Targeted Age Group:: All age groups & gender

Reviewer on Amazon: “There are many things in the book which will draw your attention. The language, the selection of words, the flow of the narrative, and the expression of emotions everything seemed flawless to me. But, what I liked the most about the book is that it brings into light the real side of us which we either don’t want to discuss or try to ignore. This book took me to my innermost world and actually compelled me to think about many things.”
In When Goodbye Begins: life takes over, author-filmmaker – Geeta Lal Sahai actively involved in mental health advocacy rips apart the stereotypical existence. These five stories are about mental health, innumerable lanes and layers of memories, childhood abuse, infidelity, betrayal, hopelessness, and hidden emotions. There is pathos, feelings, inner conflict and stoic acceptance.
In the title story – When Goodbye Begins, a middle-aged woman, caught between her dreams and the present reality of being a caregiver to her husband, walks on a tightrope. Through her eyes, we experience the broken and painful world of people with Alzheimer’s and their families. In Walking on Ice Sheet in Pencil Heels, the story captures the protagonist Sheena’s struggle with her identity and the frightening and fascinating world of bipolar disorder. In Death of a Memory, Rashi facing betrayal and infidelity, fights with her memories to face the world. In another story – If Only I Could Tell, the author recounts the painful and traumatic world of the child sexual abuse survivor who keeps running away from love, people and self. Caught in the web of childhood abuse, the author, through her protagonist, poignantly shows the long-term ramifications of broken trust and bruised body.
In all five stories, Geeta exquisitely crafts the inner turmoil of her characters. The world of characters in these stories is gripping, and there’s a world within a world.

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What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
My journey as a writer begins by thinking beyond what is visible. My stories talk about reality, real characters and their grief. I see what they do not tell the world. And it is this aspect that I portray in my work. Through my characters’ grief, loss and memories, I capture elusive moments of grace and beauty surrounding our pain. I believe that nothing is as powerful as grief to test our character and patience. It is generally said – ‘move on’ – whenever we face obstacles, betrayal in our lives. But I think the truth is we never ‘move on’; we move ahead with our memories.

How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
As a mental health campaigner, often I meet people whose world has shrunk, and even otherwise, I listen to personal narratives while meeting people. After listening to them, I always feel that each of us is fighting a battle hidden behind the smileys. This realization motivates me to carve characters, give them a name and as a companion, travel with my fictional characters, giving them hope to push forward howsoever distorted the truth is. In reality, those people may not have done so, but on paper, I make my fictional characters move forward with hope even when circumstances are adverse.

Book Excerpt/Sample
Excerpt from the title story – When Goodbye Begins:
Innumerable little voices begin to prick me. I keep staring at the ceiling, picking up bits and pieces from the rubble of memories, memories beyond time. And as the frosted recollections begin to imprison me, the doctor’s words reverberate, “He is living on borrowed time. For him, every day is a gift. Alzheimer’s has eaten his mind and soul. The truth is that as long as there is memory, there is hope, possibility. However, as memory fades, nothing matters. The past doesn’t matter; the future doesn’t exist. Everything is just a breath away, life, memories, death, so let him live for today.”
I close my eyes, and once again, the doctor’s words echo, “As long as there is memory, there is hope, possibility. However, as memory fades, nothing matters. The past doesn’t matter; the future doesn’t exist.”
I decide not to let the vestiges of pain, sorrow, doubt, anguish, or the fractured memories of our lives spent together distract me from the realities of the present.

Author Bio:
Geeta Sahai (Geeta Lal Sahai) is a writer and an award-winning filmmaker. She is a recipient of the REX-Karmaveer-Global-Fellowship and Bronze and Silver Karmaveer-Chakra Award (instituted by iCONGO – International-Confederation-of-NGO – in partnership with the UN) 2014 and 2019 respectively. She writes fiction and non-fiction. Her work has been published by HarperCollins, Mithra Publishing and Niyogi Books. Her short stories have won awards in several online international competitions. Her non-fiction book – Beyond Music-Maestros in Conversation (Niyogi Books), published in 2015, was very well received by Hindustani Classical Music connoisseurs.
Her film on Alzheimer’s – I Remember… has won many national and international awards (streaming on Disney-Hotstar.) She is actively involved in mental health advocacy.

