Are you a frustrated, but fabulous, female business owner who feels like you are losing a grip on your passion, personality and power?
Are you feeling stuck in the traps of people-pleasing, blurred boundaries and conformity?
Are you driven, but don’t feel like you are in the driving seat?
Stop!
You are self-squashing.
This book will get you unsquashed. You will feel released as the REAL you with a business that thrillingly thrives rather than sort of survives.
Author Bio
photograph by Hattie Miles … 14.12.2020 … Trisha Lewis who’s written ‘The Mystery of the Squashed Self’.
Communication coach, actor and business owner, Trisha Lewis, empowers women to find and be their ‘unsquashed self’ – released from the ‘shoulds’ and ‘self-doubt spirals’.
Trisha has a background as a freelance actor, entertainer, speaker and story facilitator. She set up her communication coaching business in 2016 – at the age of 59. She now works with women starting or growing their own business – with soul and originality.
Trisha pulls on her life and business growing experiences along with common themes in her client work – to ensure her written and spoken resources resonate. This includes her popular ‘Make it Real’ podcast.
‘The Mystery of the Squashed Self’ is Trisha’s first full-length book – and true to form it brings the challenges of 8 fictional, but reality-based, business owners to life. The common link being ‘self-squashing’. Trisha took her own advice when deciding to write a business book that didn’t follow the standard style!
Trisha lives by the seaside on the south coast of the UK with her husband. Her children are all grown up and she has no pets – other than the robotic vacuum cleaner which she admits to talking to.
Pub date: 4 MARCH 2021 ISBN 13: 978-1-913193-54-6 EPUB: 978-1-913193-55-3 Price: £8.99
Twenty floors above the shimmering lights of the Hamburg docks, Public Prosecutor Chastity Riley is celebrating a birthday with friends in a hotel bar when twelve heavily armed men pull out guns, and take everyone hostage. Among the hostages is Konrad Hoogsmart, the hotel owner, who is being targeted by a young man whose life – and family – have been destroyed by Hoogsmart’s actions.
With the police looking on from outside – their colleagues’ lives at stake – and Chastity on the inside, increasingly ill from an unexpected case of sepsis, the stage is set for a dramatic confrontation … and a devastating outcome for the team … all live streamed in a terrifying bid for revenge. Crackling with energy and populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, Hotel Cartagena is a searing, stunning thriller that will leave you breathless.
Epheria is a land divided by war and mistrust. The High Lords of the south squabble and fight, only kept in check by the Dragonguard, traitors of a time long past, who serve the empire of the North.
In the remote villages of southern Epheria, still reeling from the tragic loss of his brother, Calen Bryer prepares for The Proving—a test of courage and skill that not all survive.
But when three strangers arrive in the village of Milltown, with a secret they are willing to die for, Calen’s world is ripped from under him and he is thrust headfirst into a war that has been raging for centuries.
There is no prophecy. His coming was not foretold.
He bleeds like any man, and bleed he will.
Author Bio Ryan Cahill was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was lucky enough to be born to parents that cherished books and adored stories. With every book they read, they brought it to life. A different voice for every character. A different setting for each world. A different facial expression for each sarcastic joke. It was because of this, Ryan fell in love with the craft of storytelling.
Growing up with authors such as J.K.Rowling, Terry Prachett and J.R.Tolkien—before discovering the worlds of Christopher Paolini, George R.R.Martin, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson—Ryan was always immersed in the art of worldbuilding. In the creation of a world that could transport you to a place in your mind where nothing else could ever reach you.
At the age of seven, Ryan even attempted to write his own book; to create his own world. It didn’t go to plan. Seven-year-olds don’t tend to have much follow through.
“A perfect blend of science fiction and alternate history”
He’s abducted by aliens to the planet Vost.
He’s saving up for his fare home.
But he’s got the small matter of a planetary apocalypse to deal with first…
In 1977 a New York Cab driver Mike Redolfo is abducted by aliens after being mistaken for a renegade scientist. Meanwhile, back in 1944 a mysterious man and his Jewish fiancée are fleeing across Nazi-occupied Europe.
Redolfo tries to keep a low profile on his new world whilst earning his fare home, but unwittingly gets involved with a shady gang of alien criminals, inadvertently bringing the planet to the brink of catastrophe.
As the link between the timelines becomes clear, Redolfo must discover secrets from the past that may hold the key to saving the planet.
If you like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, and Frank Herbert’s Dune, you’ll love this gripping and entertaining sci-fi mystery thriller.
“The Cracks That Let the Light In is about what happened when it felt like my life had fallen apart and how I put it back together. It’s about family, love and how to be happy when your life turns out nothing like you planned.”
