No Experts Needed Virtual Book Tour ,09

Losing a job always delivers a hard blow, but it was especially hard for forty-something author Louise Lewis, one of many victims of the technology industry's dotcom implosion. No Experts Needed: The Meaning of Life According to You! tells the story of how she pulled herself together and discovered a new life of meaning.

Just minutes after being "set free", Lewis, a single woman with a mortgage to pay, sits in the San Jose, California, airport panicking over her future. While toying with the option of giving into depression, she receives a powerful message from God that instantly releases the weight of her worries. "This is just a new chapter in your life. You hold the pen, I'll guide your hand, and together we'll write one hell of a chapter." Through Spirit's continued involvement, Lewis is inspired to ask normal, everyday people to answer Spirit's question: what is the meaning of life?

No Experts Needed: The Meaning of Life According to You! weaves through a vast collection of spontaneous, thought-provoking answers and inspirational stories that demonstrate how the simple act of listening to Spirit can add meaning to every moment of your life.



AUTHOR'S BIO

Louise has two decades of experience in marketing and advertising, having held senior-level positions on the client, advertising agency, and ad sales sides of the business.

She considers herself a self-growth junkie, continuing to seek light, love, and wisdom in her daily life.

With an innate passion for spiritual growth, she has a strong desire to give back to the world. Along with the inspiration and direction received from Spirit, Louise continues to touch the lives of all she meets.

She volunteers at Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

Louise earned a bachelor’s degree in Communications at California State University in Fullerton. Born and raised in Louisiana, she resides in Southern California.

To learn more visit http://www.noexpertsneeded.com/

TO SEE WHERE LOUISE IS STOPPING NEXT, VISIT http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/

Blood Harvest Virtual Book Tour '09

What drives a small town in New England in the late 1920's to lynch a man? Immigrant Nic DeCosta's skill as a wine grower makes him a fortune as a moonshiner and puts him at odds with the 'shine sales of the MacKay clan, even though he's wed to their wild youngest daughter. But is this the real reason he is killed? And who is the second corpse in the woods?





AUTHOR'S BIO:

Bruce Cook, who also writes under the pen name Brant Randall, has earned credits as writer, producer, or director on eleven independent feature films as well as commercials. He has written more than twenty screenplays, including the films Husbands, Wives, Money & Murder; Line of Fire; and Nightwish.

Since 1973 he has taught at a number of film schools, including USC, UCLA, and Los Angeles City College. Among his thousands of former students are Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons), actor Laurence Fishburne, Paramount VP of Marketing Lucia Ludovico, numerous directors and producers, six Academy Award nominees and winners, and twelve Emmy nominees and winners.

In 1996 Dr. Cook was invited by ABS-CBN, the largest television network in the Philippines, to teach a series of seminars on improving the production techniques of the film and TV industry. While there, he addressed an assemblage of 2,000 Filipino film industry professionals.

He later returned to the Philippines to conduct a market study on Southeast Asian film production and helped design a motion picture soundstage. While on location, he researched the background for his novel Philippine Fever.

Dr. Cook holds degrees in Physics, Mathematics, Film Education, and Communications. He worked as a laser physicist on the Apollo Project. He and his wife live in Castaic, California.

After discovering that there were four other authors named Bruce Cook, he published his second novel, Blood Harvest, under the pseudonym Brant Randall. His third novel, Tommy Gun Tango, will be published in July 2009. Bruce and Brant will collaborate on that one.

For more information, please visit http://www.brucecookonline.com/

TO SEE WHERE BRUCE, BRANT AND NIC ARE STOPPING NEXT, VISIT http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/

Messiah Interviews Virtual Book Tour '09--Book Review

A unique idea mixed with science and the Hebrew Bible comes alive in Messiah Interviews: Belonging to God by Jerry Pollock.

Brothers Yinnon and Yoseph are twins. Like most twins, they are close and know everything about each other. But at some point Yoseph realizes that Yinnon is depressed, distressed, and bi-polar. And what he discovers next about Yinnon will change his life...forever.

Transported to heaven, Yoseph is interviewed by a variety of biblical figures--the angel Gabriel, Methuselah, Chanoch, Seth, King David, Moses, Jacob, Abraham, and the prophet Isaiah--to see if he has what it takes to be the Messiah. The interviews are difficult and Yoseph is tested and tricked at every turn. But his passion for this is strong and he knows he must continue on despite everything.

Messiah Interviews is an interesting mix of fact and fiction. Science and biblical history are woven together with a healthy dose of make believe to create a world where Yoseph has the opportunity to vie for the job of Messiah...but only if he makes it through the interviews.

