Tuesday, March 29, 2016

So Much More by Kim Holden - Review and Giveaway

I'm finicky when it comes to reading. I lose interest easily and I have a ton of pet peeves when it comes to writing styles, plotlines and don't even get me started on how picky I am when it comes to sex scenes in a romance novel. I'm not a huge fan of the typical asshole alpha male either. So you can only imagine how many books I DNF these days. For many of these reasons, I have almost fallen out of love with romance novels. Maybe I'm just burned out? I don't know. I just know how much I hate to buy a book with excitement only to give up on it before the 50% mark. I guess that's why I get so incredibly happy when I find a book that holds my attention and calls my name when I have no choice but to put it down.

So Much More by Kim Holden did that for me. It held me captive. I missed the characters when I didn't have time to read. When I was too exhausted to stay up reading. When I was cooking dinner or doing laundry. LIFE GOT IN MY WAY so many times while reading this book. But when I finally was able to sit down and devote my time to finishing it I was warmed from the inside out.

Chicken Soup. That's what this book was for me. When I'm sick and it's cold outside I always want my mom's chicken soup. It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling from the inside out. It kind of hugs my soul just like Seamus and Faith did. Just like Kim Holden does every single time I'm with her.

Did this book anger me? Yes. There's a character in this book who will most likely have your blood boiling. Especially if you're a parent. On the flipside, you'll fall deeply in love with Seamus. His love for his children made my cup runneth over. His devotion and faithfulness to being a dad were one of the biggest turn-ons about him. This man loves hard. Unconditionally. Completely. You'll want your very own Seamus after finishing this book. I promise. He's the kind of man I love to read.

I won't give away the details of the storyline but I will tell you how much I loved these characters. (Except the one I hated.) Seamus and Faith taught me why I fell for romance novels in the first place. Kim Holden wrote me back in love with love stories. So Much More than I even thought possible.

I'm giving a Kindle copy of this beautiful book on my Instagram account today. Follow me and enter to win @KathrynP_Author And you all get #FreeHugs ;)


Monday, December 22, 2014

Exclusive Cover Reveal & Giveaway

Exclusive Cover Reveal & Giveaway

The Second Wound
Cover Design By: Okay Creations

Release Date: 2015 (day to be released soon)

Synopsis:
Last year, I buried Aaron, my husband, the only man I've ever loved.

Months ago, I met Joshua, the only man I've allowed near my wounded heart since the day my world was shattered.

Last night, Aaron came back to me.

Today, I have a choice to make.


Click Here to see the cover: 


I am truly excited to share this cover with you. I have been dying while holding onto to it for so long! I'm hard at work on the book and can't wait to share it with all of you in 2015. It's the most unique story I've ever written and it's by far my favorite so far. I have spread my wings creatively and I hope you all like what I have created with these unique and special characters. I'd LOVE to hear what you think. Please feel free to tweet me and tag me on FB to let me know.

To celebrate the cover reveal I am giving away a 25.00 Amazon Gift Card and TWENTY Kindle copies of Sex Unlimited Volume 1!!!

You can enter to win HERE -------->  http://is.gd/B38i0E

Friday, July 4, 2014

Exciting News

I am so pleased to announce that I've been signed by Bookcase Literary Agency. I'm excited about the vision they have for my work and enthusiastic about our future together as I pursue my writing career. I'm completely confident in the ability of my lovely agent, Flavia Siqueira along with her partner Meira Dias to help manage my career while seeking out the right publishers for my work.

This is a big and hopeful step to making my dreams come true that I'm working so hard for each and every day. Thank you to Flavia for believing in my story enough to take a chance on a new author such as myself.

You can find my author page on their website HERE and the agency catalog HERE where THERAPY is featured alongside many other amazing novels.

Thank you to each and every reader, blogger, fellow author and friend that has supported me along the way. There aren't enough words to express my gratitude for all you have done to motivate, encourage and inspire me. I look forward to continuing this journey with all of you.

God Bless,
Kathryn

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Day of Light 2014 "My Story"

Today on Feb 5th bloggers from all over are collaborating to flood social media with their personal stories about depression and how to accurately and effectively manage depression. Day of Light was created to bring depression out of the dark and to shine a light on this topic that so many feel the need to keep hidden. Day of Light is also meant to share resources with those that are struggling.


My Day of Light story is long, complicated and definitely far more in depth than what I can say on a blog post so I will summarize the best I can.


