Karen’s Spiritual Pilgrim Journey

This book describes my days on a pilgrimage to Haifa, Israel before the pandemic hit the world, and my feelings and thoughts on each day of the magnificence, serenity, and deeply felt love in each and everything I did with the assigned group of each day. Even today I shed tears when reflecting on my time and being in the presence of such grandeur and beauty. The Baháʼí Faith is just waiting for receptive souls to reach out and grasp hold of the reigns of this glorious pathway to gain virtue and practice daily good deeds. I sit and wonder at how I have been blessed with this wondrous ‘Prescription for Living’ (Rabbani, 1950) in my days of material living. I offer to the readers a glimpse of my journey with the thought that maybe you also are searching, seeking, wondering, ‘where can I find the place I belong?’ The Baháʼí Faith may be that place for you.

Knysna Forest

Sparky, a 19-year old, quick-witted thrill-seeker, went hiking in the majestic Knysna forest in South Africa upon returning from the United Kingdom. After a series of bad decisions, driven by stubbornness, he tumbles off a cliff with no turning back.

Wounded, lost, low on supplies, and without any knowledge of survival, he is plagued by nature’s lethal attacks until he is too weak to carry on. As dusk and dehydration ominously takes its toll, he is faced with fears he never anticipated.

As death approaches mercilessly again and again, he must fight above willpower to stay alive. With every calculated risk, less calculated, hope, survival, and divine intervention, becomes a distant dream.

Knysna Forest is an epic, true miracle race-against-time survival-story that will leave adventurers astounded in anticipation.

“If you are reading this, it means that you are experiencing the result of a miracle, because how is it possible that I survived death, more than once?”

Let Me Tell You a Story

Storytelling has been an art and form of entertainment for many cultures for thousands of years. Every family has their special stories. In this way culture is created and passed down to future generations. The stories in this collection represent five generations of our family. Our family would sit around a dinner table or a campfire and tell and retell these stories from the past. Our family loved the sharing of humor through this special communication. In this way we also shared each other’s lives. My family has asked that I record these so that they will be passed on to future generations so that they might enjoy them as well. All of the stories elicit laughter because of the humor. The stories are organized around themes. The one thing that is constant about the stories is that they are all “true stories”.

Life of the Party Girl

Life of the Party Girl is a raw and inspiring debut memoir of a top wedding planner reflecting on the moments that define us as human beings, both the traumatic and fantastic.

The author and subject, Megan Estrada, isn’t your typical wedding planner. She is tattooed, assertive, stylish, and doesn’t take no for an answer. She is reflective and decisive, in bringing a fresh and unique perspective to the special events industry. Estrada is a trailblazer in the event industry and harnesses her past experiences to create momentous occasions.

Before Megan Estrada became a nationally recognized wedding and event planner, she spent forty-years navigating a life of unexpected circumstances, one that was dictated by a twisted series of trauma and celebration. From enduring a school shooting, an unsuccessful suicide attempt, and a difficult marriage, to landing a record deal, becoming a mother of two, and leading the special events industry through the Covid-19 pandemic, Life of the Party Girl follows Estrada’s journey to self-worth and self-discovery.

Lillian: A True Story of Multiple Personality Disorder

For most of us, the varied parts of our personalities are woven together and unified by our memories. But what happens when we have no memories? What happens when the components of memory (facts, feelings, and body states) are split apart and no longer relate to each other?

When this story began more than 40 years ago, doctors and psychiatrists were mystified by patients with more than one personality. The diagnosis at the time was Multiple Personality Disorder. Lillian was afflicted with this condition owing to severe abuse during her childhood. Her mind held each trauma separately. Each personality took over her body, developing a life and personality of its own.

Lillian’s aunt, Jean, became friends with 22 personalities. She played hide and seek with four-year-old Mary, taught five-year-old Amy to write, shopped for undergarments with Robin Jean, and communicated endlessly with each of the others. In the process, each personality revealed its beginnings. Over time, each personality revealed its own memories of their trauma and eventually became integrated.

This is an exquisite and beautifully written story of poverty, transgenerational abuse, mental illness, and the healing power of love, science, and spirituality.

As one reader puts it: “You will laugh, cry, turn away and come back again to its compelling truth.”

Miss Sweetblack's Cupcakes

In the 1950s, the cupcake was a very fashionable cake made by housewives to celebrate family events. Despite its success at the time and its incredible cuteness, the cupcake has gone largely underappreciated. It has come to be seen as a simple household pastry. And although it is finally integrated into certain establishments specializing in cake design, unfortunately it still suffers from a rather bad reputation. It is certainly considered aesthetic — cute, even — but also too fatty, too sweet, and without real taste, sophistication, or refinement.

Here is a book that will deconstruct all your received ideas about the cupcake and make you see and appreciate them like real pastries; those you like to see in French patisseries or restaurants, presented in lovely and delicates plates. Yes, the time has come finally to elevate cupcakes as integral part of pastries thanks to the recipes of the one and only pin-up pastry chef, Miss Sweetblack!