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Targeted Age Group:: 14+

A fae beast. A wild beauty. A curse that could doom them both.

As town greenwitch, Aster’s dedicated her life to defending her people from the nightmarish fae of the forest. Yet despite her best efforts, each year a girl is taken as a tithe by the Beast who rules the Folkwood. None ever return.

And this year, the Beast claims Aster.

Trapped in a cursed palace, taunted by mischievous, invisible servants, Aster despairs of ever making it home. Then the Beast offers her a bargain – if she can restore his rose garden and break the curse on his court, he will set her free.

But healing the enchanted garden requires more than just growing flowers. It forces Aster to open her heart and face the shadows of her past to discover a power of her own…

In doing so, she sees a softer side to the Beast’s savage beauty and dark magic. As feelings blossom between the two of them, Aster faces an impossible choice: her people or her heart.

Can Aster break the curse and save her people? Or will she doom the Beast-and her people-forever?

*A retelling of Beauty and the Beast, An Enchantment of Thorns is the first in a new series of interconnected fairy tale retellings that feature strong heroines, swoon-worthy heroes, clean romance, and magical happy ever afters.*

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What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
My co-author and I just finished writing a series of retellings inspired by the Arabian Nights tales. We always knew we wanted to do a Beauty and the Beast retelling next as it's one of our favorite fairy tales. We also love fae stories, so it made sense to combine the fairy tale element with some of our favorite fae folklore.

How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
Our main character Aster is a greenwitch and is inspired by the Beauty character from the original fairy tale. Aster is sensible, level-headed, and takes her duties of protecting her family and her town very seriously. Thorne was inspired by the Beast character, he's dark, brooding, and mysterious, and he and Aster have a lot to learn from each other!

Book Excerpt/Sample
The Folkwood loomed before us, a dark tangle of gnarled trees, winding ivy, and velvet mosses.

Beside me, my eldest sister clutched her bow, lilac eyes narrowed as she squinted into the misty depths of the forest. Laurel held her lean body as taut as her weapon, poised and ready to fire one of her iron-tipped arrows at the first shimmer of pixie dust or flutter of a translucent wing.

My hand hovered over the string of dried rowan berries around my neck, rolling the vibrant beads between my thumb and fingertips, my gaze darting between the branches for the glittering eyes of an imp or sprite—or worse—that might be watching us from the trees.

It was rare that I was called out right to the forest’s edge, uncomfortably close to the fae territory within.

And you couldn’t trust the fae, or the Folkwood.

I dropped my hand from my necklace to my satchel, wondering whether I’d brought enough supplies with me to hold back the encroaching trees and undergrowth. They’d already spread much farther onto the farmland than I’d expected. With spring rapidly approaching, the threat from the Folkwood should be getting better, not worse.

Farmer Barric Hawley shifted behind us, his weathered cheeks reddening as he watched the two of us take in the impenetrable wall of brambles and branches, sticky buds like tiny green tongues tasting the clear farmland air beyond the trees. Trees he should have been making sure were kept back.

I repressed the urge to glare at him as he began fidgeting with the flat cap he held in his hands.

Farmer Hawley flinched as I turned back to him, launching into a defense even before I’d spoken. “It’s been even worse than usual this winter, Aster,” he said quickly. “More Little Folk meddling on the farm. I’ve been finding whole pails of milk gone sour, lines of winter cabbages rotting in the ground. And I’ve lost half our pigs. They keep wandering into the wood.” He scrubbed the back of his hand over the sweat beading on his brow. “It’s been hard to find time to keep a check on the tree line.”

My lips pinched together. Securing the border between the Folkwood and Rosehill was more important than anything else Farmer Hawley had to do on the farm. Not to mention, he hadn’t said a word to us about pigs disappearing into the forest over the winter. That was concerning. The Folkwood was always at its wildest during winter, and we had to stay especially vigilant.

I made a mental note to ask around and find out whether any others who lived on the outer edges of Rosehill had seen any livestock go missing.

