I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from the author. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.
Welcome to the Blog Tour for Is It Just Me? by Grace Valentine, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!
ABOUT THE BOOK
Title: Is It Just Me?
Author: Grace Valentine
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Release Date: February 9, 2021
Genre: Christian Life/Women’s Issues
An anthem for every woman who is weary of living a life in which she knows the right answers but does not believe them.
Is It Just Me? is a book by a popular social media blogger that helps young women find true trust in Jesus when they are overwhelmed and frustrated with their lives.
Many women joke about having trust issues—laughing at their struggle because it feels common but secretly feeling there is no hope. Grace Valentine was one of them. In her twenties she realized her trust issues were not humorous because in reality hers were trust issues with Jesus, her community, her family, and herself. And they were destroying her faith. Grace creatively told herself she was simply being realistic, but the truth was, she was entangled with doubt and lies.
In Grace’s second book, Is It Just Me?, she offers readers a new perspective by helping them find answers to five deeply felt questions.
Am I the only one who is tired, overwhelmed, doubting, and fearful?
Am I the only one who feels hurt and lonely?
Am I the only one who still is struggling to find my purpose?
Am I the only one struggling to trust that God is there?
Am I the only one confused about how to be an adult?
Grace’s personal story and perceptive insights show other young women that not only are they are not alone, they can trust God in the middle of their hurts, doubts, and fears.
Grace Valentine is an author, blogger, podcast host, and speaker. Her readers love that she is so relatable. They say her fresh voice helps them navigate their own faith and life, which in turn helps fulfill her mission to show others that Christianity is an adventure worth living. After growing up outside New Orleans, Louisiana, Grace attended Baylor University, graduating in 2018 with a degree in journalism. She now resides in Orlando, Florida, where she enjoys running and eating lots of sushi.
(1) winner will receive a print copy of Am I Enough? and Is it Just Me? by Grace Valentine!
Full tour schedule linked below. Giveaway began at midnight March 8, 2021 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on March 15, 2021. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.
Follow along at JustRead Tours for a full list of stops!
*NOTE: This post contains affiliate links.
My Review
This book is written much like a devotional for young women. The author’s voice is young and she relates to high school and college-aged women. She uses her experiences in life to teach them about the Christian life.
Her style is conversational and she’s quick to admit where she has failed in her walk with God. She also speaks about giving grace in your own life. She doesn’t think that Christians should be lame. In other words, she doesn’t value hang-ups about modest clothing and dancing. She appears to favor social drinking, instead of the heavy drinking she did in college.
Each chapter in the book gives a theme. She presents scripture and many personal experiences along with her opinions. Then, at the end of the chapters there are questions to consider. She sums up with the question: Is it just me? She shares that none of us are alone, but all face similar problems in life. Her answer is that Christ is the one who can meet every need.
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Book Title: WAR AT THE ICE CREAM STORE: Mustachio Pistachio vs Bully Vanilli (Frank Tl Frogg and Friends) by Cheryl DaVeiga and Dave Gibson Category: Children’s Fiction (Ages 3-7), 32 pages Genre: Children’s Picture Book Publisher: Cheryl DaVeiga and Dave Gibson Release date: January, 2021 Format available: hardback, paperback, ebook (PDF), interactive multimedia book Content Rating: G. This children’s book is for everyone.
Book Description:
The first of the Frank TL Frogg and Friends series, War at the Ice
Cream Store tells the story of one night at the Frozen Frogg, when
Mustachio Pistachio and his “flavorite” flavor friends teach Bulli
Vanilli a lesson in kindness and acceptance.
Cheryl is an award-winning songwriter, children’s song recording
artist (as the cartoon character CADi Grace), and the co-creator of the
puppet musical and comedy show, The Waterhole Bunch. After the success
of The Waterhole Bunch, Cheryl along with co-creator Dave Gibson, spun
off the main character, Frank TL (The Lucky) Frogg, into a children’s
entertainment concept, Frank TL Frogg and Friends, featuring the puppets
in a magical town called Lucky Fork, Tennessee. Frank TL Frogg and
Friends includes books, songs, videos, games, and more for younger
audiences. War at the Ice Cream Store is the first of the Frank TL Frogg
and Friends children’s book series.
