Authors Read Podcast

A practical step-by-step, room-by-room guide to simple modifications that can help seniors make their homes safer and easier to navigate, this reference offers readers clear and practical solutions. Author Lynda Shrager is a registered, national board certified occupational therapist, a master’s level social worker and a Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS) with more than thirty-seven years’ experience in the field of geriatrics and more than thirteen years working with seniors in their homes. It is this mix of qualification and experience that makes her an expert in adapting the environment to increase patient safety and independence. This book is designed to help seniors and their caregivers address these new challenges together to make life at home safer, more manageable and less stressful for all.

Features include:

• Room-by-room walk through to evaluate and modify safety of the home

• Photographs of modifications from patients’ homes

• Recommendations for the best home medical equipment

• Where to obtain services and additional helpful resources

• Check list for the reader to complete their own room by room walk through with a quick and easy guide to making each space safe and manageable

• “Hacks for Health and Home” at the end of each chapter with occupational therapy tips

• Vital Documents Guide for easy retrieval of important papers in case of an emergency

Link to the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2LM0K9l

After accelerating their studies and graduating high school early, two teenagers set off from their hometown in Minnesota to embark on a 2200-mile canoe journey up the heart of North America. Their destination: the permafrost shores of Hudson Bay. Inspired by a passion for the simple life, where gadgets and schedules are replaced by nature and its harsh beauty, the duo found something that many believe is lost: a true adventure.

Follow the pair up the flooding Minnesota River and through the prairie plains of North Dakota, across man-sized waves on Lake Winnipeg, and down the foaming rapids of the Canadian north. The triumphs and trials of the unforgiving wild challenged their friendship, dreams, and lives in a way that even they could have never predicted. For those who have dreamt of wilderness escape, or those who prefer to simply read about it, Adventure North will spur the imaginative spirit and remind you that adventure is always just around the next bend.

Link to the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Tm8EsI

If you're struggling to find time in your day to do the “leadership stuff” you know you should be doing, this book is for you.

Whether you're a CEO, a manager, or an individual contributor who wants to make a difference, Finding Time to Lead will provide you with perspectives and tools to maximize your capacity to lead.

Drawing from more than twenty years of experience working side-by-side with leaders of new organizations and new leaders in established companies, Leslie Peters offers a framework of clear and concise shifts, practices, and tools to put you in the fast lane toward becoming the leader you want to be.

What does it take to be a good leader? Are there shortcuts? How can you prioritize the limited time you have available for all of this “leadership stuff”? What should you spend your time on that will help you build a culture that will attract and keep great people?

You'll learn about five specific skill sets that shape great leaders:

Identify and quickly access the powerful places from which your best work comes;

Productively engage with others to build the kind of trust that leads to commitment, collaboration, and innovation;

Confidently lead through change;

Prioritize your time to have maximum impact on your corporate culture;

Unleash the outrageous potential in your company and its people.

Leadership is not what you do; it’s who you are. When you take this approach to leadership, it’s easy to find time to lead.

“Finding Time to Lead compels us to explore the intersection of what it truly means to be a leader and to be human. Leslie Peters brings a no-bullshit, straight-talk perspective to the unique responsibility of leadership – with compelling real-life stories and a clear pathway to guide the very human leader inside us all.” –Dean Carter, Head of Finance, HR and Legal at Patagonia

Link to the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2SA8SMM

Snatched into a magical dimension by a demon, art student Laura Evans has to grapple with the unimaginable. Lucifer wants to destroy her soul because, apparently, she's all that stands between him and total domination over all creation. People here say she is their saviour and it's up to her to save the universe with her new found powers of healing.

And then there's a man, determined to protect her. He claims that not only is she his soul mate, but his wife! Really? He's persistent - and is very convincing…Could it all be true?

