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Review of The Austrian: A War Criminal’s Story (Book 1) by Ellie Midwood
The title of this book alone is a hook, at least for me. World War II is, after all, one of the most important events in recent history, filled with some of the greatest atrocities ever committed against our fellow humans. It’s easy to root for those who were persecuted and the Allies who ended…
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The Only Way to Fail is to do Nothing
No one wants to talk about, or even think about, failure. Fear of failure is what keeps us from acting, from trying new things, from fulfilling our dreams. Because there’s that little nagging voice in the back of our heads that whispers, “What if you fail? If you don’t try it in the first place,…
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Review of Emilia: The Darkest Days in History of Nazi Germany Through a Woman’s Eyes by Ellie Midwood
Warning: contains spoilers. Every so often, a novel feels so real that the characters seem to be breathing right off the page. Emilia is one of those stories. The title clearly states what this book is about, but it doesn’t give away the horrors that the protagonist, Emilia Brettenheimer, endures during World War II. Emilia…
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Facing Loss and Embracing New Possibilities
Loss. It’s a word we don’t want to hear, let alone experience. Yet we all experience it. We all know loss, not just of it. Some of us have known it on a first name basis for too many years. If we’re lucky, some of us know it only as an acquaintance for brief periods…
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Review of First of September by Kathleen Joyce
You know that cozy feeling of holding a warm beverage, wrapped in a blanket, and curling up with a good book by the fire? That’s Kathleen Joyce’s cozy mystery…with a murder or two in the mix. I admit that I haven’t read many cozy mysteries, but the appeal is inviting from page one of First…
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Saying Goodbye to Toxic Friendships
We all do it. We eat the chocolate cake because it just tastes so damn good. And then some of us hate ourselves in the morning for the indulgence, and we wonder why (WHY?) we ate it in the first place, knowing it’s choke full of bad stuff–fat, sugar, calories. Like that chocolate cake, we…
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Small Group Friendships
If the title of this blog reminds you of cliques from when you were in school, stop right there. While I can feel that vibe, this is about the opposite. This, my friends, is a blog not just about friendship but about small group friendships. What do I mean by that? My definition of small…
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Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude
Ugh, do I have to wake up? Waking up is vastly overrated. The pillows, the blankets, the soft curve of the mattress against my body, these are calling my name, beckoning me like a lullaby. But if I’m honest with myself, I’m lucky today. I actually didn’t wake before my alarm on my phone. My…
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“As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were…
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Why Reading Matters: From a Little Girl Who Hated Reading
The second hand seemed to take an eternity to make one lousy rotation. Tick. The minute hand moved the slightest fraction. A minute is forever to a seven-year-old sitting on the living room couch next to her mother, the simple supposed easy-reader book between them. “Go ahead. Sound it out.” The mom’s words could have…