The B.R.A.G.Medallion

Subscribe

“I TRIPLE-dog-dare ya!”

Geri Clouston
"Pay the Stake, Roll the Dice, Do the Dare. Getting divorced at twenty-five sucks. Teaching over-confident rich kids when you’re all but homeless sucks. In fact, every single aspect of Daisy Fitzgerald’s life is one big fail. Enter hot young chef, Xander. He’s a Knight-in-Shining-Cricket-Pads who knocks Daisy off her wedge heels and into his privileged world of It-girls, players and Michelin stars. High on cocktails & escapism, Daisy agrees to play Forfeit, the ultimate game of dares." #FORFEIT by Caroline Batten Daisy Fitzgerald in #FORFIET played a game of dare that led to a romantic kiss, but also “blackmail, betrayal, [and] revenge… “. I am not a daredevil. I never have been and never will be. But then, that’s me. Someone says I dare you and I am out of there fast. But apparently, there are a lot of people out there (especially young people) who are attracted to dares and challenges, especially when it involves social media. According to the article “Danger Ahead: Social Media Dare Games” on Netsanity.net (on which this blog is based) social media appears to ratchet everything up a notch. So, if you can do something wild and crazy, that’s fine; but if you…

Read More

award winning books, Book Spotlight, From Fact to Fiction!, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World, The World of Reading

Have you ever wondered how snowflakes are made?

Geri Clouston
Fawn faces a hungry arctic wolf, battles a fierce North Pole blizzard, and is the prisoner of a conniving sea captain intent on capturing arctic animals to sell to a New York City zoo!                       'Til the Last Snowflake Falls                      Have you ever wondered how snowflakes are made?                      I certainly have! Watch this!   How Do Snowflakes Form?

Read More

award winning books, Book Spotlight, From Fact to Fiction!, indieBRAG, indieBRAG Kids, Middle Grade Reader, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World, The World of Reading, Writers, Readers & Self Publishing

The Earl Of Wessex – Sons of the Wolf

Geri Clouston
First creation (c. 1019) Wessex was one of the four earldoms of Anglo-Danish England. In this period, the earldom of Wessex covered the lands of the old kingdom of Wessex, covering the counties of the south of England, and extending west to the Welsh border. During the reign of King Cnut, the earldom was conferred on Godwin at some time after 1020.[3] Thereafter, Godwin rose to become, in King Edward's time, the most powerful man in the kingdom. Upon Godwin's death in 1053, the earldom passed to his son, who later became King Harold II and died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. In 1999, Queen Elizabeth II's youngest son, Prince Edward, married Sophie Rhys-Jones. Younger sons of the monarch have customarily been given dukedoms at the time of their marriage, and experts had suggested the former royal dukedoms of Cambridge and Sussex as the most likely to be granted to Prince Edward. Instead, the Palace announced that Prince Edward would eventually be given the title Duke of Edinburgh, which was at the time held by his father. This was unlikely to happen by direct inheritance, as Prince Edward is the youngest of Prince Philip's three sons. Rather, the title is expected to be newly created for Prince Edward after it "eventually reverts to the crown" after "both the death of…

Read More

award winning books, Book Spotlight, From Fact to Fiction!, indieBRAG, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World, The World of Reading, Writers, Readers & Self Publishing

HOW TO WRITE A BOOK REVIEW IN 4 EASY STEPS

Geri Clouston
We thought our readers and      We thought that our readers and reviewers might be interested in these thoughts on writing reviews!     Thanks Carrie for sharing-                                                                                       indieBRAG Reposted with permission by author Carrie Beckort from Across the Board   Ah, book reviews. As a reader, I have a love-hate relationship with book reviews. For most of the books I read, I only look at a handful of reviews prior to reading. And those I do read are usually the 1 and 2 star reviews. If there is consistency in the negative reviews—poorly written/edited, clichéd plot, incomplete ending—then I think twice before reading. If the negative reviews are random or about things not important to me—such as the author using too many swear words—then I will likely jump in and read the book. I then go back and read several reviews, both positive and negative, after I finish the book to see how the views of other readers…

Read More

Authors' Chat, indieBRAG, Readers Thoughts!, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World, The World of Reading, Words of Wisdom, Writers, Readers & Self Publishing

Sharing a wonderful romance book with friends – and a yummy Peach Cobbler!

Geri Clouston
  Olive Witkins was sure she had her days planned out. At 35, she was a spinster, worked at a Philadelphia library and took care of her parents’ house. She kept her hair in a tight bun, wore black clothes and kept herself all buttoned up. Then life intervened. With the death of her brother and his wife in 1891, Olive travels to the wilds of Spencer, Ohio to save their two children, fantasizing about the culture and family legacy she would bestow on Mary and John, how she would teach them and they would love her. Her dream shattered when she saw the hovel where her drunken brother had kept his family, not fit for human habitation. What her brother and his wife put their children through “rubbed raw all that she knew to be true…” With great difficulty, Olive rises to the occasion, mothers her niece and nephew with the help of her brother’s neighbor Jacob Butler. She begins to mother his 3 children as well. Despite her lack of experience and being used to Philadelphia life, “Olive felt more alive, more focused than she ever had before in her life…. I am done letting life go by.”…

Read More

award winning books, Bloggers, Book Spotlight, Food for Thought, Foodie Lit, indieBRAG, Romance, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World, Uncategorized

Drift away to Montreal in the 1950’s and enjoy a French delight!

