If you have followed me over this past year, you have an idea as to what type of books interest me and which ones don’t. However, Tricia from Media Muscle (The Book Trib) contacted me asking if I may be interested in reading and reviewing this particular book. After reading the synopsis, not only was I interested, I informed her that I would also like to be a host to introduce the authors to all of you. So please help me welcome Linda and Tony Cole today and I hope you find this book intriguing as I did.

Tricia, from Media Muscle, and The Cole’s have generously offered to give one of my lucky followers the chance to win this extraordinary book.

   Tony and Linda Cole co-wrote Resurrecting Anthony: A True Story of Courage & Destination, which tells the story of their 12-year-old son’s heart attack and brain injury. A look back over the decade since the event helps the reader see how her once perfect family survived the devastating loss of a child and how a new family has come to be. Visit www.resurrectinganthony.com for more information and to purchase
   The Coles launched Anthony Cole Training in 1991, a company that builds sales cultures within organizations nationwide. An immediate success, by the end of 1998, the little company of two grossed half a million dollars. However, when their son became severely brain injured, the company down shifted for several years. In 2003, having adjusted to a new life and family, the company began to grow once again. Visit www.anthonycoletraining.com for more information.
   Linda founded Alexandra Publishing in 2009 to bring stories of personal courage to those who are enduring difficult times. Her goal is to provide real life experience, insight and useful strategies and resources, empowering readers to meet and overcome their challenges. Linda’s vision is to compile thousands of courageous stories from the multitudes of people who have weathered tragic personal storms and have found their way to a new life. Each Personal Courage® book will contain narratives from different contributors dealing with a specific life challenge such as Alzheimer’s in a loved one or a young family losing a parent or divorce and the aftermath. Visit http://resurrectinganthony.com/courage.html to share your Story of Personal Courage.

   Then came the call every parent dreads.
   Their twelve-year-old son Anthony had collapsed on the school playground. In the ensuing panic-stricken moments, Anthony lay motionless, unconscious, not breathing. These critical minutes without oxygen left his brain damaged. In one heartbreaking afternoon their idyllic world was shattered and the son that Tony and Linda Cole knew was gone.
   Resurrecting Anthony is the true, inspiring story of an unexpected tragedy that steals a child from his family and initially leaves them full of grief and sorrow. It reveals the Cole family’s incredible devotion and determination—despite the medical evidence and advice of health professionals—to return Anthony to his previous self.
   Steadfast and single-minded of purpose, Tony Cole tries to balance stressful business demands and the emotional dynamics of a devastated family as he desperately tries to bring his son back.
   Ultimately, it is a story of courage—the courage to summon inner strength to make hard decisions, the courage to do what must be done, and finally the courage to accept a new life and family.