Dave is an award-winning Nashville-based songwriter, having
written hundreds of hit songs for artists including Alabama, Montgomery
Gentry and Marie Osmond. Dave’s own group, The Gibson/Miller Band, won
the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Award for best new group in the early
nineties. He is the co-creator of the puppet musical and comedy show,
The Waterhole Bunch. After the success of The Waterhole Bunch, Dave,
along with co-creator Cheryl DaVeiga, spun off the main character, Frank
TL (The Lucky) Frogg, into a children’s entertainment concept, Frank TL
Frogg and Friends, featuring the puppets in a magical town called Lucky
Fork, Tennessee. Frank TL Frogg and Friends includes books, songs,
videos, games, and more for younger audiences. War at the Ice Cream
Store is the first of the Frank TL Frogg and Friends children’s book
series.
War at the Ice Cream Store: Mustachio Pistachio vs Bully Vanilli. This adorable children’s book teaches a very valuable lesson about bullying.
Bully Vanilli was the vanilla ice cream in The Frozen Frogg ice cream store. He was the most popular ice cream flavor and didn’t let anyone forget about it. He bragged about himself non-stop. He started bullying Mustachio Pistachio because he was the least-popular flavor.
One night he pushed Mustachio Pistachio out of the freezer and onto the ground to melt. The other ice cream flavors, cones, and sprinkles agreed to stop working with vanilla and soon he was all alone.
When he started feeling lonely he realized how it felt to be bullied. But, would he really change? Would the lesson cause Bully Vanilli to change his ways? Your children will understand this book and be able to realize that bullying hurts.
If you love Book Reviews, Book Tours, and Giveaways , you’ll want to subscribe to the Lisa’s Reading Newsletter.
Life as a Marie Osmond impersonator living in Stoke can be challenging enough.
But when your best friend has died and your other friends have moved away it can suddenly get a whole lot tougher. Now heartbroken Jenny has a female shaped hole in her life which – despite the presence of many women – won’t go away. Grief has turned her into a first-class snob.
Husband Lonny preps the house for climate change and is unable to halt Jenny’s unravelling. Then gorgeous Trudi wafts into the creative writing class and brings some much-needed hope.
Feeling that this is the only way out of her depression, Jenny’s intention to befriend Trudi builds to an obsession while facing all manner of setbacks. A motley crew of unsuitable local women is encroaching while lovely Trudi remains elusive. Why is something that used to be so easy, now so hard?.
Mixing serious issues with much hilarity ‘Friends and Neighbours’ is a feel-good story for our times.
Author Bio Ruth Torjussen grew up in Stoke but now lives and works in Brighton as a Shared Lives Carer.
She is a passionate advocate of eating local food grown through regenerative farming as the answer to climate change.
I Love You Very Muchly is a true story about Nika, a Shih-Tzu puppy who was abandoned in a crate with no one to take care of her. Her new mommy and daddy found her and decided to adopt her. They did not know how it would work out because they had two large golden retrievers, but they wanted to try anyway. This the heartwarming story of a beautiful, fun, sweet, (and sometimes bossy) puppy who needed the love of her parents and the skills of the surgeons to save her life.
About the Author
Rick Marino and his wife, Teresa have been raising rescue dogs and cats for decades. They share their time between their home in Ohio and New Jersey. Nika inspired Rick with her personality and braveness to write the two books about her, her bother Marco and her sister Penelope Purr.
The night before her surgery, she went to bed as usual. She was carried into the bedroom by Dad, and she sensed how much she was loved as she was gently placed in her comfy bed. As Nika started to fall asleep, she looked at her mommy and daddy and said in a language only doggies knew, ” I love you very muchly.” (Nika was fluent in dog but only knew some human, so she never quite got the language right.)
If you love Book Tours, Book Reviews, and Giveaways, you’ll want to subscribe to the Lisa’s Reading Newsletter.
Bob used to be afraid, but now he wants to learn to fight the fears that are holding him back. Bob vows to be brave. Join Brilliant Bob as he learns to master his fear of the dark, the dentist, certain foods, and other kids so that he can live a full and happy life.
