Everything Is Better With Dragons

Blog Tour Calendar: Bella, by R.M. Francis

Review: Health At Every Size, by Linda Bacon Ph.D

7890166 — Fat isn’t the problem. Dieting is the problem. A society that rejects anyone whose body shape or size doesn’t match an impossible ideal is the problem. A medical establishment that equates “thin” with “healthy” is the problem.
The solution?

Health at Every Size.

Tune in to your body’s expert guidance. Find the joy in movement. Eat what you want, when you want, choosing pleasurable foods that help you to feel good. You too can feel great in your body right now—and *Health at Every Size* will show you how.

*Health at Every Size* has been scientifically proven to boost health and self-esteem. The program was evaluated in a government-funded academic study, its data published in well-respected scientific journals.

Updated with the latest scientific research and even more powerful messages, *Health at Every Size* is not a diet book, and after reading it, you will be convinced the best way to win the war against fat is to give up the fight.

Paperback, 374 pages
Published: March 23rd 2010 by BenBella Books
(first published October 11th 2008)
Original Title
Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth about Your Weight
ISBN:1935618253
ISBN13: 9781935618256
Edition Language: English
URL:http://www.haesbook.org/

My Review

I bought this book out of interest, having been a fat person for most of my life and tried diets multiple times that worked temporarily. I’d lose a couple of stone then plateau before starting to increase again. And before I knew it I’d be back to my old weight. In the last year I’ve put on 10 kg. The nurse has got grumpy with me, I’ve returned to the Wellbeing Service Health Trainer I was seeing three years ago (at least), and she’s referred me to Thrive. I have to fill in a food diary and track everything. It’s already screwing with my head. I’m trying not to restrict but I’m struggling with it. I want to get fitter, my weight will do what it will.

I read this book with interest. Linda Bacon is a good writer and she makes the science understandable. The first half of the book is about the science, which shows that restrictive dieting may actually trigger the body’s anti-starvation mechanisms, making the dieter obsessed with food and binge. She discusses the social and political pressures around body size and health.

The basic idea is that rather than restricting food and exercising as punishment for eating, people should try to listen to their body, eat when they’re hungry and move in ways that feel good. The book tries to help the reader with that. It’s very easy to read, and full of information. Many will find it challenging because it questions everything we’re told about weight and health.

The book is US-centric and doesn’t discuss disability in respect to health and food. It also assumes the reader is in a stable living situation where they can afford and cook ‘real’ food. At times it comes off as a bit preachy.

If you’re struggling with your weight, sick of feeling a failure because the diets don’t work, try reading this book.

Review: ‘Vile’, by Keith Crawford

Elianor Paine is a Magistrate of the Peace in the Kingdom of Trist and a republican secret agent. She has 6 days to subvert her investigation, supplant war-hero Lord Vile, then coerce his adult children to start a revolution, before her masters discover the truth and have her killed. Just how far is she willing to go? And can she change the world without changing herself?

https://amzn.to/2qNDyll

Review: Killing Beauties, by Pete Langman

23 January 2020 | Unbound | Paperback | £9.99 | #KillingBeauties
ISBN: 978-1-78965-065-5

England, 1655. Following the brutal civil wars the country swelters under a cloud of paranoia, suspicion and the
burgeoning threat of rebellion. With the fragile peace being won by Cromwell’s ever-efficient Secretary of State John
Thurloe, the exiled king Charles Stuart sends two spies on a dangerous mission to wrest back the initiative. These spies
are different, however: they are women. Their task? To turn Parliament’s spymaster into their unwitting accomplice.
Killing Beauties is a dark tale of subterfuge, jealousy and betrayal.
It is sometimes said that women are written out of history, but often they are not yet written in. Killing Beauties is based
on the true stories of two female spies from the 1650s and gives them the voice that only fiction can. Pete Langman.

Review: The Base of Reflections, by AE Warren (Tomorrow’s Ancestors Book 2)

The Base of Reflections

What happens when the future abandons the past?

