Book Details Title: Finding Grace: A true story about losing your way in life…and finding it again Author: Donna VanLiere Format: Hardcover Print Number of Pages: 224 Summary: Finding Grace is the powerful, often humorous, and deeply moving story of one woman’s journey of broken dreams. It is the story of how a painful legacy of the past is confronted and met with peace. This book is for anyone who has struggled to understand why our desires—even the simplest ones—are sometimes denied or who has questioned where God is when we need him most. This story is about one woman’s unlikely road to motherhood. Finally, it’s a book about the “undeserved gift which is life itself.” It’s the story of “Finding Grace.” Price: $21.95 Author Bio: Donna VanLiere is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Christmas Hope series and Angels of Morgan Hill. She lives in Franklin, Tennessee with her husband and three children.

Finding Grace: A True Story About Losing Your Way In Life…And Finding It Again

***

I recently saw an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in which a young boy is left an orphan after his mother is killed by a stray land mine from a long forgotten war on a seemingly uninhabited planet. It’s a senseless, shocking death that the Starship crew didn’t see coming. Then, an energy life form remaining on the planet attempts to make amends to the orphaned boy by creating a comfortingly familiar, but illusionary, “home” for him, a home that includes a recreation of his mother. The Starship crew is presented with the difficult task of convincing the alien (and the boy) that this illusionary world is ultimately not preferable to the cold, hard reality of life–and death.

I was reminded of that episode as I sat down to write this review of Finding Grace. After all, who among us hasn’t wished for God to put our life back to how it was; back before the pain, the loss, the confusion? Who hasn’t felt anger that He didn’t spare us from the hurt in the first place? And yet we instinctively know that reality, with all it’s hardships, is better for us in the long run than the most comforting fantasy world.

But we constantly ignore this. Over and over again we believe that if we only plan more carefully next time, if only we pick the right road, if only we read all the important signs, we’ll end up exactly where we wanted, feeling refreshed and ahead of schedule. Certainly life would be simpler if it was a straight, smooth road, with detailed maps and clear visibility. But it isn’t. It’s filled with sharp curves, rocky cliffs, roadblocks, detours, and lots and lots of fog. Our perfect life plans get sideswiped by other blinded and lost travelers. Death. Betrayal. Heartache. Illness. Shattered dreams. We break down and think we can no longer go on. And that probably there really aren’t any destinations worth getting to anyway.

Finding Grace is the true story of Donna VanLiere’s journey of being hit early on by one of those hidden land mines of life, and how she stumbled around in the fog trying to find her way back on the path she lost. It’s about how over the years she began to notice the light which illuminated a different path through the fog, and that this path, though not the one she had envisioned, was in fact better than the one she was trying to find.

“Perhaps you’ll recognize part of your own life,” VanLiere writes about her book, and I did. I found myself seeing a lot of my own life’s struggles echoing her frustrations and disappointments, and the same glimpses of God’s grace touching me as it did her. VanLiere describes God’s grace as a undeserved gift that we’re often unaware of having received. In Finding Grace she shows us the times she received God’s grace without recognizing it as such until years later. By doing so, it helped me to realize times when I, too, received this gift.

One of the most difficult Christian concepts to put into practice is letting go of self-made plans and allowing God to take control. At times we even believe that our goals are better than God’s will for us; that if we let Him “take the wheel” we’ll end up miserable and unhappy and doing something we absolutely hate. I’ve fallen into that trap myself. Whenever someone tells me to put my life into God’s hands and follow His path for me, I think to myself, “If I go down God’s path, I’ll end up a missionary in Botswana.” Now, you have to understand that I live in the same small town I grew up in. I’ve never really wanted to leave. My husband and I bought a house half a block from my parents. I’ve known most of my neighbors my entire life; some of my ancestors knew their ancestors. So the worst imaginable thing for me would be to end up in some far-flung country surrounded by strangers speaking a bizarre language–who I’m supposed to teach about God!

But why do I think God’s will for my life involves such a drastic change? Why do I think His goals for me can only be worse than the happy dreams I have for myself? In Finding Grace VanLiere shows us that God’s special plans for us include peace and hope, not misery and drudgery. He wants us to thrive and be joyful, and have a life of love, inspiration, and grace. This doesn’t mean he’ll create a familiar, illusionary world of empty bliss around us. And it doesn’t mean we won’t have pain and sorrow. VanLiere suggests God sometimes lets us get derailed off our path so we can finally see the one He’s laid out for us. God has a higher purpose for us than we can even envision for ourselves. It’s our journey to discover that purpose by choosing to follow His path, not ours. And that the crashes and injuries and wrong choices we suffer along the way doesn’t change His destination for us.

