Tag: Book

Stories That Will Capture Your Heart

The focus of this blog is Leonbergers but sometimes I post about books that are not about Leonbergers but that I want to promote. Well, I read another book that I loved, so this is another one of those. I am reviewing and promoting a wonderful collection of short stories and poems called The Storyteller Speaks: Powerful Stories to Win Your Heart by Annika Perry. I bought the paperback version.

The front cover is in blue and white and features a woman blowing on a dandelion. In the background there are stars on a dark blue sky.
Front cover of The Storyteller Speaks by Annika Perry. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback.

Amazon’s description of the book

It only takes one event to change a life. What is that action, decision, occurrence? Whose life is affected? Changed forever? In this eclectic mix of 21 short stories, flash fiction and poetry the pendulum swings between first love and murder, from soul-destroying grief to reconciliation. The tales veer from the sweet satisfaction of revenge to new beginnings, from heart-breaking miscarriages of justice to heart-warming Christmas misadventure. One common thread binds them all; the belief that there is no such thing as an ordinary life; they’re all extraordinary. Open your hearts and minds as The Storyteller Speaks.

Below is my review of The Storyteller Speaks by Annika Perry Click Here To See My Review On Amazon.

Captivating Stories for the Soul

This is a collection of 21 beautifully written stories as well as a few poems. Some of the stories depict the struggles and disappointments in life, some of them are tragic and sad, and some of them are uplifting and fun, but all of them are captivating stories centered on the unexpected in people’s lives. The author’s ability to portray emotions without using superlatives is remarkable. I could feel for and sympathize with the characters with ease. A few skillfully descriptive words were all that was needed. The author’s background is Swedish and since my background is Swedish many aspects of the stories felt familiar to me.

Many of the stories, perhaps all of them, are based on real events, sometimes taken from the author’s own life. I think the story that stayed with me the most was A Green Cage. It was about a woman who was wrong-fully convicted of murdering her children. The story depicted her emotions both very harrowingly and realistically just by stating the facts about what she felt. Another story that stayed with me was Sofia, a story about a tragedy occurring at the zoo. It depicted the dire consequences of thoughtless teenage antics as well as love and bravery going overboard. People do stupid things that can turn a fun day into death. The first story, Biding her Time, is a beautiful love story, which I believe was about the love story of her grandfather and grandmother. The last story, “The Loss of a Patriarch”, is a beautiful tribute to her late grandfather.

It is a very enjoyable and unforgettable collection of stories that is masterfully written. I loved reading it and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in reading short stories.

The back cover is in blue and white and features the backside of the head of the woman blowing on a dandelion. Again, with stars on a dark blue background in the background.
Back cover of The Storyteller Speaks by Annika Perry. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the kindle version.

About the Author

Photo of Annika Perry author of The Storyteller Speaks.

Annika Perry is a full-time writer, blogger and book reviewer. She was born in Gothenburg, Sweden and raised near Ilkley, West Yorkshire. Annika received her BA Honours Degree in German Language and Literature from the University of Leeds.

Her initial employment was as a journalist followed by many years as an agent in the timber trade. She was awarded first prize in Writing Magazine’s Short Story Competition in 2014 and also shortlisted in an Ink Tears Short Fiction Contest. “The Storyteller Speaks”, a collection of short stories, flash fiction and poetry, was her debut book. “Oskar’s Quest”, a beautifully illustrated and enchanting children’s story, is her second published book. Annika Perry lives with her family in a small village in North Essex, England.

Connect with Annika via:

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Another Wonderful Review of My Leonberger Book

I am overjoyed to see this very beautifully written and supportive review of my book “The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle.” Please take a look at this blog post.

It should be noted that I did not see a reblog button on the post so I hope it is OK that I just link to it here.

Click on the picture to see the review

Wonderful Review of My Leonberger Book

I was overjoyed to see this very supportive and beautifully written review of my book “The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle.” It is detailed and filled with helpful information. Please take a look at this blog post.

The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle: A Book Review

Truths Never Before Told Now Revealed with Powerful Poems

The focus of this blog is Leonbergers but sometimes I post about books that are not about Leonbergers but are books that I love, and I therefore want to promote. This time I would like to promote All the Words I Kept Inside by P.J. Gudka – July 9, 2024. In this book P.J. Gudka, or Pooja, lets out her innermost feelings utilizing enchanting and beautiful poetry and it ends up being quite powerful. I bought the Kindle edition.

  • Paperback –  Publisher : Wild Ink Publishing (June 29, 2024), ISBN-10 : 1958531650, ISBN-13 : 978-1958531655, 112 pages, Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.7 ounces, dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.26 x 8 inches, it currently cost $ $19.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Kindle – Publisher : Wild Ink Publishing (July 9, 2024), ASIN : B0D42BHQQ8, 113 pages. It is currently $6.99 on Amazon.com. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
The front cover title and author and a drawing of a young woman with flowers.
Front cover of All the Words I Kept Inside Kindle Edition by P.J. Gudka. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the book.

