Blog Tour Kick Off: Love Never Quits by Gina Heumann #memoir

LOVE NEVER QUITS: SURVIVING & THRIVING AFTER INFERTILITY, ADOPTION AND REACTIVE ATTACHMENT DISORDER
by Gina Heumann
* Memoir *

Title: LOVE NEVER QUITS: SURVIVING & THRIVING AFTER INFERTILITY, ADOPTION, AND REACTIVE ATTACHMENT DISORDER
Author: Gina Heumann
Publisher: MadLand Press
Pages: 246
Genre: Memoir

WHACK… At three in the morning Gina was sound asleep, yet somehow she was smacked in the head. She looked over at her husband, thinking perhaps he accidentally rolled over and flopped his arm on top of her, but he was sleeping soundly and facing the opposite direction. She turned to the other side and glaring back at her was her eight-year-old child.

“Did you just hit me?”

“Yes, and I’d do it again.”

“Whyyyy?”

“Because you took away my video games.”

“That was EIGHT HOURS AGO. And you’re still mad about it?”

“I wish I could kill you.”

This is the true story of the hell one family lived through parenting a child with reactive attachment disorder, a severe diagnosis related to children who experienced early-childhood trauma.

This inspirational story covers over a decade of daily struggles until they finally found resolution and made it to the other side. The family remained intact, and this once challenging son is now achieving things never thought possible.

 

 

______________________

So let’s talk about this diagnosis that we now suspect: Reactive Attachment Disorder. RAD is a fairly controversial diagnosis as far as psychological afflictions are concerned, but one that is extremely serious. Although this is not a diagnosis that is solely reserved for adoptees, it is by far more prevalent in children who had some sort of disrupted attachment. The Institute of Attachment and Child Development defines Reactive Attachment Disorder as “a disorder in which children’s brains and development get disrupted by trauma they endured before the age of 3. They are unable to trust others and attach in relationships.” Since adoption is a result of a disrupted attachment, it is most common in children who are adoptees, foster kids, and step children, but it can also occur in biological children who’s primary caregiver was hospitalized, in prison, deployed, or had some other traumatic event that separated them, even for a short time. Not all adopted children have RAD. And not all children who suffer from RAD are adopted.

Symptoms of RAD include: severe anger, lack of empathy, inability to give or receive affection, lack of cause and effect thinking, minimal eye contact, lying, stealing, “mad peeing” (urinating all over the house when angry or bedwetting into the teen years), indiscriminate affection with strangers, inappropriately demanding, preoccupation with fire, blood, and gore, hoarding food, abnormal eating patterns, learning lags, and lack of impulse control. These can be more serious in some patients than others, of course, but over the years, Maddox suffered from most of these. In extreme cases, symptoms can include verbal, physical, psychological and emotional abuse of the mother (yes), self-harm or threats to others (yes), and hurting or killing pets (thank god, no). As hard as things were for us, I read this list and know it could have been a lot worse.

RAD was in the news recently as one of the descriptors of Nikolas Cruz, the school shooter at Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida. Internet support groups for parents dealing with Reactive Attachment Disorder were a buzz with comments like “that could be my kid someday.” Honestly there was a time I thought the same thing. And of course, the comments about the school shooter were focused on the parents: “why didn’t they spend more time with him?,” “they should have given him more hugs/love,” “why wasn’t he in therapy?,” “he needed more discipline,” “a good spanking would have whipped him into shape”… judgments, judgments, judgments. I was so accustomed to judgments from other parents, strangers, and even my own family. Relatives gave us books on “Love and Logic,” gave Maddox timeouts that only made him angrier, and yelled at me for my lack of mothering skills. No sticker chart was going to resolve this issue.

In the heat of a rage, a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder seems to be afraid of nothing. Maddox didn’t respond to typical parental requests, bribes, or threats. If we would yell, he would yell back, louder and meaner. “Go to your room” was never met with compliance, and running away from home was an ongoing issue.

But underneath it all is a powerful sense of fear. Fear of never being loved or accepted. Fear of not making friends. Fear of not fitting in with normal society. As a mother, I feared he might grow up to be the next school shooter.

Starting even before he was born, his birth mother, desperately poor and managing a special-needs child at the age of 17, was sending stress hormones to his brain in the womb, setting him up for a lifetime of anxiety.

