Have you heard of Shepherd.com? It’s a new book recommendations site whose goal is to offer readers an alternative to Goodreads, which, let’s be honest, isn’t always a fun experience. Still in beta, Shepherd currently solicits and curates book recommendation lists from authors from a wide range of genres… including Read more…
Hello hello! I hope you’re all having a relaxing Thanksgiving week (those of you who celebrate it, at any rate). I’m taking it easy this week to rest up from a few weeks of keeping up with an intense freelance writing workload before I dive back in next week. But Read more…
Image by Irina Kuzmina from Pixabay October is, theoretically, my favorite month of the year. The milder weather, the turning leaves, the Halloween candy and pumpkin spice, the combo of spooky and cozy vibes… I love it all. And every year I look forward to it like no other month. Read more…
Who’s up for some free books? I hope you are, because author Scott Roche and I have teamed up to give away not one, but TWO collections of frightening tales to not one, but THREE lucky winners for Halloween! From Scott Roche, you’ll be getting the horror anthology Dead Ends, Read more…
I’m still in an odd place where I don’t really know what to write about here. I think it might help remedy that if I can stop thinking of this as my “author blog” and just see it as my blog. I also think the creative part of my brain largely Read more…
I originally posted this review in March of 2012. We’ve recently pulled this book out and started going through it again, mainly because it has a lot of good advice for staying warm in the event that all of these winter storms knock out our power. I stand by my original review — the info in this book really holds up. It would make a great Christmas gift for anyone on your list who might need some coaxing when it comes to adopting a preparedness mindset.
You might know Cody Lundin from The Discovery Channel’s Dual Survival. Or you might know him as that guy from Youtube with the sustainable underground house. But if you don’t know, Lundin is a survival instructor based in Arizona whose instruction focuses primarily on indigenous skills—in other words, surviving off the land the way the Native Americans used to do it.
But Lundin broadens his teaching focus for When All Hell Breaks Loose, his manual for urban survival in a SHTF situation. Whereas in his survival school Lundin primarily works with hikers, campers and other outdoor sports types who are at a greater risk of getting lost in the desert or wilderness for a stretch of days, his book is more concerned about long-term survival for the entire family, and it’s deliberately written in terms that even Grandma and Grandpa can understand. (more…)
I FINALLY read this book (seriously, y’all, sometimes I almost want to quit writing just so I’ll have more time in my life for reading, which is not easy to come by as it is). It was an enjoyable read, as always, with lots of tugging at the heart strings and wanting to give Harry a big ol’ hug. The ending was pretty much exactly what I expected, although I kept wondering throughout the book how it was going to end up there, and although unsurprising it definitely set up some interesting dynamics for the continuation of the series. I don’t really have anything to add by way of review, just some fan-girl babble that I will place behind a cut because it is somewhat spoilery and also, fan-girl babble.
This is my least favorite time of year. Strike that — it’s my second least favorite, behind those long dreary (and occasionally icy) weeks of winter when the holidays are done and you just want it to be spring already. Now the summer holidays are done and I just want Read more…
I spent most of last weekend devouring Starve Better (see what I did there?) by nihilistic_kid, aka Nick Mamatas, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to make money writing. This book is along the same lines as John Scalzi’s …Coffee Shop, in that it’s made up of Read more…