Amazon’s description of the book

What is your truth? What is your secret? What secrets are you keeping from the world that you hope one day you will be brave enough to tell? When will you tell your heart? All The Words I Kept Inside allows you this moment.

This collection of poetry urges you to look deeply inside and confront your darkest thoughts. It takes that inner dread, disappointment, and heartache to reveal the words of the heart. This book will show you that you are not alone. That you are understood. That you don’t have to go through these dark moments on your own because so many of us experience them too. The words found inside will reach out a hand and guide you.

This is your moment.

This is your truth that you’ve never told anyone.

The words see you.

From the very earliest moments, the words know…

“All the words I kept inside. In you, I now confide…”

This is my five-star review of the book All the Words I Kept Inside by P.J. Gudka. Click here to see my review on Amazon.

The Girl Who Fell in Love with the Monster Under Her Bed

It’s OK to mourn the person you were. Even if you love the person you are now. That was one of the phrases in this book. This book features beautiful and deeply moving poems. They are often dark and sad, and while reading it I couldn’t help but recalling the phrase from the song “the sound of silence”, “Hello darkness my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again”. The author put her innermost feelings and angst into poems using enchanting word formations and rhymes. The poems were dark but also full of wisdom, truth and beauty. As soon as my kindle book was made available to me, I started reading it and I could not stop. The poems were so intriguing and powerful. Reading this book was a very special experience. I highly recommend this beautiful book of poetry.

About the Author

Photo of P.J. Gudka author of All the Words I Kept Inside.

P. J. Gudka is a writer, blogger and freelancer currently working from Kenya. Her journey as a blogger began when she created her multi-niche blog, Lifesfinewhine, as a teenager, to share her experiences with life, mental health, travel and more. Since then, her blog has captured the interest of thousands of people around the world and is now her full-time passion.

Her writing has been published in books like Hidden In Childhood: A Poetry Anthology and Glow: Self-Care Poetry For The Soul as well as multiple magazines.

Click here to visit is her blog

https://lifesfinewhine.ca/

Sarah The Adventures of A Young Woman in the Wild West

The focus of this blog is Leonbergers but sometimes I post about books that are not about Leonbergers but that I loved, and I want to promote. This time I would like to promote Sarah (Women in the West Adventure Series) by Kaye Lynne Booth – May 7, 2024. This is a captivating wild west book with a female main character. I did not buy the book. I won the book in a book raffle organized by the author. I was lucky. It is a great book.

  • Paperback –  Publisher : Wordcrafter Press (May 7, 2024), ASIN : B0D32GQD8M, ISBN-13 : 979-8223446460, 314 pages, Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.1 ounces, dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches, it currently cost $20.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Kindle – Publisher : Wordcrafter Press (May 7, 2024), ASIN : B0CWZHG1W8, 318 pages. It is currently $6.99 on Amazon.com. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
The front features a young woman with red hair.
Front cover of Sarah by Kaye Lynne Booth. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the book.

Amazon’s description of the book

Sarah survived being abducted at fourteen and sold to the Utes.

She works hard to learn and be accepted as the squaw of the chief’s brother, Three Hawks, and she now looks forward to raising a family among the Ute tribe. But when a mysterious stranger, a lone Sioux warrior, she is thrown into a game of survival in the mountains of Colorado.

Hope and a streak of stubbornness take this optimistic heroine up against the adversities of the western frontier as she blossoms into a young woman and tries to make a place for herself in the world.

If you like strong female protagonists, you’ll love Sarah.

This is my five-star review of the book Sarah. Click here to see my review on Amazon.

A Young Woman’s Dangerous Adventures in the Wild West

I won this book in a raffle, so I did not buy the book from Amazon. Recently I’ve been reading a few Westerns featuring female main characters that was written by female authors. I’ve been awestruck by their intensity and compelling story telling, including this one. I think this might be a genre with a lot of hidden gems. Both women and men can certainly enjoy the captivating and fast-paced story about Sarah, or Hair-of-Fire, which was her Shoshone name.

Sarah was kidnapped by two men and sold to the Shoshone / Ute tribe. She became part of the Ute tribe and integrated into the Shoshone culture. She learned to speak Shoshone, but she retained her ability to speak English. Then one day she was abducted by a Sioux warrior that had been exiled from his tribe, and so began her complicated and tumultuous journey back to “white civilization”. She encountered a lot of life-threatening situations, dangerous animals, evil men, accidents and treacherous acquaintances as well as kindhearted men and women. Sarah is brave, cunning, and strong. She is a survivor with a good heart. That this book is fast-paced and intense is an understatement.

