I’m thrilled to announce that Thomas Wikman posted a review of my book, The Winding Road, Journey of Survival, on his blog. My heart was touched when I saw his review on Amazon about six weeks ago. It made me sad when he mentioned his personal experience relating to my book. I wanted to find him to thank him for the review. I wanted to express my condolences for losing his mother through cancer.
Two weeks ago, I scrolled through some blog posts on my Reader. I came across Thomas’ post hosting Jacqui Murray’s book tour. After we exchanged comments a few times, I realized he was the one who reviewed my book. I was overjoyed that we finally made the connection.
Thomas grew up in Sweden, but he immigrated to the United States because of his wife. He has a Ph.D. in Robotics. He is a retired software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. He blogs at Leonbergerlife.com where he shares the history of Leonberger and all the information and stories about Leonberger. His family has had a Leonberger named Bronco for thirteen years. Bronco is no longer with them, but he lives in Thomas’s book The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle: Stories and Tips from Thirteen Years with a Leonberger.
This is the wonderful time of the year! Sallyat the Smorgasbord Magazine features my book, The Winding Road, at her Christmas Book Fair. Please head over to her blog to check out the book recommendations throughout the Book Fair.
Welcome to the Smorgasbord Christmas Book Fair with a selection of books from personally recommended authors on my bookshelf I believe will make wonderful gifts for friends, family and for you.
The first book today is the poignant memoir by Miriam Hurdle…it is an inspiring read and I can recommend The Winding Road: A Journey of Survival.
About the book
In the summer of 2008, Miriam Hurdle was diagnosed with melanoma-an aggressive and invasive cancer in her internal organs. The survival rate before 2008 was low. Besides risking harsh treatments for a slim chance of survival, Miriam had hoops to jump through. By the time she received treatment at the beginning of 2009, her cancer had progressed from stage II to stage IV. It was a rough and uphill winding road. But alongside her was support and encouragement. Accompanied by the love of her family and community, this…
It’s my great pleasure to welcome my friend, the author, poet, and artist, Diana Wallace Peach, to my blog. I had a delightful time meeting with Diana, Terri Webster Schrandt, and Marsha Ingrao in Portland, Oregon, in September. We chatted. We laughed. We shared about the latest in our lives. I was happy that Diana’s husband was recovering well from his surgery. We’re in the process of selling our house in Southern California. It may take a while since people may not want to move during the major holidays. It’ll be exciting to see her more often after our move to Portland.
It’s my privilege to host Diana’s blog tour to share her new release, The Necromancer’s Daughter.
..
Blurb
A healer and dabbler in the dark arts of life and death, Barus is as gnarled as an ancient tree. Forgotten in the chaos of the dying queen’s chamber, he spirits away her stillborn infant, and in a hovel at the meadow’s edge, he breathes life into the wisp of a child. He names her Aster for the lea’s white flowers. Raised as his daughter, she learns to heal death.
Then the day arrives when the widowed king, his own life nearing its end, defies the Red Order’s warning. He summons the necromancer’s daughter, his only heir, and for his boldness, he falls to an assassin’s blade.
While Barus hides from the Order’s soldiers, Aster leads their masters beyond the wall into the Forest of Silvern Cats, a land of dragons and barbarian tribes. She seeks her mother’s people, the powerful rulers of Blackrock, uncertain whether she will find sanctuary or face a gallows’ noose.
Unprepared for a world rife with danger, a world divided by those who practice magic and those who hunt them, she must choose whether to trust the one man offering her aid, the one man most likely to betray her—her enemy’s son.
A healer with the talent to unravel death, a child reborn, a father lusting for vengeance, and a son torn between justice, faith, and love. Caught in a chase spanning kingdoms, each must decide the nature of good and evil, the lengths they will go to survive, and what they are willing to lose.
I’m a huge fan of Diana Peach’s fantasy books. I admire her poetic writing. Her vivid description of the characters and well-developed world engages my imagination and takes me through an unforgettable journey from the beginning to the end.
The Necromancer’s Daughter is a heart-wrenching yet beautiful story of love, politics, power struggle, and prejudice. The story grabs the reader’s emotions from the beginning. King Aldring loves his wife, the Princess of Blackrock. He summons Barus, the necromancer, to resurrect the queen and the infant should they die. In her last breath, the queen pleas to save the child. When the king learns the queen is dead and the baby is a girl, he sends Barus home. Barus is in love with the infant and hides her under his garment to take her home.