Elise and her companions have made it to the safety of Uracil but at a price. Desperate to secure her family’s passage, she makes a deal with Uracil’s Tri-Council. She’ll become their spy, jeopardising her own freedom in the process, in exchange for her family’s safe transfer. But first she has to help rescue the next Neanderthal, Twenty-Two.

Twenty-Two has never left the confines of the steel walls that keep her separated from the other exhibits. She has no contact with the outside world and no way of knowing why she has been abandoned. With diminishing deliveries of food and water, she has to start breaking the museum’s rules if she wants a second chance at living.

One belongs to the future and the other to the past, but both have to adapt—or neither will survive…

Purchase Link – http://mybook.to/TBOR

Extract Post: The Black Ditch, by Simon J Lancaster

The Black Ditch

LAURIE STERNE feels like he’s been cut adrift in space. His father has been shot dead, caught in the crossfire of a gangland war that has also claimed his boss’s life. Laurie is a refugee who lost his adoptive mum years before and doesn’t know where he was born, let alone who his birth parents were. But he’s not alone in the world: someone is trying to kill him.

This is London, 2050, a dumping ground for climate refugees and dissidents. Gangs rule, murder goes unpunished and the police make sure you can’t escape.

In his struggle to stay alive, he finds an ally: his former boss’s secret daughter.
But with the killer predicting his every move, is the man without a past being betrayed by the woman who seems to offer him a future?

Purchase Links:

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07V1HHTJK/

US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V1HHTJK/

Map Review: Major & Mrs Holt’s Battle Map of the Normandy D-Day Landing Beaches

My Review

This map seems fairly detailed and would be useful for someone touring the D-Day Landing beaches if they’re searching for specific sites. No hotels, car parks etc. but the GPS references would make your tour to Normandy easier.

Promo Post: Rocks and Flowers in a Box, by Cynthia Hilston

Rocks and Flowers in a Box (Lorna & Tristan Series #2)

The wedding bells for Lorna and Tristan Blake toll doom right as the honeymoon begins with an unexpected turn in Tristan’s health. While World War II winds down, Lorna receives a letter from the War Department informing her that the brother she thought killed in action is still alive. She is overjoyed, but his return will dredge up a devastating secret about their parents’ tragic death –a secret that could destroy her new marriage and threaten her husband’s physical and mental well-being. What unfolds is balancing act of keeping the faith and shattering the pieces of the life she’s worked so hard to put back together.

Purchase Links

US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7N9G5N/

UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07Y7N9G5N/

Author Bio –

Cynthia Hilston is a thirty-something-year-old stay-at-home mom of three young kids, happily married. Writing has always been like another child to her. After twenty years of waltzing in the world of fan fiction, she finally stepped away to do her debut dance with original works of fiction. Visit her website at http://www.cynthiahilston.com for more information.

In her spare time – what spare time? – she devours books, watches Doctor Who and Game of Thrones, pets her orange kitty, looks at the stars, and dreams of what other stories she wishes to tell.

Social Media Links –

http:/www.cynthiahilston.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cynthiahilstonauthor

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/cynthiahilstonauthor

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/cynthiahilston

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cynthiahilston

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/authorcynthiahilston

Cover Reveal: The Cottage on Wildflower Lane, by Liz Davies

Our third cover reveal of the month is for Liz Davies and her romance of the internet age.

The Cottage on Wildflower Lane

Esther’s life isn’t perfect (whose is?) – but she’s happy enough living in her little flat with her boyfriend, Josh.

But that’s about to change.

Bored out of her mind in work, she wishes that something, anything, would happen to liven her life up.

Unfortunately, her wish comes true when Josh calls her from the airport to tell her he’s going to work in a bar in Spain, and she’s not invited, Esther is devastated, and her unhappiness is compounded when she discovers she can actually view the bar via a webcam link and watch him chatting up other girls.

But when she inadvertently clicks on a link to another webcam which shows a pretty cottage and the rather hunky man who lives in it, her interest is piqued and she wishes she could get to know him.

Wishes don’t really come true, though – do they…?