Book Review - Can't Help Falling by Kara Isaac

A funny, heartfelt romance about how an antique shop, a wardrobe, and a mysterious tea cup bring two C.S. Lewis fans together in a snowy and picturesque Oxford, England.

Emelia Mason has spent her career finding the dirt on the rich and famous. But deep down past this fearless tabloid-reporter façade, there’s a nerdy Narnia-obsessed girl who still can’t resist climbing into wardrobes to check for the magical land on the other side. When a story she writes produces tragic results, she flees to Oxford, England—home to C.S. Lewis—to try and make amends for the damage she has caused.

Peter Carlisle was on his way to become one of Great Britain’s best rowers—until he injured his shoulder and lost his chance at glory. He’s determined to fight his way back to the top even if it means risking permanent disability to do so. It’s the only way he can find his way past failing the one person who never stopped believing in his Olympic dream.

When Peter and Emelia cross paths on her first night in Oxford, the attraction is instant and they find common ground in their shared love of Narnia. But can the lessons from a fantasyland be enough to hold them together when secrets of the real world threaten to tear them apart? Cobblestone streets, an aristocratic estate, and an antique shop with curious a wardrobe bring the world of Narnia to life in Kara Isaac’s inspiring and romantic story about second chances.

Kara Isaac's second novel Can't Help Falling is better than her first! A delightfully intriguing story that played out slowly giving me a 'have to finish it tonight' evening last week.

I had initially stayed away from Isaac's first book- Close to You as I had heard about the Tolkien flavour and I'm really not a fan, but when I was gifted a copy of Can't Help Falling from Kara herself, randomly through signing up for her newsletter, I thought that I'd had better read both in order, so I bought her first. I'm so glad that I did!  

Can't Help Falling is everything to Lewis and Narnia as Close to You was to Tolkien. I particularly loved the quotes throughout with even a Screwtape Letters nod.

I would have listed my favourite quote but it's so beautifully delivered in just the right place that I'd love for you to read it for yourself and decide if you love it too.

As we know, the path to Faith for anyone, can be clear or as muddy as the Yarra river (the river through Melbourne that is notoriously muddy) and Issac has delivered this with an authoritatively realistic author voice in often raw emotive scenes while adding punches of fun throughout.

It was clearly a romance but with all the skips, trips and falls of life making for a realistic read.  

I gave Close to You 5 stars on GoodReads and I'm about to do the same for Can't Help Falling.

Can't Help Falling was published by Howard Books and released in October 2016.

Kathy Smail is a Social Media, Marketing, Business & HR Consultant who loves words and is working on a novel, when she isn’t reading! She can be found chatting at…

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KathySmailSocialMarketingBusiness/
Twitter: @KathySmail
Website: www.kjs.com.au

Waiting on Love - Leah Attwood. A review by Kathy Smail

Is it ever too late to do the right thing? 

Tanya Reeves dreamed of happily-ever-afters and a family that included a husband and children, but life rarely turns out as planned, which she discovered the hard way when she got pregnant in high school. For seven years, she has raised her daughter without a father, however, the dream never died. 

Scott Lamar never meant to abandon his daughter and pregnant girlfriend, but life happened, and college provided a means of escape. All that changed when he found faith in God, and now he wants to make up for his past mistakes. He concocts a plan that sounds crazy to most, but he pushes forward, determined to be a part of his daughter’s life. 

Waiting on Love is a delightful story about love that needed time, forgiveness and redemption to flourish. The question of doing 'the right thing' was relative to the main characters and to a lesser extent at least one of the supporting characters as well.

I felt that this story could have had a little more length to it but as it is a 'Christmas' novella supporting other books in Atwood's Modern Convenience series, I can live with it. I will be making a note to read more of her books however. I assume that as this book is 

As I don't really read too much about a book and author before I write a review I didn't think that I had read anything by Atwood but found that she has written several books in collections that I have including this one Christmas Blessings which is currently available for pre-order for $1.31(A$) and will be released 30th October 2016. Other authors in this upcoming collection include Belle Calhoune, JoAnn Durgin, Heather Gray, Angel Moore, Melissa Tagg and Alexa Verde.

I’ve pre-ordered the Christmas Blessing collection so will enjoy that in a month or so.

Here's the link to Waiting on Love

Kathy Smail, after her family roles, is a Communicator who loves the impact of words and is working on a novel, when she can drag herself away from reading. 

She can be found chatting:
Facebook: Kathy Smail Social Marketing Business
Twitter: @KathySmail
Instagram: kathysmail_social_marketing
The Web: www.kjs.com.au

Why Social Media? Part 2

In Why Social Media? Part 1 we talked about the individuality of social media and today I’d like to explore how we can utilise our social media presence for sales.