   “Courage is the one telling trait that allows us to soldier on in the face of life’s greatest challenges,” writes Linda Cole. “We never know who we are capable of becoming until we are put to the test.” In this remarkable story RESURRECTING ANTHONY: A True Story of Courage & Destination (Alexandra Publishing, January 2011) authors Linda and Tony Cole find themselves stretched beyond anything they could have ever imagined when their 12-year-old son, Anthony, declares to a friend “I have no pulse” and collapses on the school playground.
   It takes paramedics 13 tries to shock Anthony back to life, only to discover that the healthy, athletic boy has had a heart attack caused by a rare abnormal electrical pathway in his heart. It took four to five minutes to resuscitate him which deprived his brain of oxygen setting into motion a chain of medical events that ultimately resulted in global traumatic brain injury.
   Drawing courage from their family and faith, the Coles face the enormity of Anthony’s situation and search for answers that will give them back their son. Ever the pragmatist, Linda plans for all of Anthony’s day-to-day care while Tony intensifies his efforts to coach his boy back to the person he was before his heart attack. Driven by the need to make progress before the window for optimal recovery closes, they begin an experimental treatment hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), to restore whatever function Anthony has left.
   Slowly, glimpses of Anthony emerge, a light in his eyes, a brief smile, and one day, his first words since his journey began – “yeah, baby!” – inspired by cheerleaders during a football game on TV.
   Anthony’s incremental progress leads to a series of personal revelations for his father. Tony’s test is to understand his new Anthony, whose greatest gift now is the ability to live totally and completely in the moment, the riveting heart of this tender tale. “I realized I must let go of my first Anthony in order to accept and love this new and different one,” Tony says.
   “This was not an easy story to tell,” writes Linda Cole. “We found the courage to tell it because we hope that those in crisis will learn how to cope, how to be open and accepting of offered help, and how to advocate for needed services. We hope to inspire people to summon the courage they need to persevere, to commit without reservation, to adapt. We hope that others might learn from our mistakes and gain from our progress. We wrote this book and created the “Personal Courage SeriesTM” as a vehicle for people who have experienced life changing crisis to share their stories, learning and hope.”
   The book also includes helpful “Toolbox” or takeaways for living through crisis which includes organizational advice for dealing with the maze and mountain of paperwork that results from hospital and insurance bills. It also has an indispensible directory of resources that includes contact info for groups such as: Brain Injury Association of America and the National Association of the State Directors of Developmental Disabilities. For more information please go to www.resurrectinganthony.com
   Tony and Linda Cole are the founders of Anthony Cole Training Group established in 1991 to help sales people and their organizations drive consistent and predictable results through a unique, multi-faceted approach custom tailored to each organization.
Watch for my review this month!!

If you have followed me over this past year, you have an idea as to what type of books interest me and which ones don’t. However, Tricia from Media Muscle (The Book Trib) contacted me asking if I may be interested in reading and reviewing this particular book. After reading the synopsis, not only was I interested, I informed her that I would also like to be a host to introduce the authors to all of you. So please help me welcome Linda and Tony Cole today and I hope you find this book intriguing as I did.

Tricia, from Media Muscle, and The Cole’s have generously offered to give one of my lucky followers the chance to win this extraordinary book.

   Tony and Linda Cole co-wrote Resurrecting Anthony: A True Story of Courage & Destination, which tells the story of their 12-year-old son’s heart attack and brain injury. A look back over the decade since the event helps the reader see how her once perfect family survived the devastating loss of a child and how a new family has come to be. Visit www.resurrectinganthony.com for more information and to purchase
   The Coles launched Anthony Cole Training in 1991, a company that builds sales cultures within organizations nationwide. An immediate success, by the end of 1998, the little company of two grossed half a million dollars. However, when their son became severely brain injured, the company down shifted for several years. In 2003, having adjusted to a new life and family, the company began to grow once again. Visit www.anthonycoletraining.com for more information.
   Linda founded Alexandra Publishing in 2009 to bring stories of personal courage to those who are enduring difficult times. Her goal is to provide real life experience, insight and useful strategies and resources, empowering readers to meet and overcome their challenges. Linda’s vision is to compile thousands of courageous stories from the multitudes of people who have weathered tragic personal storms and have found their way to a new life. Each Personal Courage® book will contain narratives from different contributors dealing with a specific life challenge such as Alzheimer’s in a loved one or a young family losing a parent or divorce and the aftermath. Visit http://resurrectinganthony.com/courage.html to share your Story of Personal Courage.

   Then came the call every parent dreads.
   Their twelve-year-old son Anthony had collapsed on the school playground. In the ensuing panic-stricken moments, Anthony lay motionless, unconscious, not breathing. These critical minutes without oxygen left his brain damaged. In one heartbreaking afternoon their idyllic world was shattered and the son that Tony and Linda Cole knew was gone.
   Resurrecting Anthony is the true, inspiring story of an unexpected tragedy that steals a child from his family and initially leaves them full of grief and sorrow. It reveals the Cole family’s incredible devotion and determination—despite the medical evidence and advice of health professionals—to return Anthony to his previous self.
   Steadfast and single-minded of purpose, Tony Cole tries to balance stressful business demands and the emotional dynamics of a devastated family as he desperately tries to bring his son back.
   Ultimately, it is a story of courage—the courage to summon inner strength to make hard decisions, the courage to do what must be done, and finally the courage to accept a new life and family.

