Book Blast: Rubber Soul by Greg Kihn

January 21, 2014 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

Rubber Soul by Greg Kihn

Greg Kihn is a rock star, seasoned radio host and author. Rubber Soul, his latest novel is inspired by intimate interviews that he conducted with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Pete Best, Yoko Ono and Patti Harrison. Though Rubber Soul is fiction, as Greg says it is “100% historically accurate” and an candid glimpse of the phenomenon that is The Beatles.

Rubber Soul is a an innovation in the Rock Thriller genre, taking readers on a rollicking ride through The Beatles legacy from the early days in Liverpool to six sold out shows per night in Hamburg and full-fledged Beatlemania.

Dust Bin Bob runs into some lads from Liverpool at his second hand shop on Penny Lane. The lads: John, Paul, George and Ringo and Dust Bin Bob become firm friends, sharing vinyl that will spark a revolution. Murder, mystery and Beatlemania mayhem ensues—with the boys narrowly avoiding an international incident and an attempted assassination. It’s the ultimate Beatles story that could have happened!

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Praise

“There’s no one more qualified to write a rock-and-roll novel than Greg Kihn. He’s the real deal and at his Kihntillating best in this book.” – Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist of Apple

“Rubber Soul is a magical mystery tour de force by Greg Kihn, a rocker who obviously has a way with words as well as music. His imagined story about the Beatles is fast-moving, full of twists and tension, and musical nuggets and insights. Great story-telling set to a Fab-four beat.” – Ben Fong Torres

“Rubber Soul captures what Rock-n-Roll is all about – and Greg Kihn would certainly know! This nearly-true story of the Beatles is pure magic and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.” – Eddie Money

“Greg Kihn is the most compelling author who ever had a top five singing career. Rubber Soul is a fantastic story by Greg, with an historical back beat. I urge you not to miss this.” – Joan Jett

“I’m happy to report that Rubber Soul, the latest work by my pal Greg Kihn, has correct punctuation, complete sentences, even full paragraphs – some of the exact same literary devices that can be found in the greatest novels our culture has ever produced! It’s also written in English, which happens to be one of my very favorite languages.” – “Weird Al” Yankovic

“While the RIAA may not be able to certify Kihn’s work with a gold disc, fans of Kihn and The Beatles, as well as those who long for the simpler yet magical time of the 1960’s will thoroughly enjoy and fall in love with Rubber Soul. They certainly don’t write ‘em like this anymore.” – Chris Shapiro, RetroPulse

Tour Schedule

Author Greg Kihn

NBC called Greg Kihn “Rock’s True Renaissance Man” and for good reason. As part of the eponymous band he has: toured the globe, had hit records, been inducted into the San Jose Rock Hall Of Fame, opened for the Rolling Stones and jammed with Bruce Springsteen. You may have heard of his smash worldwide #1 hit “Jeopardy” and “The Breakup Song”, not to mention the parody written by Weird Al Yankovic.

Being a famous and successful rock star is only one part of the mosaic that is Greg’s story. In the 90s Greg poured his passion for lyrics into writing fiction—publishing four novels, one of which “Horror Show” was nominated for the prestigious Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel.

In this vein, Greg merged his love of writing with Rock and Roll and wrote “Rubber Soul”—a unique rock murder mystery featuring The Beatles. The inspiration for this novel came from Greg’s interviews with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Pete Best, Yoko Ono and Patti Harrison. In this way Greg gained exclusive access to the biggest band ever to exist. “Rubber Soul” is a work of fiction, but it is 100% historically accurate and a story that only rock veteran Greg Kihn could have written.

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BookBlast Giveaway

$50 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash

Ends 2/10/14

Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader, Not A Writer and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

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Book Spotlight: Podium Finish by Beth Pond

January 21, 2014 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

Tour Schedule

Podium Finish

With six months until the Olympic Games, seventeen-year-old Harper’s life is pretty much perfect. She’s fighting for the starting spot on Team USA Women’s Hockey, and for the first time ever, she has a crush on a guy who likes her back. She feels like the luckiest girl in the world, until she runs a risky play at practice and breaks her knee, thereby sentencing herself to six weeks in a cast and possibly ending her Olympic dream before it even starts.