Link to the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2rZmJAO

Max and Del did everything together. They bought the same bikes, wore the same clothes, and competed with one another as best friends often do in high school. As their summer together looms on the horizon, and the school year comes to an end, their friendship is tested when Max realizes their blue-collar upbringing in New Athens provides a life of limitations he didn't imagine. His only escape from it is in his true feelings for Annika, Del's girlfriend, who he can't be with. To prevent any wrongdoing, Max forms a simple plan: to find a way to escape his working a class destiny after high school for something greater than what's in Milltown.

"The Boy from the Forge is a coming-of-age story that skillfully combines nostalgia for friendship, first loves, and choosing one's path into adulthood...Max's moments of internal dialogue about how to move forward in life are true to the difficult choices teenagers face."  --Foreward Reviews

"...wide-ranging observations intrinsic to the story made by the teen characters (about art, beliefs, parents, teachers, love, secrecy, adult hypocrisy, future plans) ring true, as does the author's vivid depictions..."  --Kirkus Reviews

"Brandt's strength lies in his descriptive power."  --BlueInk Reviews

"...an excellent study in character writing and descriptive environment about mischief and romance, relationships and revenge. It tugs at the heartstrings, gently."  --IndieReader

Link to the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2LK0qZ0

A young woman raised in the South Pacific, captured by pirates. The Dey of Algiers, torn by conflicts in religion and love. Their stories intertwine.

Raised by her Scottish father and the natives of a remote island in the South Pacific, Sarah and her father embark on a perilous journey to Scotland. Sarah knew that her life would change when she left her beloved island. Never did she imagine that she would be sold into a harem. Only Hassan Aziz, the most feared pirate on the Barbary Coast can save her. But is Hassan willing to jeopardize his secret mission and risk his life and the lives of his crew to shield this intoxicating maiden from slavery?

Naa’il is the Dey of Algiers, a man who has everything including, wealth, power, wives, slaves, concubines. Drawn to two beautiful American captives, Naa’il tests their loyalty to each other. Little did he know that his game would have devastating consequences… especially for him.

"This story is quite complex, but, there is so much description of the people, times, and places, that you can almost imagine being there." ~ Amazon Reviewer

Link to the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2TkrNeE

Lucinda White is a happy-go-lucky nature child raised by a young single mother in the 1960s. In a dramatic turn of events, her wild nature is broken. She is shaped into a yuppie and becomes the wife of a prominent Silicon Valley CEO and a glamorous socialite. Successful by all accounts of external measure, she feels trapped by the shallow values of a dominant culture and ever more alienated from her true nature. Something primal awakens in Lucinda when she unearths and touches an ancient buffalo bone, and the experience impels her to secretly collect dead animal parts and learn the art of curing their decomposing flesh. As Lucinda challenges convention, her curiosity about the animal kingdom leads to wild and unlikely adventures rescuing road kill, tracking wolves, and encountering lions face to face. Confessions of a Bone Woman is one woman’s story of how she recognizes and learns to express her authentically wild nature in order to heal bone by bone and become her full self, redefining what it means to be a modern woman.

Link to the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2QdBGc4

A delightful historical fantasy for the holidays, based on real events and inspired by two favorite holiday classics: A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life.

Link to the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2SwyF8H

What if a reality show had real stakes?

Grayson Hartford needs a change in his life. A new documentary promises the adventure and riches he craves. All he needs to do is navigate a booby-trapped temple, collect treasure, and then escape a jungle. It seems easy enough.

Instead, he soon regrets not taking the Death and Dismemberment clause seriously. What starts as a friendly contest of skills quickly devolves into murder and no shortage of betrayals. Anything goes in the name of entertainment on "The Borrowed Faces".

Link to the book no longer available.

There was a reason they called it the Speckled City Whitten was just what Indira hoped for. It was a city that had banned heroes and villains, which meant no more rebuilding her home after a disaster, no more texts from her mother about how her father had been kidnapped, and no more worrying that she might be forced to become a hero herself one day. Indira soon finds out that the city holds a dangerous secret. Keeping superheroes and supervillains out of the city comes at a cost and, if she isn't careful, she may disappear with the others.

Link to the book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2SrDpw9