   “Courage is the one telling trait that allows us to soldier on in the face of life’s greatest challenges,” writes Linda Cole. “We never know who we are capable of becoming until we are put to the test.” In this remarkable story RESURRECTING ANTHONY: A True Story of Courage & Destination (Alexandra Publishing, January 2011) authors Linda and Tony Cole find themselves stretched beyond anything they could have ever imagined when their 12-year-old son, Anthony, declares to a friend “I have no pulse” and collapses on the school playground.
   It takes paramedics 13 tries to shock Anthony back to life, only to discover that the healthy, athletic boy has had a heart attack caused by a rare abnormal electrical pathway in his heart. It took four to five minutes to resuscitate him which deprived his brain of oxygen setting into motion a chain of medical events that ultimately resulted in global traumatic brain injury.
   Drawing courage from their family and faith, the Coles face the enormity of Anthony’s situation and search for answers that will give them back their son. Ever the pragmatist, Linda plans for all of Anthony’s day-to-day care while Tony intensifies his efforts to coach his boy back to the person he was before his heart attack. Driven by the need to make progress before the window for optimal recovery closes, they begin an experimental treatment hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), to restore whatever function Anthony has left.
   Slowly, glimpses of Anthony emerge, a light in his eyes, a brief smile, and one day, his first words since his journey began – “yeah, baby!” – inspired by cheerleaders during a football game on TV.
   Anthony’s incremental progress leads to a series of personal revelations for his father. Tony’s test is to understand his new Anthony, whose greatest gift now is the ability to live totally and completely in the moment, the riveting heart of this tender tale. “I realized I must let go of my first Anthony in order to accept and love this new and different one,” Tony says.
   “This was not an easy story to tell,” writes Linda Cole. “We found the courage to tell it because we hope that those in crisis will learn how to cope, how to be open and accepting of offered help, and how to advocate for needed services. We hope to inspire people to summon the courage they need to persevere, to commit without reservation, to adapt. We hope that others might learn from our mistakes and gain from our progress. We wrote this book and created the “Personal Courage SeriesTM” as a vehicle for people who have experienced life changing crisis to share their stories, learning and hope.”
   The book also includes helpful “Toolbox” or takeaways for living through crisis which includes organizational advice for dealing with the maze and mountain of paperwork that results from hospital and insurance bills. It also has an indispensible directory of resources that includes contact info for groups such as: Brain Injury Association of America and the National Association of the State Directors of Developmental Disabilities. For more information please go to www.resurrectinganthony.com
   Tony and Linda Cole are the founders of Anthony Cole Training Group established in 1991 to help sales people and their organizations drive consistent and predictable results through a unique, multi-faceted approach custom tailored to each organization.
Watch for my review this month!!

The Recessionistas by Alexandra Lebenthal (ARC)
Published by Grand Central Publishing
ISBN 978-0-446-56367-3
At the request of The Hachette Book Group, a TPB was sent, at no cost to me, for my honest opinion.
  Synopsis (back of book): It’s the day after Labor Day, 2008, and the elite universe of New York’s Upper East Side is bout to unravel along with the economy. Socialite Grigsby Somerset is barely aware of her changing world and has no idea her investment banker husband, Blake, is about to enter into a devil’s bargain with hedge fund owner John Cutter. As autumn unfolds, Grigsby’s fairytale life starts to unwind. Street-smart Renee Parker has been hired as John’s executive assistant and is convinced that something is amiss with her new boss. Renee enlists her friend that something is amiss with her new boss. Renee enlists her friends Sasha Silver, CEO of Silver Partners, to help her decipher what is happening. They soon discover that John is nearly ruined, except for the assets he is hiding in the Cayman Islands from his wife, Mimi, and has concocted with Blake a scheme to redeem himself, This tale of expulsion from a modern-day Garden of Eden captures what happens when economic decline spells ruin for Manhattan’s pampered elite.
  My Thoughts and Opinion: When I accepted this book, I thought it would be a classic chick lit read. However, it falls under more categories including: socialites, rich people, recessions, etc., and more, including attempted murder. The cast of characters varied widely from socialites to CEOs on Wall Street. Some likeable, some that left me shaking my head. The plot flowed but there was a lot of reference to the recent financial problems with hedge funds, which at times, I felt slowed down the story line. It was neither a fast paced nor profound read, which leaves it right in the middle as far as rating.

