Good Grief

Authors: Valerie Swinton and Fred Kirby, Jr.

Losing a loved one is hard. And while many books focus on coping after the loss, Good Grief focuses specifically from a biblical perspective of coping with the loss of a spouse after a long illness.

Both authors share their stories of their personal struggles with their spouses and their spouses’ illnesses. After the loss of their spouses, the authors felt a loss of purpose and hope. Though they each had children, the children were grown, leaving the authors with an empty feeling in day-to-day activities.

To assist those in the grieving process, the authors disclose the effects of grief and the potential effects of grief on the body. The authors then share in more detail their stories about the grief they have endured in their lives. Those stories are then followed by short essays written by other surviving spouses and how they have rebuilt their lives after the loss of a spouse.

The authors explain the stages of grief and answer a list of questions to show how they moved through the stages. The final section of the book is a guided grief journey that includes those same questions and space for the reader’s response to help one move through the grief process and begin to heal.

Good Grief is a well-designed book to help the reader journey through the grieving process. It allows the reader to understand that their feelings are normal. While this book can be read in a single sitting, it may be best for the reader to read the section related to their current need and work through that before continuing in the book.

Highway to Homelessness: Road to Recovery

Author: Brian Masters

Many look to the homeless as people who want to be there, people who are addicted to drugs, and while some do want to live on the streets, and some are addicted to drugs, this life may not have always been what was desired.

Brian Masters was a successful technology sales executive, married with a son in college, living in a nice neighborhood, and owning a second house on a lake. However, when his wife chose to leave him, all of Masters’ plans for his retirement years disappeared. Even his attorney told Masters that the divorce settlement, the worst one in the county, would leave him without any money.

While the financial settlement from the divorce did leave Masters with a significantly smaller nest egg, the economic circumstances occurring in the 2008 banking crisis caused him to not be able to afford his home and soon after he found himself unemployed as his employer closed up shop. Masters was left to live out of his car and fall into a cycle of drugs and depression.

Once Masters has the reader hooked based on his circumstances, he doesn’t leave the reader behind. In his final chapters, Masters offers an 11-point action plan that turned his life around and shows the reader how they can use it too.

Highway to Homelessness offers a real-life story of how a successful life can be turned upside down, and how one can overcome those obstacles and live a fulfilling life.

The Six-Figure Freelancer

Laura Briggs

Many people have excellent skills to sell, but are still not making it as successful freelancers. While a freelancer may be a top-notch writer, that person may lack the skills to be a successful business owner. The Six-Figure Freelancer can help you better manage your business!

Written from personal experience, Laura Briggs tells her proven strategies of going from a side hustle to a full-time freelancer in 13 months, and then to becoming a six-figure freelancer, even topping $200,000 after just four years.

However, she does leave the door open to modify her method to fit your personal situation. While Laura Briggs is a freelance writer, she brings in 19 freelance experts from other industries to contribute from their experience, providing numerous freelancers in a wide variety of professions with opportunities to share how they made six figures. Also, Laura explains how the reader’s goal may not be six figures, but how one can alter her method to reach your business goal.

Chapter 1 begins with evaluating where your business currently stands and setting realistic goals on where you want to go. While you may ultimately want to be a six-figure freelancer, this chapter shows how that may not be a realistic goal at this moment.

Once you have set your goals, chapter 2 helps to define your mindset, and perhaps change a few items that are limiting your current capabilities.

While only chapter 5 is directly related to marketing, all of the chapters relate to what a freelancer can do to maximize his time to make more money with better-paying clients.

The Six-Figure Freelancer is an excellent read that helps the reader to analyze all aspects of their business, assisting professional freelancers who are looking to take their business to the next level.

Catching Cold Volume 2: Redemption

Lem Moyé

Doctor Jon DeLeon and his team of eccentric CiliCold researchers continue their work, though now they exist in a hidden location. With good intentions, Meredith Doucette, Triple S Pharmaceuticals’ CEO, has reallocated her salary to the company’s charity branch, which some have seen as a controversial move while Cassandra Rhodes, Triple S Pharmaceuticals’ lead attorney, has been found not guilty of the murder of Cristen and is then hired by CiliCold.