After his birth, he went directly to a foster home, where he was neglected. Mistrust of adults and caregivers was ingrained in his brain, and anger was his primary emotion.

It is hard to believe that the first six months of life can have such a profound impact on a child and make it so difficult to lead a normal life without serious intervention and extreme love and care.

Being a RAD parent is one of the hardest and loneliest jobs on earth, and that’s true without even counting all the judgment.

 

Gina Heumann is a true Renaissance woman: wife, mother, architect, designer, instructor, author, speaker, and sales rep for an award-winning Napa Valley winery. She and her husband, Aaron, adopted Landrey in 2001 from Guatemala and then went back for Maddox three years later. Gina’s love of learning and dedication as a mother inspired her research of different treatments and therapies that eventually led to this inspirational success story about conquering Reactive Attachment Disorder.
Her latest book is Love Never Quits: Surviving & Thriving After Infertility, Adoption, and Reactive Attachment Disorder.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

Website Link: www.ginaheumann.com
Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/loveneverquits

 

Blog Tour Kick Off: By the Light of Embers by Shaylin Gandhi @shaylingandhi #fiction

BY THE LIGHT OF EMBERS 
by Shaylin Gandhi
* Fiction *

Title: BY THE LIGHT OF EMBERS
Author: Shaylin Gandhi
Publisher: Briar Rose Publishing
Pages: 382
Genre: Historical Women’s Fiction

 It’s 1954, and twenty-two-year-old Lucia Lafleur has always dreamed of following in her father’s footsteps. While sock hops and poodle skirts occupy her classmates, she dreams of bacteria and broken bones—and the day she’ll finally fix them.

After graduation, a letter arrives, and Lucia reads the words she’s labored a lifetime to earn—”we are pleased to offer you a position at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.” But in the midst of her triumph, her fiancé delivers a crushing ultimatum: forego medical school, or forego marriage.

With fractured hopes, she returns home to Louisiana, expecting nothing of the summer of ’54 but sweet tea and gumbo while she agonizes over her impending choice. There, she unexpectedly befriends Nicholas, a dark-skinned poet whose dignity and intellect are a salve to her aching heart. Their bond, initially forged from a shared love of literature, soon blossoms into something as bewitching as it is forbidden.

Yet her predicament deepens when a trivial misunderstanding between a local white woman and a black man results in a brutal lynching, and the peril of love across the color lines becomes chillingly real. Now, fulfilling her lifelong dream means relinquishing her heart—and escaping Louisiana alive.

Praise for By the Light of Embers!

“Gandhi’s passion and creativity spill forth onto every page of this book, creating a truly magnificent and brave narrative.” — Entrada Publishing

“I genuinely don’t know any other way to describe this book than to say it’s beautiful.” – Lacie, Amazon Reviewer

“There are also books that you want to keep reading no matter how painful or heartbreaking or just downright unfair the endings are…because life’s got those moments and Shaylin Gandhi brings them out so well in her characters that you cannot help but grab that box of tissues and still smile in between scenes.” – Dora, Amazon Reviewer

“Beautifully atmospheric, you’ll cry your heart out…” – Kay Smillie, Amazon Reviewer

 

 

______________________

Bellefontaine, Louisiana, 1945

It was the first dead body I’d ever seen. 

Thick July heat pressed in, sticking my dress to my skin, while steam rose from waters as dark as motor oil.  Cypresses held the sky aloft, and there—in my little haven in the bayou, where the marshy ground turned firm and the old fallen blackgum slowly fell to pieces—lay a man with skin like molasses.  Black eyes stared upward, fixed on eternity. 

He shouldn’t be here.  That was my first thought.  Nobody else knew the way into the secret heart of the swamp, through the sucking mud and tangled underbrush.  Yet here he was. 

Something squirmed in the shadows of his mouth, and I pressed my hands to my stomach.  If I threw up, Mother would be angry.  I already had mud on my dress, which was bad enough.

Lured by horrified fascination, I stepped closer.  What happened?  Was he murdered?  I couldn’t tell.  The dead man lay so still that he gave the impression of something missing, rather than something there, as if he were nothing but a yawning void or a cicada’s left-behind skin.  Empty.

