Mapping Me - Book Review

Mapping Me: A Landscape of Women's Stories, edited by Tamara Azizian, is a collection of 40 pieces written by 40 women from across the globe. The pieces vary between poetry, short stories, thoughts, and include a scene from a play. Mapping Me is divided into sections depending on the main themes tackled with stunningly beautiful artwork at the beginning of each section.

This collection boasts many amazing pieces and I have tried to select the best of them to mention here.

Mapping Me opens with an introduction and the sections of the book, which is then followed by the first artwork called 'Take a Chance' by Ira Mitchell. The colours, the brush strokes, everything about that painting is just dazzling.

'Tiny Atom' by Abha Iyengar is a staggeringly brave story; short, to the point and highly emotional.

'Undersea', by Shahilla Sharif, is a wonderful poem that opens with these breath-taking lines "I should have deciphered our prophecy/in the mythology of our meeting". The words are carefully chosen throughout. 'Undersea' is one of the best poems I have ever read and certainly one of the best in Mapping Me. It is as sad as it is magical.

'Holding the Man', by Sharanya Manivannam, is an excellent story. It is well written, vivid and explicit. It is a story though, not a poem – in my opinion.

One of the pieces, in this collection, is a scene from a play called 'Happy Birthday Li'l Eagle' by Sia Figid. A confrontation between mother and daughter, the scene is beautiful and carries many messages. It is obviously a climactic scene in the play with many stunning lines and speeches. It is a scene about children, love and life. A 10-star piece.

'Mama Wearies then Brightens' by Gloria J. Wimberley is a short, funny and enjoyable poem, which I'm sure many can relate to.

'Bloodless' by Zara Potts is unlike anything I've ever read. It is deep and emotional, despite the apparent 'unemotional' and "bloodless" word choice. I loved these thought-provoking words "There is freedom in acceptance. Fighting only tightens the ropes and makes it harder to release yourself." And the conclusion: "even barren fields can still be beautiful and [a] fruitless tree can still have roots." A must read.

'The Mother', by Cheryl S. Ntumy, is a heart-wrenching piece of endurance, pain, suffering, love and persistence.

Denise Donaldson's 'A Bra Story' is an enjoyable, interesting story with a lovely ending.

'Full Arms and Underarms', by Farha Hasan, is a funny short story about something all women experience: Waxing! It is a very interesting story topic; one that is brilliantly handled with a lot of humour.

'Thoughts in the Dark', by Somaya El Sousi from Gaza, is an amazing must-read piece with many beautiful lines. Similarly, 'Fear', by Danijela Hlis, is an excellent poem about Alzheimer's. A five-star piece.

Tania Haberland's 'My Grandmother's Art' is a beautiful and highly artistic piece. I truly enjoyed the word choice and flow.

'Paper Confessions' by Shabnam Piryaei is a poem of stunning imagery and an equally staggering opening verse: “regret and guilt follow me/ as if I were their mother/ stroking with the dissolved edges of a punished whisper my arms,/ singing to themselves/ lullabies made of dead bees/ as if each does not know the other exists.”

The Matrimonial Clock by Shweta Ganesh Kumar is an excellent story, very modern and applicable to many third world countries and societies. It is brilliantly told. “[it] as if, the future of the world depended on her marital status.” This line hit a chord, many in fact. And I'm sure many can relate to it as well. Five stars to this one.

'Inside the Ring - The Diary', by Batsirai Easther Chigama, is another excellent piece, sad and painful at first, but with a great conclusion. Tough decisions take time, especially when children are involved; this five-star-story stresses this point. 

'Serepta', by Jessica Loomis, is another beautiful and subtle story about women and the pressures they endure because of society. It is also an excellent conclusion to the Mapping Me collection. 