As we talked about in Part 1, social media works because we bring our individual selves to the social media table. It’s here that we get to share our thoughts, plans, achievements and even our businesses.

As soon as we include business we have to tread carefully, just as we would when we’re sitting at a dinner party with friends. Just as we might figuratively roll our eyes at that friend who seems to monopolises the conversation with their new business we have to understand that the same applies within our social media circles.

We are generally more than happy to support our friends and this is obvious as we ‘like’ and ‘share’ each other’s stories through social media. When our friends have businesses we often recommend them to others and as a community we support worthy causes just as easily.

The level of relationship that we have with that friend at the dinner party dictates whether we are annoyed by them discussing the status of their passion or happy to hear how things are going and decide how we might support them or even buy from them.

Within our social media circles it works the same. We want to hear from our friends but less interested to be bombarded by businesses who only want to sell something! This notion of selling suddenly becomes relative.

If a friend sells gym bags and we buy one, do we feel as if they were ‘selling’ to us? Likely not but we might feel that way if that same friend sends us a generic email every day telling us that we should buy one.

Our presence on social media allows for countless opportunities to sell our products or services but the key point is that our aim should be to sharing (selling) ourselves.

Our business page or profile page, depending on which way we have decided to brand our product, must seek friends first.

Gather friends, invite interested people into your social media friendship circle, share about your life, your dreams, your writing, your books, your services, what causes you believe in and even what you 

stand for.

Casually interested people become interested, interested people become friends, friends support each other and that support turns into sales.

Kathy Smail, after her family roles, is a Communicator who loves the impact of words and is 
working on a novel, when she can drag herself away from reading. Her previous role as the Social Media Manager for a national retailer and various roles in Corporate Affairs, Marketing, Human Resources and Learning & Development has fed her passion for getting the message across. 


She can be found chatting:
Facebook: Kathy Smail Social Marketing Business
Twitter: @KathySmail
Instagram: kathysmail_social_marketing
The Web: www.kjs.com.au

Why Social Media? Part 1

Social Media is a gift!

It can be an incredibly rewarding gift but can often feel awkward and clunky like a toddler trying to wear their mother’s high heels, even with the big grin on their face.

Social media gets a bad rap for making us feel as if we have to manage something akin to trying to dress that wriggling toddler however, embracing the ‘why’ of social media before the ‘how’ can be incredibility liberating.

So ‘why’ social media?

Let’s look at what it is. Social media is a ridiculously broad term for many hundreds of sites, platforms and apps which enables users to connect, engage, and share information.

It’s important that we make the point that promotion or sales are not necessarily the reason why most of us use social media. One could argue that social media platforms are all about self-promotion and the popularity for selfies as well as the rise in photo sharing, particularly of staged meals photo would likely support that thought.

Some 1.57 billion people are listed as having a Facebook profile and that doesn’t include the many pages that we also own. These may be for businesses, charities, community groups or for a group of friends who like to keep in touch in a quieter space.

Quieter spaces are hard to find in our busy world but social media gives us space to be ourselves, or a version of ourselves (if we wish, but that’s another article!). We get the chance to show off our children, connect with like-minded people across the world, argue a point, learn from others, increase our areas of influence and do it all from our couch. The Sensis Social Media Report for 2016 shows us that 26% of Australians check their social media sites more than 5 times a day and another 24% at least once a day. So half of us are using social media sites every single day.

I’d like to suggest that the ‘why’ of social media is that our platforms are an extension of us- our hearts, our dreams and our lives. We are individuals connecting with other individuals. A spider’s web of connecting fibres across the world to places that we might only ever dream of travelling to.

The more connected that we are to others, the more influential we become and the more influenced we can be.

It’s the power of influence that is the ‘why’ of social media.

In Why Social Media? Part 2 we’ll talk further about how to use the ‘why’ of social media turns into sales on social media.

Kathy Smail, after her family roles, is a Communicator who loves the impact of words and is 
working on a novel, when she can drag herself away from reading. Her previous role as Social Media Manager for a national retailer and various roles in Corporate Affairs, Marketing, Human Resources and Learning & Development has fed her passion for getting the message across. 


She can be found chatting:
Facebook: Kathy Smail Social Marketing Business
Twitter: @KathySmail
Instagram: kathysmail_social_marketing
The Web: www.kjs.com.au

Book Review - Traces of Guilt by Dee Henderson

Review by Kathy Smail

"Evie Blackwell loves her life as an Illinois State Police detective . . . mostly. She's very skilled at investigations and has steadily moved up through the ranks. She would like to find Mr. Right, but she has a hard time imagining how marriage could work, considering the demands of her job. 