I knelt.  Up close, his flesh was ruined, his body swollen, his right hand chewed to shreds.  Faint rustling drifted from his mouth—worms definitely wriggled inside.  I leaned in and studied the wreckage of his face.  Something familiar...

I jerked backward, sprawling to the ground.  More mud on my dress.  But it didn’t matter—no, because this dead man was no stranger.  This was Tom Fletcher.

And I hated Tom Fletcher. 

True fear fluttered in my belly.  I couldn’t be alone with him, not even if he was dead.  I had to get away, across town to the big house, and tell Etta.

Scrambling back like a spider, I made it halfway to the edge of the clearing before my panic subsided enough for me to think.  Tom was bad, yes.  But Etta was good, with her warm cookies and warmer words.  I didn’t want her to see his vacant face, those eyes full of nothing.

I straightened up, brushed myself off, and tried hard to be brave.  Even so, I stood there a long time.  Closing Tom’s eyes seemed impossible, but for Etta’s sake, I had to.  She shouldn’t remember her husband like this.

I forced my feet to move.

When I got close, Tom's cold obsidian skin stole the warmth from my fingers.  One eye had retreated into his skull and his lids didn’t fit together right, but when I finished, the blank stare was gone.  He looked more peaceful, somehow.

Then I wiped my hands on my dress, went to the water’s edge, and threw up in the bushes.

*          *          *

“Lucia, child, what’ve you gotten into?  The pigpen?”  Etta Fletcher put big hands on big hips and laughed, her teeth flashing white in her round, dark face.  “I’ll hear your mama cryin’ from here when she sees that dress.”  She clucked her tongue and turned away.

The plantation’s kitchen was the same as ever, with its crackling hearth and billows of sweet steam.  Etta stood at the stove, frying something in a dark iron pan.  Oil popped and sizzled.

“Cinnamon rolls,” she said.

My stomach soured.  For once, I didn’t want sweets.  I just wanted Etta to turn around and listen, and I wanted to be brave enough to tell her.  While I gathered my courage, the kitchen door opened, and Etta’s son strode in, setting a dirty, tool-filled bucket on the spotless floor. 

I shrank back.  Nicholas terrified me, just like his father.  He straightened, fixing me with creepy yellow eyes.  At nineteen, he was six years my senior, but might’ve been a hundred for his size.  He was as black as his papa and larger than any grown-up I’d ever seen. 

“Ma,” he said.  “What’s she doing here?”

Etta glanced over her shoulder.  “She’s come for a treat.  An’ since she’s mudded her dress, I might take pity and give her two.”

With a wink, she offered a fragrant roll.  It coiled in her hand like a snake, oozing vanilla cream.  From the doorway, Nicholas gave me a look like he’d found a cockroach in his gumbo.

Vomit still coated the back of my throat.  I stared at the pastry as a sticky glob of icing plopped to the floor.  “Tom’s dead,” I said.

Etta’s grin slowly died and her brows drew together.  “What?  My Tom?”

I nodded, wishing Nicholas would disappear instead of staring at me like that.  He made me want to crawl in a hole somewhere.  “I found him in the swamp.  He’s dead.”

Though Nicholas’s expression didn’t change, he quit looking, at least.  His terrible yellow eyes shifted toward his mother.  Etta’s cinnamon roll fell in slow motion, landing topside down and squirting cream across the weathered floorboards.

Silence.  Nicholas caught at his mother’s elbow, but she shook him off. 

I wondered why she didn’t cry.  My mother cried over nothing—stained dresses, rain flattening her hair.  But Etta stood straight and wiped her hands on her apron. 

“You show us, child,” she said.  “You gone show us.”

 

SHAYLIN GANDHI secretly stole her mother’s copy of Clan of the Cave Bear at age ten, and fell madly in love with love stories. Now, as an author, she still can’t get enough, and the tales she spins all center around affairs of the heart. To her, that’s what makes a story truly worth telling.

Besides writing, she tries to stamp her passport at every opportunity. Traveling has been a lifelong passion, and she’s lucky to have done it a lot. Shaylin and her husband once spent an entire summer living in their van while touring the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska. Her most memorable trips often tie in with writing: her books are usually inspired by majestic places that stole her breath.