Mending Heartstrings - Cover Reveal

Mending Heartstrings by Aria Glazki 
Published by: Swoon Romance
Publication date: December 2nd 2014
Genres: Adult, Romance

Synopsis:

Kane’s a country singer who’s tangled with too many deceitful women. He’s learned his lesson: girls are for flirting and fun; emotions are for his music. But after spending a night with an earnest woman unlike any he’s known, he can’t force her out of his mind. So he goes in search of the woman he knows only as “Elle.”

On her last night in Nashville, the staunchly pragmatic Sabella found herself in a situation more suited to a romance novel than reality. Swept away, she ignored her rigidly self-imposed rules, succumbing to the fantasy just this once. But she knows real-world relationships have nothing in common with their fictionalized portrayals. When Kane unexpectedly shows up at her Portland apartment, she must choose between the practical truths she has learned and the desire for a passionate love she has struggled to suppress.

Despite the distance, Kane’s tour schedule, and their meddling friends, both are drawn to the chance for a romance neither quite believes is possible.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21896429-mending-heartstrings?from_search=true


About Aria Glazki:

Aria’s writing story started when her seventh-grade English teacher encouraged her to submit a class assignment for publication.  That piece was printed, and let’s just say, she was hooked!  

Since then, Aria has run a literary magazine, earned her degree in Creative Writing (as well as in French and Russian literatures), and been published in a few collections.  Though her first kiss technically came from a bear cub, and no fairytale transformation followed, Aria still believes magic can happen when the right people come together – if they don’t get in their own way, that is.

Other than all things literary, Aria loves spending time with her family, including her two unbearably adorable nieces. She also dabbles in painting, dancing, playing violin, and, given the opportunity, Epicureanism.

Website:  AriaGlazki.blogspot.com
Facebook: Facebook.com/Aria.Glazki 

Twitter: @AriaGlazki
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/AriaGlazki

Also check out my five-star review of Aria's poetry collection Life Under Examination.

Dust Cover Reveal + Giveaway

                                                   

BLURB for Sarah Daltry's newest release Dust

“I was once the type of person who was impressed by starlight; the type of person who would dance beneath glass ceilings and let the world swim in its loveliness. The sky reminds me of the parties we used to throw – parties like the one last night. The memories bring back the trill of harps and endless ripples of satisfied laughter. Now, though, when I try to recall what I felt, all I hear is screaming.”

In a world ravaged by war and oppressive forces of evil, a princess must fight to claim her bloodright and save her people.

 

When the princess, Alondra falls for the beautiful, blue eyes of a hooded stranger, it awakens in her a taste for freedom and an escape from her duty.

But her parents have other plans; they have a Kingdom to protect and Alondra must marry to ensure the peace between nations. Only what happens when your parents choose a cold-hearted assassin as your betrothed?

As lies, illusions and long hidden vendettas surface, the princess has to confront a very secret history. One that makes her realize that she not only risks losing her liberty, but of everything she has known and loved.

WHO IS SARAH DALTRY?

Sarah Daltry is a varied author, known best for the contemporary New Adult series, ‘Flowering’, a six-title series that explores the complexities of relationships, including how we survive the damage from our pasts with the support of those who love us.  

As a former English teacher and YA librarian, Sarah has always loved Young Adult literature and 'Dust', an epic fantasy novel where romance blends with the blood and grit of war, is her second official foray into YA, following the gamer geek romantic comedy, 'Backward Compatible'. Most of Sarah's work is about teens and college students, as it's what she knows well. 

Sarah’s passion in life is writing; weaving tales of magic and beauty. The modern and vast social networking world is an alternative universe that she makes infrequent trips too, but when she does, readers will find her attentive, friendly and happy to discuss the magic of stories and reading. Please stop by and say hi @SarahDaltry.

Sarah has moved back and forth between independent and traditional publishing. Her first novel, 'Bitter Fruits', is with Escape, an imprint of Harlequin Australia, and she signed with Little Bird Publishing in the spring of 2014.

And to top the fun, Ms. Daltry is having a GIVEAWAY through the Rafflecopter link below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Lady Wolf - Short Story Review

I found this short story on Smashwords. I don't have the link to it right now but here is the ISBN: 9781301444724.