For seventeen-year-old Alex, being anything less than the best is unacceptable. That’s why, after a miserable debut season at the senior level, the former junior national singles champion switches to ice dance. Her skating partner, Ace, is an “all skating all the time” type of guy, which would be fine, if he’d stop keeping secrets about the real reason he and his former partner broke up. Now is not the time for second thoughts, but how can Alex skate her best if she can’t trust her partner…or herself?

As the pressure to make the Olympic team builds, the girls must rely on each other, because if there’s one thing they both know, it’s that the only thing harder than skating to the top is staying there.

Amazon * Barnes & Noble

Author Beth Pond

Beth Pond graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Hendrix College in 2012. In 2013, she taught in South Africa for 9 months as part of a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship Grant. Pond is currently completing her coursework at the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing MFA program. Her debut novel, Podium Finish, was released from Astraea Press in November 2013. When she’s not writing, Pond enjoys martial arts (she’s a black belt) and serving as a volunteer coach for her brother’s special needs baseball team.

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Praise for Podium Finish

Podium Finish is unlike any other book I have read, period. It is amazing that Ms. Pond could take two very different characters who are pursuing two completely different sports and tie them together as roommates at the Olympic Training Center. ~Crystal, Books are Sanity

This is a great, fun book! This story is really 2 stories in one – bonus! ~Shelley Walker, Goodreads

This book was truly enjoyable to read. ~Michele, Amazon Review

Podium Finish is one of the best books I have read in a very long time. I couldn’t put it down once I started reading it. ~Ana, Amazon Reviewer

Alex

Ace knocks a couple minutes later.

“He-ll-o, Juliet,” he says.

“Wrong routine, Genius.”

“Oh, that’s right. We already kicked butt at that one.”

Ace and I are sitting in fifth place, by the narrowest of narrow margins. Lindsay and Cory are behind us in sixth, 1.22 points back.

“Have you ever seen such a narrow margin in the Olympics?”

“No,” he says. “That’s crazy close, eh?” He sits down on my bed. This is the first time he’s been in my room here.

“How’d you know that was my bed?”

“All the pink.” He tosses a pillow at me. I brought two of my pillows with me to make this place feel a little more like home — my OTC home, not my Connecticut home. That place hasn’t felt like home since I left, maybe even before that.

“Well, make yourself comfortable because we need to talk strategy.”

“World domination strategy?”

“Would you stop joking? And yes, if we win the Olympics that would sort of be like world domination.”

“Sorry. Jokes are just how I deal with the stress,” he says. “I don’t know what you want to strategize about. We need to skate as well as we can. Hopefully as well as we did at Nationals. Obviously this is a much bigger competition.”

“Okay, what score do you think we’ll need to make the podium?”

“At least tie our PB from Nationals to have a chance, but ideally higher. It’s gonna be tough, Alex.”

“No one ever said winning an Olympic medal would be easy.”

“Look, I know you like to de-stress by crunching numbers, but if you try to predict everyone’s scores, you’re going to drive yourself crazy, lose sleep, and it will all be for nothing, so how about another kind of crunching numbers?”

“Like what?”

He shifts his weight to his side, digging his elbow into the mattress and pulls a deck of cards out of the back pocket of his jeans.

“Poker. If you win, we do a spy routine next year. If I win, it’s a western theme.”

“Western? What am I going to wear? Daisy Dukes?”

“You better win then.”

Tour Giveaway

$25 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash

Ends 2/9/14

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Musing Monday 1/20/14

January 20, 2014 - Ambrosia 2 Comments

Musing Monday is hosted over at Should Be Reading.

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I recently made a couple of freebie purchases on Amazon and I thought I would share about them today since I do not often share what I actually buy.

Cross with her father, Abby, 17, boards a flight to Greece, but gets hopelessly lost and ends up in the wrong village.

Alone, with very little money, no Greek and no way to contact her friend Jackie, who has lined up a bar job for her, Abby realizes she has to stand on her own two feet for the first time…

She meets Stella, who runs the local ouzeri – a rough and ready eatery were farmers gather to drink and take refuge from their domestic lives.

