Thanks to Leslie Barrett of PR by the Book – Austin, I am giving away one print copy of ‘Finding Grace’ by Gary Lee Miller.
Description Finding Grace by Gary Lee Miller
Grace Lee has a dying wish:
For her extremely successful granddaughter, Judith, to travel from Los Angeles to Nashville to come visit her. But there’s a catch. Judith must make the journey by bus.
Each day of Judith’s journey becomes a story on its own, as the people she meets and places she visits along the way challenges her to rethink her life.
Bullied by classmates as a child, Judith’s now extraordinary wealth has allowed her to build a protective cocoon surrounding her adult life. But is she happy?
Grace’s wish for the bus trip forces Judith back into the real world as it challenges her to reconnect with ordinary people…and her humble roots.
Finding Grace allows you to join Judith on her transformational and inspirational journey filled with laughter, tears, and the answer to what’s really important in life.
Praise Finding Grace by Gary Lee Miller
“The thing about Finding Grace is that it is without question, the thing that makes Gary Lee Miller so special. He seems to find grace everywhere and in everyone, and it somehow reflects back on everyone he meets. Finding Grace is just the latest collection in written form of how he sees the world.” — Barry Courter, Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter/columnist
“Life lessons are delivered in many ways, and Gary Lee Miller, in Finding Grace, takes the reader on a journey of self-discovery through the eyes of his relatable, and often unpredictable, characters. An easy and insightful read, Finding Grace will leave you thinking about your own journey and the grace we can give to ourselves and others.” — Steve Anderson, Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author of The Bezos Letters
“A well-written, captivating story of human triumph and finding your way in a complex world of challenges and uncertainties.” — Literary Titan
About Gary Lee Miller
Gary Lee Miller’s writing is rooted in life experiences and people who have crossed his path during his life’s journey. Gary draws on his ability to translate his observations into highly relatable stories for readers. Prior to beginning his writing career, Gary was a successful businessman and entrepreneur. He also acts in movie and TV productions, and is listed in IMDb.com. He resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Thanks to Shelby Kisgen of Smith Publicity Inc., I am giving away one print copy of ‘All Bleeding Stops’ by Michael J. Collins.
Description All Bleeding Stops by Michael J. Collins
The best and the brightest may have been drawn to politics in the sixties, but the caring and compassionate have been drawn to medicine for centuries. All too often, however, the sensitivity that leads young men and women to a career in medicine becomes the instrument of their own destruction. They simply care too much. Nowhere is this cruel irony more clearly seen than in the setting of war.
Matthew Barrett is an idealistic young surgeon, fresh out of residency, who is drafted and sent to Vietnam in 1967. Sensitive and compassionate to a fault, he has trouble adjusting to life as a combat surgeon. His inexperience shames him. His failures torment him. In heart-rending detail, we witness the effect that constant exposure to death and dying has on an overly sensitive soul. We watch Matthew’s gradual disintegration as he tries desperately to care for the mutilated and dying patients brought to him. His compassion brings him nothing but pain, which he tries to drown in alcohol and denial as he spirals inexorably toward psychological disintegration. Only the love of Therese, one of the nurses seems capable of saving him – but will their love survive the horrors of war?
From combat surgeon in Vietnam to transplant doctor in Ohio to relief physician in Biafra, Matthew learns that in the end love and compassion, rather than being the instruments of his destruction, are the means of his salvation.
Praise All Bleeding Stops by Michael J. Collins
“A harrowing, evocative drama about the ravages of war and the power of compassion.”—Kirkus Reviews
“With the deft precision of a surgeon and the impassioned sensibility of a poet, Michael Collins . . . tells the harrowing, heartbreaking tale of Navy Lt. Matthew Barrett.”—Bryan Gruley, Edgar-nominated author of the Starvation Lake and Bleak Harbor series
“Battlefields and operating rooms explode onto the pages of All Bleeding Stops. The details are vivid, unrelenting, and impossible to forget.”—Ross Pennie, author of the Dr. Zol Szabo medical mystery series
“A superbly fast-moving, intriguing and immersive ride.”—Michele Weldon, best-selling author of I Closed My Eyes and Act Like You’re Having a Good Time
About Michael J. Collins
MICHAEL COLLINS spent several years working as a construction laborer, truck driver, cab driver and dockworker, trying to get into medical school. After completing his residency at the Mayo Clinic, where he served as Chief Resident in Orthopedic Surgery, Dr. Collins and his wife moved back home to Chicago where they, and most of their now-grown twelve children, still live.