I also really enjoyed the depiction of animals in the book, including her loyal and brave dog Blue and her smart and strong horse Natsam-mayaapeh Beepi or “Beepi” for short. Blue really stole my heart. It seemed to me that the author had done her research well. It appeared that she was well informed about the frontier societies in the old West, she understood native American cultures, is familiar with the landscape in the area and she is a dog lover and horse lover. I highly recommend this book.

About the Author

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is her passion. It is a very strange time indeed when Kaye Lynne does not have at least three WIPs, in addition to her other writings, teaching and other life activities. Kaye Lynne lives, works and plays in the beautiful mountains of Colorado.

Click here to visit is her blog

An Epic Western Featuring a Female Gunslinger

This is a Leonberger blog but sometimes I post about books that are not about Leonbergers but that are books that I want to promote. This is another one of those. I recently read “The Broken And The Foolish” Paperback – by Sara Kjeldsen. It was a book that I loved and therefore want to promote. Naturally I rated it five stars. I should mention that in my review below I am referencing the movie “Once upon a Time in the West”. That is because I saw some similarities between the stories. They are both suspenseful revenge stories and the main characters are both traumatized gunslingers and both stories are epic. However, they are completely different stories otherwise. This story is from a feminine perspective.

Picture of a young woman with a forest in the background.
Front cover of  The Broken And The Foolish. Click here or the picture to visit the Amazon.com page for the paperback version of the book.

Amazon’s description of the book

Some outlaws kill for the rush.

Mary just wants to survive.

Fed up with the saloon life and her abusive boss, Mary flees in the middle of the night to travel the open road, nearly losing her life several times as she encounters bullies, seasoned outlaws, and natural predators. She also meets a few people – and animals – who make their mark on her heart in ways she never imagined.

There were many female outlaws who existed in America’s Old West. This is Mary’s story.

This is my Amazon review of The Broken And The Foolish by Sara Kjeldsen

Once Upon a Time in the West Life Was Cruel To One Woman and She Fought Back Hard

To help her family avoid the cruel fate of starvation Mary takes a job as a so-called saloon girl and so begins her journey into hell. Her boss Max is an evil and cruel man but one day she escapes, and she kills a man in the process. As an outlaw she encounters several evil bullies who try to take advantage of her, and she must kill again. Her life is not only misery. She enjoys the beautiful nature in the Ozarks. Then she discovers that Max has killed her sister and mother just to get back at her and so begins her quest for revenge. The story may seem simple enough so far, but life throws her a few curve balls that I did not expect. There’s romance, betrayal, shoot-outs, and more cruel bullies. It seems like she is not getting any breaks, but she is a survivor and a great gunslinger who knows how to take care of herself.

One section of the book, related to a medicine woman, or so-called witch, might be uncomfortable to some readers, but I thought the implicit commentary on society, religion, philosophy was brilliant and powerful, and it forced me to think about the issue(s) in a way I have not done before. Mary is no angel, but she is not a bad person either. Life was cruel to her, and she did not always make the best decisions trying to survive. She is a killer, and she seeks revenge, but all the men she kills are bad guys, and she makes sense as a desperate and traumatized female outlaw. My thoughts went to Harmonica in “Once Upon a Time in the West”. He was an outlaw and a sad, traumatized, perhaps even pitiful soul whose purpose in life was revenge, and yet he is probably the most iconic character in the history of Wild West movies. I saw a number of parallels between Harmonica and Mary. Max would then correspond to Frank. Don’t get me wrong, it is a totally different story.

This book is suspenseful, dramatic, romantic, emotional, cruel, sad, beautiful, and action packed. It has everything you want in a western, but the main character is a woman. I think you can say it is a feminist perspective. Everyone may not be ready for that, but I thought it was a great book. This book certainly made an impression on me. I highly recommend it.

Photo of Sara Flower Kjeldsen and the text of the Amazon description of the book.
Back cover of  The Broken And The Foolish. Click here or the picture to visit the Amazon.com page for the kindle version of the book.

I am also adding another review of a short story by Sara Kjeldsen that I recently read. It was an intense and fun quick read called Eve and Adam. I rated it five stars. I should mention that I got the story on kindle as part of free one day promotion that she had. I wrote a review, but Amazon is taking its jolly time to post it, so I am not including a link to my review right now. I will update later.

  • Paperback –  September 16, 2015, ISBN-10 : 1517362385, ISBN-13 : 978-1517362386, 72 pages, Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.84 ounces, dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.98 x 0.15 x 9.02 inches, it cost $9.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Kindle – September 17, 2015, ASIN : B015IN12TG, 37 pages. It is currently $3.99 on Amazon.com. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Title, author name and a bunch of balloons on a blue background.
Front cover of  Eve & Adam. Click here or the picture to visit the Amazon.com page for the paperback version of the book.