Not knowing a great deal about the Hebrew Bible, this book provides great insight for the reader, but at times I felt overwhelmed by the amount of information. The same held true for the scientific aspects of the book.

Some of the best portions of Messiah Interviews come from when Yoseph is between interviews and gets a chance to spend time with his wife, Marica. Pollock's vivid details during these encounters are well done. The reader immediately feels transported to the time and place with them.

The ending is superbly done and made it well worth the reading of the book. Readers interested in the implications of biblical history on the modern world, finding truth and sincerity in one's heart, and those seeking further knowledge of the Hebrew Bible will certainly enjoy this one.


Title: Messiah Interviews
Author: Jerry Pollock
Publisher: Shechinah Third Temple, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-9817212-0-0
SRP: $16.00

Katie & Kimble Virtual Book Tour '09

Nine-year-old Katie Russell and her family LOOK like a normal family. But the Russells don't know they are living with Kimble, the ghost of a ten-year-old girl. That is, until Katie discovers Kimble and the two of them set off on a quest to find out what happened to Kimble's mother. -- Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story is a chapter book at RL3 (reading level 3), and is the first in a series. The Katie & Kimble books are funny, engaging and exciting, but are not fear-based.


AUTHOR'S BIO:

Linda Thieman (pronounced TEE-mun) writes the Katie & Kimble chapter book series (RL3) and runs the Katie & Kimble Blog (http://www.katieandkimbleblog.com). She is a former English language teacher who has created a set of reading skills worksheets and classroom materials that teachers and homeschoolers can download from the Katie & Kimble Blog free of charge. The materials correspond to the first two books in the Katie & Kimble series and are guided by the standards set for third grade reading skills in Iowa school systems.

Linda lives in Sioux City, Iowa. She hopes to publish Katie & Kimble: The Golden Door (book 3) in 2009.

You can visit Linda's website at http://www.katieandkimbleblog.com/

TO SEE WHERE LINDA, KATIE AND KIMBLE ARE STOPPING NEXT, VISIT http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/

Kissing Games of the World Virtual Book Tour '09

Jamie McClintock, an artist who already has a precarious life caring for her asthmatic little son and struggling to pay the bills, doesn’t have time for love or romance. She and her son live in an old farmhouse with an elderly widower who is raising his grandson—but when her beloved elderly landlord dies of a sudden heart attack, her life is thrown into chaos.

When the late landlord’s estranged son Nate arrives in town to settle his father’s affairs and claim his son, Jamie discovers that the spirited old gentleman devoted to raising his young grandson was actually a philandering, deadbeat dad in his day. At least, according to Nate, a widower whose late wife’s accident left him bereft and entirely incapable of caring for the boy.

Jamie and Nate can’t stand each other from the beginning. He’s a self-absorbed, charismatic, world-traveling salesman who thinks being a dad means just letting his five-year-old son come along with him on his many business trips until he can convince his business partner girlfriend to marry him. He’s sure Jamie is just the latest of his dad’s girlfriends, and he’s only too happy to kick her and her son out of the house so he can sell it and get back to his life.

But then he discovers that being an instant dad isn’t so easy after all, especially when he’s blindsided by feelings of grief over the death of his father whose transgressions he never forgave. And even while he and Jamie are fighting over everything from children’s nicknames to Jamie’s odd-ball fashion choices to Nate’s home renovation methods, they discover that they have two little boys looking to them to ease their grief and loss. It’s not long before Jamie’s defensive self-preservation and Nate’s blustery bravado crumble under the laws of attraction.

In a story that is as much a humorous, poignant contemporary romance as it is the tale of a man coming to terms with his father’s desertion, readers will discover new twists to the modern-day mating dance. Sometimes, Jamie and Nate discover, the person you can’t stand is also person you also can’t stand to live without.

AUTHOR'S BIO:



Sandi Kahn Shelton is the author of three novels, all contemporary novels about relationships and family, including What Comes After Crazy, A Piece of Normal, and the latest, Kissing Games of the World. She’s also the author of three nonfiction humor books about parenting, and is a feature reporter for the New Haven Register. For years she wrote the “Wit’s End” column for Working Mother magazine, and she has been a contributor to Redbook, Salon, Reader’s Digest, and Woman’s Day.

You can visit her website at www.sandishelton.com and her blog at www.sandishelton.com/blog.