Gabriel Thane is a lifetime resident of Carin County and now its sheriff, a job he loves. Gabe is committed to upholding the law and cares deeply for the residents he's sworn to protect. He too would like to find a lifetime companion, a marriage like his parents have.

When Evie arrives in Carin, Illinois, it's to help launch a new task force dedicated to reexamining unsolved crimes across the state. Spearheading this trial run, Evie will work with the sheriff's department on a couple of its most troubling missing-persons cases. As she reexamines old evidence to pull out a few tenuous new leads, she unearths a surprising connection . . . possibly to a third cold case. Evie's determined to solve the cases before she leaves Carin County, and Sheriff Thane, along with his family, will be key to those answers."

Traces of Guilt is a complex but intriguing first book in what appears to be a new series for Henderson under the heading of 'An Evie Blackwell Cold Case'.

The story-line is intriguing and I found myself exploring possible scenarios as I read. My usual preference for quick resolution was kept nicely at bay as I read. The complex part is that the story is written from six points of view and the point of view changes many times through the book! To add potential fire to this scenario, the point of view changed six times in one particular chapter, although this varied in others. In my kindle version of the book the point of view characters were clearly stated and this made it much easier to follow, as I would suspect it could be tricky otherwise.

This cold case gathers characters from previous Henderson novels and would appear to be developing a family of characters for this series. The characters have a warmth about them that I enjoyed. 

There are also at least two very obvious story lines presumably added for further story installments in this series but I wonder if it may have been better if these were less involved in this book.

As with other books in this genre, there are situations discussed which may have triggers for some readers but I felt that these were handled in a sensitive way and allowed the story to flow.

Although I took my time, I was keen to get to the conclusion which was different from what I had expected. I quite enjoyed that aspect.

Kathy Smail, after her family roles, is a Communicator who loves the impact of words and is working on a novel, when she can drag herself away from reading. 

She can be found chatting:
Facebook: Kathy Smail Social Marketing Business
Twitter: @KathySmail
Instagram: kathysmail_social_marketing
The Web: www.kjs.com.au

Review: Proof of Life by Kimberly Rae Jordan

Review by Kathy Smail

Amazon Description

PROOF OF LIFE is book four of the Christian romance series, BLACKTHORPE SECURITY by Kimberly Rae Jordan. Follow the lives of the men and women working for BlackThorpe Security as they face the challenges of life, faith and love.

Ever since leaving the military, Alexander Thorpe has devoted his life to BlackThorpe Security, the company he founded with his best friend, Marcus Black. When his past unexpectedly comes knocking, Alex struggles to shift his priorities and open his life-and heart-to someone he didn't even know existed.

Rebecca Mackenzie thought she had a very valid reason for keeping her son from his father, but when her secret is revealed, she must face the past she ran away from fifteen years ago.

Will Alex be able to surrender his need for control and take on the challenging role of fatherhood? Or will his regret and guilt drive away the two people he needs most in his life? Rebecca wants to hate the man who broke her heart, but she instead finds herself drawn to him. Will she be able to open her heart to Alex once again or will fear keep it safely locked away?

As Alex and Rebecca struggle to deal with their unresolved past and the feelings that have once again risen between then, the search for Alana continues, leaving those involved grasping at straws.

Review

I’ve only recently discovered Kimberley Rae Jordon through the ‘BlackThorpe Security’ Series which is a spin off from ‘The McKinleys’ series. The author’s website says that each book can be read individually and I had felt this was the case with the first three books in this series.

In Proof of Life however there was a particular conclusion relating to Alana that I felt might not have had the same impact if I hadn’t read Book 3 first.

Having said that, I really enjoyed it. Alex had been a bit of an enigma in the first three books so his story deserved the depth the author gave it.

I’m an avid reader of romance books within the para-military genre and although this book seemed to have less focus on the security side of the story, there was significant time given to the emotions that both Alex and Rebecca experienced as they wrestled with their faith position in their life circumstances. There was one element in BlackThorpe’s security reach that seemed a little unrealistic if true to life was desired, but I don’t mind a bit of theatre. I thought that this book had a general emotional depth that wasn’t there in the first three.

I’m looking forward to Book 5 which will be out in June 2016. There will also be a 6th book according to the author’s website.

Kimberly Rae Jordon is clearly a prolific author with at least 20 books as outlined on her website. Proof of Life is published by Three Strand Press in March 7, 2016 and I read the e-book version.

Note: I don’t read blurbs so I can enjoy the story unfolding in the way that the author intended.

Kathy Smail is a Social Media, Marketing, Business & HR Consultant who loves words and is working on a novel, when she isn’t reading! She can be found chatting at…

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KathySmailSocialMarketingBusiness/
Twitter: @KathySmail
Website: www.kjs.com.au