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Birds, who are they? A first look


About Birds, who are they? A first look

Are birds like humans? What are they really like and where did they come from? Are we really so different, or, as parallel species, can both birds and humans join equally in the care of our beautiful world? A preview and reflection on the latest findings about what birds – and we – ultimately are. Prepare to be surprised, illuminated, and delighted.

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Holmes’s Complete Guide To Stop Drinking Alcohol; The Easy, Mindful and Pain-free Way

About Holmes’s Complete Guide To Stop Drinking Alcohol; The Easy, Mindful and Pain-free Way

A self-help guide advocates overcoming alcohol addiction through mindfulness, inspired by cognitive behavioral therapy.

In this robust manual, Holmes, an online counselor and founder of the Addiction Help Agency, offers an easy and painless way to quit drinking alcohol permanently. The core of this process is a style of cognitive behavioral therapy with a focus on the incremental reduction of drinking and an increase in mindfulness—through meditation, self-assessment, and self-monitoring—to identify harmful patterns. To aid in this, the book provides numerous tools, from graphs and tables for recording habits to diagnostic tests like the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test, the DSM-5, and others. The guide also discusses self-report surveys like the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale and the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale. Alongside readers in this undertaking is Moz, a high-functioning drinker and a stand-in for the author, who struggled with alcohol. Moz presents examples of the book’s process and how it succeeded for Holmes. Moz’s experiences also act as a gateway to the deeper research the manual supplies on subjects like the role alcohol plays in popular culture, its chemical composition, and its effects on sex and oft-encountered challenges like loneliness and midlife crises. The book promises “a radical alternative to the public perception…of drinking” as well as “a revolution in alcohol awareness.” In the latter case especially, the guide succeeds. The number of resources and the extensive, well-cited research may feel overwhelming, but the author’s presentation and simple breakdowns will answer most of the questions that patient readers have. The work’s use of Sherlock Holmes quotes throughout that treat alcohol addiction as a kind of mystery to be solved is clever, and the technique never distracts or overstays its welcome. The book is primarily a self-help resource, so those without at least some awareness of their problem or possible difficulty are likely not its audience. The text’s enthusiasm for its own methods can feel like a sales pitch at times but is nonetheless encouraging and infectious.

A comprehensive, passionate, and helpful resource for those looking for an alternative to alcohol.

[N.B. This synopsis is word-for-word an independent review from Kirkus Reviews]

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MAKIN’ IT HOME: 10 Rules to Help You Make It Home Safely from a Police Encounter by A. L. Jaxan

About MAKIN’ IT HOME: 10 Rules to Help You Make It Home Safely from a Police Encounter by A. L. Jaxan

Parents, we all know that when police fulfill their duty to serve and protect our communities, they serve a necessary and beneficial purpose. Much of the time, they do. When they fail to honor their duty, we—Black, Hispanic, indigenous, and brown people, those struggling with mental illness, and poor people of all backgrounds—are disproportionately the targets of police misconduct.

I have identified ten behaviors that will greatly reduce police aggression during a routine encounter. These behaviors are the basis for ten easy-to-remember rules designed to facilitate conversations with your children, whatever their age. By following the rules covered in this book, we can help bring bad policing to light. When citizens handle police encounters correctly, there can be no acceptable or legally defensible reason for police to use excessive or deadly force.

No one deserves to die simply for disobeying routine police commands. Too often, though, minor breaches of conduct during police encounters—even those stemming from justified nervousness or fear—give bad cops a reason to step tragically out of line. This photo/picture book for families seeks to do away with such flimsy justifications, once and for all.

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Dig Into Small Space Gardening for Beginners by Morgan Becker

About Dig Into Small Space Gardening for Beginners by Morgan Becker

Small space gardening is a constant exercise in creative design. Finding ways to fill in bare spots both inside and outside our homes with growth and color. But selecting various plants that we can enjoy is easy. Getting them to a point where they will flourish year after year… that’s hard. Many times over people will buy a beautiful plant at the local nursery only to see it wilt away as they attempt to care for it. Not for any lack of interest or effort, but simply because they took a wrong step.

