Greatest Hits - Chapter One
By Kelly Clarkson
Label: RCA
Release Date: November 19, 2012
ASIN: B009LXEBD4


I wasn't even aware that Kelly had a new CD out until I stumbled upon it tonight at my local Walmart at their Black Friday (well, Thursday night) sale. I've been a fan of her music since she one the first season of American Idol. All of her best songs are here including my favorites, Behind These Hazel Eyes, Already Gone, Breakaway, and Don't You Want to Stay.

As a bonus there are three new songs, Catch My Breath, Don't Rush, and People Like Us. Her holiday song I'll be home for Christmas is also the CD. Overall, I really enjoyed listening to the CD and I recommend it to others.

The Songs Are:

Music from Another Dimension!
By Aerosmith
Label: Columbia
Release Date: November 6, 2012
ASIN: B0085RQLXK

Review:

I saw Music From Another Dimension at Walmart a few weeks ago, but I it didn't pick it up until today during the Black Friday sales for five dollars. The retro B-movie album cover is cool, but covers can be misleading. I made the mistake of reading several bad reviews, so my expectations were low. It seems that fans think the band will crank out hit after hit, but you have to realize that it has been eleven years since their last release. During that amount of time people can change and so can their style of music.

Call The Midwife: Season One
Starring: Jessica Raine, Jenny Agutter, Pam Ferris, Judy Parfitt, Miranda Hart, and featuring Vanessa Redgrave
Studio: BBC Warner
ASIN: B0093I913W
ASIN: B0093I5QG8 (Blu-ray)
Release Date: November 6, 2012
Running Time: 360 minutes 
Not Rated

Just in the time for the holidays is the release of the new hit series that aired on BBC in the UK and on PBS in the United States. I recall reading an article in the TV Guide a few months about the show, but I had forgotten it was being aired. Luckily, I got an opportunity to receive a free copy of Season One in exchange of an honest review courtesy of BBC Worldwide Americas.

The series was created and written by Heidi Thomas (also created Upstairs Downstairs) and is based on the memoirs of the late Jennifer Worth. Set in the poverty-stricken East London in the 1950s, the series centers around a young Jenny Lee (played by Jessica Raine), who believes she is going to be working at a small hospital called Nonnatus House, but to her surprise, it is actually a convent. She quickly befriends the other nurses, Trixie and Cynthia, the handyman Fred, and the Sisters, Julienne, Evangelina, Bernadette and Monica Joan. Jenny is there mainly as a midwife, but she has other duties to attend to as well. Just like the other midwives, Jenny must ride a bicycle to visit her patients.

The Breath of Dawn
By Kristen Heitzmann
Publisher: Bethany House
Pub. Date: November 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0764210426
ASIN: B008B9HQL8
Pages: 448
Buy Link: http://amzn.to/VkkqTX
Blog Tour Link: http://litfusegroup.com/campaigns/breathofdawn

Review:

The Breath of Dawn is book three of the series that started with A Rush of Wings and Still of the Night. I have only read A Rush of Wings, in which I wasn't the biggest fan of at the time. I hesitated before I signed up to review the third book from Litfuse Publicity Group and Bethany House Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

Even though I hadn't read second book, I still figured out who was who and what was what. In the third entry, Morgan Spencer had a wonderful family and a successful business, but every thing changed the moment his wife died, leaving him as a widowed father to a two-year-old daughter, Livie. His daughter is his entire life, until fate changes things once again for him.

No Safe Harbor
by Elizabeth Ludwig
Publisher: Bethany House
ISBN: 978-0764210396
Pub. Date: October 1, 2012
Pages: 336
Buy Links: http://ow.ly/eh4Xf
Blog Tour Link: http://litfusegroup.com/author/ELudwig

Review:

Set in the year 1897, Cara Hamilton thought that her twin brother, Eoghan, was deceased until she gets an unexpected letter from him, in which he urges her to come find him and warns her to trust no one. She boards the ship called the Servia and travels across the Atlantic Ocean from Ireland to America.

When Cara arrives in New York, she meets a stranger named Rourke Walsh. She takes refuge at a boardinghouse where she befriends most of the women whom are living there, all except Deirdre. Why would a woman that hardly knew her, hate her so much? There has to be here than meets the eye about this woman. Cara is determined to learn more about Deirdre, especially when she catches Deirdre prying in her room.

I wasn't even aware that Colbie Caillat had a Christmas album out until I stumbled upon it at my local Walmart today for ten dollars. Colbie has bubbly music that can cheer me up on a bad day, so I had to buy it.

Colbie sings several classic holiday songs, such as Sliver Bells, Santa Baby, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and Winter Wonderland. There are duets with Brad Paisley, Gavin Degraw, Justin Young, and Jason Reeves. There are four new songs that are catchy, Christmas in the Sand, Every Day is Christmas, Mistletoe and Happy Christmas.

Maven and I have been together for nearly 20 years, and much of her story has not been told. I have many folders of outtakes, random scenes, and character notes. But the time has come, now that I am looking at retirement in 4 or 5 years, to get this stuff organized and written.

I’m learning to outline. Outlining “ain’t no crystal stair” as Langston Hughes wrote, but I’ve got my rope, and my pitons, my hammer and just in case, a vial of fairy dust and a magic wand in my climbing boots. I'm facing a sheer cliff of unknown story, with only a promise of what lies beyond.

My pitons are those 3x5 cards I have hated since that disaster of my first research paper in eleventh grade—I think it was about Odgen Nash. But I have a secret weapon: Larry Brook’s story architecture (http://www.storyfix.com). I can write down my random notes and thoughts on my cards and then organize them as I figure out the plot points and pinch points. I’ve tried spreadsheets (Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method and Ywriter) and various other tools, but the paper cards lend themselves to being carried in my purse and then typed into Scrivener, and from there, turning into scenes.

What started out as the beginning of my debut novel will now likely be the beginning of book four, which has no working title as yet. Stuff happens after the end of Through the Veil, and I’m still working out when it happens and to whom. But forcing myself to make an outline for book two, working title That Darn Maven, has allowed me to get some parameters established and make some rules to corral if not herd these cat-like story bits. Another working title is After Midnight, where I’ll be exploring some of Fiona’s point of view instead of always following Maven.