The Recessionistas by Alexandra Lebenthal (ARC)
Published by Grand Central Publishing
ISBN 978-0-446-56367-3
At the request of The Hachette Book Group, a TPB was sent, at no cost to me, for my honest opinion.
  Synopsis (back of book): It’s the day after Labor Day, 2008, and the elite universe of New York’s Upper East Side is bout to unravel along with the economy. Socialite Grigsby Somerset is barely aware of her changing world and has no idea her investment banker husband, Blake, is about to enter into a devil’s bargain with hedge fund owner John Cutter. As autumn unfolds, Grigsby’s fairytale life starts to unwind. Street-smart Renee Parker has been hired as John’s executive assistant and is convinced that something is amiss with her new boss. Renee enlists her friend that something is amiss with her new boss. Renee enlists her friends Sasha Silver, CEO of Silver Partners, to help her decipher what is happening. They soon discover that John is nearly ruined, except for the assets he is hiding in the Cayman Islands from his wife, Mimi, and has concocted with Blake a scheme to redeem himself, This tale of expulsion from a modern-day Garden of Eden captures what happens when economic decline spells ruin for Manhattan’s pampered elite.
  My Thoughts and Opinion: When I accepted this book, I thought it would be a classic chick lit read. However, it falls under more categories including: socialites, rich people, recessions, etc., and more, including attempted murder. The cast of characters varied widely from socialites to CEOs on Wall Street. Some likeable, some that left me shaking my head. The plot flowed but there was a lot of reference to the recent financial problems with hedge funds, which at times, I felt slowed down the story line. It was neither a fast paced nor profound read, which leaves it right in the middle as far as rating.

It is always an honor and a humbling experience for me to be a host for a visiting author, especially when it’s at the author’s request. And today we have a very special and talented man, who is both author and noted physcian, that is taking time out of his busy day and discussing his latest book. So, please help me give a big welcome to Dr. Robert Greer.

Learn more about Robert Greer at wwwrobertgreerbooks.com.

FROM THE AUTHOR:
   The most frequent question I’m asked about my latest novel, FIRST OF STATE, is why a prequel? And that’s a reasonable enough question since you would think that after ten CJ Floyd novels readers would know my African-American Denver bail bondsman intimately. However, in my first CJ Floyd novel, THE DEVIL’S HATBAND, the reader meets CJ as a man of forty-four. In that novel you learn as much about the character as I could possibly weave into a single book. You learn that he’s a loner, that he has had a failed marriage, that he is a Vietnam veteran and that he is haunted by the horrors of that war. Yet as you follow CJ throughout the next nine novels, you never really know until FIRST OF STATE, what happened to him between the time he returned from Vietnam at the age of twenty-one and the opening of THE DEVIL’S HATBAND. How did CJ get to be who he is? Who taught him his investigative skills? How did he become friends with his murder-solving eclectic band of side kicks? And finally, what cases had he cracked and what murders had he solved prior to FIRST OF STATE?
   In FIRST OF STATE readers get to see a youthful CJ Floyd. An agitated troubled young man who is unsure of himself and a man who is haunted always by Vietnam. You have the opportunity to see him join his Uncle Ike’s bail bonding business and to watch him mature as an investigator under Ike’s tutelage. The reader also gets a glimpse of CJ as a novice western memorabilia collector long before he evolves into an antique collecting pro.