Stella does not need a naive young English girl hanging around, and the ouzeri is not the glamorous bar that Abby had bargained for.

But when events throw them together, the situation brings to the boil tensions that have been brewing for years, the ripples drawing in other people in the village, threatening Abby’s ability to ever leave, culminating in shocking unforeseen events and the uncovering of dark secrets that change peoples’ thinking about themselves and others permanently.

If you like Gypsy’s Dream, you’ll love the other books in the series:

The Illegal Gardener
Black Butterflies
The Explosive Nature of Friendship

She was taught to obey. Now she has learned to rebel.

12 year old Isabella, a French princess marries the King of England – only to discover he has a terrible secret. Ten long years later she is in utter despair – does she submit to a lifetime of solitude and a spiritual death – or seize her destiny and take the throne of England for herself?

Isabella is just twelve years old when she marries Edward II of England. For the young princess it is love at first sight – but Edward has a terrible secret that threatens to tear their marriage – and England apart.

Who is Piers Gaveston – and why is his presence in the king’s court about to plunge England into civil war?

The young queen believes in the love songs of the troubadours and her own exalted destiny – but she finds reality very different. As she grows to a woman in the deadly maelstrom of Edward’s court, she must decide between her husband, her children, even her life – and one breath-taking gamble that will change the course of history.

This is the story of Isabella, the only woman ever to invade England – and win.

In the tradition of Philippa Gregory and Elizabeth Chadwick, ISABELLA is thoroughly researched and fast paced, the little known story of the one invasion the English never talk about.

The Witch Hunters have come for Brusenna, for she is the last. All the others have been captured by the Dark Witch. And without their magical songs to control nature, the world is dying.

Though young and untrained, Brusenna must succeed where every other Witch has failed. Find the Dark Witch. Fight her. Defeat her. If Brusenna fails, there will be nothing left to save—for the Witches, for mankind, or for the young Guardian who has committed his life to protecting hers.

Bankrupcy

January 20, 2014 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

Bankrupcy is something that I have seen happen in my family before. Not me personal but those who are close to me have and I always wonder and worry about other friends having the same issue. In one of my pondering moods I got curious and did some research and along with the usual rights of those who are filing did you know there are creditors rights? I honestly didn’t until I started doing my research. It is information I am packing away for the future in case something happens to me, friends or family.

The Sunday Salon 1/19/14

January 19, 2014 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

Hello Sunday it is nice to see you again, I have had a productive week in many arenas including reading. I finished two books which normally is not a big deal I have done it before but recently I have been so busy with so much else my reading is slower. I always make time to read at least a page but sometimes lately it has been just that a page.

In other fun news I am making my first crochet scarf. My fingers are cramped and not happy and hurt but I am seeing real progress on my scarf and I can not wait to wear it. I know it is not reading related but it makes me happy to know I am going to be getting my skills up to snuff in crochet. First a scarf and then probably a blanket! Worst of that is I want to make a Loki blanket and will probably get razzed because the colors will be Green and Gold..also happen to be the colors of the Green Bay Packers (BOOO HISS), of course one could argue that there is green and gold in the Minnesota Wild Jerseys too, right? I will probably also make a Colts colored one for the hubby at some point, ah look at me planning away and I don’t even have my scarf half done.

I am going to be starting reading Nordic fairies soon and I am looking forward to that I got it as an Amazon freebie so it will also be a good challenge book along with peeking my interest. Keep on moving along, 2014 and me are friends right now, really I am enjoying the year. Stuff has happened and it has not been perfect by any means but so far so good and I am enjoying all of my goals and everything I am doing.

Booklet printing (huzzah internet)

January 19, 2014 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

I do a lot of printing and booklet printing so when a friend of mine recently needed some booklets printed she came to me and asked if I could help her booklet printing nyc. Thankfully I was able to help her find something in a relatively fast amount of time that didn’t break the bank. I have to say I am glad I live in an age of the internet where all I have to do is google. Make it so much easier even when I am not local to help friends out.