The Brilliant Bob series contains seven beautifully written and illustrated children’s books that were created specifically to support and encourage young boys. These fun books use the adventures of Brilliant Bob and his three best friends—Dazzling Dave, Genuine George, and Superboy Sam—to teach young boys about crucial aspects of masculinity.
Highlighting, teaching, and promoting positive and healthy masculinity in boys can improve their mental health, self-esteem, and sense of identity. These exciting and relevant books are a great way to strengthen the bond between young boys and their fathers (or other significant male role models). Using these books as bedtime stories is a great way to fill the well documented crucial void of positive masculinity in so many young boys’ lives. The stories, adventures, struggles, and triumphs of Brilliant Bob will help boys as they discover their identity as males and help them take pride in themselves.
Boys will love the fun illustrations, and the stories that have been written just for them. And dads and parents will love how these books spark meaningful conversations with their sons about how their masculinity makes them special. Just like Brilliant Bob!
Kenneth was humbly raised in Virginia, one of eight kids. He attended Old Dominion University as an undergraduate in electrical engineering before enlisting in the United States Air Force (USAF). After basic and technical military training, he moved to Cambridge, England to work as an air traffic controller. After five years, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Professional Aeronautics and was commissioned an officer about a year later. Kenneth served his country within the USAF in various assignments around the globe for more than two decades, before retiring as a senior officer in 2005.
Most of Kenneth’s adult life was spent in Europe. Over the years, he has traveled to dozens of countries and has been fortunate enough to live in Brazil, England, Germany, Italy, Turkey, and Spain. Kenneth was married for 21 years and is the father of two grown sons and a stepdaughter. Unfortunately, he found himself divorced at age 43, but retired and financially secure with a military pension at 44. Thus, he set about traveling for ten years to live, learn and experience the world with open eyes.
During that time, Kenneth experienced many rewarding and memorable solo treks across Europe, including a 1,200-mile walk over 44 days across Scotland, Wales, and England in 2010.
The ‘walking bug’ has taken him on many 200- and 300-mile treks across Europe, to include different parts of England, Wales, Sicily, Sardinia, and Germany. Fitness is important to Kenneth, who enjoys mixing things up with biking, tennis, running, and working out. He loves nature and tries to get outdoors whenever he can.
Kenneth became a first-time author at 47, and has gone on to write several books to help men and women through relationships and important decisions. His latest passion is to help young boys develop positive identities as males and improve their self-esteem. Kenneth hopes the Brilliant Bob books will counteract the masculinity crisis in today’s society.
Kenneth recently remarried at age 54, to a beautiful Persian lady. They split their time, as life allows, between England and Spain, with their little dog, Dio, a Bichon Frise.
Welcome to the Blog + Review Tour for The Earl’s Lady Geologist by Alissa Baxter, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!
ABOUT THE BOOK
Title: The Earl’s Lady Geologist
Series: The Linfield Ladies Series
Author: Alissa Baxter
Publisher: Vinspire Publishing
Release Date: February 28, 2021
Genre: Clean Regency Romance
Cassandra Linfield is a lady fossil collector who declares she will never marry as no man will ever take her studies seriously. When circumstances force her to travel to Town for the Season, Cassy infiltrates the hallowed portals of the Geological Society from which she has been banned. She is horrified when she comes face to face with her nemesis, the infuriating Earl of Rothbury.
Lord Rothbury is a gentleman-geologist with a turbulent romantic past. After a youthful disappointment, he vows never to fall in love again and makes the decision, instead, to seek out a convenient wife when he returns to England from his geological travels abroad.
Brought together by their close family ties, Cassy and Rothbury collaborate on a geological paper and discover a powerful attraction. Marriage, however, is the one subject they cannot agree upon. But when Cassy’s life is threatened, the two realize that love matters more than their objections.
Alissa Baxter wrote her first Regency romance, The Dashing Debutante, during her long university holidays. After traveling the world, she settled down to write her second Regency romance, Lord Fenmore’s Wager, which was inspired by her time living on a country estate in England.
Alissa then published two chick-lit novels, The Truth About Clicking Send and Receive (previously published as Send and Receive) and The Truth About Cats and Bees (previously published as The Blog Affair).
Many years later, Alissa returned to her favorite time period and signed a three-book contract with Vinspire Publishing for her Linfield Ladies Series, a trio of Regency romances that feature women in trend-setting roles who fall in love with men who embrace their trailblazing ways… at least eventually.