Finding Grace is a well written, poignant, yet humorous look back on a life spent searching for answers to all the wrong questions and discovering God’s grace in the process. It’s an entertaining, thought-provoking book that will make you examine the path your own life is on. At least it certainly did that for me. I absolutely loved Finding Grace and am recommending it to all my family and friends. When I finished it, I immediately wanted to read it again. I’d never read anything by Donna VanLiere, but now I want to read everything she’s written. I can’t give any higher praise than this.

For more information about Donna VanLiere and her books, visit http://www.donnavanliere.com
To order Finding Grace, click here.
For more books by Donna VanLiere, visit her online store.

Tags: Christian, Donna VanLiere, print book review

I finished converting eBook Reviews Online from Zen Cart to WordPress. Now Zen Cart just powers the catalog section. I’ve added several pages for which I don’t have any content yet, so please bear with me. 😉

Tags: by Lynne

Ebook Details Title: Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC Author: Max Pinner Author Bio: Max Pinner is a freelance writer and a PC technician. File Size: 1.75MB Unzipped. Format: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) Number of Pages: Part 1: 143 pages; Part 2: 51 pages Subject: Fix common PC problems yourself. Price: $47+
***

A couple years ago my computer decided one day not to boot up due to a corrupted registry. Of course, I didn’t know it was due to a corrupted registry at first; I had no idea such a thing even existed. All I knew was the computer wouldn’t boot. I ended up researching online (using my parents’ computer) and diagnosing and fixing the problem myself. Unfortunately, I had to roll back to a much earlier version of the registry, which undid months of changes to my computer settings. If I’d had Max Pinner’s Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC before that incident, not only would I have spent less time figuring out–and fixing–the problem, I would have had a recent backup of the registry to roll back to, thus saving me the nuisance of having all my settings go back to how I didn’t want them.

That’s because the first thing Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC has you do is set up your Maintenance Toolkit, a collection of free (or cheap) software programs designed to help prevent problems or, when a problem occurs, help diagnose and correct the underlying cause. And the first item in Pinner’s Toolkit is a registry backup program. You can bet I downloaded and ran it immediately! That suggestion alone let me know Max Pinner knew what he was talking about. (If only I’d known about the importance of backing up your registry a couple years ago…)

Next in the suggested Toolkit is a program designed to clean up your registry, which I also downloaded and ran. It removed lots of old junk cluttering up my registry. Other items in the Toolkit include anti-virus and anti-spyware programs (which I already had), as well as a disk cleanup program used to delete “electronic fluff and rubbish files.” After running this last program my laptop boots up a little faster.

Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC provides the solutions to other common Windows XP and Vista problems, such as blue screens, error messages, program freezes, computer crashes, and internet connection issues. Simple Fixes also touches on hardware problems with monitors, mice, drives, and keyboards. Max Pinner doesn’t claim his solutions will work every time for every computer, but that his solutions will usually fix 7 or 8 out of every 10 PC problems. I believe him, just due to my own experiences fixing my “sick PCs” with simple solutions.

For example, several years ago when I was still running a 486 computer, it decided one day not to boot up. In a panic, I immediately called a local computer tech company to set up an appointment to bring it in. The receptionist calmly asked me if I had a recovery disk. Um, why yes, I did. She told me to insert it into the floppy drive and try to boot the computer again. I did so and voilà, it worked! I was back in business in a matter of minutes. That receptionist saved me a costly service call and a day or two without my computer.

Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC is just like that receptionist–a calm voice offering a simple solution that saves you lost time and countless dollars. Pinner walks you through each step in diagnosing and fixing a problem. If it works, you just saved yourself a tech support call. If none of the solutions work, you’ll have a better understanding of the underlying problem when you talk to your technician. (And the more you can explain to your tech the less likely he/she is to treat you like a noob. That’s worth it right there.) Pinner tells you when you need to stop and call a technician, or, as the case may be, when it’s more cost-effective to just junk a component (like a troublesome printer) and buy a new one.