Book Review: Revolutionary by Alex Myers

January 17, 2014 - Ambrosia 1 Comment

In 1782, during the final clashes of the Revolutionary War, one of our young nation’s most valiant and beloved soldiers was, secretly, a woman.

When Deborah Samson disguised herself as a man and joined the Continental Army, she wasn’t just fighting for America’s independence—she was fighting for her own. Revolutionary, Alex Myers’s richly imagined and meticulously researched debut novel, brings the true story of Deborah’s struggle against a rigid colonial society back to life—and with it the courage, hope, fear, and heartbreak that shaped her journey through a country’s violent birth.

After years as an indentured servant in a sleepy Massachusetts town, chafing under the oppressive norms of colonial America, Deborah can’t contain her discontent any longer. When a sudden crisis forces her hand, she decides to finally make her escape. Embracing the peril and promise of the unknown, she cuts her hair, binds her chest, and, stealing clothes from a neighbor, rechristens herself Robert Shurtliff. It’s a desperate, dangerous, and complicated deception, and becomes only more so when, as Robert, she enlists in the Continental Army.

What follows is an inspiring, one-of-a-kind journey through an America torn apart by war: brutal winters and lethal battlefields, the trauma of combat and the cruelty of betrayal, the joy of true love and the tragedy of heartbreak. In his brilliant Revolutionary, Myers, who himself is a descendant of the historical Deborah, takes full advantage of this real-life heroine’s unique voice to celebrate the struggles for freedom, large and small, like never before

Those who know me well know how much of a fan of the revolution I am. In turn they also know how picky I can be about books set in the era and how I often lament the lack of good, readable and accurate books that take place during this nations forming. After reading Revolutionary by Alex Myers, I am no longer lamenting. This book was simply put one of the finest historical fictions on the Revolutionary war I have ever read.

The story of Deborah Samson may not be known by as many as say the story of General George Washington, but to those who know it like me, we love it. It has been an honor and a privilege to read such a well told fictional account of the time in her life that made her become a soldier. From a woman who was seen as strong willed straining at the bit to break free from the reigns of confinement to a man, a good soldier who served loyally and bravely for the freedom of this country every word is placed with purpose and intent. For me personally it was one little detail that stood out the most that just gave that extra little push to making me believe in this whole story, the use of he and she. As the story comes from Deborah’s point of you would expect to always see she being used, however I noticed in the moments where Deborah truly became Robert and felt more closely with Robert the wording became he. That makes sense to me I get that. Just as towards the end when Robert starts to feel more like Deborah again we see she come back into play, a small detail that some might not even notice as they read the action of the story but I did and I appreciate it.

While as with any historical fiction there are some playing with facts here and there overall I cannot fault the accuracy of Revolutionary. From the uniforms to the way that the drills and firing of the musket are described it all rings true and right well researched. This book gets a highly recommend from me because it is truly a master piece of the Revolutionary war, telling a story that many in this world today will still connect with now.

My Gemstone Rating:

Household repairs

January 17, 2014 - Ambrosia Leave a comment

Thanks to the super cold weather that is blanketing the country again, we have had a lot of knobs break off items that we keep in our garage. I am talking, water knobs and even the knobs on the nice shiny new grill my husband has. Thankfully rather than having to run from store to store I found a store that sold all of these huzzah for online shopping and being able to easily get what I need to make repairs around the house.

Friday Finds 1/17/14

January 17, 2014 - Ambrosia 1 Comment

This is another one hosted over at Should be Reading

Booking through Thursday 1/16/14

January 16, 2014 - Ambrosia 2 Comments

This one is Hosted at the Booking through Thursday Blog.

All other things (writing quality, story, etc), which would you rather read?
1. Something written by a man or a woman?
2. Something with a male or female protagonist?
3. Something funny or something tragic?
4. Something short or something long with many parts?
5. Something simple or something layered?

This is an interesting question I try not to be to picky but when given the choices here we go.

1. Woman

2. Female protagonist

3. Funny

4. Long with many points

5. Layerd

The Purple Booker

Reading is…Bigger on the inside