Alissa currently lives in Johannesburg with her husband and two sons. She is a member of The Beau Monde – Regency Fiction Writers.
Full tour schedule linked below. Giveaway began at midnight March 2, 2021 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on March 9, 2021. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.
Follow along at JustRead Tours for a full list of stops!
*NOTE: This post contains affiliate links.
Excerpt
Lord Rothbury’s silence unnerved her, and she peeked at him. His grim profile said more than words. They walked on, and she racked her brain for a suitable topic to deflect attention from her controversial hobby.
She’d never been good at making polite conversation. She preferred to discuss interesting subjects in depth rather than flitting from one shallow topic to the next. No wonder Cousin Agnes despaired of her.
The silence stretched between them until her taut nerves insisted she break it. “Is Aunt Ella well?”
He came to an abrupt halt, and Cassy along with him. He frowned, and she released his arm as if it were a snake. Why did he have to glower so?
“My mother is concerned about your well-being. Your cousin wrote her a fine tale about your unorthodox activities here in Lyme. My mother asked me to ascertain whether Mrs. Linfield’s letters were in any way exaggerated. I see now they were not.”
She drew in a sharp breath. Cousin Agnes frequently threatened to write to Aunt Ella about her activities, but it was a shock to discover she had done so. How unfortunate that Lord Rothbury had discovered her on the beach today—muddy, untidy and much the worse for wear. She could not appear more unladylike if she had tried.
She eyed him doubtfully. “It…it may be slightly unorthodox for a lady to hunt for fossils, but I assure you I am not the only female in Lyme who does so. Mary and Miss Philpot are often here as well. Cousin Agnes fusses so.”
“And yet…” His grey eyes narrowed. “My mother is no fusspot, and she is as concerned about your activities as Mrs. Linfield is.”
Her brow creased. “She is? Cousin James spent many weeks over the last few summers hunting along the beach with Papa and me. Your mama made no objection then.”
“My mother’s concern is not for my brother.”
“Only for me?”
“Indeed.”
“But why? It puts me out of all patience. I dislike being cooped up indoors, and fossil hunting is a hobby I enjoy.”
“Surely you must see why it is inadvisable, ma’am.” Impatience edged his tone. “When you were a child, it did not matter. But now you are an unmarried lady, and you have yet to make your come-out in London. Collecting fossils is an eccentric activity for a young lady on the lookout for a suitable husband.”
Her hands clenched into fists. “I see no difficulty then, my lord, as I am not on the lookout for a suitable husband.”
“Come now, ma’am. Surely you must see the lack of sense in that statement.”
Her eyes glittered. “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single lady in possession of a good fortune must be in no want of a husband.”
“And it is also a truth universally acknowledged that a single lady with a penchant for novel reading is not always wise.”
She gritted her teeth. He was impossible. She longed to give him a heated dressing-down, but it would do her no good.
My Review
There’s nothing sweeter than a romance set in the Jane Austen era, with all of the wonders of high society and English ladies. Cassy Linfield, the independent 20-year old orphan is almost ready for her coming out in London. She hopes to then collect her inheritance and open a shop with another unmarried lady.
Cassy’s only love is her fossils. She has spent so much time collecting fossils on the beach near her home in Lyme that she doesn’t see any other future. She’s the accomplished daughter of a geologist and has even written a paper anonymously offered in the men’s domain.
She’s sworn off marriage after seeing her mother go through numerous miscarriages and dying from one. She doesn’t want to end up like her mother. But, nothing has prepared her for Lord Rothbury.
Lord Rothbury is at first very put off by Cassy, because of her non-feminine ways. Over time and many times spent in each other’s company, they begin to fall for one another. When Edward finally proposes she rejects him. It doesn’t help that he mentions how it would be a marriage of convenience.
Many more adventures await as they keep running into each other all through the summer. Will Cassy change her mind or will Edward give up? You’ll enjoy this book with comedy, romance, and a little adventure, too.
Welcome to the Blog Tour for Is It Just Me? by Grace Valentine, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!
Title: Is It Just Me?
Author: Grace Valentine
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Release Date: February 9, 2021
Genre: Christian Life/Women’s Issues