As a young teenager I always felt different somehow from the rest of the kids. I seemed to always be pursuing a "happy place" and unfortunately never finding it. I looked for this "happy" in many good and bad places. This incessant search led me to dark places and ultimately to a point where at the age of 15 I wanted to die. At school I smiled, I tried to please my teachers, I had friends and I had enemies. I had a very loving mother and a father that was never home due to work. I wore a mask on a daily basis refusing to allow anyone to see the disease that was spreading through me because I was 15. I was confused, scared, lonely even though I had friends. I was more than anything clueless to what depression was. My search for "happy" was a never-ending search that drove me to alcohol and drugs at a young age, sex at a young age and the constant need to please others caused me to find myself being used more often than not. After an unsuccessful suicide attempt at age 15 there was no pill given to me, no counseling, no intervention of any kind. There was silence. More darkness. Secrets. Why? Because back then even more so than now depression or mental-illness wasn't talked about openly. It was shameful. Dirty. There was very little information on the topic and parents really had no idea how to deal with a depressed teenager because isn't that "normal" for teenagers? Many think so but I am here to tell you, no. This is not okay and it's not just a phase that will pass in the night. I know because I have lived it.


Fast forward to my young adult life where I was still searching for that "happy", still not being able to find it and still having no idea what this hole inside me was from. Having no idea why no matter what I did I felt hollow, empty, sad, alone and confused. Again at age 20 I found myself no longer wanting to fight that disease that lurked beneath the facade I wore everyday and I again attempted to commit suicide. My 15 year old self had followed me 5 years into the future proving that this darkness was far from leaving my side. Laying in a hospital with a tube down my throat having my stomach pumped to rid it of bottle after bottle of pills I found myself at another incredibly scary precipice. This time I was given a pamphlet about available counseling in the area. I remember the day I drove by the counseling center and told myself there was no way I was going there. Those places were for crazy people. Then I remember thinking, "am I crazy?" I shook those thoughts away and decided I should just see a doctor. I made an appointment and that day I was simply written a prescription for an anti-depressant. I picked this very expensive prescription up at the local pharmacy and I remember looking at the tiny pills thinking, "I found it!" I thought I had found "happy" in those pills and boy was I ever wrong. Sure they brought me out of some of the lows but for some reason there were no more highs. I was just existing. That's not the "happy" I was looking for.


Many years later after falling in love, having children and having a life that to most on the outside would see as wonderful and happy I still fought that demon that seemed to never leave me. That darkness was still there every day robbing me of the things in my life that I should have been enjoying. It had been eating away at me for most my life but now it was doing more than hurting me. It was hurting my husband and children. I was not the mother or wife that I wanted to be and I certainly wasn't the me that I wanted to be. Some days even the smallest of tasks like taking a shower or getting myself dressed was next to impossible. The bed was my safe place; sleep my escape. While my children learned and played at preschool, I slept. I cried. I feared and I cut myself on a daily basis to remind myself that I could feel and control a form of pain that was ultimately a release to me. One day it all became too much and I sought out help myself. I did this because I looked at my children and I promised myself that I would survive for them because they didn't deserve to live a life motherless. So instead of making that final, deep, life-ending cut I called and made an appointment with a therapist.


That was the day that I saved my own life.


I stayed in therapy for a long time. I did everything my therapist asked of me. I attended group sessions, individual sessions, marital sessions and I also was prescribed a combination of mood stabilizers that did help. It wasn't easy. It was in fact very hard and some days I wanted to quit but I didn't. The therapy combined with the medications brought some light into my life and the darkness began to fade. The ending of this story is not perfect. Some days I am that 15 year old girl all over again. That 20 year old all over again. That terrified mother all over again. What most people don't realize about depression is that it will always try to push its way back into your life. Sometimes it creeps up on me when I'm least expecting it and I have to make a conscious decision to fight it with the tools I was given in therapy. I am no longer on medication and I do find "happy" a lot of days. The thing that I have learned about depression and mental-illness is that it's an ongoing fight each and every day to love yourself. To embrace your  life and to stop being afraid of what society or those around you think. Being imprisoned by stigma is an eternal prison that you will never escape until you bring who you truly are out into the light.


Talking to your family and friends about how you are feeling, reaching out to professionals about your inner struggles and seeking the proper treatment is NEVER bad, wrong, dirty or something you should attach shame to. Depression and mental-illnesses are in fact illnesses just like cancer or any other ailment that hurts our bodies or brain. There are ways to get better and there is hope for you to live a full life that you can and will embrace and enjoy.


Step out of the dark and into the light. Get help and be proud of how courageous you are to do so.