Pressing down the swell of irritation in my stomach, I addressed Farmer Hawley in a calm, authoritative voice. “Why now?”

The farmer blinked. “Sorry?”

“You said this has been going on all winter.” I scuffed the heel of my boot over the rich earth, kicking up a cloud of chocolate-colored dust and allowing my anger to disperse with it on the breeze. “Why call us out now?”

A shadow flickered over the farmer’s strained expression. “It’s—well—it’s my wife. Eliss.” His eyes closed briefly. “The children say they’ve seen her in the forest. Nairn almost went in after her.”

My hand flew to my chest, a wave of dizziness washing over me.

Beside me, my sister clicked her tongue, her brow pinching into a frown as she lowered her arrow a fraction. “Your wife should know better—”

“Laurel,” I interrupted quickly, “Eliss died last fall.”

Laurel’s grip on her bow instantly tightened again, and she lifted the arrow so it pointed into the dark of the wood.

My heart fluttered fast and loose, my mouth drying as I peered in the direction of her arrow.

The púca.

Of all the fae we could have discovered at the edge of the Folkwood, this particular, shapeshifting fae was the worst of all.

Author Bio:
Elm Vince and Helena Rookwood are both YA fantasy authors who specialize in fairytale retellings and fae stories. They've been friends since before they were old enough to read. Their mothers were friends before that, and their grandmothers were friends before that. They both love fairy tales, strong female leads, and hate-to-love romances, so these feature in all the stories they write.

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Coloring Life by Vikki Alexander

Julie is a seemingly normal middle-aged woman who married the man of her dreams, or so she thinks. She had a very difficult childhood being the youngest daughter of a divorced couple. Her mother is an alcoholic, and her father resents her due to questions surrounding her paternity. Julie’s upbringing left her unsure of how to differentiate between love, sex, and power. Her story is told through a series of therapy sessions. The reader learns of her abusive past and its effect on the present day.

Targeted Age Group:: 30+
Heat/Violence Level: Heat Level 5 – NC-17

What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
Writing this novel has been a labor of love that evolved over the last decade. What started as a mid-life crisis-driven project turned into a mission to help others. There are many human experiences the general population keeps buried under a shroud of secrecy, but those are the very topics that need exploration; they need a voice.

How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
My characters are a compilation of the world I see around me. There is a little bit of Julie in all of us.

Book Sample
Do you ever drive by a church when a wedding is about to take place and want to scream, "Don't do it!" I do. All the time.”
To get to my suburban corner of the world, I must drive by a beautiful white church where, every Saturday, there is a wedding taking place. I often watch as the bride stands on the front steps waiting to make her grand entrance. The dress or hair may differ, but each bride has the same euphoric look on her face. She is beaming with happiness and hope for the future, not knowing what is actually on the other side of the door. The person waiting for her is not her prince charming, nor is he the man of her dreams. He is another human being with as many annoying faults as anyone else. Although those faults seem endearing now, someday, they will piss her off to no end. She is about to pledge to be with that man for the rest of her natural-born life. She is planning to grow old with him because for generations, women have been conditioned to find that one great love, marry, and live happily ever after. That wouldn't be a bad thing if there were any possibility we could. No one ever told me that marriage on a typical day is challenging and nearly impossible on a bad one.

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About Featured Book: Mystic Falls by Vickie McKeehan

Free 4/30/2021 to 5/04/2021 Emotionally reeling after the death of her grandmother, Gemma Channing is settling into Coyote Wells, the hometown where she grew up, after a ten-year absence. While coming to terms with the loss of her Gram, disturbing things begin to happen. Women are disappearing. Just when she begins to realize Coyote Wells has changed—and not for the better—she’s forced to bump heads with Lando Bonner, her ex, a man who still carries around a grudge. But since she’s digging for answers trying to explain exactly how her grandmother died, she needs his help. It won’t be easy. Lando has never forgiven her for leaving him. Tensions flair between the two as a killer grips the town in fear. Is it kill or be killed? Who will the killer target next? And when will it all end?

This Mystery book is available in these Formats: eBook

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