Jessica Moxham thought she was prepared for the experience of motherhood. Armed with advice from friends and family, parenting books and antenatal classes, she felt ready. But after giving birth, she found herself facing a different, more uncertain reality to the one she had expected. Her son, Ben, was fighting to stay alive. Even when Jessica could finally take him home from hospital, the challenges were far from over. Ben’s disability means he needs help with all aspects of his daily life. Jessica has had to learn how to feed Ben when he can’t eat, wrestle with red tape to secure his education and defend his basic rights in the face of discrimination.
In this uplifting and hopeful memoir, Jessica shares her challenging and emotional journey. As Ben begins to thrive, alongside his two younger siblings, Jessica finds that caring for a child with unique needs teaches her about resilience, appreciating difference and doing things your own way.
This powerful story is about the strength of family love, inner strength and hope. It is a story of motherhood.
Hardcover, Goldsboro exclusive signed and numbered edition (1000) with sprayed edges, 336 pages Published February 2021 by Tor Books
Sixth Sense meets Stranger Things in T. L. Huchu’s The Library of the Dead, a sharp contemporary fantasy following a precocious and cynical teen as she explores the shadowy magical underside of modern Edinburgh.
When a child goes missing in Edinburgh’s darkest streets, young Ropa investigates. She’ll need to call on Zimbabwean magic as well as her Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. But as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?
When ghosts talk, she will listen…
Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker. Now she speaks to Edinburgh’s dead, carrying messages to the living. A girl’s gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone’s bewitching children–leaving them husks, empty of joy and life. It’s on Ropa’s patch, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will change her world.
She’ll dice with death (not part of her life plan…), discovering an occult library and a taste for hidden magic. She’ll also experience dark times. For Edinburgh hides a wealth of secrets, and Ropa’s gonna hunt them all down.
My Review
I got this book from Goldsboro Books as part of their ‘SFF Fellowship’ monthly club. Its beautiful, and the ribbon is so soft. My signed copy is number 533 of 1250 of the first edition, with sprayed edges. The edges are a map of Edinburgh. The cover reminds me very much of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London books. I like them as well. Must get caught up on reading them.
The Rosie Synopsis
Ropa is a gobby, spunky teenager, the bread winner for her small, impoverished family in an Edinburgh devastated by some past disaster. Her grandmother is some sort of magician who knits, Ropa is a ghostalker who finds her way into the titular library, via her friend Jomo. She becomes a member of the library and casually starts to learn magic by reading. At the library, she meets Priya, a disabled healer with an adrenalin junkie streak.
Ropa makes her living taking messages between the dead and the living. One of the ghosts, Nicole, keeps bothering her about finding her missing son. Gran persuades Ropa to do the job for Nicole. This leads Ropa into a dangerous world, and answers the mystery of how there ‘national treasure’ looks so young.
The Good
I really enjoyed this book. It kept me entertained for all 330 pages.
Ropa and her family and friends are really defined, interesting characters. I want to know more about how her Gran came to knit a scarf for Callahan in the past. People at the Library know who Gran is, but no-one is telling Ropa.
Ropa carries the story, and as a first person narrative we only know what she knows, which means there are a lot of secrets yet to be revealed. I want to know what happens next. I enjoyed the differences in personality between Ropa and Priya, and their developing relationship. I can’t tell whether they’re flirting with each other or not. Jomo is going to be so disappointed if they are.
I liked how the complex history of Edinburgh and the changes that made it a dystopian hell are woven into the story, and want to know more. The snobbery of the magicians and scientists towards ‘allied trades’ is so reminiscent of 18th and 19th century medical doctors and their attitudes to non-doctor medical practitioners – surgeons, apothecaries and herbalists – I can only surmise that that is what the author is modelling them on?
There’s a lot of detail in this novel and the author has clearly worked out how the magic works in his world. I like that. It intrigues me, and makes me want to read the next book.
I love the fact that the disabled character in this book is a fully fleshed out human being, not a sad, pathetic character lamenting what she can’t do or desperately seeking a cure for her disability – that trope gets boring and is insulting. Thankfully these days disabled characters are more often getting to be in on the action.
I think this novel is an adult novel but it’s not dark or horrifying at all, so I think it would be suitable for teenagers too. The main character is a teenager as are her closest friends.
The Not-So-Good
There’s a lot going on and the author has crammed it all in, so there are plenty of lines to follow for future stories but it could have been overwhelming for some readers. I hope the author explores a lot of the background information he has put into this first novel.
The Verdict
Excellent novel, highly entertaining and I can’t wait for the next one.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 