Barus follows the recipe in her adopted mother, Olma’s book, to awaken Aster from the dead and raise her as his own. Aster grows up as a passionate and gentle soul with silvery flowing hair, practicing herbal medicine and resurrecting animals. She is natural to connect with a dragon emotionally. The king knows she is his daughter and visits her every year on her birthday. As the king’s health declines, he summons her on her nineteenth birthday to return to the palace as his successor.
The vicar Tamus Graeger denies Aster and condemns the resurrection as evil. He orders the soldiers to kill Barus and Aster. Once captured, he wants to hang Aster. Aster helps her crippled father flee when their home is burned to ashes. She ensures Barus’s safety at Rebeka’s home and continues to run to get help from her uncle, the Blackrock King. Tamus’s son, Joreh, accompanies Aster’s escape and believes she deserves a fair trial.
The journey of escape through the forest is full of danger from the wild creatures and the tribes’ attacks on each other. After being raised from the dead, the funny character Teko at Cattieut forest, with one green eye and one blue eye, joined in escorting Aster to Blackrock.
To ensure Aster’s claim as his niece, King Atrayal of Blackrock wants her to show her ability to connect with dragons, the trait her mother queen possesses. King Atrayal is pleased with the test. He wants Aster to claim the throne of Verdane and serves as an ambassador for the peace of all the tribes.
I listened to the book with the text-to-speech feature on my iPad. The story was engaging with vivid descriptions of the characters’ interactions and scenes. Each chapter ending hooked me on to the next. I was emotionally connected to the characters and wished for the safety of Aster and Barus. The genuine friendship between Aster and Joreh warmed my heart. Diana Peach created believable characters. Aster and Barus were humans practicing healing. They didn’t possess magic or superpower to defeat their enemies. They went through struggles and suffered ill-treatment from their attackers. All they could do was use their wisdom to survive the adversaries understanding that “every time you choose one path, you must live with the possibilities of the other.”
This is a masterpiece and a wonderful creation. I had my secret wishes for the ending, but it came as a surprise. The book ended, but my emotions linger. I highly recommend you pick up a copy of this beauty.
Diana’s bio
A long-time reader, best-selling author D. Wallace Peach started writing later in life when years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books. She was instantly hooked.
In addition to fantasy books, Peach’s publishing career includes participation in various anthologies featuring short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. She’s an avid supporter of the arts in her local community, organizing and publishing annual anthologies of Oregon prose, poetry, and photography.
Peach lives in a log cabin amongst the tall evergreens and emerald moss of Oregon’s rainforest with her husband, two owls, a horde of bats, and the occasional family of coyotes.
I’m delighted to welcome Robbie and Michael Cheadle to my blog today. They have a new book for your trick-or-tricking fun read with delicious recipes for the activities.
Haunted Halloween Holiday WordCrafter Book Blog Tour
Giveaway
For a chance to win one of three US$10 Amazon vouchers or one of three paperback copies of the Haunted Halloween Holiday, just leave a comment to show you were here.
Follow the tour and comment at each stop for more chances to win.
The prizes will be given away in a random drawing.
Robbie has been writing children’s books with her son Michael for years. It’s an admirable project between mother and son for such a long time. I invited Robbie to talk about Michael and their children’s books.
Hi Robbie, how did you begin writing children’s books with Michael?
Thank you for this question, Miriam. Michael and I started writing together when he was six years old and learning to read and write in Grade 1 at school.
We discovered that year that Michael has a processing learning barrier, and this made reading and writing a little more challenging for him. He is very imaginative and came up with the idea of a little man made of chocolate who lived in a world where you could eat everything. I started helping him develop his ideas, which always started with characters, into rhyming verse stories, and encouraged him to write them down. That was the beginning of the Sir Chocolate series of books.
As time passed, Michael’s enjoyment of sculpturing and baking came to the fore, and we started making 3-D illustrations for the books from fondant, cake, and biscuits.
My brother-in-law suggested we include the recipes and turn our story ideas into a series of first cookbooks for children. We did that and I was fortunate, the third small publisher I sent our ideas to loved them and agreed to publish the books.
That was a steep learning curve at the time for both Anne Samson, director of TSL Publications, and myself. The Sir Chocolate books were among the first children’s books Anne published, so we learned together. My photography and design skills have improved significantly over the past six years since Sir Chocolate and the strawberry cream berries story and cookbook were published in August 2016. Of course, my fondant and cake art skills have also improved year-on-year.
