunkiez | September 9, 2023 · 5:00 am

This is How He Collects Them Teaser

Horror

Date Published:10-13-2023

A series of haunting nightmares draws five former residents of a New York
City high-rise back to their one-time home. But this is not a reunion. These
five strangers have never met. But they are connected.

The depressed photographer with telekinetic abilities … the
paralegal who reads evil thoughts of strangers … the struggling
author who can predict dark futures … the malicious hypnotist
… the witch’s daughter …

They have met in their dreams, and they have observed the shadows who
follow them until they awaken. Now they want answers. And when the five
board the same elevator at the same time, an ominous reality surfaces. They
did not return on their own. They were drawn back. Drawn by their
nightmares. Drawn by darkness.

Drawn … to be collected.

Excerpt

Prologue

The darkness descends, and the witch recoils. She senses it nearby but
cannot visually establish its location. But it is close. It remains trapped
inside The Amalgam high rise, one of New York City’s premiere
structures for the past one hundred years. The witch’s home. Her
powers existed for years under its nose. She fooled it for decades. Made it
believe she was but a mere charlatan taking advantage of the weak
minded.

But the witch is no
fraud. Her powers are real. Her powers are formidable. And she’s been
here the whole time. Planning. Plotting. Over the past couple days, she has
been leaving with her bags full. She is trying to escape before they can
capture her. Escape like the few over the years who fled before the darkness
could consume them. They were among the most powerful ones to cross into its
space. But they have also been located, and like the witch, their powers
amassed together will bring forth a darkness never seen in human
history.

Now the witch
understands that she has been exposed and is trying to flee to a safer
place. Because even she knows that she cannot stop it no matter how much
information she gathers on it. No matter how many of his minions she
deceives.

You no longer fool
me, Witch. It is time to set my gatherers in motion. And your book of spells
will not save you.

Or your
daughter.

Or the others.

In its century of
existence, The Amalgam has brought forth an abundant supply of those with
gifts the holders never quite understood. Most have been a mere pittance to
that of a true witch – a descendent of one of the most powerful ever
seen.

As it continues to
observe, the witch lingers through the lobby looking from left to right. She
knows it’s watching, and she sprints to the elevator. Other tenants
wait alongside, so the darkness dissipates back. But it’s now clear.
The witch must be top priority before she can escape.

But once she is
collected, the others will return.

The plan for a world
of darkness will reach its zenith.

It’s time to
call them home. It’s time to collect.

About the Author

A writer since grade school, Eric Woods resides in Springfield, Illinois
and finally published his first novel in 2018. Today he has five novels, two
novellas, and one book of stage plays. Most recently, his short story
“The Taurus Bull” was featured in HorrorScope: A Zodiac
Anthology.

If you want to be spooked in person, Eric hosts the Lincoln Ghost Walk in
Springfield (through October). Come take the tour and learn some creepy
tales about the 16th President of the United States!

Eric earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English and a Master’s
Degree in Communication from the University of Illinois Springfield. He
served as a collegiate speech and debate coach for seven years, and has been
a local freelance writer since 2005.

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by Jennifer Reed/ bookjunkiez | · 5:00 am

Be You Bravely Blitz

Children’s fiction, lgbtq+

Deep down in the depths of the sea, there lives a vibrant community of the
most incredible sea creatures. Filled with wonder and love, these creatures
work and play together every day.

Koyah, Inyanga, and Pandora belong to a small pod of dolphins who spend
their days learning, singing, and hunting for food. The dolphin pod values
friendship, diversity, and community.

Pandora loves her friends and decides that she is ready to share with her
something personal and private. She shares with her friends that she is
transgender.

Join Pandora and her friends as they learn about true friendship and the
meaning of unconditional love.

About the Author

During my forty plus trips around the sun, I have faced my share of
challenges. Infertility, breast cancer and building a practice in
healthcare, that was the easy stuff. Being the mom of four incredible humans
is my greatest passion. Each of my children bring unique experiences and
challenges, incredible joys and heartache. It wasn’t until my
daughter, at the age of five, revealed that she is transgender that I came
to understand what unconditional love really means. Join me as I work to
bring light to those who cannot speak for themselves. As I learn about the
impact of my privilege and discuss my missteps.

In my world All Are Welcome.

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Tagged as Be You Bravely, Children’s Fiction, Jan Moore, LGBTQ

Category Archives: BOOKS

Orange September Release Blitz

Antler and Bone Teaser Tuesday

My Unexpected Life Virtual Book Tour

EXCERPT

This is How He Collects Them Teaser

Be You Bravely Blitz

META

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