He has lectured extensively on topics relating to medicine and writing. In writing this book, he hopes to raise awareness of the difficulty doctors face in learning to care – without caring too much. The very qualities – compassion, sensitivity, dedication – that often lead young people to a career in medicine, often make it difficult for them to reconcile their ideals with the cold, hard reality of morbidity and mortality: conditions no amount of caring can ever change.
Publisher: She Writes Press (October 20, 2020) Category: Women’s Psychological Fiction, Medical Fiction Tour Dates Oct 20-Nov 25, 2020 ISBN: 978-1631527739 Available in Print and ebook,256 pages
Description Other Fires: Novel by Lenore H. Gay
Joss and Phil’s already rocky marriage is fragmented when Phil is injured in a devastating fire and diagnosed with Capgras delusion―a misidentification syndrome in which a person becomes convinced that a loved one has been replaced by an identical imposter. Faced with a husband who no longer recognizes her, Joss struggles to find motivation to save their marriage, even as family secrets start to emerge that challenge everything she thought she knew.
With two young daughters, a looming book deadline, and an attractive but complicated distraction named Adam complicating her situation even further, Joss has to decide what she wants for her family―and what family even means.
Praise Other Fires: Novel by Lenore H. Gay
“Once again, Lenore Gay has woven a story that captivates the reader from page one. Other Fires is a brilliant study of tragedy on multiples levels. Beginning with a dysfunctional family struggling in the aftermath of a terrible fire, she expertly peels back the layers of human behavior and motivation that unravels the lives of the guilty and innocent. Peppered with surprising twists and turns, the story will stay with you long after you close the cover.”―PAM WEBBER, author of The Wiregrass and Moon Water
“Heartwarming and dramatic, the two major intertwining stories in Other Fires reach across decades from troubled childhood to mid-life adults and reaffirm what remains human and vulnerable in all of us. The portraits of the main characters arc from hopelessness to vulnerability and a sense of recovery. Gay holds the reader’s attention from the first page.”―DIANA Y. PAUL, author of Things Unsaid
“How do people figure out their minds? This novel explores what constitutes reality, and from whose perspective. Drawing on her varied experiences in life and background in rehabilitation and mental health counseling, Lenore Gay weaves together the perspectives of compelling characters who interact in ways that keep the pages of this novel turning.”―CHRIS REID, PhD, Rehabilitation Psychology
Excerpt Other Fires: Novel by Lenore H. Gay
Acrid smoke burned Terpe’s nose and stung her eyes, jerking her awake. On the first and second floors of the house, smoke alarms shrieked. Her backyard was filled with thick smoke.
She ran downstairs and jumped on her parents’ bed. “Fire! Get up! Get up!”
Mom sat up, dazed. “The baby! Get the baby!”
Terpe ran across the hall to Geline’s room, scooped her out of the crib, and grabbed a blanket. When she turned, she remembered Dad was sleeping upstairs. Holding the baby tight to her chest, she took the stairs as fast as she could. The den door stood open. Mom stood by the pullout bed, yelling at Dad and shaking his arm. “For God’s sake, Phil, can’t you hear the alarms going off?”
“Okay, okay,” he mumbled.
Mom screamed, “Phil, the house is burning! It’s burning!”
His feet hit the floor.
Her parents stumbled into the hall. “Goddamn! Goddamn!” he yelled.
With the baby cradled in one arm and her free hand tight on the railing, Terpe hurried down, heading straight for the front door, Mom coming close behind.
Dad stood at the top of the steps.
Terpe turned to look at him.
Cracking sounds as two boards hit him and slammed to the floor. He shouted, swayed, grabbed the banister, and crept down slowly. He let out one long scream that didn’t stop when he hit the bottom step.
A terrible smell of burning hair.
Mom threw her bathrobe over his head, grabbed a scatter rug, and dropped it next to his body. “I have to roll him!”