The haunted Halloween Holiday came about through discussions with Michael about acceptance of difference and depression. Generation Z is a lot more attuned to social and cultural issues than my generation was, and I learn a lot from him.
I have always enjoyed the concept of Halloween, which doesn’t really feature here in South Africa, so I had been making Halloween-related cakes and figurines for a few years. I put several of these creations into this book, and I think they are my best illustrations to date. I particularly like Jack Frost and his white wonderland.
Jack Frost in a Winter Wonderland
It’s wonderful to hear that, Robbie! What you did with Michael has been empowering his growth and deepening your relationship with him.
Do you see your personality traits in Michael? What are they?
I see personality traits of both mine and my husband’s in both our sons.
Michael has a lot of my artistic characteristics. He is good with color and sculpture and has a good eye for detail and proportion, which is important for this type of art. He also has an amazing imagination. My favorite of his character ideas is the Ice-cream Rainbow Fairies which represent all sorts of different flavors of ice cream. We made up that story together when we were in New Zealand in August 2016. New Zealand is known for its dairy products and has superb ice cream and chocolate. The fairies’ idea developed after a visit to a local ice cream shop which had the biggest array of ice cream flavors I’ve ever seen.
Michael has always read a little slower than Greg and I, but I read every day with him until he was twelve years old. He has an average reading speed for his age group now, which I consider a great achievement.
Michael has suffered ill health all his life and during his long periods of illness, he listened to a lot of audiobooks. I had the entire Roald Dahl series, Enid Blyton Famous Five series, and several classic children’s books like The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat and E Nesbit’s books including The Railway Children, Five Children and It, The Carpet and the Phoenix, and others.
I think both my sons’ love of reading comes from me. Terence isn’t a big reader.
Michael also enjoys writing poetry and has written some good pieces recently.
Michael also has my ability to completely disengage from anything that doesn’t interest him. This is also one of my less admirable characteristics, and I never learned to speak Afrikaans as well as I could have as a result. Thank you, Miriam, for these great questions and for hosting my post today.
You’re welcome, Robbie. It’s my pleasure to have you.
About Haunted Halloween Holiday
Blurb
Count Sugar is delighted when the Sugarpop Bats invites his family to a Halloween party at the Haunted House. He and his wife, Witch Honey, decide to hire a caravan and enjoy a weekend away with their family.
Includes some fun limericks to introduce the various characters.
Robbie Cheadle is a South African children’s author and poet with eleven children’s books and two poetry books.
The eight Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions that children can make under adult supervision.
Robbie and Michael have also written Haunted Halloween Holiday, a delightful fantasy story for children aged 5 to 9. Count Sugar and his family hire a caravan to attend a Halloween party at the Haunted House in Ghost Valley. This story is beautifully illustrated with Robbie’s fondant and cake art creations.
Robbie has published two books for older children which incorporate recipes that are relevant to the storylines.
Robbie has two adult novels in the paranormal historical and supernatural fantasy genres published under the name Roberta Eaton Cheadle. She also has short stories, in the horror and paranormal genre, and poems included in several anthologies.
Robbie Cheadle contributes two monthly posts to https://writingtoberead.com, namely, Growing Bookworms, a series providing advice to caregivers on how to encourage children to read and write, and Treasuring Poetry, a series aimed at introducing poetry lovers to new poets and poetry books.
In addition, Roberta Eaton Cheadle contributes one monthly post to https://writingtoberead.com called Dark Origins: African Myths and Legends which shares information about the cultures, myths and legends of the indigenous people of southern Africa.
I’m over at Smitha Vishwanath, the blogger, painter, artist, and poet’s blog. She shared a heartwarming review of my memoir. Her review stirred up my emotions about my journey all over again. It brought happy tears into my eyes because I’m alive t share my story with you. Please go over to read her excellent review.
I want to thank Miriam for writing this book which is a real-life account of her battle with cancer in 2008. In the foreword, she says, ” Life is precious and it’s worth fighting for. If I died, my pain went with me, but I would leave pain with my loved ones. My life is worth living.’ This very honest, straight-from-the-heart line, sets the tone of the book and forms the backbone of her fight against cancer. It was this line that made me read on. It reminded me of my very recent brush with the hospital and how I felt when I was wheeled into the operation theatre. I thought, ‘Well if it ends, the pain is gone. But, there’s so much love to live for.‘
Miriam recounts her experience with the dreaded ‘C’- the chance identification of it, the subsequent tests, and adjusting her life so…
The Showers of Blessings 