GOLD DIGGER
BY REBECCA ROSENBERG
Publication Date: May 28, 2019
Lion Heart Publishing
eBook & Paperback; 312 Pages
Genre: Fiction/Romance/Historical/American

One look at Baby Doe and you know she was meant to be a legend! She was just twenty years old when she came to Colorado to work a gold mine with her new husband. Little did she expect that she’d be abandoned and pregnant and left to manage the gold mine alone. But that didn’t stop her!
She moved to Leadville and fell in love with a married prospector, twice her age. Horace Tabor struck the biggest silver vein in history, divorced his wife and married Baby Doe. Though his new wife was known for her beauty, her fashion, and even her philanthropy, she was never welcomed in polite society.
Discover how the Tabors navigated the worlds of wealth, power, politics, and scandal in the wild days of western mining.

AMAZON | BARNES AND NOBLE

Praise for Gold Digger
“Rosenberg’s rollicking Western adventure strikes gold with a gutsy, good-hearted spitfire of a heroine and action aplenty.” —THELMA ADAMS, bestselling author of Bittersweet Brooklyn and The Last Woman Standing

“Gold Digger tells the true story of Lizzie ‘Baby Doe’ Tabor, a beautiful young woman who in 1878 marries the son of a wealthy miner in order to save her family from penury. Shrewd and stubborn, Lizzie fights back-biting Victorian society, wins and loses vast fortunes, and bests conniving politicians in her larger-than-life story. A twisting tale worthy of Mark Twain, with a big-hearted heroine at the center.” —MARTHA CONWAY, author of The Underground River

Review:
​Elizabeth McCourt's family knew she was destined for greatness based on her beauty, but Lizzie knew she could do even more.  Lizzie was married to Harvey Doe and went off to Colorado to make a fortune from the mines Harvey's family gave him.  Only, Harvey wasn't cut out for mining work.  Lizzie found herself striking deals and even going in the mines to help keep the mine going and money flowing.  Her beauty and ingenuity earned her the name Baby Doe.  Harvey soon found mining to be overwhelming and escapes back home abandoning Baby Doe.  She decides to stay, get divorced, finds work at a haberdashery and takes up with silver mining mogul Horace Tabor creating a scandal.  However, Baby Doe and Horace are happy as they excavate a place for themselves in society.

A true woman of the Wild West, Baby Doe Tabor's story reads as larger than life, but is all fact based.  Passion for Baby Doe's story seeps through the pages of Gold Digger with the emotion conveyed through her trials and triumphs.  Through Baby Doe a vibrant picture of the mining towns were created, along with the hardships faced there.  I was amazed at how Baby Doe always came through whether it was making her way into mining in order to understand the business, finding a way to divorce, running a store, breaking down barriers to society or helping to build her community, Baby Doe was a force to reckoned with.  For a woman of her time, Baby Doe accomplished a great deal, especially with the ups and downs in her life.  The constant unknowing of what would happen led to a excited feeling the whole way through.   The book wraps up at a turning point in Baby Doe's life, but not nearly the end; I'll be looking forward to the next book, Silver Dollar. 

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

About the Author
​
A California native, Rebecca Rosenberg lives on a lavender farm with her family in Sonoma, the Valley of the Moon, where Jack London wrote from his Beauty Ranch. Rebecca is a long-time student of Jack London’s works and an avid fan of his daring wife, Charmian London. The Secret Life of Mrs. London is her debut novel.
Rebecca and her husband, Gary, own the largest lavender product company in America, selling to 4000 resorts, spas and gift stores. The Rosenbergs believe in giving back to the Sonoma Community, supporting many causes through financial donations and board positions, including Worth Our Weight, an educational culinary program for at-risk children, YWCA shelter for abused women, Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center to provide performances for children, Sonoma Food Bank, Sonoma Boys and Girls Club, and the Valley of the Moon Children’s Home.



For more information, please visit Rebecca’s website and blog. You can also find her on Facebook and Goodreads. Visit the Facebook page for The Secret Life of Mrs. London.

