Amazon Featured Book-of-the-Week: “Broken Promises” by LtCol Ted Blickwedel

Witness the Heroic yet devastating Crusade by WHISTLEBLOWER, combat veteran and retired Marine Corps LtCol, Ted Blickwedel, who took on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to defend Veterans’ quality care and the well-being of those who serve them.

Blickwedel, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and VET Center counselor for the VA, fought valiantly to protect veterans, their families and counselors from the VA’s misguided, harmful and unethical clinical performance policies, which turned patients into numbers and severely compromised the mental health and welfare of both Veterans and the clinicians who serve them.

Consequently, VA management was no longer “keeping the promise” Abraham Lincoln made in 1865 after the Civil War: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.” Now the VA was ‘breaking the promise.’

Broken Promises also uncovers the toxic, malicious and deceptive whistleblower retaliation tactics inflicted on Blickwedel by VA officials designed to silence him from ‘speaking truth to power, ‘ and it reveals the horrific impact these retributions had on himself, family members, clients and counselors.

Though defamed, marginalized, gaslighted, mobbed, and experiencing traumatic near-death health challenges, he marched steadfastly on. Despite being forced to leave the job he loved, counseling his fellow veterans, Blickwedel was compelled and determined to expose and correct the callous misconduct, injustice and abuse perpetrated by VA management.

A federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation Blickwedel helped instigate substantiated his allegations, which led to the U.S. Congress passing legislation into law that ensures VA leadership is accountable for protecting the quality of care for our Veterans and their families, as well as safeguarding the well-being and morale of counselors who provide services to them at over 300 VET Centers nationwide.

Broken Promises further gives hope to those who undertake similar campaigns to report corruption, neglect and maltreatment by providing indispensable guidelines that will greatly enhance the effectiveness of the endeavor while granting a better chance for a more favorable outcome. Also, self-care strategies are offered which are essential to maintain good health and resilience throughout such an overwhelming ordeal.

Blickwedel’s unwavering Battle to rectify jeopardized mental health care and endangered counselor welfare within the VA VET Center program has been featured on NBC and NPR, to include the Military Times, other publications and local news broadcasts.

A man of courage, integrity and tireless resolve, Blickwedel epitomizes all that is great in our American heroes.

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Amazon Featured Book-of-the-Week: “Shifting Moon” by Hope Worthington

Seventeen year old Remy West is a typical high school senior. She is bright, popular with her friends and schoolmates, a leader on her cheerleader squad and looking forward to the next chapter of her life when she graduates and attends college. Like most teenaged girls living in an affluent area of Long Island and part of what many consider the popular group, Remy has her insecurities. One of the prettier girls in school, Remy has never had, nor wanted, a serious relationship or any relationship at all. She feels much more at ease in a small, quiet group of people or just hunkering down at home with a good book, rather than hanging in a big crowd or partying with whom many consider to be her popular group of friends.

Remy has always felt that a piece of her was incomplete and her quest for something deeper often cast her as cold, conceited and a bit of a tease by others. Even as a little girl, Remy had an intense feeling that something bigger was awaiting her, just out of reach. But now, as a popular senior with the all of the peer pressure that accompanied such a label, it would be so much easier if she could just let go, not care, and go with the flow her friends always seemed to want from her.

Such pressure was no more present than with Daniel Gatto, the tall, popular senior that most girls would kill just to get close to. Daniel had been courting Remy on and off all of senior year. While Daniel was attractive, something about him always made Remy apprehensive and a bit uncomfortable. Moreover, Daniel refused to take no for an answer despite Remy’s polite rebuff to his advances leading Remy to question whether Daniel’s interest in her was genuine or for some ulterior motive.

With a simple tap on the shoulder, Remy’s life would change forever. Logan Canino was unlike any boy she had ever seen. As soon as Remy lays eyes on him, she knows he is more then just a new guy at school. Remy does not know why, but she feels an instant connection to Logan. Little did she know that Logan had been keeping watch on Remy all her life and the connection she felt had been forged years before when she was just a little girl.

Remy quickly learns that Logan Canino is no boy at all. Although appearing to be just 18, Logan is in reality decades older and not exactly human, but instead a Canine Shifter and the designated future leader of the Shifter Council, the ruling body overseeing the four shifter clans created in ancient Rome by Diana, the goddess of the hunt and guardian of wild beasts, horses and domesticated animals. Logan’s sudden appearance in Remy’s life is no coincidence. He has known since Remy was a child that she is his one true soul mate and the only person who can help him attain his full potential and power as leader of the four clans. But there are dark forces lurking about that will take extreme measures to keep Remy and Logan apart and keep them from completing their bonding ritual.

