
Blog Tour Calendar: ‘Blood Song’, by Johana Gustawsson

Writer of fiction, Book blogger, Autistic, Probably a Dragon, Owned by Hell Hounds
Blurb
Has your motivation to write flown out of the window? Do feelings of self-doubt creep in and haunt your writing day? Looking for a way to beat the doubts into submission?
Award winning author and writing coach Wendy H. Jones shows you how, with 366 glorious exercises you can use to boost creativity and change the way you think and feel about your writing. Techniques that can easily be incorporated into your day, becoming part of your writing routine.
It’s time to change the way you think and feel, in order to set your creativity free.
Buy Link: https://amzn.to/2NHfutf
Continue reading “Review: ‘Motivation Matters’, by Wendy H Jones”The Oshun Diaries
High priestesses are few and far between, white ones in Africa even more so. When Diane Esguerra hears of a mysterious Austrian woman worshipping the Ifa river goddess Oshun in Nigeria, her curiosity is aroused.
It is the start of an extraordinary friendship that sustains Diane through the death of her son and leads to a quest to take part in Oshun rituals. Prevented by Boko Haram from returning to Nigeria, she finds herself at Ifa shrines in Florida amid vultures, snakes, goats’ heads, machetes, a hurricane and a cigar-smoking god. Her quest steps up a gear when Beyoncé channels Oshun at the Grammys and the goddess goes global.
Mystifying, harrowing and funny, The Oshun Diaries explores the lure of Africa, the life of a remarkable woman and the appeal of the goddess as a symbol of female empowerment.
Trailer – https://vimeo.com/340907769
Purchase Links
Readers can order the book from the Lightning Books website at 30% off (with free UK p&p) if you enter this code at checkout – BLOGTOUROSHUN
http://eye-books.com/books/the-high-priestess-of-oshun
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oshun-Diaries-Encounters-African-Goddess-ebook/dp/B07SYLJ9YC
Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/Oshun-Diaries-Encounters-African-Goddess-ebook/dp/B07SYLJ9YC
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Oshun Diaries’, by Diane Esguerra”Hull, 1930. A terrified woman runs through the dark, rain-lashed streets pursued by a man, desperate to reach the sanctuary of the local police station. Alice Goddard runs with one thing in her mind: her daughter. In her panic she is hit by a car at speed and rushed to hospital. When she awakes, she has no memory of who she is, but at night she dreams of being hunted by a man, and of a little girl.
As the weeks pass and her memories gradually resurface, Alice anxiously searches for her daughter, but no one is forthcoming about the girl’s whereabouts – even her own mother is evasive. Penniless and homeless, Alice must begin again and rebuild her life, never giving up hope that one day she will be reunited with her lost daughter
Purchase Links
From 22nd – 29th August, The Lost Daughter will be at the bargain price of 99p.
Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Daughter-Sylvia-Broady-ebook/dp/B07F3KPN1J
Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Daughter-Sylvia-Broady-ebook/dp/B07F3KPN1J
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Lost Daughter’, by Sylvia Broady”Hull, 1930. A terrified woman runs through the dark, rain-lashed streets pursued by a man, desperate to reach the sanctuary of the local police station. Alice Goddard runs with one thing in her mind: her daughter. In her panic she is hit by a car at speed and rushed to hospital. When she awakes, she has no memory of who she is, but at night she dreams of being hunted by a man, and of a little girl.
As the weeks pass and her memories gradually resurface, Alice anxiously searches for her daughter, but no one is forthcoming about the girl’s whereabouts – even her own mother is evasive. Penniless and homeless, Alice must begin again and rebuild her life, never giving up hope that one day she will be reunited with her lost daughter.
“They don’t make plus size spacesuits” is a sci-fi short story collection, featuring an introductory essay. It is written by long-time fat activist, Ali Thompson of Ok2BeFat.
This book is a incandescent cry from the heart, a radical turn away from utopian daydreaming of future body perfection to center a fat perspective instead.
Ali invites people to experience a fictional version of a few of the many ways that fatphobia can manifest in a life. The ways that the people closest to fat people can subject them to tiny betrayals on a near constant basis. The disdain that piles up over the years, until it all becomes too large to bear.
And while some of the fatphobic tech in these stories may seem outrageous and downright unbelievable, it is all based on extrapolations of so-called “advances” by the diet industry, as they search for ever more efficient ways to starve people.
The modern day worship of Health promises a future peopled only by the thin, a world where the War on Fatness is won and only visually acceptable bodies remain.
What will that future mean for the fat people who will inevitably still continue to exist?
Nothing good.
My Review
This book contains an essay and four short stories on the subject of being fat. Sci fi has a bit of a fatphobia problem, like the world in general. Ali Thompson writes short powerful stories that takes the current obsession with forcing everyone into a single acceptable body type to logical conclusions. They are painful to read but a necessary pain if we are to understand the daftness of the idea that thin = healthy.
Highly recommended, especially to anyone who thinks telling a child they’re fat is a good idea.
The Oshun Diaries
High priestesses are few and far between, white ones in Africa even more so. When Diane Esguerra hears of a mysterious Austrian woman worshipping the Ifa river goddess Oshun in Nigeria, her curiosity is aroused.
It is the start of an extraordinary friendship that sustains Diane through the death of her son and leads to a quest to take part in Oshun rituals. Prevented by Boko Haram from returning to Nigeria, she finds herself at Ifa shrines in Florida amid vultures, snakes, goats’ heads, machetes, a hurricane and a cigar-smoking god. Her quest steps up a gear when Beyoncé channels Oshun at the Grammys and the goddess goes global.
Mystifying, harrowing and funny, The Oshun Diaries explores the lure of Africa, the life of a remarkable woman and the appeal of the goddess as a symbol of female empowerment.
Trailer – https://vimeo.com/340907769
Details here
Abbie wakes in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. The man by her side explains that he’s her husband. He’s a titan of the tech world, the founder of one of Silicon Valley’s most innovative startups. He tells Abbie she’s a gifted artist, a doting mother, and the love of his life.
Five years ago, she suffered a terrible accident. Her return from the abyss is a miracle of science, a breakthrough that has taken him half a decade to achieve.
But as Abbie pieces together memories of her marriage, she begins questioning her husband’s motives – and his version of events. Can she trust him when he says he wants them to be together for ever? And what really happened to her, half a decade ago?
Published by: Quercus Fiction
Publication Date: 8th August 2019
Format: Hardback
I. S. B. N.: 9781786488527
I got this book from Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival. On the Friday there was a pop-up Crime Files event where this book was given out.
I hadn’t planned to read or review it yet, but something was brought to my attention by the delightful @autiedragon on Twitter, who was reading an eARC and came across something that they felt had to be highlighted. Before saying anything I wanted to read the book and form my own opinion. I have, and I fully support @autiedragon’s response.
You will see what I mean when I get in to the review. As regular readers know, I don’t normally review books I don’t like but this is important to me. I need to warn Autistic fans of thrillers, psychological suspense novels etc. about the content.
There will be spoilers in this review. If you don’t want to know what happens, there are other reviews available elsewhere.
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Perfect Wife’, by JP Delaney”