If you purchase Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC, I suggest you print it out (at least the sections dealing with computer access problems) because obviously if you can’t boot your computer, you can’t read the ebook to figure out why! Perhaps Pinner could market a print version…

Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC is $47, which I think is a bit pricey even though the information contained within is excellent. I’d market it for around $27, with a print version for $47. However, the current price is still well worth it if you’re having continuous troubles with your computer. (And if my laptop decides like all my other computers to just not boot up one day, I’d be willing to pay that and more to fix it…)

I also think perhaps the manual could have been condensed somewhat by consolidating sections that have the same or similar instructions. However, it isn’t meant to be read straight through like I read it, but by skipping to whatever section is relevant to your particular computer problem, so you likely won’t notice the repetitiveness of instructions as I did.

The instructions themselves are non-techie, easy to follow, and include some levity to help keep you calm when you feel like panicking. Cartoons sprinkled throughout the manual provide more humor, though I admit I didn’t quite get all the punch lines. Perhaps I just don’t understand Australian humor. (Max Pinner is Australian.) The Australian component also accounts for the alternate spelling of words in the text (which most people likely wouldn’t notice, but it’s my curse that I do) such as color/colour, practice/practise, etc.

Bottom line: Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC is a great manual for anyone with a PC computer to have on hand, especially those who aren’t technically-minded. If you have a PC running Windows, it will eventually blue screen and crash. That’s a given. Get Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC before that happens!

For more information and to purchase, visit Simple Fixes For Your Sick PC

Tags: computer, Max Pinner, Vista, Windows XP

Ebook Details Title: Bumps in the Night Author: William Todd Format: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) Also available in HTML and Microsoft Lit File Size: 473kb Unzipped (.pdf). Number of Pages: 111 Summary: A collection of nine chilling short stories of the supernatural and the macabre. Author Bio: William Todd has been writing online for almost ten years. He was the third most popular author on the website Storiesbyemail.com before it shut down. He has an 8 year old son Kiaran, who is a budding author himself, and a 6 year old daughter Alina, who has Down’s Syndrome. He and his wife Joan have been married for 10 years, and make Erie, PA their home. When not writing, he is a full time histologist and a part time pathologist assistant at a local hospital. His hobbies are writing, running, reading, and watching old movies.
***
Bumps in the Night hits a few bumps in the road in its endeavor to terrify the reader, but for the most the part the anthology contains well-written and entertaining tales. William Todd has a great knack for capturing the narrative style of nineteenth-century characters, which enhances the gothic feel of two of my favorites: The Whitaker House Curse and Jack. And either Todd has a vast vocabulary–or made ample use of a good thesaurus–because several words sprinkled throughout the stories sent me searching for definitions at Dictionary.com. It isn’t often a fiction writer stumps me with a word, much less several, so I’m impressed with that alone. The Whitaker House Curse is a first-person account in which the protagonist hurriedly relates his fateful tale under threat of an imminent deadline. It has such great voice I almost felt I was reading something from Edgar Allen Poe. However, the epilogue seemed a bit tacked on and unnecessary, and it almost ruined the ending for me. I think the story would be better without it. On the other hand, Jack, a chilling first-person take on the infamous serial killer, probably has the most surprising–and ultimately, pleasing–endings in this collection. Rounding out my favorites of the bunch are The Night Stalker and Bumps in the Night. In The Night Stalker, a prostitute suspects her latest john may just be a killer when he drives her down a dark, isolated road. The second half of the story is terrifying, and I loved the ending. Bumps in the Night is told from the viewpoint of a Down Syndrome girl–a delightful young protagonist with a fresh, new voice–who once a month listens to the horrifying sounds of her father’s transformations. My only quibble with this story is that because it’s written with Todd’s wonderful slightly turn-of-the-century tone, the mention of computers by the protagonist jarred me; until then my mind’s eye had placed the setting in the distant past, not modern times. Similarly, the characters in The People Under The River speak like 1930’s gangsters, so their references to 1970’s pop culture (and use of a weapon created in the 80’s) made me reorient my initial impression of the time period. This story, in which two killers’ dumping ground is at risk of discovery by an innocent young couple, is the least frightening, since it doesn’t deal with anything supernatural, though it has a satisfying ending. The malevolent entity encountered in Ghost Hunters had the potential to be the most terrifying for me, but the ending fizzled instead of sizzled. The same was true for The Delivery, in which a scientifically-minded courier has his beliefs turned inside out, though the narrative benefits from Todd’s period tone of voice. In Eyes, an arrogant businessman disses the wrong old woman and finds himself fighting for his life. The storyline was predictable, but I found the consequences of his actions chilling nonetheless. An FBI agent investigates the disappearance of several people in the creepy and macabre Flesh and Blood, and though I thought the ending was darkly humorous, I couldn’t tell whether it was intentionally so. I generally don’t read (or watch) horror, because though I enjoy being scared in the moment, I typically regret it by nightfall when I urgently feel the need to go to bed with an ornately bejeweled cross and a spray bottle filled with holy water. So Bumps in the Night elicited just about the right amount of spook for me–I was entertained but slept just fine after reading it. While not all the stories are perfect, Todd has great writing style, likable characters, and knows how to keep the reader in suspense. I look forward to reading more from him. Click here to read an excerpt Click here to order Bumps in the Night