With Geline on her hip, Terpe grabbed the hall phone and dialed 911. She repeated their address.
Mom patted his head to put out the flames. “Terpe, run! No, help me! No, take the baby and run!”
Terpe froze by the open door when a rush of fresh air hit her. She bolted down the front steps, threw down a blanket, put the screaming baby on it, and ran back inside. Mom wrestled with Dad’s body, pulling and tugging. But Dad stood at six foot two and probably weighed over two hundred pounds.
“Take his head. I got his feet,” Terpe yelled. They dragged him onto the front porch. “I’ll get water. His hair stinks. It’s still burning.”
“No! I put it out. Where’s the baby? She’s crying. Where’s the baby?”
Terpe ran into the yard, scooped up her sister, and yelled, “She’s fine. I put her down to help you.” She rubbed Geline’s back, but the baby kept crying. Terpe walked in tight circles, trying to sing and calm her, but soon sirens drowned out her singing. Red lights flashed in the driveway; two fire trucks followed by an ambulance.
Mom swung her arm and yelled, “Over here. Here!”
While firemen pulled hoses, two people rushed out of the ambulance and ran toward her parents. They loaded Dad on a stretcher and rolled it into the back of the ambulance. Mom jumped in behind him and shouted, “Get help at the O’Tooles’!”
Terpe nodded. Her mind jumped to their new roof. Maybe burning tree branches spread sparks onto the roof? She rushed to a man holding a hose. “What are those shingles in the back made of?”
Over the roar of water, the man waved her back. Her head throbbed, and she moved the baby farther from the smoke. She sat by Geline and watched her house burn. Flames shot out of the back of the house. Finally, at eight, she’d had an upstairs bedroom. Now it was gone.
A silhouette came across the yard. The familiar voice of their next-door neighbor, Mrs. O’Toole, rushing toward her.
Neighbors gathered in the street, watching the monster gobble everything.
One man shouted, “Who’s in the ambulance? Who’s hurt?”
“Boards fell on Dad. He got burned, too. Mom went with him to the hospital.”
Mrs. O’Toole asked, “What happened?”
“I don’t know. It happened fast.”
Mrs. O’Toole said, “Let me get my purse and go to an all-night and get milk for the baby. You and Geline will stay at our house tonight.” Without waiting for an answer, Mrs. O’Toole crossed the yard. A few minutes later she drove off.
No more fire, but with the smoky air and the back and top of her house burned away, it felt like something happening in another place, like on a TV show. Terpe tried to talk to a fireman, who said in a mean voice that some detectives would come soon, maybe tomorrow. He asked if she had a place to stay. She told him she’d go to the next-door neighbors.
She walked around the yard, clutching the baby, who wouldn’t stop squirming and crying. A neighbor from down the street asked if she wanted to stay at his house; he handed her a business card. She thanked him. After the man walked away, she cried. The man often jogged by her house, but they didn’t know each other. From now on she’d wave to him. No one had ever given her a business card; almost nine and only a third grader.
Car lights swooped across the yard. Terpe grabbed the blanket off the grass and followed Mrs. O’Toole into their house. Their house had a similar floor plan, but they had way different old-fashioned furniture. Mrs. O’Toole emptied three shopping bags on the kitchen counter. “Here, the baby essentials.”
Besides food, sleep, and air, Terpe wondered what else could be essential.
About Lenore H. Gay
(c) Sasha Gay-Overstreet
Lenore Gay is a retired Licensed Professional Counselor with a master’s in sociology and rehabilitation counseling. She was an adjunct faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Rehabilitation Counseling Department for thirty years. She has worked in several agencies and psychiatric hospitals, and for ten years worked at her private counseling practice before becoming Coordinator of VCU’s Rehabilitation Counseling Department internship program.
Her debut novel, Shelter of Leaves, was a finalist for the Foreword Book of the Year award and a finalist for an INDEFAB award. For three years, Lenore has served on the Steering Committee of the RVALitCrawl, which has been featured in RVAMag, Richmond Family Magazine, and Richmond Magazine. She is an active member of James River Writers. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.
This giveaway is for 1 copy each for 3 winners and is open to the U.S. only. This giveaway ends November 26, 2020,midnight pacific time. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.
Finding Grace by Gary Lee Miller
