Monthly Archives: February 2020

Welcome to Day 8 of the “SMOKE ROSE TO HEAVEN” Blog Tour! @SarahAngleton @4WillsPub #RRBC

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The Best Old Book

I’m a sucker for a good thesaurus. I realize that may make me sound like one of the most boring people on the planet, but just hear me out.

About twenty years ago or so, I was living life as a recent college graduate and newlywed professional in the camping industry, a job I truly enjoyed but rarely miss. We didn’t have any children yet and when my husband’s burgeoning career came to an anticipated crossroad, I found myself with a good opportunity to pursue a different professional path.

That’s when I went back to grad school at the University of Missouri to earn my master’s degree in literature and creative writing. Before I could do that, however, I had to take the Graduate Record Exam (GRE).

The first step was, of course, to buy one of those big test prep books—you know the ones that are as thick as an old-fashioned New York City phone book stacked on top of the “S” volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica that still collects dust on the shelf in your parents’ basement? Yeah, that’s the one.

It’s been quite a few years and I’m unfamiliar with the test format now, but one of my biggest concerns then was the analogies portion in which I would be asked:

If shoe is to apricot, then rodeo is to______.

a. Golden Retriever

b. Grecian vase

c. central heating

d. toothbrush

Except replace all the words in the question and answers with ones you’ve never heard of before.

The Great Big Book of Test Prep recommended studying with a thesaurus. So, I bought myself another book that weighed roughly the same as your run-of-the-mill anvil and got to work. I looked up the words from practice tests and any grandiloquent words I came across in my pleasure reading. Soon I had whole families and clusters of new, slightly pretentious, words to which I could attach at least vague meaning.

And I had become a huge fan of Mr. Roget.

Since then, my collection has expanded to include multiple generations of recently updated thesauri, a handy pocket version, and an early edition from 1866, about fourteen years after the original 14,000-word masterpiece compiled by Peter Mark Roget.

Of course there are several online versions available as well, but I rarely write without a print copy of a thesaurus nearby. Because I write a great deal of historical fiction, the oldest one in my collection especially comes in handy.

My most recent historical novel, Smoke Rose to Heaven, benefited greatly from Mr. Roget’s assistance. His marvelous book and its descendants helped me to put the final polish on the 19th century world my characters inhabit. It served to pepper their language with quaint, but still accessible, words as they galloped across their lush historical landscape occasionally stumbling over an abandoned child, a lost manuscript, or an assassin.

And that’s why I’m a sucker for a good thesaurus. Also, the answer is C, which I’m sure you already knew.

Book Blurb:

New York, 1872.

Diviner Ada Moses is a finder of hidden things and a keeper of secrets. In her possession is a lost manuscript with the power to destroy the faith of tens of thousands of believers.

When a man seeking the truth knocks at her door with a conspiracy theory on his lips and assassins at his heels, she must make a choice.

Spurred by news of a ritualistic murder and the arrival of a package containing the victim’s bloody shirt, Ada must either attempt to vanish with the truth or return the burden she has long borne to the prophet responsible for one of the most successful deceptions in US history.

Protecting someone else’s secret may save Ada’s life, but is that worth forcing her own demons into the light?

Author Bio:

SARAH ANGLETON is the author of the historical novels Gentleman of Misfortune and Smoke Rose to Heaven as well as the humor collection Launching Sheep & Other Stories from the Intersection of History and Nonsense. She lives with her husband, two sons, and one loyal dog near St. Louis, where she loves rooting for the Cardinals but doesn’t care for the pizza.

Social Media Links:

https://www.facebook.com/sangletonwrites

https://sarah-angleton.com

Sarah is giving away 5 e-book copies of SMOKE ROSE TO HEAVEN and all you have to do for a chance to win a copy is to leave a comment below.  
To follow along with the rest of her tour, please drop in on her 4WillsPub tour page.
If you’d like to take your book or books on a virtual blog tour, please visit us at 4WillsPublishing.wordpress.com and click on the VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR tab.
Thank you for supporting this author’s tour and also the blogger of this post!

Carl Prescott series on sale

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Carl Prescott and the Vengeful Gods will be published on February 11, 2020. To celebrate the launch of book three, the first two books will be on sale starting tomorrow, February 3rd. If you’re interested in a compelling fantasy with a strong sense of magic and wonder, this is your chance to try out something new and different. As a story written for the young adult fantasy genre, these tales are suitable for all but the youngest readers.