In addition, Shaylin practices medicine, scuba dives, plays the piano, and once rode her bicycle from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. She now lives in Denver with her incredible husband, their identical twin daughters, and two adorable rescue dogs. They can usually be found in the mountains, either hiking up or skiing down.

You can find Shaylin online at www.shaylingandhi.com or on Twitter @shaylingandhi. Please get in touch—she would love to hear from you!

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

Website: www.shaylingandhi.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/shaylingandhi
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shaylin.gandhi.71
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shaylingandhi/

 

Blog Tour Kick Off: Farewell My Life by Cynthia Sally Haggard @cynthiahaggard #histfic

FAREWELL MY LIFE
by Cynthia Sally Haggard
* Historical Fiction *

Title: FAREWELL MY LIFE
Author: Cynthia Sally Haggard
Publisher: Spun Stories Press
Pages: 585
Genre: Historical Fiction

Angelina led a life which required her to fib. When Angelina, the black sheep of the Pagano family, meets the mysterious Mr. Russell, she has no idea that she has seen him before…in another country.
And so begins Farewell My Life, a novel in three parts, which spins an operatic tale of dangerous love and loss.

The Lost Mother, the first part of this novel, slices back and forth between time and space, opening in the charming village of Georgetown, Washington D.C. while reflecting a family’s troubled past in the lovely village of Marostica in the Italian Veneto.

An Unsuitable Suitor, the second part of the novel, is a Cinderella-ish tale with not-so-charming princes who inhabit the edgy setting of 1920s Berlin.

Farewell My Life, the last part of the novel, set again in Berlin, Germany, during the dark 1930s as the Nazis gain power, takes comfortable lives, assumptions and civilizations and crumbles them into ash.

And all of this revolves around Grace, Angelina’s younger daughter, whose fabulous talent for the violin promises a shimmering career.

 

______________________

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

Friday, 2 September

Angelina led a life which required her to fib.

“How do you amuse yourself?” a stranger would ask. “I do a little dressmaking,” she would reply. “It has not been easy, with all the good men taken by the war.” She took pleasure in illicit trysts, in the veils and shadows of secrecy, until one day, this world began to crumble.

“Someone is talking about us,” he said, standing by the window of the apartment he had chosen for her, in the West Village of Georgetown. The late afternoon sun slanted over his head, throwing his high cheekbones and the sharp bridge of his nose into relief, illuminating his thick, corn-colored hair.

Angelina was bending over the wet bar, mixing up a Mary Pickford. “Who?” she said, mainly for something to say. She was used to gossip and disapproving glances. People were so jealous, especially other women, even married women. One would think that women who had everything might be willing to help their less fortunate sisters, but that had never been Angelina’s experience.

“I don’t know.”

Something about his voice caught her attention. She came around and handed him his drink. “You do not know?”

“No.” He sipped without comment. Normally, he would wind one of her curls around his pinky finger, or smile, or make some remark to show that he appreciated what she had made for him. But not today.

The back of Angelina’s neck stiffened. This was not good, something was worrying him.

Finally, he said, “A scandal would hurt my wife, and I cannot do that to a good woman.”

She stood there, silent. If his wife was a good woman, what did that make her? She had known Scott McNair since he was a college student, well before his marriage, when she had been recently widowed, with two little girls to support.

She had become complicit in satisfying his needs in return for money, jewelry, and clothes in the latest fashions. She expected him to terminate things once he married, but his wife did not like the pleasures of the marriage bed.

He put his drink down. “You do see that, don’t you?” She did not see at all. Why now? Why would a bit of gossip scare him off? She stared up into his face. Was there any way to plead her case? But his face, usually so open, was closed against her.

“I will give you something to cover your expenses for the next several months.” He opened his billfold and dropped a wad of cash onto the mantle.

She could not move. She felt like a leaf dropped from a tree, curled up, and dead in the frosty air.

He went to the hatstand and took his hat. “Believe me, Angie, if I had any choice—” He hesitated for a long moment, his blue-gray eyes fixed on hers, and then the landlady banged a door downstairs.

He fled.

She waited for a second, five seconds, then went to the mantle, counting out the money. Five hundred dollars. At least he was generous, but it was not going to last forever. She stuffed it into her bodice, then twitched the drapes aside to survey the street.

He was gone.