About the Book:
Title: TINKERACTIVE WORKBOOKS
Author: Various Authors & Illustrators
Pub. Date: May 14, 2019
Publisher: Odd Dot
Formats: Paperback
Pages: Differs per workbook
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, TBD


Tinker, make, and engineer to learn through play! With TinkerActive Workbooks, learning leaps off the page and into the real world. Start with interactive and entertaining exercises that cover the essential kindergarten, 1st Grade, & 2nd Grade, math, science, and problem-solving skills. Then, apply what you’ve learned in exciting hands-on tinkering, making, and engineering activities that utilize only common household materials. Plus, the charming cast of characters, the MotMots, guide kids through every new concept with cheer and humor. Once you've completed the workbook, unbox a collectible magnet hidden in the back cover!


Vetted by award-winning educators, TinkerActive Workbooks are designed for all learners. They build your child’s fundamental math & science skills AND inspire them to try new things, discover new skills, and imagine new possibilities.

Tour Schedule:
Week One:
5/20/2019- Lifestyle of Me- Review- 1st Grade
5/21/2019- The suburban lifestyle- Review- 2nd Grade
5/22/2019- The Pages In-Between- Review- Kindergarten
5/23/2019- Do You Dog-ear?- Review- Kindergarten
5/24/2019- ⒾⓃⓉⓇⓄⓈⓅⒺⒸⓉⒾⓋⒺ ⓅⓇⒺⓈⓈ- Review- Kindergarten


Week Two:
5/27/2019- 100 Pages A Day- Review- 1st Grade
5/28/2019- Wonder Struck- Review- 2nd Grade
5/29/2019- BookHounds- Review- 1st Grade
5/30/2019- Two Chicks on Books- Spotlight- All Workbooks
5/31/2019- Little Red Reads- Review- 2nd Grade

AL CAPONE AT THE BLANCHE HOTEL
BY LINDA BENNETT PENNELL
Publication Date: July 9, 2013
Soul Mate Publishing
eBook & Paperback; 320 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction


Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel tells a story of lives unfolding in different centuries, but linked and irrevocably altered by a series of murders in 1930.
Lake City, Florida, June, 1930: Al Capone checks in for an unusually long stay at the Blanche Hotel, a nice enough joint for an insignificant little whistle stop. The following night, young Jack Blevins witnesses a body being dumped heralding the summer of violence to come. One-by-one, people controlling county vice activities swing from KKK ropes. No moonshine distributor, gaming operator, or brothel madam, black or white, is safe from the Klan’s self-righteous vigilantism. Jack’s older sister Meg, a waitress at the Blanche, and her fiancé, a sheriff’s deputy, discover reasons to believe the lynchings are cover for a much larger ambition than simply ridding the county of vice. Someone, possibly backed by Capone, has secret plans for filling the voids created by the killings. But as the body count grows and crosses burn, they come to realize this knowledge may get all of them killed.
Gainesville, Florida, August, 2011: Liz Reams, an up and coming young academic specializing in the history of American crime, impulsively moves across the continent to follow a man who convinces her of his devotion yet refuses to say the three simple words I love you. Despite the entreaties of friends and family, she is attracted to edginess and a certain type of glamour in her men, both living and historical. Her personal life is an emotional roller coaster, but her career options suddenly blossom beyond all expectation, creating a very different type of stress. To deal with it all, Liz loses herself in her professional passion, original research into the life and times of her favorite bad boy, Al Capone. What she discovers about 1930’s summer of violence, and herself in the process, leaves her reeling at first and then changed forever.