Modern-Day Palmistry

Palmistry can tell you many things about yourself, others, and the world around you.

Discover:

• - if you will marry
• - how many kids will you have
• - what kind of person would suit you as a partner
• - your career path
• - what kind of work would give you the most satisfaction
• - how to get the most happiness and success out of your life.

All of this and more inside of Modern-Day Palmistry!

Mourning Bands On

Mourning Bands On is an accessible journey into the hypersensitive world of today’s American law enforcement. The reader is brought into the law enforcement world through an introduction to the history, function, and development of the American police model. With an understanding of policing’s role in American society, the reader is then immersed into the raucous and contentious cultural upheaval which American policing is currently experiencing.

Using well-known examples, the reader is challenged to consider how American culture is affected by critical incidents and the portrayal of those events in our media intensive world. The reader will review the cases in the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, as well as others. The cases are presented as a narrative of events supported by the findings and legal conclusions of the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Each incident is reviewed with a view of how the incident effected American society and brought change to American culture and thus policing.

The reader will experience how American policing has changed through legislative, societal, and cultural pressure resulting from the reviewed critical incidents. With an appetite for more, the reader is encouraged to further explore the relationship between societal norms and American policing.

The work concludes with a final challenge to the reader. How do we, as a society, reform American policing to move forward after this unprecedented period of cultural change? The author offers several possible reforms to enact, what can you add to the conversation?

My Father Called Me Bobby

"Not only a memoir, but a love letter to rich and memorable relationships that gives hope that there can be sweetness after loss, humor in remembrance, and stories to hold our joys past and present."

– Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart, Abandon Me, and Girlhood.

My Father Called Me Bobby is an intriguing memoir detailing Bobby’s experiences growing up in an Italian family in the ’50s and exploring the sexual revolution a few decades later. The first-person narrative welcomes readers into his childhood and his initial experiences with God, faith, and religion, all tied in with the influences and antics of his Italian family. His initial decision to join the seminary and become a priest will not come as a surprise. Determined to be a priest, he spends almost four years in the seminary until the sexual revolution of the 60s turns his world upside down and he leaves the Church. He begins to experiment with his sexuality with women and then with men during one of the most infamous times in New York City. His descriptive writing style paints a vivid picture for his readers, allowing them to relive his experiences at his side, maintaining their attention page after page. His relationship with Beryl will warm the hearts of the readers and as events unfold, will shake them to their core. My Father Called Me Bobby will remind readers to live their lives to the fullest – full of love and passion and laughter – and is sure to leave readers enthralled until the very last page.

My Mameleh: A Memoir

It was late, dark and cold. The little band of travelers were huddled together on the bench of an old train hoping to escape the tightening Nazi noose. Suddenly, they heard the conductor’s loud voice, “Vos papiers, s'il vous plaît!” (Papers, please!). My mother’s identity card had been stamped not once, but twice with the word, “Juif.” She knew that her life and that of her friends now rested in the palms of a stranger, a government official whose job it was to hand them over to the Germans. 

This is one of the many miraculous escapes found throughout this book. It is a story of survival, not just from the Holocaust, but from old world poverty, broken love and a tenuous peace in order to finally achieve the “American Dream.” 

Never Take No for an Answer

Embarking on a new business venture can be a daunting and unpredictable journey, much like rolling the dice in a game of chance. In 1967, two bold young men, Les Marino and Kenny Anderson, fearlessly stepped into the world of Heavy Construction, boldly declaring that they would one day become the largest contracting firm in the world. Oblivious to the challenges that lay ahead, they hung their shingle on the door of a modest one-room office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, unaware that their audacious prediction might actually come true in the not-too-distant future. The path to success was far from a smooth highway; instead, it resembled a treacherous, winding trail through a dark and perilous jungle. Armed with perseverance, dedication, hard work, and humility, Les and Kenny navigated the obstacles, eventually finding their way to the proverbial yellow brick road and the success they had envisioned.

This book takes you on a captivating journey, detailing the trials, tribulations, and triumphs that shaped their remarkable story. Join them on this thrilling ride, but be sure to fasten your seatbelt securely, as the road ahead is filled with unexpected twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Discover how two determined individuals transformed their dream into reality, and learn valuable lessons that can be applied to your own entrepreneurial endeavors.

Nowhere to Call Home

In many cities and small communities across Canada, the individuals and families that experience homelessness are often invisible to the greater community around them. People may walk by or see someone that is homeless, yet they feel a disconnection. They see homelessness as an experience that happens to "other people" not something that could ever affect them. However, Leah's work bridges the gap between "us" and "them" by bringing humanity to all the faces of these individuals. Leah does a wonderful job of highlighting the heart and the struggle that everyone can relate to. People that experience homelessness have families, they have favorite foods, pets, jobs, goals, and dreams along with their struggles. Leah's photographs capture the story of homelessness with all of its rich complexity in an image and through conversation. * Gail Hoekstra, Executive Director; and Carlin Dykstra, Housing Stability Support Worker, Welcome In Drop-In Centre