Even if you can only spare 30 minutes a week, I know anyone can start a small, successful growing space. No design is too small to enjoy. Start with a couple of pots or a wide planter on your windowsill. Become comfortable with the basics. After that, I’d be willing to bet you’ll be thinking about your whole backyard for next season. Everyone is capable of becoming a successful home gardener.

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3 Word ABCs; Amusing Animal Antics

About 3 Word ABCs; Amusing Animal Antics

A kid’s alphabet book. Your imagination is the only limit to learning the alphabet with these animal antics. The letters are creatively matched with colorful eye catching illustrations of animals in the midst of shenanigans. Layers of learning: focus on letters, then words and silly concepts create fun. In last pages use the compilation scene to find and identify all 26 animals.

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Immortal Blood: Book 1 of The Immortal Descendants

About Immortal Blood: Book 1 of The Immortal Descendants

A true-blood heir of an otherwise extinct fae bloodline, a thousand-year-old magic spell, and a lycan attack—now my eyes are wide open to a world full of monsters.

I have an innate fear of fangs, so when I learn that the super-hot guy that saved me is a vampire hybrid, I’m just as scared as I was when my life was hanging in the balance. But it’s not just him that makes me hot under the collar as I find out what I missed over the centuries.

Turns out, it’s not just lycans who want to take a bite out of me. As every monster takes an interest in me, I soon learn my blood is a curse. And as I learn about my history, it’s not only myself I need to worry about… The truth of what I am places my friends and family in danger, too.

But it’s the vampire royals, with their ridiculous demands, that leave me in the most perilous situation of all. If I pay their price, I turn traitor to my nation. But fighting back means I may have to sacrifice the two things that matter more to me than life itself.

If you like Jennifer L. Armentrout and Bella Forrest, you’ll want to dive right into this new paranormal series.

So scroll up and one-click Immortal Blood now.

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Fiona & Hyperion: Gods of Blood & Lust 1 by C.T. Andrews

About Fiona & Hyperion: Gods of Blood & Lust 1 by C.T. Andrews

THEIR LOVE WAS FORBIDDEN. NOW THEY MUST FIGHT FOR EACH OTHER.

Hyperion ~ “I am gladiator! Distraction in the arena will spell my certain death. But then there was Fiona. Now I’m torn between my duty… and my desire, for her touch has become the very reason I fight.”

Fiona ~ “I am the Rose of Venus. The gladiator games hold no sway for me. And then there was Hyperion. I must be with him. But I belong to a Roman senator who has cold hands and an even colder heart. How am I to live under one’s thumb while yearning for the other’s arms?”

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Muck World

About Muck World

A global superstorm called the Ever Rain has destroyed human civilization, forcing survivors to flee to higher ground. But it isn’t just the elements that threaten their existence.

A new menace has risen from the wreckage: The Citadel. Made up of the rich and powerful, they have many resources, including an army who track down survivors to use for slave labor.

Sixteen-year-old Jessie’s parents are among those taken and she wants nothing more than to find them and destroy the evil Citadel. She ventures to a city on a lake with a militia that might be big enough to stop the enemy forces.

Even if she survives the arduous journey through storm-torn lands, how will she convince the town to help their cause? It isn’t easy to battle against the powerful Citadel Forces and win.
But there are other secrets lurking beneath the surface of Jessie’s world. Buried secrets about her family that will change her life forever and the lives of those she loves most.

Discover the secrets that throw Jessie’s world upside down and read Muck World for an epic adventure of a lifetime.

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Orthodox Theology and Technology: A Profoundly Gifted Autobiography

About Orthodox Theology and Technology: A Profoundly Gifted Autobiography

The book, like most of my books, is in fact a collection of originally independent works drawn in to a single center of gravity. In this case it includes the following works:

“About the Author:” my website’s author biography. Some people have found it significant that I claim not some uniqueness, but the glory and shame of being a human being.