 

Cynthia Sally Haggard was born and reared in Surrey, England. About 30 years ago she surfaced in the United States, inhabiting the Mid-Atlantic region as she wound her way through four careers: violinist, cognitive scientist, medical writer, and novelist.

Her first novel, Thwarted Queen a fictionalized biography of Lady Cecylee Neville (1415-1495), the mother of Richard III (whose bones were recently found under a car-park in Leicester,) was shortlisted for many awards, including the 2012 Eric Hoffer New Horizon Award for debut authors. To date, sales have surpassed 38,000 copies.

Cynthia graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University, Cambridge MA, in June 2015. When she’s not annoying everyone by insisting her fictional characters are more real than they are, Cynthia likes to go for long walks, knit something glamorous, cook in her wonderful kitchen, and play the piano.

You can visit her at www.spunstories.com.
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cynthiahaggard
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.haggard

 

Blog Tour Kick Off: The Great Jewel Robbery by Elizabeth McKenna @elizamckenna #CozyMystery

THE GREAT JEWEL ROBBERY
by Elizabeth McKenna
* Cozy Mystery *

Title: THE GREAT JEWEL ROBBERY
Author: Elizabeth McKenna
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 210
Genre: Cozy Mystery

**********

 

Mystery with a splash of romance…

Chicago Tribune reporters Emma and Grace have been best friends since college despite coming from different worlds. When Grace is assigned to cover an annual charity ball and auction being held at a lakeside mansion and her boyfriend bails on her, she brings Emma as her plus one. The night is going smoothly until Emma finds the host’s brother unconscious in the study. Though at first it is thought he was tipsy and stumbled, it soon becomes clear more is afoot, as the wall safe is empty and a three-million-dollar diamond necklace is missing. With visions of becoming ace investigative journalists, Emma and Grace set out to solve the mystery, much to the chagrin of the handsome local detective. 

ORDER YOUR COPY:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SKB5YX7

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-great-jewel-robbery-elizabeth-mckenna/1131715666?ean=2940161355091

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-great-jewel-robbery

Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/412029920/The-Great-Jewel-Robbery

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-great-jewel-robbery/id1466172183

 

______________________

The handsome stranger held the mini-mart door open for me, and I gazed up into twinkling, meadow-green eyes. I kid you not. I had read about twinkling eyes in more than one romance book, but this was the first time I’d seen them live and in action. He was dressed for an early-September day on the lake with plaid swim shorts to his knees and a white T-shirt hanging around his neck. My eyes shifted to the “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service” sign that was displayed prominently in the gas station’s window. I checked his feet. At least he was wearing sandals.

I must have been staring too long because Grace pushed me from behind. The bare skin of my shoulder inadvertently brushed across his well-defined, caramel-colored chest and something akin to a spark sent heat rippling down my arm. When a curve of his lips revealed straight, white teeth perfect for biting things, I mumbled an apology and hurried to the snack aisle.

“Hi, Tom,” he called out to the cashier, confirming that he was a local. “I’m on pump six, but I need to grab a few things.”

Tom nodded. “No problem, dude. Take your time.”

“What type of chips should we get?” Grace asked, bringing my attention to more pressing matters than my tingling skin.

We had stopped for snacks on our way to the Twelve Gables Bed & Breakfast to avoid paying minibar prices. Grace was covering a charity ball being held at the Brauns’ lakeside mansion in Fontana, Wisconsin, for the Chicago Tribune, and I was her plus one. Besides the black-tie affair tonight, guests could spend Saturday through Monday relaxing by the pool or boating on the lake. It had sounded like a cushy assignment to me, but to Grace, it was another perfect example of how people used her connections to get what they wanted.

Having grown up with the fashionable people her editor wanted to feature, she was stuck on the Life & Style desk, though she yearned to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative article on some injustice in the world. Since Edward and Ivy Braun were family friends of Grace’s, this weekend’s assignment immediately went to her. She hated using friendships in this way, but she couldn’t refuse her editor if she wanted to keep her job.

“Maybe Chex Mix and Doritos? You choose.” I already had spied a lone glazed donut in the bakery case next to the register, and I was an enthusiast when it came to sugary confections.

I wandered through the other aisles while I waited for her to decide on a snack. Grace didn’t eat junk food often, so what to get was a serious decision worth slow and thoughtful deliberation. Based on her furrowed brow, we would be here for a while.

