"Dating Tips from Dad" by Amity Jones

GUEST POST

Dating Tips from Dad:
How to win the dating game

by Amity Jones

Dating Tips from Dad by Amity Jones is currently on tour with Masquerade Book Tours. The tour stops here today for a guest post by the author. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.

Description

Growing up with my father had helped me to learn valuable ways of what to do and not to do regarding dating. I am so grateful he took the time with me to make sure I would have the best type of person in my life. This book is designed to help parents talk to their kids about dating. In addition, singles that have struggled and for those back into the dating world after being out of it for a long time. In this book you will find fast ways of how to meet that guy or girl; beginning of dating; who makes the first move; great conversation starters; and when to move on. As a bonus I have some tips I have learned along the way and have found helpful for me as well as my friends I have shared them with.

Praise for the Book

"Excellent advice for any stage of life. This book gives great practical and smart advice. I would recommend it to my friends that are dating, and found things that are helpful in my marriage. I will definitely pick it up again when my kids get a little older - to use as a teaching tool. Very good read!!!" ~ Elizabeth Martin

"This book gives a clear picture of the most important things that one should learn about dating. The wonderful thing about the book is that it is a personal account of many of the lessons learned by the author which were passed down by her father. It is a refreshing approach to dating. I believe that Amity the author, has written this book not only from personal experience but from her heart. I would recommend this book for anyone faced with the challenges of dating. Also, the amazing thing about the book is that she used many of these ideas on her journey before marriage as well. So, they are tried and true ideas. You will not be disappointed when you read this great little book on dating!!!" ~ Peggy Price

"I bought this for a friend of mine, but read a good portion of it before I passed it on. It was easy to read and I love the connection with the author and her Father. I think it's great to get both a female and male perspective on the subject. I've been married for 20 years, but found it a fun read for me. My friend hasn't finished the book, but says she already has a new game plan when she decides she's ready to re-enter the dating scene!" ~ HNW4life

"This book is a quick read but don't let the speed deceive you into thinking there isn't a lot to it! I appreciated the mix of personal stories with practical input. As I was reading I thought 'I want my daughter (who is now 18) to read this - it will help her in her dating life!' You don't have to be dating to gain wisdom from this book!" ~ Libby C. Vincent

"This book clearly discusses a lot of points where we can improve ourselves and within our relationships so we can keep it real, and keep it right. This book will let the single folks not be afraid and be prepared for the worst when it comes to dating. The tips in this book are very helpful to make each relationship last." ~ A W

Guest Post by the Author

My inspiration for Writing this Book

Over the last 10 years, something inside me has wanted to write a dating book about my dad’s dating knowledge he passed down to me. My friends and family would ask me how I dated such amazing men and when I found they weren’t taught the same things I was growing up about dating, I knew I had to tell my story. When I started asking my circle of friends about their dating experiences growing up and the bigger question of "how did they learn how to date?" I was always puzzled when the majority of them said they were never taught by their parents. I had the aha moment and started writing down notes for my dating book.

With all the dating and relationship/marriage books I have read over the last 25 years, I wanted to write something that was simple, fast, and to the point. Most of the points in my book are probably things everyone has heard at some point while they were dating or in a relationship. By writing this I wanted to help as many people before dating as they won’t have to endure as many heartaches or they can learn a few tips to help their next relationship go smoother.

I have been surprised at the response of who have read my book and how much it has helped them from all ages, male or female, parents to share with their kids, whether they are dating, married, or single. It feels good to be able to guide my readers to how to date, what a healthy relationship is and when to move on. I have been contacted by many of my readers saying how much the book has helped them in so many ways. One reader was so happy to hear what my father had taught me about dating since she didn’t have a father growing up. I didn’t realize the impact I was going to have when I wrote this book.

About the Author

Amity Jones grew up with her father from age 8 and on. Learning the simple steps of dating, among other things, were very helpful in finding the most amazing men in her life. After she did a personal survey of her friends the last 10 years and found that they didn't really learn "how-to-date" other than from trial and error, from their dysfunctional parents, and/or their peers that didn't know what they were doing. It led her to write this book to help others learn her dating tips from dad.

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"All My Sins Remembered" by Adam Stanley

REVIEW

All My Sins Remembered

by Adam Stanley

All My Sins Remembered is the first novel by poet Adam Stanley.

Description

The years is 2009, and Andrew White has just had his last argument with his first love, Leigh Mallory, whom he has not seen in almost ten years. In the sultry heat of a July, Atlanta night, he sweats out his sins and his regrets in a cheap motel, somewhere just off I-75. He has been in love with her for twenty years, and there have been many casualties along the way, including his own body, mind and soul. His only salvation lies in his enduring love of art, and the realization that maybe there is more to life than Leigh Mallory.