“An Author’s Musing Memoirs About His Work: Retrospective Reflections, Retracings, and Retractions,” a set of musing memoirs at midlife.

“Character Sheet.” I am intentionally no longer a gamer, but a character sheet with a bit of fantasy is something that some reader will instantly connect with.

“An Interview with the Author by… the Author Himself!” It might be read with the “Cosmic Patriot” work of “Why I’m Glad I’m Living Now, at This Place, at This Time, in This World”

“Orthodox Theology and Technology: A Profoundly Gifted Autobiography” offers a single autobiography in a more conventional sense.

“Appendix A: Recommended Works” is intended to give the reader a head start in navigating my voluminous output. It covers which works to read first.

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Bell Hammers

About Bell Hammers

“Remmy’s life of constant schemes and pranks and a lifelong feud with classmate Jim Johnstone and the local oil drilling company proves consequential. This is a hoot.”
– Publisher’s Weekly

🏆 Finalist for Glimmer Train’s Fiction Open.

PRANKS. OIL. PROTEST. JOKES BETWEEN NEWLYWEDS.

AND ONE HILARIOUS SIEGE OF A MAJOR CORPORATION.

Remmy grows up with Beth in Bellhammer, Illinois as oil and coal companies rob the land of everything that made it paradise. Under his Grandad, he learns how to properly prank his neighbors, friends, and foes. Beth tries to fix Remmy by taking him to church. Under his Daddy, Remmy starts the Bell Hammer Construction Company, which depends on contracts from Texarco Oil. And Beth argues with him about how to build a better business. Together, Remmy and Beth start to build a great neighborhood of “merry men” carpenters: a paradise of s’mores, porch furniture, newborn babies, and summer trips to Branson where their boys pop the tops off of the neighborhood’s two hundred soda bottles. Their witty banter builds a kind of castle among a growing nostalgia.

Then one of Jim Johnstone’s faulty Texarco oil derricks falls down on their house and poisons their neighborhood’s well.

Poisoned wells escalate to torched dog houses. Torched dog houses escalate to stolen carpentry tools and cancelled contracts. Cancelled contracts escalate to eminent domain. Sick of the attacks from Texaco Oil on his neighborhood, Remmy assembles his merry men:

“We need the world’s greatest prank. One grand glorious jest that’ll bloody the nose of that tyrant. Besides, pranks and jokes don’t got no consequences, right?”

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Professional Student

About Professional Student

When Elena Brooks finds her dream job as a Professional Student shortly after graduating from her Masters program, she believes her future is set. However, the Department of Learning has some secrets of its own. After discovering that there is more to the program than taking advanced classes, Elena has to decide if she’s going to continue to live in denial or confront her past. She has to put her safety on the line and risk everything she knows to work on an undercover project that is tied to the Professional Student program, for the chance to make a difference in the world. With the help of her new friend, Elena understands what it takes to become a true leader, while learning to listen to her heart.

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Match Me Up

About Match Me Up

The hottest nerd I know just became my roommate.
But it’s a no-go on the down low, seeing as he’s my best friend’s brother.
The best part is that he’s a hunk and a half, but oh so smart.
How can one guy have all the good stuff? And now he’s in my face all the time.
I just needed a place to stay while I’m in grad school.
And it’s entertaining watching this sexy IT genius create a new dating app.
Not so fun being his guinea pig until something crazy happens…
He turns out to be my perfect match on the app.
We’re too good as friends to mess this up, plus my BFF is less than thrilled about all of it.
No matter how much I want this guy, he’s gonna have to match me up with someone else.
As if.

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Everything Led Me to You

About Everything Led Me to You

After waking up in the hospital, I just wanted to get back to my normal life but when I found out that the person who did this to me hadn’t been caught, I just couldn’t let it go.

Now I’m left paying for what happened in more ways than one and my stubborn ass refuses to let this person get away.