Praise for Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel
5 Star Top Pick “…brilliantly written…” – BTSemagazine

“…The characters were so well done that I latched onto them and wanted to know where their journey was going to end up. It’s a fascinating read. The way the author wrote this story made it so easy to get a visual of the characters, the setting and just life in general – you could feel yourself in the ’30′s, living what they were living and you could feel yourself in the present time, living what Liz was living. I highly recommend it.” – Maggie Thom, The Write to Read

4 out of 4 Stars “… a compelling, multifaceted book. It captured my attention from beginning to the end.” – OnlineBookClub.org

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON​

Review: 
In June of 1930 Al Capone and several of his men check in to the out-of-the-way Blanche Hotel in Lake City Florida and stay for almost two weeks.  There is almost no mention of the stay or what they did there for that long.  In 2011, Liz Reams, researcher of American Crime and new professor comes across this tidbit of information about her favorite bad boy for a new class syllabus she is working on.  Liz dives into the research, but can't find much information about Capone at the time.  Instead, she finds a series of crimes involving the KKK, the newspaper editor and the Sheriff that rocked Lake City during the same time as Capone's stay.  The story of one boy, Zeke, has Liz especially interested.  However, she can't seem to find any evidence of Capone's involvement; and while Liz is immersed in her studies of the past, her present also seems to be falling apart.

I was hooked on this story from the introduction, where boys Zeke and Jack watch a body go down a sinkhole and sets off a chain of events that will change their lives.  Capone is a historical figure that we all know.  His violent reign has always been viewed with a surrounding glamour.  Liz's character reflects this feeling as well and Liz often looks for a bad boy in her personal life as well.  Through her research, we are shown the greater impact of Capone's actions as his presence changes the lives of innocent residents of Lake City.  The historical characters served as a lens for the time period.  Meg, who worked at the Blanche, Jack and Zeke, kids who witnessed the crimes, DeWitt, the officer who uncovered the crimes and Jack and Zeke's fathers displayed the wide range of consequences for an era filled with instability, hate and uncertainty.  The writing made me feel very attached to these characters and made the transition between time periods easy as each chapter hopped between the 1930's and 2000's.  Short chapters and the suspense of Capone's involvement made this book fly by.  Overall, a fun, fast-paced historical crime novel.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 

About the Author
have been in love with the past for as long as I can remember. Anything with a history, whether shabby or majestic, recent or ancient, instantly draws me in. I suppose it comes from being part of a large extended family that spanned several generations. Long summer afternoons on my grandmother’s porch or winter evenings gathered around her fireplace were filled with stories both entertaining and poignant. Of course being set in the South, those stories were also peopled by some very interesting characters, some of whom have found their way into my work.
As for my venture in writing, it has allowed me to reinvent myself. We humans are truly multifaceted creatures, but unfortunately we tend to sort and categorize each other into neat, easily understood packages that rarely reveal the whole person. Perhaps you, too, want to step out of the box in which you find yourself. I encourage you to look at the possibilities and imagine. Be filled with childlike wonder in your mental wanderings. Envision what might be, not simply what is. Let us never forget, all good fiction begins when someone says to herself or himself, “Let’s pretend.”
I currently reside in the Houston area with my sweet husband and a German Shorthaired Pointer who thinks she’s a little girl.

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THE STRONGMAN AND THE MERMAID
BY KATHLEEN SHOOP
Publication Date: February 28, 2019
eBook & Paperback; 573 Pages
Series: The Donora Story Collection (Book 2)
Genre: Historical Fiction/Saga


Myscowa, Poland—1910
Once upon a time in tiny, rural Myscowa, Lukasz Musial competes in feats of strength against his lifelong nemesis to win passage to America. He leaves behind grinding poverty and despair, to seek the clear blue skies, and better life he sees on a postcard. Settled in Donora’s Polish community, Lukasz secures a coveted job in the wire mill, and is matched to marry Donora’s very own Polish princess. Life is set on course. The American Dream is nearly his.
Donora, Pennsylvania—1910
Mary Lancos is no princess. A tall, athletic girl who loves the water, she spends her days keeping house for families in town, digging coal out of a backyard seam and rowing her father across the Monongahela River for work. Mary is dependable, tenacious, and always ready to help when someone needs her. She dreams of a gas-heated home, a bedroom for each of her future children, and good meals on the table each night. To help make that happen Mary attends local dances, waiting for the few men who are taller than her to ask her to dance, hoping one of them is right for her.
An unexpected Christmas Eve visitor brings bad luck, and Lukasz’s world crumbles. Meanwhile, tension grows at the Lancos home when money is short and Mary’s dreams clash with her parents’ old world expectations. Just when Mary and Lukasz are at their lowest, they find themselves under an odd pink moonlit sky and Lukasz rescues Mary from a fall into frigid river water. The attraction between them is sudden and consuming, turning the pair onto an unexpected path. With mounting disapproval from Mary’s parents, and increased pressure on Lukasz, they must decide if love is enough to risk losing everything else that matters.


