Showing posts with label trauma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trauma. Show all posts
Friday, October 24, 2025
Friday, October 3, 2025
Thursday, September 25, 2025
The Write Reads Blog Tour Book Spotlight ~ Reenactments by Tony Iezzi, Ph.D. and Melanie P. Duckworth, Ph.D.
Break the Behavior Patterns That Keep You Stuck in Trauma, Stress, and Everyday Life
Do you feel stuck facing the same challenges repeatedly? Maybe it’s a job that drains your energy, a relationship that never seems to work, or habits you just can’t seem to break. If so, you’re not alone—and there’s a reason for it.
Patterns formed in childhood shape the choices we make as adults. These patterns often become automatic responses to trauma, stress, and everyday life. We call these reenactments—deeply ingrained habits in your brain, body, and mind that lead to recurring adverse outcomes.
In this groundbreaking book, psychologists Tony Iezzi and Melanie Duckworth introduce a compelling new framework for breaking reenactments.
You’ll learn how to recognize these patterns and replace them with healthier, more empowering choices. Using the Reenactment Decision Matrix and a unique 5-step analytic tool, this guidebook will help you:
Identify your reenactments
Understand their origins and make conscious choices that improve you in the present
Deepen your empathy for others and contribute to a more compassionate world.
If you’re ready to transform your life, then Reenactments is your next step.
Thursday, May 29, 2025
BBNYA2024 Blog Tour Review ~ 8th Place Finalist ~ The Magdalenes by Jeanne Skartsiaris
The Magdalenes is a story of redemption and reinvention.
Jude Madigan is a successful plaintiff's attorney who lived out a nightmare and spent years keeping it hidden. After being raped and impregnated by a Catholic priest when she was fourteen, she has spent years creating a new life, now driven to get justice for her clients.
She buries her past, and her emotions, under a solid veneer of ambition, but just as she's about to bring her biggest litigation case to trial, a strange assignment is forced upon her. Her law firm is given a huge commission to handle the estate of a recently deceased woman, with the catch that Jude, and no one else, must act as trustee. The terms require her to oversee the construction and finances of a Catholic halfway house for prostitutes.
Jude fights against this agreement since she turned her back on the church years ago and intends to keep it that way. Her boss insists she complies, not knowing about her past—or the pain of having her daughter taken from her arms minutes after the birth by a nun.
Damaged and patched together with anger and shame, Jude is reluctant, but becomes involved with a group of nuns and the prostitutes they're trying to help.
But the mystery remains as to why the stranger specified her, a litigation attorney, not an estate attorney, to handle the case. Though Jude struggles both personally and professionally, she discovers that what she feared most was what she needed to heal. Every belief is tested, and a lost dream is realized.
Thursday, September 12, 2024
BBNYA2023 Blog Tour ~ WINNER ~ Perception Check
Her favorite tabletop roleplaying game is real, and her kidnapped childhood best friend is trapped in a far off land. Will she be able to save her? Let's roll initiative!
Violet Spence wants nothing more than to have a normal life. After witnessing her childhood best friend get abducted by monsters, that’s easier said than done. At twenty-three years old, Violet cannot seem to move past that fateful night ten years ago. Her only solace is Mages of Velmyra, a tabletop roleplaying game filled with goblins, fairies, and all-powerful magicians. But of course, that’s all fantasy.
Or, so she thought. As it turns out, the land of Velmyra is very real and the home of the monsters that took her best friend.
With the help of her friends (and the creator of the game itself), Violet must navigate the once-fictional creatures and powerful mages of Velmyra to retrieve a set of ancient relics—all in the hopes that the journey will lead her back to her friend. But for Violet, fighting monsters and magic workers doesn’t seem nearly as terrifying as confronting her own demons. And she’ll soon realize fighting the battle within herself can be just as tough as those fought against demigods.