I usually follow my instincts but there’s no way that I could have predicted anything that night.
I know that I couldn’t have done anything to react any sooner.

If I did, then maybe things would have gone differently.
Maybe I would have never lost a week of my life…
I probably would have never fallen in love…
And I would’ve never ended up in the situation that I am in right now.

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Dirge of the Dead

About Dirge of the Dead

As Xlina struggles to come to terms with killing her best friend, the wily necromancer Oxivius hatches a plan to set things right. The duo will march straight into the gates of Hell and reclaim what the Arch Demon Ertigan has taken from them. But stealing Amber’s soul from Hell is not without perils.

Xlina finds herself facing the judgement of the Counsel of Magic as the forces of Heaven and Hell align to stop her from performing the resurrection. With new allies and old friends vying to reclaim the stolen soul Xlina is thrust into a whirlwind of deceit and betrayal.

Is it all just another clever scheme by Oxivius to further his own secret agenda? Who are the mysterious druids sent to preserve the natural order? With the world at her back, Xlina must overcome her isolation and deepest fears if she has any hope of freeing Amber from an eternity of torment at the hands of Ertigan.

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Fairy-Tailed Wish

About Fairy-Tailed Wish

What happens when someone makes a wish to be Fairy-Tailed on their Birthday Eve?

It’s up to Suzie and her fairies-in-training to see that the wish is granted. But when fairy dust meets toilet paper, things don’t always go as planned. Dashing up and zooming down, tying knots and winding around, a nighttime mission can quickly go wrong and wake a sleeping child. Will Suzie and her fairies escape in time before they are discovered?

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Good Girl Gone (A Seekers Mystery – 2) by Sam Berretti

About Good Girl Gone (A Seekers Mystery – 2) by Sam Berretti

FREE on Amazon Sept 3-7!
Doris Watson is an army vet and engineer by profession, a designer of kitchen appliances. But when she gets an emergency late-night message, her mundane existence takes a decided turn into the bizarre and deadly realm of human trafficking as her secret existence resurfaces. She is an on-call agent for a firm named Seekers Worldwide, a front for a loose group of high-tech mercenaries, managed by one Della Jamay Charboneau and run by NSA agent, Sam Namath.
Someone made the mistake of taking Della’s niece. And that was a truly epic mistake indeed.
Della Jamay is no ordinary aunt. She is an assassin with a very short temper and a very large arsenal. Doris’ assignment from Sam—to handle her handler and keep Della’s body count low. Plagued by prophetic dreams and embroiled in Della’s most private matters, rookie Doris finds herself in way over her head. Together the two women fight for their lives against ruthless New Orleans criminals and a mysterious Voodoo priestess claiming to be stealing souls with fire in this thriller about family love versus true evil.
Non-stop action and suspense propel these two tough women through a mystery shrouded in the darkest aspects of human behavior and crime. Time is of the essence—every hour, every day the girl is missing means the trail is growing colder and her fate more dire. Della Jamay is forced back to her home, her hidden past and memories she would like to keep buried. Doris is pulled with her into a morass so dangerous and unthinkable it is beyond even her darkest nightmares. Intriguing subplots, explosive situations, humor, heartwarming moments and a cast of highly memorable characters combine with a touch of the paranormal to weave a tapestry of memorable proportions in this romance mystery thriller adventure.

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Book Outlining Basics

About Book Outlining Basics

How to plan a great book and make writing it easier and faster than you ever thought possible. With a solid outline, you can do on your first draft what it takes other writers three or more drafts to do.

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A Little Girl’s Dream by Aneika Turnbull

About A Little Girl’s Dream by Aneika Turnbull

A Little Girl’s Dream is a fictional story of a little girl who was born with Cerebral Palsy and dreams of becoming a famous singer. However, she fears that her appearance may limit her ability/opportunity to achieve her dream. With support from her family, she learns to embrace her differences and to believe that she can reach the stars.

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