Available on Amazon

Praise
Kathleen Shoop has bejeweled this book with her magnificent imagination and impeccable writing. The Strongman and the Mermaid by Kathleen Shoop is a romance that goes beyond looks and settles deep into the souls of readers. Every so often, a love story comes that your heart can’t let go. One of those love stories, for me, has been Mr. Darcy and Lizzy in Pride and Prejudice. Now Mary and Lukasz in The Strongman and the Mermaid will stay with me for a long time to come. –Ankita Shukla for Readers’ Favorite

The Strongman and the Mermaid by Kathleen Shoop is a gorgeous story, a gripping romance with a strong setting. The plot structure is unusual and it has beautiful twists. I love stories with great characters and a well-developed conflict and I always want to see characters evolve through the conflict. It is something that this author does impeccably well. The narrative is emotionally rich…The writing is cinematic, punctuated by exciting dialogue. The Strongman and the Mermaid will keep you awake through the night. –Romuald Dzemo for Readers’ Favorite

I was hooked from the very start…The Strong Man and the Mermaid is skillfully plotted and written in beautiful prose. The reader is pulled into a fairytale-like world with strong and memorable characters. The love adventure between Mary and Lukasz is one of the key elements that add to the entertaining potential of this narrative. Kathleen Shoop keeps it real and human, succeeding in creating an emotional connection between the reader and the characters.—Ruffina Oserio for Readers’ Favorite


​Review: 
1910- Donora, Pennsylvania  is a town built on steel and the hard work of the immigrant workforce.  Mines, mills, nails and clouds of smoke that obscure the sun mean prosperity and a chance at the American Dream.  For the Lancos family, this means that everyone works in order to pay the mortgage and the taxes.  Mary Lancos often suffers the brunt of the children's labor without complaint, rowing her father to work, doing chores at home and working for the Dunn's-one of the mill managers.  Mary longs for a lemon-scented, soot free home like Mrs. Dunn keeps and a man that can provide that for her.  However, when Mary's family finds a match for her, Mary would rather wait for love.  In Myscowa, Poland Lucasz Musial knows a better life awaits him in America-if he could only win the one remaining ticket.  When the stars align to bring him to Donora, he thanks the mermaid that's been haunting his dreams.  Lucasz finds more luck as he proves himself a strong worker at the factory and his sponsor family finds him a match.  Lucasz believes that his American dream is coming true, until it all comes crashing down on him.  It's possible that the mermaid from his dreams is still out there waiting for him.


The Strongman and the Mermaid is a sweeping historical romance that ties together the immigrant experience, many traditions and a touch magic.  From the beginning, when a cantankerous Patryk is found clutching the book that detailed the story of his ancestor's romance, I knew I would be hooked.  From there, the story alternates between Mary and Lucasz' point of view.  The poetic writing shone through as the bleak and sooty world of Donora was made beautiful through Lucasz and Mary's eyes.  I loved reading about all of the different Polish and Czech traditions that families were able to bring and recreate in America.  The work in the factory and mines as well of the conditions the workers kept up were realistic and a good reminder of how our country was built.  The suspense in the story was kept up by wondering when Mary and Lucasz would ever figure out that they were meant for one another.  Their romance is natural and sweet, gradually building with friendship over time.  I can't wait to read more of their story in the next book.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 