Amazon’s description of the book

Adam meets Eve, a girl who lives in a cult village, on the afternoon he plans to kill himself. Her whimsical charm pulls him away from his suicidal ideations, but he soon learns that she holds a world of darkness that rivals his own. They long to escape their suppressive backgrounds, but there are people in Adam’s town who already have other plans for him.

Eve & Adam is the story of two young free thinkers and the harmful outcomes of prejudice and hate.

This is my Amazon review of Eve & Adam by Sara Kjeldsen

Two Outcasts from Two Oppressive Worlds

Eve lives in a cult village that she is trying to escape. She is unhappy with the backwards religious beliefs and an arranged marriage she is being forced into. She meets Adam a suicidal young man who finds the intolerance of the people in the town he lives in insufferable. Other than their oppression they don’t seem to have a lot in common. Together they try to escape their respective situations, but this turns out to be quite difficult and dangerous.

I read the kindle version. It was a quick one (or two) hour intense read that made my evening. The dialogue was captivating and enlightening. The story was suspenseful and unpredictable and there was something interesting and unexpected happening on essentially every page. Despite being tragic the story was very enjoyable and entertaining, and when I was done it left me pondering on life and the role of belief systems in our various cultures. I highly recommend this short story.

About the Author

Sara is a Canadian multi-genre author who loves tea and adventures. This is a list of her published books https://saraflower.ca/my-published-books/

Timeless Poems Rooted in Life Experience

The focus of this blog is Leonbergers but sometimes I post about books that are not about Leonbergers but that I want to promote. Here is another book I would like to promote, Ariel’s Song : Published Poems, 1987 – 2023 by Dawn Pisturino. This is a wonderful book featuring beautiful poetry growing out of personal experiences and written over a time span of more than 3 decades. I bought the paperback version from an online bookstore called Lulu.com but I wrote a review for it on Amazon. The information below is for Amazon.

  • Paperback – Publisher : Horse Mesa Press (March 12, 2024), ASIN : B0CZT68B2J, ISBN-13: ISBN-13 : 979-8218387860, 132 pages, Item Weight : 6.6 ounces, Dimensions : 6 x 0.28 x 9 inches, it cost  $13.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Kindle –  Publisher : Horse Mesa Press; 1st edition (March 5, 2024), ASIN : B0CWP2MLPZ, it costs $8.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
The front cover features a small country road going through a forest with colorful autumn trees. In addition, the book title and the authors name are shown on a yellow background.
Front cover of Ariel’s Song : Published Poems, 1987 – 2023 by Dawn Pisturino. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback.

Amazon’s description of the book

Ariel’s Song is a collection of intensely personal poems written between 1987 and 2023 that features various styles and themes, from twisted limericks that make you laugh to traditional sonnets that make you think and feel the world around you. There is something for everyone to enjoy: dark poems, love poems, nature poems, funny poems, poems about death and grief, poems about abuse and heartache, children’s poems, and experimental poems.

Click here to see my review on Amazon

Beautiful Poems from the Heart

I bought the paperback version of this recently published book from a different store. It is a collection of selected poems written over three decades. Most of the poems have been published on poetry websites or literary magazines. There are limericks, poems with rhymes, poems without rhymes, short poems, long poems, dark poems, love poems, nature poems, funny poems, and poems that make you think, etc. But all of them are beautiful and deeply personal. They are often emotional. There are 65 poems and a few that really spoke to me were Ariel’s Song, Legacy, The Sleeping Beauty, Psychology, First Snow, and Baudelaire.

Some of my favorite poems were beautiful, rhythmic, dreamy, moving, and delightful. Other poems were dark but poignant, soulful, and touching. The poems expressed different sides of life, happiness, and sadness, which makes for a multifaceted beautiful reading experience. Reading this book was a wonderful experience and you will reread the poems several times because of their beauty. I highly recommend this book of poems.

The back cover features a photo of Dawn Pisturino, imprint logo, and a brief description of the book.
Back cover of Ariel’s Song : Published Poems, 1987 – 2023 by Dawn Pisturino. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the Kindle version.

About the Author

Dawn Pisturino is a retired nurse in Arizona whose international publishing credits include poems, short stories, and articles. Her poetry has appeared in several anthologies, most recently in Hidden in Childhood: A Poetry Anthology, Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women, and the 2023 Arizona Literary Magazine.

She is a Mystery Writers of America, Arizona Authors Association, and PEN America member. Her first poetry book, Ariel’s Song: Published Poems, 1987 – 2023, debuted to positive reviews.