   ROBERT GREER’S latest novel—a prequel to his CJ Floyd mystery series—takes readers back in time to a very different CJ Floyd. It’s 1972, and the twenty-two year-old decorated war vet has recently returned to Denver from Vietnam with post-traumatic stress disorder. Navigating depression, he finds a friend in World War II vet and amputee Wiley Ames, who shares his passion for rare and valuable western memorabilia.
   When Ames and a mysterious Chinese man are found murdered, CJ’s already fragile world threatens to collapse. His attempts to find his friend’s killer are thwarted at every turn, and finally he joins his Uncle Ike’s business as a bail bondsman and bounty hunter. Five years later one of Ames’s treasured antique license plates turns up at a Denver flea market, and CJ is once again off and running. The trail to Wiley Ames’s murderer leads CJ down a dark path strewn with backstabbing antique dealers, conniving friends and relatives of Ames’s, and a shadowy musician. Equally a white-knuckle-ride murder mystery and a tale of a traumatized young man coming to terms with his past, First of State features the kind of fresh characters, street smart dialogue, and ingenious plot twists that have made this series a critical and commercial success.
Watch for my review in the coming weeks!!!

It is always an honor and a humbling experience for me to be a host for a visiting author, especially when it’s at the author’s request. And today we have a very special and talented man, who is both author and noted physcian, that is taking time out of his busy day and discussing his latest book. So, please help me give a big welcome to Dr. Robert Greer.

Learn more about Robert Greer at wwwrobertgreerbooks.com.

FROM THE AUTHOR:
   The most frequent question I’m asked about my latest novel, FIRST OF STATE, is why a prequel? And that’s a reasonable enough question since you would think that after ten CJ Floyd novels readers would know my African-American Denver bail bondsman intimately. However, in my first CJ Floyd novel, THE DEVIL’S HATBAND, the reader meets CJ as a man of forty-four. In that novel you learn as much about the character as I could possibly weave into a single book. You learn that he’s a loner, that he has had a failed marriage, that he is a Vietnam veteran and that he is haunted by the horrors of that war. Yet as you follow CJ throughout the next nine novels, you never really know until FIRST OF STATE, what happened to him between the time he returned from Vietnam at the age of twenty-one and the opening of THE DEVIL’S HATBAND. How did CJ get to be who he is? Who taught him his investigative skills? How did he become friends with his murder-solving eclectic band of side kicks? And finally, what cases had he cracked and what murders had he solved prior to FIRST OF STATE?
   In FIRST OF STATE readers get to see a youthful CJ Floyd. An agitated troubled young man who is unsure of himself and a man who is haunted always by Vietnam. You have the opportunity to see him join his Uncle Ike’s bail bonding business and to watch him mature as an investigator under Ike’s tutelage. The reader also gets a glimpse of CJ as a novice western memorabilia collector long before he evolves into an antique collecting pro.

   ROBERT GREER’S latest novel—a prequel to his CJ Floyd mystery series—takes readers back in time to a very different CJ Floyd. It’s 1972, and the twenty-two year-old decorated war vet has recently returned to Denver from Vietnam with post-traumatic stress disorder. Navigating depression, he finds a friend in World War II vet and amputee Wiley Ames, who shares his passion for rare and valuable western memorabilia.
   When Ames and a mysterious Chinese man are found murdered, CJ’s already fragile world threatens to collapse. His attempts to find his friend’s killer are thwarted at every turn, and finally he joins his Uncle Ike’s business as a bail bondsman and bounty hunter. Five years later one of Ames’s treasured antique license plates turns up at a Denver flea market, and CJ is once again off and running. The trail to Wiley Ames’s murderer leads CJ down a dark path strewn with backstabbing antique dealers, conniving friends and relatives of Ames’s, and a shadowy musician. Equally a white-knuckle-ride murder mystery and a tale of a traumatized young man coming to terms with his past, First of State features the kind of fresh characters, street smart dialogue, and ingenious plot twists that have made this series a critical and commercial success.
Watch for my review in the coming weeks!!!