Jean-Baptiste, Vicomte de Martell is said to be a crusader but is given the description of a pirate with one eye and a hook instead of a left hand. It is a bit odd that this crusader-pirate is given a French name but lives in Saarland, Germany (even if it is a fairy tale).

Like with all fairy tales, the element of magic is present. It is different here; a black pearl that transforms Lady Avezoete (who represents the princess in traditional fairy tales).

The full moon is usually when the werewolf transforms from human to beast, but in The Lady Wolf, it is slightly in reverse. It is when Lady Avezoete decides to take out the black pearl from her mouth and return to her human form.

Overall, The Lady Wolf is an enjoyable short story with a happy ending, or double happy ending.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18219262-the-lady-wolf?ac=1

Blog bits and plans

I've been thinking of ways to get more views to my blog and at the same get myself to write and post more. I've also been thinking of doing something special for Halloween – I know we're still in August BUT October coincides with both my personal birthday and my blog birthday. Nadaness In Motion turns 2 this October! *confetti*

I'll probably do a revamp around then – nothing too fancy since I'm not an expert in that area but still I'll do my best to give it a bit of Halloweenish look.

Now for the fun stuff

There are five Fridays this October with the 31^st being the last Friday of the month (and the first Friday being the 3^rd)

What I want to do is have one book review per week, along with an author interview – either for the book I'm reviewing or otherwise.

The book can either be a novella, a short story (or a long-short story), a short story collection, a poetry collection, or a collection that is a mixture of both poetry and short stories but should be centred around the Halloween, horror, dark, paranormal fantasy and/or gothic themes.



If you're not sure your book fits my profile, let me know and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

I'm open to ideas and suggestions from authors, readers, fans or anyone coming across this post, so please do not hesitate to help out.

To contact me, please send e-mail me at: nadanessinmotion@gmail.com
nadanessinmotion(@)gmail(dot)com

Check out my Goodreads Profile and my Facebook Page.

Also, any authors who are interested in doing Giveaways, or blog post swaps please contact me for a spot – it's all FREE, so no need to worry.

Note: I post my reviews to this blog, Goodreads and if you want Smashwords (I don't have access to Amazon – and when I do it's not under my name) and I share it on Twitter.

Note: NO ZOMBIES (if it's a story within a collection then fine but if it's a collection about zombies – I'm not interested)

Note: I may accept one or two Arabic books if they fall within the above criteria and will in this case provide both an English and an Arabic review of the book/collection/piece.

The Map of Love by Nada Adel Sobhi - Poem

Lines upon lines

In an endless sea

Of beauty…

The wind calls to me,

Hails my name,

As it blows on my face.

I navigate the water

In search of your heart,

Your soul, You.

I hear your voice

On the wind,

In the current.

Call to me,

Guide me

On our map of love.

This piece was written by the five-sentence fiction (FSF) prompt "MAPS" by Lillie McFerrin

Blog sum up, some thoughts, blog highlights

It just occurred to me that I haven't posted anything on my blog in more than two weeks! How embarrassing!

That and I haven’t done any promotional tweets about my latest five-star reviews.

I've been busy reading, being lazy, more reading and I'm sure wasting time fits in somewhere + work of course.

There is the Motherhood Short Story Contest that ends on the 1^st of September and I would really like to write something for it. It is open internationally and submissions are free.

I haven't written anything about the sea this year, which saddens me but hopefully I'll get over this block-and-boredom phase – soon.

I still have a lot of books to read – and no I'm not talking about my regular endless to-read list. I'm talking about the review requests I've received lately – and I can tell you they are plenty.

It brings me great joy that strangers from the internet are interested in my book reviews – guess I've managed to make a name for myself, even if it were small. Still, I'm happy – though behind on my reading and reviewing.

If you haven't checked out my blog lately here are some recent highlights

The Saskia Trilogy begins with Eden Forest (5-star book review)

Sci-fimeets fantasy in Shawn Stern's Doppelganger (4.5-star book review)

Seeing Past Sickness (short story and poetry anthology)

BurningRain (poem)

I will do my best to pick up pace with the current reviews and my writing.

