All in the Mind by Jenny Twist

Blurb:

Tilly is part of an experiment working on a cure for Alzheimer's disease. She and most of the other patients taking part in the experiment seem to make a full recovery, but there is a strange side effect. Tilly and her fellow experimental subjects appear to be getting younger. Can the same experiment be repeated for Tilly's beloved husband so that he can recover from a stroke? Tilly thinks it can and she will move heaven and earth to make sure it happens.

Review:

Tilly is a young nurse who lives in the East End of London during the Blitz.  One day on her way home from work, the sirens go off.  A bomb warden herds her into a tube station, and when she emerges after the attack, she finds the block on which she lives demolished.  Her parents dead, her home a bombed-out shell, Tilly has nothing but the uniform she wore to work that day.  She moves into the Nurse’s Residence until she meets and marries Johnny Thompson, son and heir of industrialist James Thompson.  Their courtship and wedding are idyllic, until she awakens in an unfamiliar room, and learns she’s almost eighty years old, she’s suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for the past seven years, and her beloved Johnny has been a patient in the same hospital for the past six months since he suffered a stroke.  Tilly is awake and lucid due to an experiment.  She’s been immersed in the past for the last several months.  Everything around her has been arranged to look like it was 1945 again.  The nurses and doctors have worn period clothing and styled their hair and make-up in forties styles and forties music has been piped into their rooms.

When she visits her beloved Johnny in another part of the hospital, Tilly is appalled at his lack of progress in recovering from his stroke.  When participants in her own experiment start physically getting younger, Tilly becomes convinced Johnny will recover more quickly if he receives the same treatment, and she has the determination and the means to implement her plan.

All in the Mind is a fascinating look at the incredible capacity of the human mind, especially when it is fueled with determination and love.  Tilly’s story is that of a semi-modern Cinderella as she rises from the ashes of her parents’ burnt-out East End home to marry the heir of a wealthy family, beating out a slew of money-hungry debutantes (many of them titled).  The characters are compelling and the book pulls you in and keeps your attention right through to the surprising end.  I highly recommend this warm and wonderful book.

Length:  176 Pages

Prices:

Paperback:  $11.66

Kindle:  $5.99

Buy Link:  http://www.melange-books.com/authors/jennytwist/allinthemind.html

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file I created on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting. RIW

The in at Little Bend by Bobbie Groover

A DAZZLING BEAUTY…

In antebellum America, life for an abandoned woman was difficult at best. But when young Grayson escapes her sadistic guardian, she finds freedom just as hostile. The lonesome, starving wanderer flees straight into the path of vicious marauders. Only one thing keeps the rustlers from violating the curvaceous, dark-haired beauty but the punishment they intend to mete out for her crimes borders on insanity.

A SURLY COWBOY…

Not far away a lone rover hears the screams, yet continues down the road. He wants nothing more of life than to be left alone. He has his own debts to account for. Once a headstrong irresistible rakehell, he had bolted, shuttered his heart and retreated deep within himself. But now the wafting agony tears at him. Swearing under his breath, he whirls the horse around.

A SIMPLE INN…

Grayson Ridge struggles to survive and conceal the secrets that plague her while they stay at the inn at Little Bend. Her exploits collide with the life of Drake Somerset. Neither realizes their chance encounter could free them both. Their wrangling ignites a turbulent journey and sets their worlds on fire.

What a ride!  The Inn at Little Bend is an incredible page burner.  I couldn’t put it down.  Grayson Ridge’s strength and courage in the face of overwhelming odds far surpasses that of Scarlet O’Hara in this book that takes place in Antebellum America, and she’s a much more likeable character.  Where Scarlet pouts and flounces, Grayson pitches in and does what needs to be done from trying to cook (never having had a mother to teach her), to chopping wood and repairing a roof.  Her most difficult task is blending into plantation society, but she even manages that with aplomb.  No, actually, Drake Somerset is her most difficult task.  And you’ll have to read the book to find out whether she’s able to manage him.

Length:  294 Pages

Price:  $6.99

Buy Link:  Mélange Books

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Domingo’s Angel by Jenny Twist

When Angela turns up in a remote Spanish mountain village, she is so tall and so thin and so pale that everyone thinks she is a ghost or a fairy or the dreadful mantequero that comes in the night and sucks the fat from your bones.

But Domingo knows better. "Soy Angela," she said to him when they met—"I am an angel." Only later did he realize that she was telling him her name and by then it was too late and everyone knew her as Domingo's Angel.

This is the story of their love affair. But it is also the story of the people of the tiny mountain village—the indomitable Rosalba—shopkeeper, doctor, midwife and wise woman, who makes it her business to know everything that goes on in the village; Guillermo, the mayor, whose delusions of grandeur are rooted in his impoverished childhood; and Salva the Baker, who risked his life and liberty to give bread to the starving children.

The events in this story are based on the real experiences of the people of the White Villages in Southern Spain and their struggle to keep their communities alive through the years of war and the oppression of Franco's rule.

This book was engaging and entertaining as well as informative, but I kept forgetting the time period. No one in the town had indoor plumbing or cars.  When Guillermo the mayor turned up with a car, I pictured something from the early twentieth century; not post World War II.  I guess I was pretty spoiled growing up in Chicago in a house with electricity, a television, and two cars.  I didn’t realize the kind of poverty other people endured, even though I had relatives in the country who still had outhouses.

At any rate, the characters in Domingo’s Angel hooked me, especially the irrepressible Rosalba, through whom we learn most of the history of the town as Generalissimo Franco takes over and kills or conscripts an entire generation of men, plundering, raping, and plunging the town into poverty and starvation “for the good of the people.”  Yet, when Angela arrives she finds the people celebrating their festivals and life going on as though it had never been disturbed.  She finds warmth and humor and happiness and she shares it with us.  Domingo’s Angel is has its dark side, but in the end, it’s a feel-good read.

Length:  175 Pages

Price:  $5.99

Buy Link:  http://www.melange-books.com/authors/jennytwist/twistdomingosangel.html

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if this book costs $4.99 at MuseItUp or Secret Cravings and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.00.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about sixty cents.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and “books to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when s/he sees his/her royalty statement.