FREE E-BOOK- June 21 – 25

East Van Saturday Night – Short Stories and a Novella

"...adventures were undertaken, friendships were forged, and character was created."

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https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU

East Vancouver in the '50s and '60s was a low income, blue-collar neighbourhood. Kids grew up with minimum supervision. They left home in the morning, showed up for dinner, and were gone again until "the gun" sounded at 9 p.m. During the time away adventures were undertaken, friendships were forged, and character was created. East Van Rules was not only meant as a challenge, but also a code to live by.

These four short stories and novella highlight coming of age events; a ten-year-old playing for the elementary school softball championship, a teenage tough strutting his stuff at the local dance, a hippie youth hitchhiking across Canada during the Summer of Love.

Watershed moments told from a perspective that explains why you can take the boy out of East Van, but you'll never take East Van out of the boy.

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FREE E-BOOK

Abandoned Dreams

 June 19-23

Can Dreams be Resurrected? Is it Worth It?

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At twenty-seven years-old, George Fairweather is “the voice of his generation”, a poet whose talent has garnered him accolades from the literary establishment and homage from the disenfranchised “hippie” youth of the late 1960’s. George is the embodiment of the times with his long hair, rebellious attitude and regular use of mind-expanding psychedelic drugs.

Then the sudden and tragic death of Fallon, his friend, his muse and his lover shatters his world, his sanity and nearly ends his life. Katherine is the one person who stands between George and destruction. A hanger-on, a groupie, a go-for, she’s a woman George never considered – for anything. Katherine idolizes George and makes it her personal mission to keep him alive, doing whatever it takes, twenty-four seven.

Because of Katherine’s sacrifice and devotion George slowly begins to mend his soul and rebuild a life. But guilt and gratitude make it a much different life then he’d previously led.

Thirty-seven years later, George Fairweather is a husband, father and grandfather and a successful copywriter at an advertising agency. Another death, his wife Katherine’s, is about to change his life again.

Can dreams be resurrected? Can a live abandoned be taken up again? Will they let him? Is it worth it?

"Literary and artistic matters including the drive for fame and creativity, as well as cutting criticism, are refreshingly realistic and provide illuminating insights into the minds of writers and artists. How the past and present link up and influence their current lives and activities is skilfully portrayed. Generational aspects ... are woven into multiple relationships and ambitions that stir the narrative." -

Judge Number 54, The 26th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards

"A well told, fascinating and powerful story. Highly recommended."

★★★★★ "I loved every part of the book. I would definitely recommend it to everyone."

★★★★★ Lovely premise, well-delivered

"...offers an unflinching look at how circumstance, both disastrous and mundane, can shove youthful ambitions aside. "Raglin delivers excellently insidious character development, where every individual springs from the page." "Overall a very entertaining, unsentimentally sardonic study of how shallow souls can leach subsistence from the goodness of others. And how sometimes responding to those needs can lead to contentment."

- Mary Keefer, Amazon VerifiedPurchase

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And continuing on with this amazing series is the sequel, The Sandman: The Story of Sanderson Mansnoozie. This book is just as amazing as the first. The artwork is stunning as always. The story captures the reader with its whimsy and the characters have you intrigued about where they come from and how they came to be. I love this book. It's so beautiful.

I love that we are getting to see more and more of Pitch Black. You can't help but wonder why he is doing this. What is he getting out of bringing Nightmares to children? We'll just have to continue reading to find out! 

Sandy is a precious being, I love how he cares so much that he himself starts to lose sleep when he is not sure as to how he's going to bring sweet dreams to children. He's just a lovable being.

If you love stories about fairy tales and whimsy, if you love a different take about all the characters you've come to know whilst growing up, then read these books. They only get better and better as you keep reading. Highly recommend them! 

 Wow... it's been a while, hasn't it? It's been a long time since I sat down to read and review a book. Last year was a BIG year for me. I move across the country with my partner and puppo and it's been challenging to settle into a new way of life. Still, I am glad to be back and, hopefully, I will be able to read at a much more steady pace.

Anyway, you're not here to read about my life. You're here to find out what I thought about this book. Well, I love it!

I've been a fan of the Rise of the Guardians movie since it came out back in 2012. I thought the animation was stunning, the story fascinating, and the characters charming. My one complaint about the movie was the ending. I always thought it was rushed and did a complete 180 of what the story, up to that point, was trying to tell. Still, I loved the movie enough to check out the books. 

So a couple of years ago, I read all the books that were released at that time. The only ones I didn't get to were the two Jack Frost related ones (but I will be getting to them once I reread the previous ones). And reading those books all those years ago, when I was going through a very difficult period in my life, brought me much happiness. And the same thing could be said now.

Although I am in a much happier place now, I didn't enjoy this book any less. I love all the books in the  Guardians of Childhood series. This one starts it all! The artwork is gorgeous, the story whimsical, and the characters endearing. I love them all, especially Pitch Black. I adore Jack, too. I consider him to be a very close friend of mine. But he's not in this book... or is he? *Smirks*

I highly recommend you read this entire series. It's a beautiful told fairy tale that anyone, not matter the age, can enjoy! :)

This is something that ties two tasks together, so here we go:

My grandma kept baby / early childhood diaries for her children (including my mom) -- and my mom continued the tradition when I was born.  She started to write it about three months after my birth and kept it going until I was kindergarten age.

The final entry in volume 1 of this diary (there are two volumes in total) concerns a fright that I gave her when I was 2 1/2 years old, shortly before we moved from Berlin (where I was born) to a village just south of Bonn (where my mom's parents were living at the time, and where I would come to spend the biggest part of my childhood):

"You now enjoy playing with the neighborhood kids, [and] alone, too, in the street.  One day, however, you suddenly vanished and walked all alone to [your favorite playground on a nearby square]!   I spent 1 1/2 hours looking for you!  You'd almost gotten run over on [a large boulevard on the way].  So I am glad we are moving away from big city life now."

The playground in question commanded so much of my particular attention because it featured an honest-to-God decommissioned steam locomotive that I absolutely adored "steering".  According to the story as orally elaborated on by my mom later, I had apparently (and unbeknownst to her)  memorized the way to the playground, but not the way back home, and after having played blissfully and to my heart's content for a while, had started to panic when it had dawned on me that I was lost.  By chance, a passing neighbor had recognized me and taken me back home.  How I'd managed to slip away in the first place, nobody knew -- usually the mothers of the neighborhood kids took turns supervising us when we were playing outside (or even all came out to watch us), and there was never any word about anybody being recriminated for not having been on their guard.  So probably there was just a moment's distraction ... which turned out to be enough, however, to let me indulge in a sudden spark of instant gratification and walk away to play at being a steam engine driver, rather than continue playing with the other kids in my street. -- Since nobody had actually watched me walking away, the "almost gotten run over on the way" bit was possibly my mom's very understandable fear talking (if that had really happened, I'd likely have been taken back home immediately without ever reaching the playground -- I did know my home address; it was one of the first things my parents taught me to say once I'd learned to speak, and I loved repeating it, so it's likely it would have popped out if I had been asked), though of course this may have been what prompted the neighbor to recognize me when I was trying to find my way back home.

The (in)famous steam engine

(Door 7, Task 2: Share a story about yourself, or a story about your family that’s survived the generations, or share a particular tradition your family has passed on from generation to generation and if there’s a story behind why, tell us about it.

Door 11, Task 1: If you have kids or pets, tell us about something “bad” they did that was so funny you couldn’t help but forgive (“pardon”) them.  If you have neither kids nor pets, was there such an event in your own childhood – or with kids or pets in your family or circle of friends?)