Perception Check is the magical first installment of the Mages of Velmyra Saga, great for fans of Dungeons and Dragons, Critical Role, and The Magicians. With endearing and hilarious characters, an exploration of mental health and trauma, LGBTQ+ representation, gut-wrenching twists, and a whirlwind of an ending, you will never want to leave the world of Velmyra.
NOTE: Perception Check deals with the topics of mental health (specifically depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidality) with mentions of childhood sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and animal violence.
Violet Spence wants nothing more than to have a normal life. After witnessing her childhood best friend get abducted by monsters, that’s easier said than done. At twenty-three years old, Violet cannot seem to move past that fateful night ten years ago. Her only solace is Mages of Velmyra, a tabletop roleplaying game filled with goblins, fairies, and all-powerful magicians. But of course, that’s all fantasy.
Or, so she thought. As it turns out, the land of Velmyra is very real and the home of the monsters that took her best friend.
With the help of her friends (and the creator of the game itself), Violet must navigate the once-fictional creatures and powerful mages of Velmyra to retrieve a set of ancient relics—all in the hopes that the journey will lead her back to her friend. But for Violet, fighting monsters and magic workers doesn’t seem nearly as terrifying as confronting her own demons. And she’ll soon realize fighting the battle within herself can be just as tough as those fought against demigods.
Perception Check is the magical first installment of the Mages of Velmyra Saga, great for fans of Dungeons and Dragons, Critical Role, and The Magicians. With endearing and hilarious characters, an exploration of mental health and trauma, LGBTQ+ representation, gut-wrenching twists, and a whirlwind of an ending, you will never want to leave the world of Velmyra.
NOTE: Perception Check deals with the topics of mental health (specifically depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidality) with mentions of childhood sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and animal violence.
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
And She Was Never the Same Again ~ Book Review
And She Was Never the Same Again is about you. It is about your family and your friends, everyone you've ever met, and all the strangers you have yet to meet. It takes you on a journey of gains and losses that stretch generations, cultures, identities, and decades of time.It awakens you to the inevitable and makes you look at things most people want to avoid seeing. It explores near-death experiences; medical, individual, and intergenerational trauma; the stigmatized death of a partner; perfectionism; athletics; first loves; and the gaping holes that become permanent fixtures within us when those we love the most die. You will feel, you will learn, you will grown, and you will never be the same again.
Saturday, July 20, 2024
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon ~ Book Review
Zohaib, Misha and Nadia believed they would be in each other's lives forever. As children they played, argued, teased and loved one another. Yet nothing could have prepared them for the tragic turn of events one fateful afternoon in Karachi, Pakistan, when the divisions and differences between them are revealed.
Years later and they are still trying to piece their lives back together, still trying to make sense of what happened. Zohaib is living in London, haunted by the ghosts of the past. Nadia has escaped the household where she first met Misha and Zohaib but finds fate delivering her back to their door…
The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon is a beautifully rendered portrait of love, healing, and long-buried pain, digging deep into the nature of trauma and class division.
Years later and they are still trying to piece their lives back together, still trying to make sense of what happened. Zohaib is living in London, haunted by the ghosts of the past. Nadia has escaped the household where she first met Misha and Zohaib but finds fate delivering her back to their door…
The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon is a beautifully rendered portrait of love, healing, and long-buried pain, digging deep into the nature of trauma and class division.
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon ~ Spotlight Blitz
Zohaib, Misha and Nadia believed they would be in each other's lives forever. As children they played, argued, teased and loved one another. Yet nothing could have prepared them for the tragic turn of events one fateful afternoon in Karachi, Pakistan, when the divisions and differences between them are revealed.
Years later and they are still trying to piece their lives back together, still trying to make sense of what happened. Zohaib is living in London, haunted by the ghosts of the past. Nadia has escaped the household where she first met Misha and Zohaib but finds fate delivering her back to their door…
The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon is a beautifully rendered portrait of love, healing, and long-buried pain, digging deep into the nature of trauma and class division.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
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