For more stories like mine and resources for help check out one of my favorite bloggers HERE


Or you can call Lifeline 800-273-TALK to speak to trained professionals



Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Therapy Release Day Announced







THERAPY
Release Day
MARCH 1st

Release Day party information can be found HERE.







 


Wednesday, May 8, 2013

In The Stillness by Andrea Randall


There are those books that are good. You like them, you’re not regretful for the money you spent on them and you feel content about them. Give them their 3 or 3.5 stars and call it a day. But then that book is over, you never think about it again. Then there are the books you just don’t like at all so you either don’t take the time to review them or like some crazy people you shred the author and give a nasty, terrible review and go on and on about how bad the book was. (Not Me) I just don’t review books I don’t like.

 

THEN there are those books that blow your mind! Books that as you read the last line you’re breathless, you’re speechless and you walk away from the story changed forever. This doesn’t happen often for me but let me tell you, In the Stillness rocked me to my core!

 

Andrea Randall rummaged through my brain, comfortable positioned herself in my emotional psyche and took me on a journey that brought me to tears, evoked deeply rooted feelings and caused me to need many chapter breaks just to compose my thoughts in order to keep reading. I “felt” this book from page one all the way to the last line.

 

Let’s just begin with the synopsis shall we:

 

Natalie is a wife.
Natalie is a mother.
Natalie is a cutter.

Clawing at walls built by resentment, regret, and guilt, Natalie cuts as an escape from a life she never planned.

Staying present is only possible when you let go of the past. But, what if the past won't let go?

 

 

See, even the synopsis leaves you in a thought provoked state! The entire book is that way! When I say the ENTIRE book, I mean the entire fucking book! You don’t skim; you don’t miss a mother lovin word of this book because you’re scared you might miss something poignant or moving.

 

“Change never comes slowly, brewing on the horizon. It's always in a second. Balanced on the tip of a razor blade, in empty pill bottles, behind two pink lines, or learning that one of your children is slowly slipping into a world of silence.”

 

I LOVE the fact that Andrea Randall owns her writing voice in this novel. Not only that but she gives Natalie a voice that will echo in your mind for many, many days after you finish the book. Natalie is the most honest, real character that I think I’ve ever read. The realistic nature of this book took me over word by word. I love the brutal honesty that we saw in Natalie and how she so bravely owned her fears and feelings despite the guilt they brought upon her shoulders.

 

“Guilt is intense. Suffocating. A brick, tied quietly around your ankles while you sleep. You never fall slowly into guilt-you wake up with little time to take your last breath before being pulled under.”

 

 

I think that a book like this comes along so very little that when I read it I literally could not review it until now. If I had reviewed this book right after I finished it I would have come off as insane. I was a mess and totally could not put together a decent review that would do this piece of wonderful words it’s  proper justice!

 

This was a love story, yes. It was SOOO much more than that though. It was a life story more than anything else. The raw emotions and grit that you will find in the pages of this book will stay with you and I assure even if you hate the book it will change you in one way or another.

 

Grab a load of damn tissues, have your choice of alcohol nearby and hold the fuck on because you are in for the most intense emotional rollercoaster ride you’ve ever taken when you read this book!

 

Andrea Randall this book pissed me off, chewed me up, spit me out, ripped my heart out of my chest, stomped on it then step by step put me all back together. You’re bravery to write such a raw and controversial topic has me applauding you, cheering for you and loving you even more!

 

That.Is.All

Buy it HERE on Amazon

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

1000 Likes Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Music on My Mind

I'm a self-proclaimed YouTube addict and everytime I get on there I end up finding a new acoustic cover that I fall in love with. This is one of my favorite finds while perusing YouTube:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z72rLXTm878&list=FLvVjbJMVrCWlwBo2aW-j2uA

This is also one of my most favorite songs ever!

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Poetry Contest Winners

The following are the winners of the poetry contest for "Jessica's Journal".

Winner:

Laura Hildago

Runners-Up:

Jocelyn Sanchez

Carmen Lake Stone

Denise Dunnahoo

The poems will not be released until the publication of the book.

I will be in touch with each of you soon. Each one of you will have your poem published in the book of poetry titled, "Jessica's Journal". The winner will also receive a t-shirt from Tito Ortiz and a free signed paperback of Therapy and Jessica's Journal. Runners-Up will receive signed paperbacks of Jessica's Journal when it releases. You will all be given full credit for your poems within the copyright page of the book as well.

Congratulations and thank you for your beautiful words!

I would also like to thank all of the other entries. I loved all of the poems and it was very difficult to make a decision.