The stories are about four teens who have hidden talents that have begun to blossom. Those abilities put them in serious danger from others with similar yet opposite motivation. The pace of action and adventure accelerates from the beginning through the final chapters, with the outcome always in doubt.

As in #INDIE author, I hope you will check them out. Free previews are available on Amazon.com for all of my books. If you choose to read one or more of them, first thank you, and I would really appreciate your honest review. Of course, you can always reach out to me personally with any questions or comments. As well, you can follow me on my website and on Twitter to discover what else I am up to. With a price below $1.00, books one and two are really good deals. Happy reading!

Welcome to the “AMERICAN AGONY” Blog Tour! @BorelMedWriter @4WillsPub

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I deeply thank my host for this opportunity to discuss the crisis millions of American patients in pain are facing—suffering because their prescription opioids are being denied to them. In previous posts on my tour, I told readers about our Valiant Veterans being denied their usual prescription narcotics for their war-injury pain; about patients with all kinds of severe, lifelong conditions being tapered to too-low-opioid-doses making them ineffective for analgesia; and about the suicides of patients suddenly cold-turkeyed off their years’-long effective opioids. It’s caused by the virulent actions of government bureaucrats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Veterans Administration (VA), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

This healthcare outrage is so severe that it’s spread from those once long-effectively treated with prescription opioids for their chronic pain to every conceivable painful condition—lifelong, somewhat-prolonged, and even acute.  You can now go to your local ER with a severe injury or painful acute illness and be denied crucial, medically indicated morphine relief. Forget about narcotic pain relief after surgery!  Those government “OxyMORONS” intimidated your surgeon. After your root canal, forget about opioid pain relief! Those government Cold Turkeys “warned” your dentist. In hospice or end-of-life care? Forget about your opioid analgesic!  Got cancer?  Forget about your rightful opioid! Teenager in Sickle Cell Crisis?  Forget about your essential morphine infusion! My book reports in-depth on these tortures affecting even children whose pediatricians are being “cautioned” by non-medical government functionaries. Now they’ve targeted your pets.

Besides the feds, even local municipalities have been suing every legitimate, scientifically based pharmaceutical manufacturer that has the temerity to develop and market the opiates morphine and codeine and their analog opioids (chemical spin-offs). To date, more than 1,200 suits have been filed against Johnson & Johnson (Tylenol and Duragesic) and Purdue Pharma (OxyContin). It robs these companies of funds essential for Research and Development of new and better drugs, causing the inflation of prices for yours and my prescription medications. This untreated pain causing epidemics of death from health deterioration and suicides is being totally ignored by the CDC, the agency that exists “to prevent epidemics.” Paradoxically, the CDC published a clueless “guideline” for opioid-prescribing physicians that was supposed to be a mere “recommendation,” but which morphed into fiat.

When I learned of the terrible cost in human suffering and suicides the CDC, the VA, the DOJ, and its DEA continue to inflict on some 50 million Americans, I became distressed, tearful, angry, and determined to do something about this. As both a registered nurse and a long-published medical-science and prescription-pharmaceuticals writer, I felt it my duty to thoroughly research this catastrophe, to bring the diverse facts together in a book, to expose our government agencies’ actions. The result is American AGONY: The Opioid War Against Patients in Pain, published by Fresh Ink Group. Many related issues, plus patients’ and physicians’ personal stories, are quoted throughout this 24-chapter book. It includes legal, legislative, and voting solutions; 237 references; and a roster of heroines, heroes, and paincare advocates whose voices are getting louder and louder, soon to reach critical mass.

Thank you to my host. I’m very much heartened by this invitation to share this vital national medical emergency.

—Helen Borel, RN, MFA, PhD

Watch the trailer:

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About the Author: Dr. Helen Borel wrote poetry and played piano as a child growing up in two orphanages. She became a registered nurse, then earned her master’s in creative writing. After 18 years as a medical, psychiatric, and pharmaceutical copywriter, she published books, literary criticism, satire, and fiction. She became a doctor in psychoanalytical studies with her own website, PsychDocNYC.com. Always outspoken for the underdog, her intense research is the basis for her passionate expose of government wrongs and the legal rights pain victims must assert. Find her at PsychDocNYC.com and on Twitter: @BorelMedWriter or @PsychDocConnect.

To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site.  If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar fashion, please click HERE.