Mr. Green Eyes plopped three bottles of water and a Gatorade on the counter. “Gimme that donut too, please.”

I stopped so abruptly that my left ankle gave out, and I had to grab the metal handle of a nearby drink cooler to steady myself. I limped over to Grace. “That guy is buying my donut!”

She blinked her eyes slowly at me. “Your donut? Don’t they have more than one?”

“Probably not.” Yes, I was being petty. It was only a donut, but once I committed to sugar, I liked to follow through.

“Just pick out something else.” She pointed to a pack of chocolate chip cookies with an expiration date two years in the future. “Get those.”

My nose scrunched in revulsion. “I’d rather eat sawdust. The taste would be the same but with fewer calories.”

“Emma,” she said in her best schoolmarm voice. “You realize that Chef Porter will be laying out a whole table of luscious desserts for us to gorge ourselves on tonight?”

I did, but I didn’t know how to tell Grace that sometimes the frou-frou desserts of her people turned me off. Sometimes a girl just wanted a glazed donut. It was safe and comforting, and right now, I needed all the comfort I could get.

We had met freshmen year at Northwestern University in Journalism 101 and became instant friends despite being from different worlds. I was on a financial-need scholarship. Her father had a building on campus named after him. I was so nervous that I had forgotten a pencil. She had ten and gave me two “in case one broke.” We’ve been inseparable ever since, always living together and now working as reporters at the Tribune. She was like the sister I never had but without all the petty fighting.

She finally chose some corn chips and sashayed to the checkout.

“Excuse me,” I said to the cashier. “Do you have more donuts? Preferably glazed.”

The cashier’s bored eyes shifted to the bakery case and then to me. “Nope.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you have more in the back somewhere?”

“Ryan got the last one. Maybe if you hurry, you can buy it from him.”

Grace snickered beside me.

I pulled the bag of chips out of her hands and slid it across the counter. “We’ll just take this.”

By the time we got outside, Ryan, a.k.a. The Green-Eyed Donut Thief, was gone.

 

Elizabeth McKenna’s love of books reaches back to her childhood, where her tastes ranged from Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys to Stephen King’s horror stories. She had never read a romance novel until one Christmas when her sister gave her the latest bestseller by Nora Roberts. She was hooked from page one (actually, she admits it was the first love scene). She combined her love of history, romance, and a happy ending to write Cera’s Place and Venice in the Moonlight. Her contemporary romance novel, First Crush Last Love, is loosely based on her life during her teens and twenties. The Great Jewel Robbery is her debut cozy mystery, and she hopes readers will like it as much as they have enjoyed her romances.

Elizabeth lives in Wisconsin with her understanding husband, two beautiful daughters, and a sassy Labrador. When she isn’t writing, working, or being a mom, she’s sleeping.

Elizabeth loves to connect with readers!

Website: http://elizabethmckenna.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethMcKennaAuthor
Twitter: @ElizaMcKenna
Instagram: elizabeth_mckenna_author
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/Elizabeth_McKenna

 

Blog Tour Kickoff: Where To? How I Shed My Baggage and Learned To Live Free by Jennifer B. Monahan @SpiritEvol #memoir

WHERE TO? HOW I SHED MY BAGGAGE AND LEARNED TO LIVE FREE 
By Jennifer B. Monahan
* Memoir *

Title: WHERE TO? HOW I SHED MY BAGGAGE AND LEARNED TO LIVE FREE
Author: Jennifer B. Monahan
Publisher: Spirit Evolution
Pages: 234
Genre: Memoir

When Jennifer Monahan announced her intention to leave her well-established career as a business strategy consultant and give up her rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco to do a global walkabout for an undetermined amount of time, her friends and family thought she was insane. But Jennifer was excited about taking the time to truly explore and immerse herself in a variety of cultures, so their skepticism didn’t faze her; plus she was used to traveling alone as a woman with only one carry-on bag. What she didn’t count on was discovering all the excess baggage she had been carrying with her from her past.

WHERE TO? chronicles one year of Monahan’s life, primarily in the Guatemalan jungle, but also in Japan, Cambodia and Thailand. Living in a thatched-roof hut in a tiny village, Monahan connected with local shamans and participated in their ancient rituals, became fully integrated into the daily life of a local family, and ultimately faced down some of the greatest losses and long-buried pain she had experienced. WHERE TO? shares the six steps she took to heal and courageously create the life of her dreams and includes a workbook for readers to do the same.