Geri Clouston
    Author David Riese was having coffee one morning in his usual café when Riva Weiss, an older woman author Dave Riese had spoken to from time to time came over, sharing a story about a passionate love she had when just 18. Building on what Riva had told him, Dave expanded the bones of her story to a novel of a wonderfully poignant romance. Being built on a true story adds to the depth and interest of this work. To this day, Dave is still in touch with Riva, who turned 88 this year. In 1951, the fictional Rebecca Wiseman meets and falls in love with Sol Gottesman at a YMHA dance. Despite coming from different social classes and families, the two are passionate in this first love. Based on a true-life romance, Dave writes a very romantic novel with a clear understanding of how both young men and women react to a first love. Sol woos Rebecca with beautiful flowers, fancy restaurants and whispered phone calls. Rebecca dreams of Sol, calls him frequently, quite forward for a young woman of that time, and even is the aggressive one romantically. Dave said that his ideas about romance did…

Read More

Authors' Chat, award winning books, Bloggers, Book Spotlight, Food for Thought, Foodie Lit, indieBRAG, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World

Can you imagine anything better than a good mystery and sweet rolls?

Geri Clouston
Hush Girl by Gloria Zachgo is a well-written novel so intimate it reads like a memoir.  After the death of her father, memories and nightmares begin to re-emerge for main character Nicole Reed.  These caused panic attacks, an inability to speak, mood swings and loosing of her grasp on reality. But what was her childhood reality? That is what Nicki both needs and fears to find. Nicki and readers doubt her sanity as Gloria blurs memory, visions and nightmare. At the same time as the author takes us back into Nicki’s abusive past, we are led through her healing through counseling and family support. Although a long and difficult process, we see the healing value of counseling. Nicki is a writer within the novel, writing a mystery within a mystery, her writing modeling the author’s own writing process. As a retired principal, I encountered children who had been abused.  As difficult as it was for me to learn what had happened to them and then report to the proper agencies, there was much more anguish for these children.  Through fear, threats and pain, they were forbidden to speak. Their abusers had engrained a culture of silence in them.  I saw children…

Read More

Authors' Chat, award winning books, Bloggers, Food for Thought, Foodie Lit, indieBRAG, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World

A Proper English Lunch and a Great Mystery!

Geri Clouston
Have you ever walked into a room and think, “I’ve been here before,” or met a person and feel, “I’ve met this person before,” but you haven’t.  Yet that connection remains. And that is how the novel, When the Clocks Stopped begins. This is not your typical time travel novel, but rather the creation of a ”chat room” between eras, where characters do not go back and live in another time, but nonetheless through multi-layered and intertwined time lines, interact together. Hazel Hawkins lives in 1976, Annie in 1747. Both live in Cottage House on Romney Marsh.  We know from the beginning of the novel that this house is special. “I think this house likes us,” Hazel’s husband Bruce says to her, as if the house has a personality or is a character in itself. Author Marion (M.L.) Eaton told me, “Rose Cottage is based on the cottage that my Australian husband and I bought in Lydd (thinly disguised in the novel as Rype) in 1975… Rose Cottage not only had its own character, its atmosphere was truly warm and friendly, almost as if it had wrapped a shawl round us. And the experience with Annie, and her knocking on the window,…

Read More

Authors' Chat, award winning books, Bloggers, Food for Thought, Foodie Lit, indieBRAG, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The World of Reading

Another Tasty Idea and a Great Book!

Geri Clouston
Kitchen Brigade by Laurie Boris Dystopian novels have a long and popular history, from classics such as The Time Machine, Brave New World and 1984 to the more modern Hunger Games, The Handmaid’s Tale and Divergent.  Some take place in a specific time and place and some are vague or fantasies. Some dystopian novels use unknown tyrants while others use current US rivals, such as the Chinese, Cubans or Russians. That is the route of The Kitchen Rivals by Laurie Boris, which uses a specific enemy, the Russians and their allies, the Cubans, as the tyrannical rulers who have taken over the eastern part of the US. Its setting is also specific, taking place in the Hudson Valley, where the author lives. Laurie skillfully places the main scenes in the kitchen, where main character Valerie, now called Three, with her fellow chefs, including Chef Svetlana, under whom she had previously studied at the Culinary Institute of America create meals for the general, his staff and visitors. Food is an important focus in the novel.  While the kitchen chefs are prisoners, food still provides joy, love and artistry. It is used as payment, as for chef Four, and used horribly, as when the child Tomàs is forced to taste food in case…

Read More

Authors' Chat, award winning books, Bloggers, Book Spotlight, Food for Thought, Foodie Lit, indieBRAG, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World, The World of Reading, Uncategorized

It’s a Tough Market for Authors

Geri Clouston
                          Florence Osmund                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Author and Contributor When it dawned on me last year that I was making less money but spending more time promoting and marketing my books than I did three years earlier when I had fewer to offer, I decided to take a break from writing and focus on what I was doing wrong. Since my marketing strategy hadn’t changed during these years, I was pretty sure it was the industry that had changed around me, and I had to understand this in…

Read More

Authors' Chat, award winning books, Bloggers, Book Marketing, Editing, Graphic Design, Marketing an indie Book, The B.R.A.G.Medallion, The Self-publishing World, Writers, Readers & Self Publishing

Most Shared Posts

 

 

Most Discussed Posts

Blog Categories