Alternating between ancient Roman times and the creation of the four shifter clans, Druid life and Shaman Priests in Ireland during the Iron Age, the founding of an exclusive prep school in 1901 in Upstate New York and the present day social pressures experienced by high school girls. Remy, the high school dreamer looking for more than life has thus far offered; Logan, the canine shifter destined for leadership, who believes nothing is more important than finding one’s true soul mate; and Daniel, the shrewd, but evil, nemesis, who will stop at nothing to keep Logan from taking his rightful place as Leader of the Shifter Council.

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Amazon Featured Book-of-the-Week: “Traitor Comet” by Personne

Paris more than blossomed between World War I and World War II-it was considered by many to be the cultural and artistic capital of the world. Artists and thinkers from every corner of the globe visited or moved there, interacting with each other and developing some of our most exciting modern expression.

In Traitor Comet, not even the troubled young Austrian Geoff Weidmann is immune to the city’s allure. A hermit back home, he unwillingly joins his brother, Franz, and Franz’s French wife in Paris after his father forces the reunion. Though Geoff remains haunted by his violent past-both the Great War and what he might have done against another man on his farm-when he meets the surrealist poets Antonin Artaud and Robert Desnos, his world cracks open. Antonin holds a mirror to Geoff’s experiences, and Geoff ultimately comes to learn from their similarities; Robert is jovial and irreverent, fresh air lightening Geoff’s life. Both men are original, creative thinkers willing to argue against even the founder of the surrealist movement of which they are a part.

Part thrilling mystery, part coming-of-age tale, part page-turning history lesson, Traitor Comet is the first title in a historical novel series based on the real lives of avant-garde writers Antonin Artaud and Robert Desnos. It is also the first book, fiction or nonfiction, to focus on their unique friendship, which ultimately led one man to save the other from the Nazis. This little-known aspect of the lives of these otherwise famous men means that author Personne, an independent journalist, historian, and researcher, has a wealth of information to continue this story-from this introduction to these men who loved free thought and action into a dramatic series about these rebels with a cause.

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Amazon Featured Book-of-the-Week: “Gunnar’s Odyssey” by Richard Hollenback

Route 66. The Pan-American Highway. The Oregon Trail.

Up there with some of the greatest well-known American travel routes is a lesser-known one, the Santa Fe Trail. For about sixty years, this primarily commercial highway stretched between Missouri and New Mexico. Both Mexican and American traders used it, as did gold rush adventurers, stagecoaches, and many others.

With the expansion of the US railroads by the 1880s, the trail fell into disuse. But before then, life-and-death dramas played out daily along the rough, remote route. In Gunnar’s Odyssey, Richard Hollenback’s meticulously researched Old West adventure novel, Gunnar Mann is facing many of those trials and tribulations as he travels along the Santa Fe Trail for months, his only goal to get back home to his girlfriend.

Driven by a factually accurate history of life in the Southwest during the mid-1800s and brightened with romance and the author’s genuine passion for the region, Gunnar’s Odyssey is the perfect page-turner for anyone who loves reading about the early American West.

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Amazon Featured Book-of-the-Week: “Gobelin” by Julia McKinlay

Solitude can be a fickle thing. It may be thrust upon you, it may be a choice, it may be an unwelcome punishment. Those moments spent alone can be torturous. But there are always answers in silence.

This story begins with a young girl, Aage, who is accused by her father of being a witch. After a brutal attack and a false accusation, she is banished from her island home. The malicious events never leave her mind.

Ioman lives on the savanna, with The Azure, his tribe, a matriarchal society. War with neighbors causes the death of his parents and he becomes a celebrated warrior. He changes the foundations of the tribe causing a deep resentment in the women. Ioman is forced to leave his home to find his future with his love.

And Searlait, who is born to the Gens D’Etoile, an exotic and mysterious tribe that circle the desert to find forgiveness from the Sun’s wrath. Searlait’s self-imposed estrangement sets her apart from her tribe.

They all find themselves on the island of Gobelin. 

Together they form a diverse and loving family. The characters are complex, and their cultures intricate. This book will take you on a journey that will keep you wanting more. Travel through the landscapes, the traditions, the strife’s, both poignantly painful and inextricably beautiful. All tinged with a hint of magic, secret and subtle hidden in the wind of Gobelin.

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Writer Maria Alice Silva-Amey wants your help choosing her book cover.