“Some memoirs tell us stories and open up worlds we never knew, but some open up places in our own hearts and souls that we have wanted to explore and have never given ourselves the chance to do so. Where To? How I Shed My Baggage and Learned to Live Free by Jennifer B. Monahan belongs to the second category of memoirs…While it reads like the memoir of a woman who takes the courage to explore the world, this memoir has powerful spiritual hints. In fact, it is the story of a soul in search of itself. Where To? is a spiritual testament, a book that describes a journey towards inner freedom and authenticity. Many readers will feel the resonance of Jennifer’s story in their own lives.” 
– Christian Sia, Reader’s Favorite Book Reviews

 

 

______________________

March 1, 2017

The roars of a howler monkey outside the window of my thatched-roof hut woke me up at 4 a.m. It was my second night sleeping in the jungle of El Remate, Peten, Guatemala, and I was still adjusting to all the animal noises. As I lay awake, I thought about what a blur the past two weeks had been.

I finished up my book tour for This Trip will Change Your Life: A Shaman’s Story of Spirit Evolution in Connecticut and New Hampshire amidst the first major snowstorms of 2017. I flew home to San Francisco, packed up the last of my belongings and put everything in storage, turned in the keys for my apartment to my landlord, and then flew to Guatemala. My plan was to spend three months in Guatemala while writing my next book, and then travel around for

another three months or so before returning to San Francisco.

What made me move here?

Well, in November 2014, I was hit by a minivan while walking across the street. I was out of work for a little over three months, on crutches for eight months, and wearing some form of a cast for fourteen months. My doctor didn’t think I’d walk without either surgery or a crutch or brace for the rest of my life, but I happily proved her wrong, mainly because of the shamanic work I did on myself while I was healing.

Since I was stuck on my couch for about six months, I had plenty of time to think. I realized that I wanted to live life on my terms, the way I wanted to, rather than following a prescribed path about how I should live, work, and be. I wanted to follow my heart and my life calling, and I knew that would require me to make some major changes to my life. In short, I wanted to live authentically.

Living authentically isn’t easy. It should be, but there are so many things that hold us back. For me to get to this place, and truly know who I am, I had to do quite a bit of work over a period of several years, including:

·        Releasing personas that I’d adopted in life that no longer served me

·        Identifying limiting beliefs that really weren’t relevant

·        Discovering who I am and what makes me unique

·        Figuring out my life purpose

·        Learning to tap into my own personal power and trust, and

·        Following my heart

Once I knew myself better, my path became clearer and I was able to move ahead…or, in this case, to Guatemala.

 

Jennifer B. Monahan is a business strategy consultant, shaman and coach who helps people all over the world live courageous lives. Her first book, This Trip Will Change Your Life: A Shaman’s Story of Spirit Evolution (She Writes Press, 2016), has won six literary awards, including two first-place Body, Mind, Spirit Book Awards and a 2017 National Indie Excellence Award. Her second book, Where To? How I Shed My Baggage and Learned to Live Free, was published in April 2019, and describes her personal journey through Guatemala, Japan, Cambodia and Thailand as she faces down some of the greatest losses in her life.

She is a regular contributor to Medium.com, Sivana East, and has had articles published on MindBodyGreen.com and Inc.com. Her podcast, Living A Courageously Authentic Life, can be found on BlogTalkRadio.com, and focuses on a variety of topics to help others be true to themselves.
She holds a BA in Mass Communications from the University of Bridgeport (CT), an MBA in Marketing from the University of Connecticut, a Masters in Natural Health from Clayton College, and completed an accredited coaching program through Coach U. Her shamanic training began with a Mayan shaman in Mexico and then expanded to include shamans in Guatemala and her own personal guides.

She currently splits her time between the United States and Guatemala when not traveling and is in the process of writing her third book, a handbook for people looking to define, create and live their courageously authentic life. You can find her online at www.SpiritEvolution.co.

WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:

Website: www.SpiritEvolution.co
Blog: https://spiritevolution.co/blog-2/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/SpiritEvol
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SpiritEvol  and   www.facebook.com/JenniferMonahanAuthor