Tags: fiction ebook review, horror, William Todd

Ebook Details
Title: The Ultimate SuperTip: Harvel Segal Reveals His Unmissable Number One Guru Secret
Author: Harvey Segal
File Size: 1.16MB Unzipped.
Format: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
Number of Pages: 38
Subject: Easy, free ways to promote a product online.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: How to Sell ANY product
Chapter 3: The Ingenious Twist
Chapter 4: Tools To Help You
Chapter 5: The Amazing Viral Bonus
Price: $0

The Ultimate SuperTip is a fast read, and provides a few tips on promoting products online, such as offering free ebooks and submitting related articles to ezines. There’s not much new information for experienced marketers, and not enough detail for newbies.

There’s a little fluff and some hype, but The Ultimate SuperTip makes no bones about it being a viral ebook in itself. In fact, that’s basically the entire point of the ebook; to demonstrate firsthand how a viral ebook can generate income. At the end of the ebook you have the opportunity to order a package deal for $10 in which you can promote the ebook as an affiliate thus perpetuating the viral aspect.

The Ultimate SuperTip is a freebie, and you don’t even have to give your name & email to download it, so there’s really no harm in reading it for yourself. It is a great example of the ultimate viral ebook. But if you’re looking for detailed information on promotion, this isn’t it.

Tags: affiliate, free, Harvey Segal, Internet Marketing, viral

Ebook Details Title: Breathe of the Flesh Author: Jack Allen Author Bio: Jack Allen is the best unknown mystery author in the Detroit area. He lives with his wife and their boys, hoping one day to build his dream hot rod Mustang, and get the basement cleaned out. File Size: 1391kb Unzipped. Format: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) (Also available in Mobipocket, Word, text, MS eReader, and Kindle.) Number of Pages: 451  Summary: It’s 1942, the middle of WWII. New York City is filthy with German spies. But the Abwher, the intelligence branch of the Nazi military, has a special mission for its most lethal and dangerous spy, and it has nothing to do with his passion for girls. Breathe of the Flesh is a WWII period espionage novel about FBI agent Thomas Leopard’s tragic descent into failure and loss. He is drinking and suicidal, selfish, loathsome and hateful. And he has a killer loose in his city, a killer who favors innocent teenage girls. This killer is the German spy “Der Tiger”, a man who has a taste for fresh blood in his coffee. He has been dormant up to that point of the war, when he comes up with his own plan to go to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington D.C. and steal the printing plates for U.S. currency. When he learns how closely he has been stalked and nearly caught by Leopard, Leopard’s own daughter becomes Der Tiger’s next target.
***

Breathe of the Flesh is a solidly written, intriguing thriller. I read the last 150 pages
at a breakneck pace, which shows I was fully engaged in the story and couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. The story sweeps from New York City to southern France, from London to Berlin, and from Washington, D.C. to Portland, Maine, as
numerous characters fight their own personal battles amidst the war around them. I found myself quickly getting into the story, and every time I thought I knew where the plotline was headed, it took yet another unexpected turn until finally coming to a
bold, unconventional conclusion. 

There were times, however, when I felt a bit lost due to the sheer number of characters introduced, some of whom made their entrance early on with no explanation as to their relevance and then didn’t reappear till several chapters later (or never reappeared.) By the end of the book, though, it was clear who the characters were or at least how they fit into the overall story.

The protagonist, Thomas Leopard, is an unlikable character, but still I found myself both feeling orry for him and rooting for him to finally have some success in catching his prey, no matter how bittersweet the victory. His prey, the German spy Der Tiger/Hermann Van Roeple/William Birch, is a serial killer as loathsome as Hannibal Lector; a sociopath whose spy assignments and career ambitions are only a sideline to his real passion for killing teenage girls. He leaves a swath of bloodshed wherever he goes. But Der Tiger’s not the only repulsive character; many are unpleasant; and I’m not just talking about the Nazis. And even most of the otherwise likable characters seemed morally distasteful.