About the Author
​Bestselling author, Kathleen Shoop, holds a PhD in reading education and has more than 20 years of experience in the classroom. She writes historical fiction, women’s fiction and romance. Shoop’s novels have garnered various awards in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, Eric Hoffer Book Awards, Indie Excellence Awards, Next Generation Indie Book Awards and the San Francisco Book Festival. Kathleen has been featured in USA Today and the Writer’s Guide to 2013. Her work has appeared in The Tribune-Review, four Chicken Soup for the Soul books and Pittsburgh Parent magazine. She lives in Oakmont, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

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About How We Disappeared
Hardcover: 352 Pages
Publisher: Hanover Square Press; Original edition (May 7, 2019)

A beautiful, stunningly ambitious novel set in World War II Singapore about a woman who survived the Japanese occupation and a man who thought he had lost everything—for fans of Pachinko and We Were the Lucky Ones

Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only two survivors and one tiny child.
In a neighboring village, seventeen-year-old Wang Di is strapped into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military brothel where she is forced into sexual slavery as a “comfort woman.” After sixty years of silence, what she saw and experienced still haunts her.
In the year 2000, twelve-year-old Kevin is sitting beside his ailing grandmother when he overhears a mumbled confession. He sets out to discover the truth, wherever it might lead, setting in motion a chain of events he never could have foreseen.
Weaving together two time lines and two very big secrets, this stunning debut opens a window on a little-known period of history, revealing the strength and bravery shown by numerous women in the face of terrible cruelty. Drawing in part on her family’s experiences, Jing-Jing Lee has crafted a profoundly moving, unforgettable novel about human resilience, the bonds of family and the courage it takes to confront the past.


Purchase Links
Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

Review:
As World War II rages on, the people of Singapore believe that they are relatively safe on their tiny island with few resources, especially with British Troops around.  However, the Japanese invade with force.  Deadly air raids leave few survivors.  Other villages are raided and young women are taken for the pleasure of Japanese Soldiers.  At seventeen, Wang Di is on of the many young woman taken from her family to serve as a comfort woman.  Wang Di was forcibly raped for years and then shamed when she returned home, never talking about what happened to her or the friends she made.  Wang Di's parents quickly find her a husband. Soon Wei is much older than Wang Di, a widower whose wife and child perished in the air raids.  In 2000, Kevin is dealing with the death of his grandma who admitted a secret to Kevin right before she died.  Kevin tries to put the pieces of the past together in order to help his father  heal.

How We Disappeared  is an absolutely beautiful story about the horrific truth about what happened to the people of Singapore.  I had heard of the comfort women before, but had not been exposed to the reality of their situation.  Wang Di, like many of the real comfort women, were taken as children to houses where they were beaten, starved, and forcibly raped by dozens of Japanese soldiers a day.  Wang Di's hope was what pulled her through the brutality .  The writing of Wang Di's time in the brothel was direct and honest, but through Wang Di's voice, there was always a glimmer of what could be.  I was surprised at the amount of shame the survivors among the comfort women faced even among their family.  Kevin search for the truth weaves together the narrative of Wang Di, Soon Wei and his grandmother in a surprising way.  Though the time hops and change in voice happens quickly, Kevin's search is what allows for healing and truth.  Touching and raw, How We Disappeared is a story of survival, love and healing after tragedy. 
This book was received for free in return for an honest review. 

About Jing-Jing Lee
Jing-Jing Lee is the author of the novel, If I Could Tell You. Her poems have been published in Ceriph, Poetry Quarterly, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, and Moving Words 2011: A Poetry Anthology. Jing moved to Europe in her early 20s and started to pursue writing full-time. In 2011, she gained a Masters of Studies in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford. She now lives in Amsterdam with her husband and is working on her second book of fiction. When she’s not working on her novel-in-progress or reading (or taking photographs), she can be found here and on twitter.
Connect with Jing-Jing
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