Beautiful Moon – Wakes Me Up Before the Sunlight

Synopsis

One day, Lara sees her dreams break apart, slow down, and pause because she didn’t tell the truth, which hurts her heart. She is looking for more information about her great-grandparents to learn of her family’s heritage, which leads her in a new direction toward a new heritage! Lara learned from her great-grandfather how their lives were a continuous process of creation and with a great sensibility of achievements that contributed to the development of a new generation. All the experiences acquired with these achievements brought her grandfather a sense of a different world with a comprehensive vision, a vision of peace. But Lara sees the world as a Blood Moon, and feels something profound as she understands the whole story. Humanity is looking for a cycle of conflict linked to anguish and an imbalance of achievements, but Lara tries through simplicity and sensibility to find a happy ending. In the thirst of her dreams, she finds a single place, her silence, where she feels safe.

About the Author:

Maria Alice Silva-Amey is the author of Poetry Gives Different Magnitudes to Understand Your Thoughts and Culminating Experience Personal Theory: Open Feelings Toward Choosing Your Dreams. Her books Body and Life and Time Is Short are written in Portuguese. Ms. Silva-Amey is a member of the National Career Development Association, and she received a MS in Counseling from California State University. https://mariaaliceamey.com Instagram: @maria_alice_amey

Please take a look at two possible covers below and then vote on the choice you recommend for Maria Alice Silva-Amey.

Cover A

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Cover B

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Amazon Featured Book-of-the-Week: “Access: Going Places” by Paul Ward

David Smith was raised in an orphanage from the time he was a baby until his late teens. Now, as an adult, he decided to have his d.n.a. checked in order to gain some knowledge of his background. He was not expecting the results that showed up while he was on vacation. It was during his vacation that he accidentally found out he may have the ability to access places ordinary people do not have knowledge of. Upon his return from vacation he learns that someone is, to the point of violence, very interested in him. His friends have discovered who it is that is after him, but not why. When Dave tells his friends about his escapades while on vacation they want to test his abilities for themselves. His friends then talk him into giving them a demonstration, which Dave did not find to be a positive experience. As the negative experiences pile up his friends gather and stand with him, becoming the family he had always hoped for.

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Amazon Featured Book-of-the-Week: “A Buyer’s Guide to a Medical Career” by Daniel A. Capen MD

Since author Daniel A. Capen attended medical school in the 1970s and ’80s, a lot has changed in American health care training and the practice of medicine. With A Buyer’s Guide to a Medical Career: A Long Trip Down the Rabbit Hole, Capen aims to inform those interested in a career in medicine of these changes. By being better prepared, new practitioners can better prevent stress and job burnout.

Once independent, providers then became substantially regulated and now are pinned by large insurance companies and practices controlled by private equity. Capen has witnessed growing outside controls and costs and shrinking reimbursement. By preparing future medical students and doctors with bluntly stated information drawn from forty years of practice, Capen provides insider guidance before readers embark on a medical career.

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This Week’s Amazon Featured Book of the Week is NURSES RETURN TO NSR by Loretta L Bonnick, RN

How to Navigate Successfully in a Stressful Work Environment

NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON!

Are you a student with a career path in Healthcare? This is perfect for you and those professionals already working in the health care system, Nurses Return to NSR: How to Navigate Successfully in a Stressful Work Environment is about applying mental and physical skills at the same time in a high-demand environment. While working in this environment, it is easy to lose perspective and become reactive, encumbered by circumstances and burdened and saddened because of hostile coworkers or bad managers and the heavy demands of the job. As a spiritual practitioner, motivational teacher, counselor, and registered nurse for over twenty years in various health care systems throughout the United States, author Loretta L. Bonnick, RN, provides readers of Nurses Return to NSR a grounding element that guides individuals to finding pathways of solutions for personal survival amid the chaos and the grind of being a frontline professional.

Please note that product prices and availability are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time of this posting; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.com.© Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo, and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210.

Hit the Polls! Vote for the 2023 Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year!

Just days ago, we announced the three finalists in this year’s Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year awards.

The time has come to vote on which of these talented authors have built an author platform and worked up the promotional muscle to acquire Outskirts Press’s top honors through a head-to-head competition! The Best Book of the Year Grand Prize winner and $1,500 Grand Prize winnings will be awarded based on the results of a live public poll . . . which is where you come in!

FINALIST: Pack Rat’s Lost and Found by Sarah Sebring

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FINALIST: A Paradigm Shift by Carolle M. Dalley

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FINALIST: Orcas Forever by Marie-Paule Mahoney

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