Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: Create Your Own Calm by Meera Lee Patel

Genre: adult non-fiction / anxiety journal / mental health
Pages: 128
Publication Date 22nd Sept
**Buy Link**
**https://amzn.to/3mdWeCb**

Blurb

From the bestselling author of Start Where You Are, a beautifully illustrated journal for easing the everyday anxieties we all carry.

Feeling anxious, uncertain, overwhelmed? You’re not alone. In this empowering new tool for self-care, popular artist and author Meera Lee Patel presents a fresh approach to feeling better. Designed to help us better understand ourselves and dial down the everyday worries getting in our way, these thoughtful and beautifully illustrated journal pages are a safe space for reflection, self-acceptance, and the freedom to move forward with more clarity and joy. Bringing together inspiring quotes from great thinkers and writers throughout history and engaging journal prompts and plenty of room to capture your thoughts, the book is a calming breath of fresh air and a quiet space to reflect and recharge in a hectic and uncertain world.

TBR Pile Review: Empire of Sand, by Tasha Suri

39088520 — Paperback, 496 pages
Published November 13th 2018 by Orbit
ISBN: 0316449717 (ISBN13: 9780316449717)

A nobleman’s daughter with magic in her blood. An empire built on the dreams of enslaved gods. Empire of Sand is Tasha Suri’s captivating, Mughal India-inspired debut fantasy.

The Amrithi are outcasts; nomads descended of desert spirits, they are coveted and persecuted throughout the Empire for the power in their blood. Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of an imperial governor and an exiled Amrithi mother she can barely remember, but whose face and magic she has inherited.

When Mehr’s power comes to the attention of the Emperor’s most feared mystics, she must use every ounce of will, subtlety, and power she possesses to resist their cruel agenda.

Should she fail, the gods themselves may awaken seeking vengeance…

Empire of Sand is a lush, dazzling fantasy novel perfect for readers of City of Brass and The Wrath & the Dawn.

TBR Pile Review: Bad Psychology, by Robert A. Forde

34878545 — Paperback, 304 pages
Published September 1st 2017 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN:1785922300 (ISBN13: 9781785922305)

For decades the psychological assessment and treatment of offenders has run on invalid and untested programmes. Robert A. Forde exposes the current ineffectiveness of forensic psychology that has for too long been maintained by individual and commercial vested interests, resulting in dangerous prisoners being released on parole, and low risk prisoners being denied it, wasting enormous amounts of public money. Challenging entrenched ideas about the field of psychology as a whole, and how it should be practised in the criminal justice system, the author shows how effective changes can be made for more just decisions, and the better rehabilitation of offenders into society, while significantly reducing the cost to the taxpayer.

This is a fearless account calling for a return to scientific evidence in the troubled field of forensic psychology.

Autistic Books Pile Review: Autism Equality in the Work Place, by Janine Booth

28000267 — Paperback, 128 pages
Published April 21st 2016 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN: 1849056781 (ISBN13: 9781849056786)

Neurodiversity in the workplace can be a gift. Yet only 15% of adults with an autism spectrum condition (ASC) are in full-time employment. This book examines how the working environment can embrace autistic people in a positive way.

The author highlights common challenges in the workplace for people with ASC, such as discrimination and lack of communication or the right kind of support from managers and colleagues, and provides strategies for changing them. Setting out practical, reasonable adjustments such as a quiet room or avoiding disruption to work schedules, this book demonstrates how day to day changes in the workplace can make it more inclusive and productive for all employees.

Autism in the Workplace is intended for any person with an interest in changing working culture to ensure equality for autistic people. It is an essential resource for employers, managers, trade unionists, people with ASCs and their workmates and supporters.

TBR Pile Review: Sex and Sexuality in Georgian Britain, by Mike Rendell

Peek beneath the bedsheets of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain in this affectionate, informative and fascinating look at sex and sexuality during the reigns of Georges I-IV. It examines the prevailing attitudes towards male and female sexual behaviour, and the ways in which these attitudes were often determined by those in positions of power and authority. It also explores our ancestors’ ingenious, surprising, bizarre and often entertaining solutions to the challenges associated with maintaining a healthy sex life.

Did the people in Georgian Britain live up to their stereotypes when it came to sexual behaviour? This book will answer this question, as well as looking at fashion, food, science, art, medicine, magic, literature, love, politics, faith and superstition through a new lens, leaving the reader enlightened and with a new regard for the ingenuity and character of our ancestors.