Excerpt

It was true, I had been searching for peace, or at least what I thought was peace. Starting that night after Graduation, when I drove away from Aventine for the first time, alone, and headed south to Key Largo in a car that that seemed empty without Leigh, my life has been one endless search. I have never stopped. And whatever it was I was looking for, I was always moving too fast to notice whether or I had found it or not.

I made up excuses to keep moving. For as long as I can remember, I have been looking for an abstraction that I have always called happiness. In summer I long for the snow. In winter I cry for the sun to return; in the autumn I watch the same leaves die that I watched come to life in the spring, and each season they are equally beautiful. For as long as I can remember, I have been looking for happiness, which is really nothing more than an abstraction; a kind of dream to keep you going year after year; an antidote against the sadness of reality; a lie that keeps you alive. I wait and wait, but there are too many tomorrows, and not enough todays.

Every six months I packed my car and made another impulsive move to an adjacent state. Following a lover or a dream, it always seemed just a few more miles down some Southern interstate, where the only difference was the vegetation, and a slight rise in humidity with every inch I drove further south on the map. Too often I found myself alone on some endless road, all the bridges I had spent so much time building, burned and left behind. Like that morning I had when I woke up in Nashville, alone, and hung-over, not sure what I had done wrong but it must have been bad because when I got up and looked in the mirror, both of my eyes were black and my face was caked in blood. Just like all the other times, I got in my car and drove south as fast as I could. This time it was a cousin in Mobile. Later, while I sped down interstate 65, I remembered bits of the night before. I had gotten very drunk and hit on this guy’s wife and he pulled a gun.

That’s all I remembered as I drove on, the lights from Montgomery fading in the rear-view. South Alabama was nothing but darkness and with the windows down I could smell the invisible cotton fields and rolling pastures strong with the acrid scent of manure in the warm, early spring air. As I drove on, radio stations passed away; old Country dissipated into static, then fluctuated for an hour or so between a screaming Pentecostal preacher, and a wavering Bach string quartet, before the Classic Rock station in Mobile took over for good.

This was not the first time I had taken this escape root [sic]. No matter where I was going, the desolation of these flat, lonely highways was unavoidable. Every time I ran from something, I was always driving in Alabama, and just like every other time, I always ran out of road.

It was water that stopped me every time. The ocean was the inevitable end to all my journeys. Whether it be the wild, reptile infested outcroppings of bayou and wetland that lie hidden like an Eden just south of New Orleans, beyond the iron bridge, where the Big River pours out its soul into the Gulf; or Biloxi, sitting entranced by a black jack dealer whose hand’s fluttered gracefully as a bird, watching the water in quick glances through the windows as he shuffled the cards like a magician. Pensacola, the beaches white as frozen tundra, sandbars rising in the green waves like humpback whales.

There were even bolder attempts to lose myself in the illusion of distance. I spent a few months in Europe, living on trains and in hostels. But no matter how far I traveled, the past was always close enough to feel its warmth on my face, its chill in my bones, its beauty and sadness brighter and clearer than it had ever been. Once, while waiting for a ferry to cross the English Chanel, I stood on the edge of a giant white cliff looking into the ancient turbulence filled with rusting Spitfires and cannon-blasted Spanish Galleons; I thought of Leer, and how we take the plunge into maturity and finally senescence, like a proud, blind King who is no better than his fool as he wades into the deep waters of death.

On the flight back to Atlanta, from France, I woke up and the clouds below looked like sand dunes or snow, and buried under them was the Atlantic. Everyone else was sleeping. The sky was very blue. The blue got darker and darker until it looked like night, like a sketch of the stratosphere I had seen in a science book in third grade.

Closest to outer space I will ever get; nearest to heaven I’ll ever be.

Some of My Favorite Lines

There are so many great lines in this book, including those in the images featured in this blog post. You can also check out the author's Facebook page and Tumblr blog for more images and quotes.

"The past is a dangerous place. Lately, I have been going there way too often - but there is nowhere else to go."

" ... she was his reason for living, and had been since he was fifteen."

"Like sound, not all silence is the same."

"Dying can be a very slow process."

"Even if someone would have told me that all those smiles would turn into wrinkles, I would have smiled anyway. A smile is worth it. You are going to grow old anyway, why not do it while smiling."

"She had loved heroin more than her own child."

"It is sad how someone can mean so much to you, and be such an important part of your life, and then, because of time, or other uncontrollable circumstances, you never see them again."