For those who read volume 1 in this series and grew attached to some of the characters, this book continues the story with many of the same characters. However, Dr. Lem Moyé has written this book so that it can be read as a stand alone novel.

Catching Cold Volume 2: Redemption will be an entertaining read for those with a love of science and the corporate world. Written by a physician who has taught graduate classes in biostatistics, this novel has a realistic view of the scientific research world as it intertwines with corporate pharmaceutical companies, providing some great insights for the reader with a twist.

Catching Cold Volume 1: Breakthrough

Lem Moyé

Doctor Jon DeLeon is on an adventure of a lifetime: he thinks he can cure the common cold. In his personal life, Doctor DeLeon has a cordial relationship with his ex-wife, but he is devastated to discover that she is engaged and pregnant. Nevertheless, he tries to swallow this news and continue pursuing his dreams.

Yet, obstacles abound! With limited funds, the researchers at CiliCold, Doctor DeLeon’s research lab, push forward to a cure that other researchers gave up on years ago. The research lab is filled with quirky researchers, many of whom have lost credibility in the scientific community, leading to some entertaining scenarios and small talk.

Doctor DeLeon being preoccupied with his personal life and the financial instability of his lab is oblivious to the betrayals that take place inside his research lab.

Catching Cold Volume 1: Breakthrough is an enjoyable read, especially for those with a love of science. Written by a physician who has completed over 30 years of research, this novel has a realistic view of the scientific research world, providing some great insights for the reader.

A Reunion of Death

Patricia Crandall

Mavis and Trevor Gordon are hosting a four-day Christmas celebration at their renowned mansion for their friends. However, the celebratory mood is quickly replaced with tension when Mavis discovers the theft of a valuable bracelet and a priceless heirloom.

Mavis Gordon asks a guest, Darby Potter, who is also a member of the Security Task Force, to investigate, but when a murder occurs, Trevor Gordon brings in a private investigator to assist.

A Reunion of Death is a thriller written in the style of Agatha Christie’s writing. Although there is murder and mystery, it is fun and entertaining to read as well.

The design of the book cover, and even the interior of the book, gives the feeling of an Agatha Christie read. The front cover displays a snowy mansion with a golden bow in the left corner to emphasize that this book is set at Christmastime. The front cover includes a photo of Agatha Christie herself, and the back cover includes an image of an insightful detective. Inside, each chapter begins in the same typeface as the book title on the book cover, with its flowing cursive. The feeling the reader has even before setting eyes on a word provoke an appropriate feeling for this beautiful read!

Author Patricia Crandall writes in a light-hearted manner while developing the characters and giving them their own quirks. It is a quick read that will bring the reader along for an amusing ride!

Gothic Revival

Michael Mullin

Typically when a person finishes a stage in life, they completely move on. No matter how close they were with friends, oftentimes the friends do not move with them to the next stage in life.

While Chris and Anne married after college, the other three friends of the group went their ways and lost touch with one another. However, years later, Eric offers to fly the four friends out to San Francisco for four days of fun—or rather a remake of an iconic 1816 literary event.

Author Michael Mullin writes the book in the third person but writes each chapter from one of the four friends’ point of view. A chapter is not dedicated to Eric’s point of view until near the end of the book. However, even then, the chapter does not specify Eric, but rather his nickname, Gregor, leading this character to be portrayed as more mysterious.

Because the five friends were all pursuing creative writing degrees in college, Eric proposes they write ghost stories as a tribute to Frankenstein, but the events that come about during the four days make the friends questions events and their surroundings.

Because the friends have a lot of history from when they were in college, there is a lot of backstory in this novel. However, Michael Mullin intersperses it with the current action and uses the backstory to build the characters and make them more well-rounded.

Gothic Revival takes five people from their everyday lives and builds suspense by placing them in a remote lake villa. One of the friends, who is clairvoyant, begins hearing and seeing things. And the housekeeper and her husband seem to know more than they should.

This book will grab your attention and be difficult to put down!