Spiriting Around: A Modern Guide to Finding Yourself by Martin "Mark" Tomback

Martin "Mark" Tomback gives a new outlook to spirituality in this modern guide to finding happiness with yourself. This guide is just that, a guide to growing up a facing the reality of life itself. This is not your normal book about God and spirituality.

The book may have been written with teens in mind but anyone can gain knowledge to all aspects of life and learn to stand by their actions and be responsible for them. It is broken down into six chapters of "steps" in how to work toward goals, find what’s right for you and how to follow through to accomplish those goals and any you might have in the future.Tomback tells us about everything from love to money, marriage to divorce, and to conflicts and controversies. Spirituality and God are also included in this journey of discovery, but he speaks more in a universal manner than as a lecturer.

He uses a common sense way to speak about growing up and finding solutions to problems and explains how to be patiently deal with them while staying focused. Life's resistances pop up at every corner, but with every problem there is a solution if you just know how to look for it in all the right places.

There are things we need in this life; a value system to live by, success that is worth all the effort put in, friends and true romance, and an understanding of society's rules and how to live within them without having to give up our own identity.

If you are looking for a thought provoking book about life or the functions of live in general, this book may be just the guide you need. A belief in god isn't a requirement to walk away with some great insight. Just a desire to be a better you and find our own happiness.

Jessica Koster
The Sunpiper Book Review

Public Lies by Brenda Youngerman

"Why don't you just leave?" Every woman in an abusive relationship has faced that question, whether from friends and family, or from deep within herself. Anyone who has ever experienced abuse knows that the issue is much more complicated than those five words, and Brenda Youngerman masterfully takes the reader into the web of marital abuse in Public Lies.

Nancy Cooper is a beautiful woman who has a seemingly perfect life: two kids, devoted husband, fledgling business venture, a home in the suburbs with two vehicles parked in the driveway. But behind the facade of the normal suburban wife lies a terrible truth. Nancy's life is not what it seems.

When fear for her safety finally drives her from her home, Nancy determines that she can only escape if she disappears. And it works . . . for a while. But the seething anger inside Vincent Cooper, Nancy's husband and the father of her children, follows her family and eats away at the life she builds. Her children, especially her son, begins to ask questions that Nancy cannot answer, and she begins to ask questions of her own. Is there any freedom when you are constantly running away? She knows that she must return to face Vince . . . and his anger.

Vince has spent three years thinking of only one goal: to punish his wife. It is an obsession that consumes him and becomes the sole guiding force in his life. He attacks her through the only area that she is still vulnerable: their children. Fueled by substance abuse, his need for revenge seeks only its need to destroy Nancy, no matter what the cost. And Nancy can only watch her children pay the consequences.

Tautly written, Public Lies takes the reader into a land of terror seldom explored so realistically. Can a woman be abused without physical violence? Can children be endangered by a legal system that cannot deal with a new form of domestic violence? Can you stop a person who is single-mindedly determined to destroy you, when the law is on his side? Suddenly, "Why don't you just leave?" isn't so simple anymore.

Alesha Gee

The Sunpiper Book Review

"Seasons Among the Vines : Life Lessons From the California Wine Country"

Paula Moulton has brought together a menagerie of amusing escapades, learning experiences and life lessons in a book that exceeds the boundaries of a typical memoir. This wonderfully entertaining sometimes hilarious book is a compilation of a grape farmer's garden journal, a wine making guide and the diary of a woman who is following her dream.

This is a down to earth story of one woman's experiences as she follows her dream of living the life she always wanted, as a farmer in the wine country of California.

Paula takes you on a very personal journey of self-discovery, learning a new way of life and when to listen to yourself. During this journey she explains every step in creating a thriving healthy organic vineyard that produces grapes for her award winning wines and also for some of our wine country's best-known wineries. There are many situations along the way that prove humor and wit are needed strengths to get thru the day. She also shares with her readers’ recipes and instructions on wine making along with seasonal farming tips and everything from soil conditions to grape harvesting. She shares the good times and the bad and how she overcame obstacles in farming life she never would have thought existed. She does this with humor, grace and the ultimate feeling of being human in the realm of Mother Nature. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It shows you how to listen and understand life's ups and downs and how to follow your dreams and be triumphant. I know it will be one of those books that you keep going back to for instruction and for inspiration.

Review by:
Lisa Pratt
The Sunpiper Book Review

The Healer's Way

"The Healer's Way" Bringing Hands-On Compassion to a Love-Starved World
By: Earnie Larsen with Carol Larsen Hegarty

In this age of self-help books on every subject imaginable--how to find the right man/woman, how to cure oneself of alcoholism, how to lose weight and keep it off--Earnie Larsen sets himself apart from all the rest.

"The Healer's Way" is an in-depth and detailed look at the inner workings of a person's mind and psyche, and how the "training" we receive as children based on the care we receive from our parents or caregivers shapes how we respond psychologically to the events that we face throughout our lives--abusive spouses, alcoholism, drug addiction.

Through elegant, flowing, storyteller prose, Larsen uses simple, yet, direct analogies and stories to emphasize his point. He uses examples of people he has met to illustrate his thoughts and bring the advice and situation home to a person dealing with that particular difficulty. He presents a fresh perspective and effective imagery to the nature of healing.

He takes the reader through a thorough and detailed look at "The Hoop"--all the things that happen from the very beginning (core needs not being met) to the culmination of a crisis in a person's life, which cannot be overcome. Unless this whole hoop of conditions is addressed, a person can never truly heal.

If you are looking for a different self-help book. A book that takes you step-by-step through what you truly need to do to be healed and not just survive one crisis after another...you need to read this book.

Darlene Oakley

The Sunpiper Book Review