"Not all flowers are snipped as cleanly and perfectly by the careful hands of a florist as the fairytale ends of long-stem roses. The rarest, and most hauntingly beautiful wildflowers are ripped from the earth in a frenzied moment of passion, pulled up by their roots, with no thought of consequences or the possible aftermath."

My Review

By Lynda Dickson

The title, a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, is extremely apt and sets the mood for this poignant story. Andrew is a man haunted by many things, but mainly by his obsession for Leigh Mallory, his first love. Abandoned by his drug-addict mother at the age of four, his life has been marked by one disappointment after another. Now approaching forty, he sits drinking in a seedy motel and recalls his loves, his losses, his regrets, and the sins of his youth. He also contemplates suicide.

I have been following the author on Tumblr for a few years and was excited when I found out his book had finally been published. Unfortunately, I was in for a big disappointment. There is no doubt that the author knows how to write. The language is rich and beautiful and compels one to keep reading, even though the plot is barely existent and the book consists mainly of the stream-of-consciousness musings of a middle-aged drunkard. But that's not my complaint. Those of you who follow my reviews will know that nothing annoys me more than poor editing. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst-edited books I have come across. I would go so far as to suggest that no one other than the author read the manuscript before it was published; it doesn't even appear as if the author himself re-read it. It puts me in mind of Chuck Wendig's quote referenced in one of my recent blog posts: "Just yarf it up". The author did just that, but then he didn't clean up after himself.

Formatting and proofreading problems include: no paragraph indentations, overuse of commas, lack of apostrophes, incorrect punctuation in speech, incorrect word usage, spelling mistakes, lack of capitalization, inconsistencies with names (Corey/Cory, Rachael/Rachel), repetition. Other problems: the narrative jumps around with not enough indication of time and place, making it extremely difficult to follow; there are too many characters, making it hard to keep track of who is actually important to the story; I couldn't follow the action in the New Orleans incident, a pivotal event in Andrew's life; there isn't enough character development to explain Andrew's obsession with Leigh Mallory. It's a great shame there are so many problems with this book because the writing is beautiful, the narrative is compelling, and the story is heart-felt. My note to the author: get your book edited and republished.

Warnings: coarse language, drug use, alcohol abuse.

About the Author

Adam Stanley has been publishing poems and short stories for the last twenty years. Some of his credits include, "The Old Red Kimono", "The Prairie Schooner", and "Chum". He is an amateur musician and music lover, and his works are often imbued with a musicality that he still retains from his days as a rock musician and a student of Classical piano. He lives in rural Georgia. All My Sins Remembered is his first novel.

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"Marriage Isn't For You" by Seth Adam Smith

NEW RELEASE and GIVEAWAY

Marriage Isn't For You:
It's For the One You Love

by Seth Adam Smith

In 2013, Seth Adam Smith wrote a blog post titled "Marriage Isn't for You". Now you can get the book! Seth states: "My first book is officially published! Marriage Isn't For You is now available as a beautiful gift book! It’s the perfect gift for Mother’s Day, a recent engagement, anniversaries, birthdays, weddings, or just about any special occasion for the one you love. The book is based on my viral article that was read by more than 30 million people and translated into almost twenty languages. This gift book version of the article has been published through Shadow Mountain Publishers and is filled with gorgeous pictures and has a stunning design."

This book blast and giveaway is brought to you by I Am a Reader, Not a Writer.

Description

What is the best wedding advice you ever received?

For author Seth Adam Smith, it was the advice from his father who said, "Marriage is not for you. It is about the person you marry." These few words completely changed the way Seth looked at his relationship with his wife-to-be. Because at that moment he realized that an expression of love is not about the person expressing it. Rather, it is about the person they choose to be with. It is about making the person you marry feel loved.

Seth’s blog post on the subject was viewed by more than twenty-seven million people, and he has been featured on several national TV programs including The Today Show. Now released as a hardcover book, these sage words make the perfect gift for newly married couples, those who have been around the block a few times, or anyone who wants to learn how to make their relationships stronger.

The Book in the News

Praise for the Book

"This is raw, this is real…it reflects what a lot of couples experience… it pulls you in." ~ TODAY Show

"…a tender, honest story." ~ TODAY.com

"…overwhelmingly heartfelt and touching admission." ~ ABC NEWS

"This story has become a viral sensation!" ~ The NY Daily News

"The Internet is loaded with marriage advice, but rarely does one single tidbit resonate strongly with so many people." ~ Yahoo Lifestyle

About the Author

Seth Adam Smith was born in Anchorage, Alaska. Since 2004, he has produced videos and articles for businesses, nonprofit organizations, youth groups, artists, and political causes. He is the editor-in-chief of Forward Walking. He and his wife, Kim, live in Florida.

