Michele Poague's  book Fall of Eden, the second in her Healing Crystal Trilogy, is part of our Christmas Blog Hop giveaway along with a homemade afghan.   We wouldn't be giving Fall of Eden away unless we liked it but we thought our readers might like another reviewer's opinion as well.

Today we bring you a guest blog from across 'the pond'. Sandra "Jeanz" has graciously agreed to share her review of the second book in the Healing Crystal Trilogy. 

FALL OF EDEN BY MICHELE POAGUE

BLURB from Goodreads

Myths are but shadows of a greater truth. 

In Leah's Wake:Tour Notes

Announcing the In Leah’s Wake Social Media Whirlwind Tour! As part of this special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity, the price of the In Leah’s Wake eBook edition has dropped to just 99 cents this week. What’s more, by purchasing this fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many awesome prizes, including Amazon gift cards of up to $500 in amount and 5 autographed copies of the book. Be sure to enter before the end of the day on Friday, December 16th, so you don’t miss out.  

To Win the Prizes

1. Purchase your copy of In Leah’s Wake for just 99 cents on Amazon or Barnes & Noble
2. Fill-out the form on Novel Publicity to enter for the prizes
3. Visit today’s featured event; you may win an autographed copy of the book or a $50 gift card!
4. BONUS:  If you leave a comment on this blog post, you have another chance at $100!

That Feeling of Falling: In Leah's Wake

In Leah's Wake

by Terri Giuliano Long

Paperback: Laughing Moon Publishing, Oct 1, 2010

Kindle: Amazon Digital Editions

Available at Amazon

In the arts, it's important to know which branches can lead us where we want to go. Music tells us what it sounds like, using instrumentation choices, rhythms and composition to evoke emotions. Painting shows us what it looks like, with color and shape bringing a certain amount of ambiance, using juxtapositions and composition inside the picture give us a sense of relationships. Sculpture can add that 3-D element to the visual arts, but none of them can answer the questions that fall into the category of “why” or give us historical perspective and clarify the background issues that led to the present reality. Writing can.

Which is why telling every bit of the story matters. “In Leah's Wake” is, in many ways, closer to a sculpture or a bas-relief, in which you can see all of the characters clearly, and see some of the relationships between them, but you get only a small sense of how they got that way. Leah is the one we can see and understand the most clearly, even though she is the one disturbing the family peace. We see the effect her parents have on her. We see the effect that she has on her parents. We see the younger sibling Justine trying desperately to sort out what's going on (in some ways she's more of a main character than Leah is). What we don't see is why things unfold as they do.

The Blog Hop Has Started!

HOLIDAY FUN!

Visit as many as 75 different blogs right from here. Enter giveaways and contests from this very spot. For the next 12 days you will be able to find all these blogs right on our Giveaway page. Have fun! Visit often. 

Win Fall of Eden by Michele Poague and a hand crocheted  afghan from this blog site. Enter the contests at the other blog sites throughout the tour. Details on how to enter are on our Giveaways page or you can click on HOLIDAY FUN.

Today I bring you two loosely connected books, one is non-fiction book about metaphors and sayings, and the other is a book whose title became a saying in my lifetime.

Loose Cannons and Red Herrings: A Book of Lost Metaphors (not to be confused with its newer version of a similar title) contains the phrase Catch-22 which is the name of our second choice.

How do I tell if a book is good, not just a good read, not just fun, not just interesting but really, truly good? If, after the test of time, say decades, I still see or feel or am haunted by scenes from the book, I know, know, know that book is good. Does that mean it is a good read? Maybe not but like great poetry, if the piece speaks to me, moves me, causes me to think about it and its implications, it is a good piece. Today I am going to introduce you to a book that many have found impossible to read. Indeed, if it hadn’t been assigned in high school, I don’t think I would have gotten through the first three chapters (though there were many assigned books I never read…). Once I had gotten to the third chapter, I was completely hooked.