The Saskian Trilogy Begins with Eden Forest

Eden Forest is a novella and the first instalment in The Saskia Trilogy by Aoife Marie Sheridan.

Narrated in the first person present tense, Eden Forest opens in Saskia with Marta giving a description of the land and alerting the reader to her pregnancy, which we later know is from a love affair with the King of Saskia. We also learn about Saskian laws and traditions and how Saskians are immortal and born with an affinity of air, water, earth, fire or spirit. At first glance, Marta appears to be a caring person.

The reader learns that Saskia is a world parallel to earth and that a fire barrier separating the two worlds can be crossed but with great difficulty.

Eden Forest is written from several perspectives, all in the first person; however we are told whose point of view we are reading at the beginning of each chapter, avoiding any possible confusion. It is a very interesting way of writing – the first I've read seen – and it gives character depth. Through this technique, Sheridan merges with each character making them come to life on the pages of her novella.

The author has an abundance of intriguing characters, but what I liked most was how each character has a specific role to play in the story – even eight-year-old Mei. Some have minor roles but are expected to have much bigger ones in the coming parts of the trilogy.

As the novella progresses, two characters stand out in contradiction; Marta and her daughter Sarajane. Whereas Sarajane is caring, believable, down to earth, intelligent and understanding, her mother, Marta, is unmotherly-like, as opposed to what we have seen in the first chapter. A face-off between Sarajane and King Morrick makes this point clear. Moreover, most of the time we see Marta, she is crying; yet the reader feels that her emotions are not deep. And when she finally sees her daughter after a long absence, all she is concerned with is food! (Of all things!)

Another interesting character is the conflicting, contradictory Tristan, King Morrick's head Guardian and who is later given the task to retrieve, or rather kidnap, Sarajane. Until the end of Eden Forest, the reader cannot read this particular character.

The massive contrast between Saskia's King and Queen makes the reader wonder how they ended up together. That bit comes at the end of the story.

Eden Forest is a quick and easy read. Its pace is fair at the beginning but starting chapter three, the pace and events become intense. You cannot put the book down and you feel the need finish the novella and skip work and sleep in the process.

I truly enjoyed Aoife Sheridan's Eden Forest and can hardly wait for the next two parts, which I expect will have more details about the elemental affinities and focus more on characters briefly mentioned or introduced like Carew.

(Note: There are a couple of brief, adult scenes).

Connect with Aoife Marie Sheridan by visiting her at: Amazon Page, Facebook, Twitter, Website, Goodreads, Blog, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Mailing List, TSU.

Sci-fi meets fantasy in Shawn Stern's Doppelgänger

I've read sci-fi and I've read fantasy but sci-fi-fantasy that's new and I have to admit it's rather cool!

Doppelgänger by Shawn Stern is certainly a bit of a new genre for me. It's a novella but with a novel's weight in all the details, research, characterisation and depth it entails.

The novel starts with a lab scene, an infant is being extracted from a failed experiment and a female scientist gives your life to save the child. The following chapters trace the life of this child growing up into Shane Fisher, a too-ordinary book store manager.

The novel shifts between Shane and another character called Cole, a martial artist and assassin, and whom the reader later finds out is a replica of Shane from the experiment mentioned earlier.

Naturally, when the two characters come in contact 'all hell breaks loose' as one of the chapters is adequately called.

The description throughout the novel is detailed and vivid. I loved the descriptions of Trent and Manny, one is described as a dwarf with a malicious smile and the other is described as it is an ape among other huge animals, and is nothing short of a T-rex: big, bloodthirsty and stupid.

Although Shane and Cole are very different, you can't help but like both, especially as there is a lot of Shane in all of us.

Fragile too is a likeable character with intense depth and importance to the novel.

"When performed correctly, there is little difference between science and magic." A note Fragile makes to himself and it sort of sums up this book.