Giveaway

Enter the blast-wide giveaway for a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card or PayPal cash.

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"The Making of Nebraska Brown" by Louise Caiola

REVIEW and GIVEAWAY

The Making of Nebraska Brown

by Louise Caiola

The Making of Nebraska Brown is currently on tour with Reading Addiction Book Tours. The tour stops here today for my review and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.

Description

The last thing eighteen-year-old Ann Leigh remembers is running from her boyfriend in a thick Nebraska cornfield. This morning she’s staring down a cool Italian sunrise, an entire continent from the life she once knew. The events of the eighteen months in between have inexplicably gone missing from her memory.

All at once she’s living with Tommy, an attractive, young foreigner asking for her continued love. Though he’s vaguely familiar, she recalls a boy named Shane in America who she reluctantly agreed to marry. Juggling a new world while her old one is still M.I.A is difficult enough without the terrifying movie scenes spinning a dizzy loop in her mind: glimpses of a devastating house fire, a romance gone wrong, an unplanned pregnancy, and a fractured family – each claiming to be part of who she once was – a girl and a past somehow discarded.

Ann Leigh must collect the pieces of herself to become whole again, but she doesn’t know who to trust especially when Tommy’s lies become too obvious to ignore. And above all, her heart aches to discover what became of the child she may or may not have given birth to.

The Making of Nebraska Brown tells the story of one girl’s coming apart from the inside and the great lengths she’ll go to reclaim herself and find her way home.

Book Trailer

Excerpt

Tommy sat down beside me. His musky cologne smelled familiar. His espresso-colored brown hair parted over on the left side of his head, draped over his ears in dogged springiness. I’d told him I liked it shorter. I knew that, too.

“Of course. We were supposed to meet there for lunch, like we always do on Tuesdays. What’s going on? Why are you playing games?”

I let my head fall into the cushion. Tears tempted me to cry them. They’d been behaving for hours now. I clamped my lids shut, breathed through my mouth. “I’m not playing. I don’t know what happened. I can’t remember why I’m here or who I am. Who you are.”

His hand fell on my knee like winter’s first snow, easy and without a sound. When he spoke, he used that same tone - sweet and calm as dawn. “Ana, it’s me. Tommy. And you’re you. We’re us. Have been for over a year.”

I wound my fingers with his, searched his face for the other half of this “us” he referred to. He pulled me close. Caramel wafted at me from inside that bag, slapping me around, calling me silly. Tommy held the small of my back in his palm. His hands were large, strong and sure, the kind of hands that had never had a frightened moment in their whole life.

Review

By Lynda Dickson

The last thing Ann Leigh remembers is climbing the water tower to get away from Shane Kirkland, the man she is reluctantly supposed to marry. Somehow she wakes up in Campania, Italy, able to understand and speak Italian. She finds out that her name is Ana Lisa Carcossi (as evidenced by her passport) and that she lives with her boyfriend Tommy, who is also her boss. She has dreams of her past as Ann Leigh. But are they dreams or memories? With the help of Tommy and her friend Renata, Ana sets out on a quest to find out who she really is and how she came to be who she is now. What happened that was so terrible that she made herself forget? Will she be able to find her way back to herself? When Ana recovers her memories, will she wish she never did? And what part does Tommy play in all of this?

There are a few minor editing errors (e.g. course instead of coarse, stationary instead of stationery), lack of capitalization (e.g. states instead of States), and misuse of apostrophes (e.g. Kirkland's instead of Kirklands). However, these mistakes are more than compensated for by the author's wonderful turns of phrase. She has a beautiful way with words, and I highlighted more passages than I can recount here. I loved everything about this book; I loved Ana's voice, her sarcastic humor, her confused feelings over Shane. I could relate to the love/hate emotions he elicited in her. I found the story so compelling, I didn't want to put the book down.

I love it when my "job" brings me in touch with books like this which I might not otherwise have picked up to read. Do yourself a favor and read this one. It's a true gem of a book.

About the Author

As a young girl who spent her allowance on Nancy Drew mysteries, Louise realized that one day, she might have a story of her own to tell. Maybe even more than one story. After years focused on raising her children she eventually reconnected with her passion for creative writing. She soon began to craft a large collection of short stories which were published in the inspirational online magazine. Shortly thereafter, she authored her first novel, Wishless, a contemporary YA, released in 2011.

Louise devotes a portion of each day to honing her skills. She has several other novels currently in various stages of development. A confirmed bibliophile, Louise enjoys reading outdoors on a warm spring day and watching her pup chase leaves on a breeze. She looks forward to meeting others who share her love of the written word and invites you to visit her blog, her website, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Giveaway

Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win a $25 gift card.

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