Miriam Roth, the Bureau of Printing and Engraving employee, for instance, is a lonely, desperate woman so full of self-loathing that she’ll throw herself at any man who’s bound to use and abuse her, while at the same time showing abject disdain for the one man who offers kindness. June Anderson Prien, the American actress married to a Nazi General, finds herself in the deplorable position of having to sleep with her husband’s subordinate in order to extract useful information for Allied agents. And MI6 agent Lynn Nevers, one of the most likable characters, finds herself envying women who can have meaningless affairs without emotional consequence after engaging in a disappointing coupling herself.

Which brings me to my only real objection to the novel: it has more sex scenes than a Harlequin bodice-ripper. Towards the end of the story I tired of them; they seemed included only for titillation rather than to advance any plot. Probably what bothered me most was that the majority of the scenes were between people who barely knew each other and/or didn’t care for each other, so a few of the encounters ended more like rapes than consensual lust. These were pure sex scenes, not love scenes. Call me a romantic, call me a prude, but I can tolerate only so much licentiousness. That said, an old-fashioned romantic entanglement between two characters who meet two-thirds of the way in the novel brought me a glimmer of hope for some sort of character redemption. (I was tragically disappointed.)

If this novel were made into a movie, it would easily garner a NC-17 rating, what with the aforementioned dozen-plus sex scenes, and close to a dozen murders–neither of which group includes the two gruesome rape/murders explicitly described (with a couple more discussed after the fact.) This is adults-only fare, so be forewarned.

In the end, Breathe of the Flesh just wasn’t my cup of tea. Chalk it up to my personal taste in fiction, which runs more towards Pride & Prejudice and Lord of the Rings. Stories with likable characters that follow the standard formula: the bad guys die, the good guys win, the hero gets the girl, and they all live happily ever after. If I wanted to be depressed at the end of a book, I’d just re-read 1984.

Bottom line: Is Breathe of the Flesh well-written? Yes. Does it keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat? Yes. Would I read it again? No. Do I recommend it? Not really. But I admit I would probably read a sequel, if Jack Allen chose to write one. I may read his previous novels. His character Josh McGowan in his novels Change Of Heart, An Innocent Among Them, and Widow of Calcutta sounds more to my liking. 

Click here to read the first chapter of Breathe of the Flesh
Find out more about Jack Allen’s novels at Burping Frog Publishing
Click here to order Breathe of the Flesh in pdf, Word, text, Mobipocket, or MS eReader
Click here to order the Kindle edition on Amazon

Tags: fiction ebook review, Jack Allen

Here are a couple reviews of Bux.to, a Paid to Click website.

Leads Leap Blog: Bux.to Scam a Veterans Review

TechCrunch: Surprise! The Bux.to Pyramid Scheme Is A Fraud

Tags: paid to click

Ebook Details Title: Commission Blueprint: Extreme Clickbank Profits No Experience Needed Author: Steven Clayton & Tim Godfrey File Size: unknown Format: unknown Number of Pages: unknown Subject: Commission Blueprint Table of Contents: unknown
***

I found this great review (and by great, I mean honest) review of Commission Blueprint, since I didn’t want to plunk down the $77 price to buy the product myself. I likely still won’t, since it sounds like it’s a huge download file (due to videos) and I’m still on dialup service.  😉 And, I’m a little short of the $77 at the moment; I’d rather eat this month. At any rate, click here for the review.

Tags: adsense, adwords, Google, keywords

Top Secret Magic Code

Ebook Details
Title: Top Secret Magic Code: Add Just 1 Line of Code to Any Site And Money Pours Into Your Pocket!
Author: Dr Jon Cohen II
File Size: unknown
Format: unknown
Number of Pages:  unknown
Subject:  Top Secret Magic Code explains how to earn revenue from advertisers other than using Adsense.
Table of Contents:  unknown

I learned about “Top Secret Magic Code” but didn’t want to shell out the $47+ it’s currently selling for, so I did a little Google search and found this review that explains just what the “Top Secret Magic Code” actually is: Top Secret Magic Code Review. I’m glad I saved my money!

Tags: top secret magic code