Doppelgänger ends at the climactic point and I can't wait for the second instalment, which I've been told is called 'Cabal' and should be out later this year. 

Seeing Past Sickness - Book Review

Seeing Past Sickness is a collection of 17 pieces varying between poetry and short stories on getting over or past illness and sickness. It is worth noting that all proceeds to this collection go to a foundation that provides scholarships for students affected by chronic illness.

Commenting on 17 pieces will make this a lengthy commentary so I'll comment on what I believe are the 'bestest' pieces in this collection.

The opening piece to Seeing Past Sickness is a poem titled 'Bridge' by Seker Salis. It is an enjoyable piece with a nice flow. It is, also, a beautiful opening to this collection.

The first short story is called 'Day by Day' by my favourite writer Aria Glazki. The wording, flow, and characterisation are perfect. It is a 10-star piece.

It is shortly followed by the beautiful and uplifting poem 'Define Us Not' by Alison LeBlanc. Here are a few lines: "Life is full of mystery/and pain and grief and war/but all that I can tell you is/there's plenty more in store".

This is followed by a slightly odd but quite interesting story about overcoming obstacles called 'Uncle Ed' by Kathy DeFlane. The story is told by a fairly funny narrator.

Several pieces in, we get the poem 'Hope', written by Carrie Renee McAlister. It is the eleventh piece in Seeing Past Sickness. It is as the title suggests a hopeful poem that opens with a fresh and creative image: "For so long I lay dormant/like a thousand bulbs/refusing to bloom". I absolutely loved this piece.

The short story 'She Loved Tommie' by C. B. Jennings nearly brought me to tears. Meanwhile, 'Professor' by Simon Quellen Field is a short story written as one long conversation. I have never read a story written like this before, but I must applaud the author for absolute creativity and ability to piece together such a delicate story in such a form.

'Professor' is followed by 'Sacrifice' another piece by Aria Glazki; a poem this time about the painful struggle the chronically-ill endure to merely live and get through their days. It is a slow but heart-wrenching piece. Aria's poetry is as impeccable as her short stories.

Then comes another short story by a writer I've wanted to read for a while now: 'The Daily Grind' by Margit Sage. It is slightly similar to Glazki's 'Day by Day' piece but it is nonetheless different, with its own struggle and flavour. The protagonist is a writer, therefore, many can relate to this piece in several ways.

Seeing Past Sickness ends with another poem by Alison LeBlanc, called 'The Picture of Tolerance', which I wish I could quote whole, but will have to do with these lines: "Chalk in lines of tolerance/So bold and very clear/Paint new hope for all the youth/And shadow every fear". This poem is the perfect conclusion to this collection of healing, strength and rebirth.

I am glad to have got this opportunity to read Seeing Past Sickness, which was already on my to-read list. It also gave me the chance to read pieces by writers I have met online and by others, whose work I look forward to reading more of in the future.

Burning Rain

Rain

Acid rain

Pours down on me

Burning me

I scream

But my screams are lost

Amidst a million others

Fire on sensitive skin

I can feel my flesh burn

Flames erupting

On my arms and face

I can smell the fire

Emanating from me

My crime?

I lived

In a land of eternal misery,

Never-ending greed,

Ever-lasting lies

I lived

When a time

Of honest living

Was not possible

I lived

And the rain

Burned me

As punishment

For my virtues.

Written Sunday, 6^th of July, 2014 at 16:40

Summer - 55 Word Challenge

Scorching heat emanates from the pavement. Even the sun seems to pity the land below, unknowing how to handle the heat it brings forth.

To top it all, water begins to run short.

It's summer, an exceptionally hot summer, and all everyone wants is to get away to a sea breeze.

My entry WON Over Achiever in the 55-word challenge - YAY
 
It was an entry for Over Achiever for this week's 55 Word Challenge. Used all three pictures and was mostly inspired by this year's summer in Egypt - several heat waves and a two-day water cut.

My piece is 51 words long.