Advanced Copy - Dear Jacob...Love Viva

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Dear Jacob...Love Viva
By Helene McHeffey Webb

The Story - this one sucked me in from the beginning - from Viva's life in Sweden though the trip over seas to America (the Promised Land)!

Viva learns some important lessons in her young life and the "take charge attitude" she adopts to handle the harsh realities of her life help her throughout the adventures and challenges that life throws at her.

It also helps the brothers she "mothers" following the death of their mother just weeks before the tickets to America arrive from their father.

The history that happens throughout is as captivating as Viva's story because she comes to America (through Ellis Island - an adventure initself); deals with a second class life (as a girl, as the children of a previous marriage and as the wife of a "momma's boy"); finds life in and around a dangerous trade (at the advent of gangs taking over brothels); establishes some firsts (going to Medical School); to finding true love later in life!

That love is what gives Viva the courage and security to set out on the adventure of a lifetime.

Set against the frontier ruggedness of an up and coming Butte, Montana - Viva is the first female doctor these folks have seen and it takes time and effort to gain their trust.

Viva sees the abuse and prejudice and finally feels like she can confront it - treating abused wives, Chinese patients and prostitutes and building a facilitythat will support them.

This was one of the BEST stories I have read in a long time - I love strong, conquering women!

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I was honored to get the opportunity to be one of the first to review this book - you can find copies available on Amazon shortly at: http://snipurl.com/afbyh [www_amazon_com]

OR - through the Author's website:
To purchase a copy of DEAR JACOB . . . LOVE, VIVA
USE PAY PAL LINK at http://hmcwebbpubl.com/

OR SEND $19.95 PLUS $4.50
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TO: HMcWebb Publishing
PMB 3141726 Gregory Ave.
Sunnyside, WA 98944

Real and Mystical...

The Good Thief: A Novel

by Hannah Tinti

An Orphanage, Body Thieves, a "Mouse Trap" King Pin, a dwarf, a man who won't stay dead and a boy with one hand who can't stop stealing! "The Good Thief" feels every bit like a work of fantasy but it is a very real tale set in (as Dickens would say)the worst of times.

Life for the orphaned Ren is hard - he dreams of family and you know the warning...be careful what you wish for....

Hannah Tinti weaves stories throughout this book - as Benjamin Nab talking and coning his way through life - as the orphans who want to believe and...as the brother who wants an end to the story.

This book definitely makes me want to read her first book "Animal Crackers".

From the Publisher:

Richly imagined, gothically spooky, and replete with the ingenious storytelling ability of a born novelist, The Good Thief introduces one of the most appealing young heroes in contemporary fiction and ratifies Hannah Tinti as one of our most exciting new talents.

Twelve year-old Ren is missing his left hand. How it was lost is a mystery that Ren has been trying to solve for his entire life, as well as who his parents are, and why he was abandoned as an infant at Saint Anthony’s Orphanage for boys. He longs for a family to call his own and is terrified of the day he will be sent alone into the world.

But then a young man named Benjamin Nab appears, claiming to be Ren’s long-lost brother, and his convincing tale of how Ren lost his hand and his parents persuades the monks at the orphanage to release the boy and to give Ren some hope. But is Benjamin really who he says he is? Journeying through a New England of whaling towns and meadowed farmlands, Ren is introduced to a vibrant world of hardscrabble adventure filled with outrageous scam artists, grave robbers, and petty thieves. If he stays, Ren becomes one of them. If he goes, he’s lost once again. As Ren begins to find clues to his hidden parentage he comes to suspect that Benjamin not only holds the key to his future, but to his past as well.