TO SEE WHERE SANDI, JAIME AND NATE ARE STOPPING NEXT, VISIT http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/

Messiah Interviews Virtual Book Tour '09

Ever since the Creation of Adam and Eve, man has grappled with knowing whether life exists after death. Because humans achieve the possible, while God accomplishes the impossible, only the Creator knows our fate and destiny at the End of Days. Scientist Jerry Pollock weaves his Messiah Interviews story of an imperfect life on Earth with an imaginative account of being interviewed in Heaven to be the Messiah. The writing becomes a testament to Divine morality, and to finding truth and sincerity in one’s heart.

As readers embark on a journey of knowledge and understanding, they’ll join Jerry on an exploration of the implications of biblical history on our modern world. Through a series of unexplainable events, Jerry empowers readers to decide if an additional personal spiritual effort is worth making in this life, in order to possibly gain entrance to an uncertain futuristic Garden of Eden, the Messianic Age. In a process of the dreamlike interviews with biblical personalities―the angel Gabriel, Methuselah, Chanoch, Seth, King David, Moses, Jacob, Abraham and the prophet Isaiah―Jerry is forced to bear his soul and his own hidden demons.

As human beings, we are all flawed. That’s how the Creator made us. During the course of reading the book, readers have the opportunity to ponder the improvement of their own imperfections, in order to meet the requirements set out in the Messiah Interviews for admission into a future blissful life at the End of Days. The book is God-centered and discusses, briefly or at length, various topics, including The Ten Commandments, Creation, Evolution, Good and Evil, Primal Therapy, Bipolar Disorder, Resurrection, Aging, Twelve Tribes of Israel, Monotheistic Religions, Third Temple, Messiah, and the Messianic Age.



AUTHOR'S BIO:

Jerry Pollock is the author of seventy-five scientific publications. His background includes both a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Pharmacy from the University of Toronto, a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and Postdoctoral training in Microbiology at the New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Pollock is currently Professor Emeritus in the Oral Biology and Pathology Department in the School of Dental Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island. Jerry’s first writer of the arts book, Divinely Inspired: Spiritual Awakening of a Soul, was a spiritual memoir originally published in 2003. The second edition of Divinely Inspired will be reissued in Paperback on Jan. 1, 2009. His ‘not so fictional’ novel, Messiah Interviews: Belonging to God, due out also on Jan. 1, 2009, is Jerry’s way of giving back to the Creator. Jerry is married to Marcia, his bashert or destined one. They reside in Florida.

For more about Jerry and his work, please visit http://www.shechinahthirdtemple.org/

TO SEE WHERE JERRY AND YOSEPH ARE STOPPING NEXT, VISIT: http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/

Rebel in Blue Jeans Virtual Book Tour '09

What’s a girl to do when her mother runs away with the drummer in a rock band, her friendly relationship with the boys on the neighboring ranch starts to change, and a handsome college guy takes an interest in her? Sixteen-year-old Rebel Ferguson faces these challenges with courage and humor and decides to do three things:
1. Bring her mother home where she belongs.
2. Show her neighbors, Will and Sully Garret, she’s not interested in a serious relationship with either of them.
3. Prove to the Garrets, and to herself, that Rick, the cute college guy, is a gentleman.

Nothing turns out the way Rebel plans, however, and she discovers that people are not always what they seem, and she’s a lousy judge of character. If only humans were as trustworthy and dependable as her puppies, cat, and horses. Can she forgive everyone who has disappointed her?



AUTHOR'S BIO: Beverly S. McClure started her writing career early—though she approached it kicking and screaming—when her eighth-grade teacher sent her poem “Stars” to a high school anthology and it was published in Young America Sings. She graduated from Midwestern State University and became a teacher. As soon as she discovered Dr. Seuss and other great children’s stories, she willingly put pen to paper and had stories and articles published in Ladybug, Focus on the Family Clubhouse Jr., U. S. Kids, Jack and Jill and other leading children’s magazines, including an article that was reprinted in a Scott Foresman Pre-K anthology and a breakout article that appeared in the June 2007 issue of Writer magazine.

A multi-published author, Beverly’s Listen to the Ghost and Secrets I Have Kept are available in trade paperback. Her latest release is Rebel in Blue Jeans, and she has four more books under contract. A member of the National Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and their North Texas Chapter, Beverly is the mother of three grown boys and lives in the country with her husband, Jack, where an occasional deer, skunk, or armadillo come to visit.

For more about Beverly and her work, please visit http://beverlystowemcclure.wordpress.com


TO SEE WHERE REBEL AND BEVERLY ARE STOPPING NEXT, VISIT: http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/