Blog Tour Calendar: Winterkill, by Ragnar Jonasson

Cover Reveal: The Mystery of Montague House, by Emma Davies

The Mystery of Montague House

When Summer meets Wynter…

With enough rooms to fill a Cluedo board several times over, Montague House has often been the subject of rumour and gossip. Tales of strange goings on, an owner who disappeared one day and was never seen again, not to mention the treasure that rumour has it lies at its heart… But now the present owner has died and the house is to be sold. It looks as if the opportunity has come to finally settle the stories once and for all.

Clodagh Wynter doesn’t believe in ghostly goings on and tall tales of secrets. She has her feet very firmly on the ground and, tasked with the job of valuing and cataloguing the house and all its contents, she’s simply looking forward to working in such a glorious setting. And if she happens across a priceless painting, well, that’s just icing on the cake.

Andie Summer is a Finder of Things and desperately needs this job; she’s down to her last few tins of baked beans. So looking for hidden treasure sounds right up her street, even if there was something very fishy about the mysterious Mr Mayfair who hired her. Because it’s just like she said to her faithful Basset Hound, Hamish; I saw something out of the corner of my eye as I was leaving, and you know what that means. It’s never good news when I see something out of the corner of my eye…

As the unlikely pair are thrown together, it soon becomes very clear however that they are not the only ones searching for the treasure. And they’re going to need all their ingenuity, resourcefulness, not to mention chocolate biscuits, if they’re ever going to untangle the web of secrets that surrounds Montague House. One that reaches even further than they ever thought possible…

Purchase Link – https://smarturl.it/MontagueHouse

On Harmful Autism Professionals in the Public Sphere

SBC shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near autistic people again until he has crawled on his knees from the research institute he heads to the Channel and back again, begging forgiveness from every autistic person as he does. I wasn’t aware of any particular issues with Attwood, only that he gives me the creeps. I’m glad my instincts were good on this point. There’s no place for misogyny or transmisia in science.

Why I Don’t Wear The Red Poppy

I agree with this so much, I couldn’t find the words though.

Queerly Autistic

white poppy

It’s November. My poppy is white.

Because I’ve seen the red poppy shredded to mulch at the hands of racists and fascists, pinning the tattered pieces of pretend pride over their bigotry.

Because I’ve seen politicians lay a wreath of red poppies, their faces a mask of pain and solemnity, only for them to hang up their jacket coat when they’re back in the warm, pinned poppy surveying the scene, as they order another bomb dropped in a country that they know we won’t look at.

Because when people attack a decades old TV comedy for portraying the First World War as a ‘farce’ – we should be more ‘proud ‘ of a conflict that slaughtered millions – then we have ignored the poets who lie rotting in France in favour of a narrative that makes us feel ‘better’.

Because if your stated (here quoted verbatim) reason for wearing a…

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Cover Reveal: Morgan Le Fay: Giants in the Earth (Fata Morgana Book III) by Jo-Anne Blanco

The series is for readers of all ages (as Rosemary Sutcliff once said of her own work, “for readers aged nine to ninety.”) The books follow Morgan from her early childhood in post-Roman Dark Ages Britain and through her teenage years to adulthood. Elements of Celtic folklore, fairy tales, and mythologies of diverse cultures are woven throughout the books, but each novel is an original adventure story that can be read either as a standalone or as part of the ongoing series.

WHEN MONSTERS COME TO LIFE…

In the aftermath of Ambrosius’ attack on Tintagel Castle, young Morgan is sent away to the fortress of Dimilioc with her family, friends and tutor. But when bandits ambush their party, Morgan gets lost in the forest with nothing but her wits and her magic powers to rely on.

In her battle for survival, Morgan faces a cruel, hostile world that is suspicious, afraid and jealous of her magic. Silver-tongued faeries who are not what they seem. Vengeful Piskies and Muryans holding her friend Ganieda captive. Angry Giants and Spriggans who have awakened in the earth. And the ever-present threat of Ambrosius and his army, waiting to strike again…

To rescue her friends and outwit her enemies, Morgan must draw upon all her gifts, magic and mortal, in a perilous journey that will test her strength, faith and loyalty to the utmost…