So happy to welcome my friend, colleague, and talented author Richard Holmes to my blog! His new book Fragments of Divinity has just launched and now we’re going to find out a little about it and about Richard. He’s been through quite a fascinating journey and I’m so glad he’s here to share!
First a bit about the book…
The first book in the Fragments Of Divinity series. An innovative publication of blog style articles that deal with potentially complicated spiritual subjects in an easy to read and understand way. Based mainly on the author’s own actual experiences, these delightful articles will provide both inspiration and insight to the reader, and will also answer many of those nagging questions that you thought you would never receive answers to. A truly inspirational read.
Now about the author…
Richard was born in London in 1955 and has lived a very topsy-turvey life that hit rock bottom as we entered the new millennium.
“I always felt like a bit of a misfit, not really belonging anywhere. This is illustrated by the fact that I left school at 15 with no qualifications and would have been asked to leave had I not done so voluntarily. By the time I was 17 I’d had 24 jobs and was just not able to settle anywhere.”
Out of frustration and boredom Richard joined the army in 1976, but this did not work out either and he left at the end of 1979. After a three month interim period, Richard went off to Germany to work and remained abroad for six years. It was during his time in the army and in Germany that he succumbed excessively to the temptations of alcohol.
“I had taken certain drugs at a younger age but my body had not responded well to this punishment. Because of this I had no trouble giving up the drugs, but alcohol represented a different proposition, and for many years I sought solace in this substance which inevitably led to depression.”
Richard returned to the UK in 1986 and by the mid 1990’s found himself in a pretty sorry state. Things came to a head during the latter part of 2000 when his life seemed to sink down to an all-time low.
“Finally, out of the darkness there came a light and in 2001 I found my spiritual pathway giving me a purpose in life.”
These days Richard lives in Tetbury, Gloucestershire and has been working as a medium for over ten years. He runs workshops in various spiritual topics, gives private consultations for guidance along life’s pathway, and also tutors on a one-to-one basis in meditation and spiritual awareness. He is a Reiki healer, psychic surgeon, spiritually inspired artist, and gives profound interpretations of dreams.
Find out more, and connect with Richard at these links:
https://www.facebook.com/authorrichardfholmes
http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Holmes/e/B004TL50JM/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_2
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/146207
Today I’m very excited to present my first guest blogger. She’s an award-winning, bestselling author, as well as a colleague and friend. She will also be one of the authors featured with me on Monday, June 4th at the Rip Roaring Reads author Shindig forum. Please welcome the very talented Kathie Shoop!
Thanks so much, Bonnie, for having me to your blog.
Wonderful to have you here! I’m so eager to hear about your book After the Fog, which won an IPPY Silver Medal Award and the Indie Excellence Book Award for Literary Fiction!
After the Fog was a fantastic opportunity for me to explore many different layers and elements that figure into vintage American Steel Town living. The novel is set in 1948 during one of America’s worst environmental/industrial disasters. The town of Donora sits in a horseshoe curve created by a river that fed the three miles of mills that were the draw for much of its population.
Rising up from the valley where the mills stretched across the land are steep mountainsides that created the walls that trapped the mill gasses during the “five days of fog.” A temperature inversion essentially put a lid over the valley and kept the smoke and toxins from escaping for five days.
Donorans were accustomed to fog and smog—the sight of billowing smoke meant there was money being made. For previously dirt-poor, repressed immigrants, the promise of upward mobility was a powerful lure and a reason to turn away from thoughts that perhaps the smoke was not all that healthy.
Donora was full to bursting with strong men and gritty women who were incredibly proud of what their steel products built the world over. They had supplied the war with essential materials and girded the pre and post-war American infrastructure that we still see in evidence today. Donorans wanted the best for their children and at that time the best included going to college and finding a way to “own,” one’s life completely. It’s a subtle, but useful bit of a conflict—a love/hate relationship with the mills.
It’s this backdrop that I set my fictional Pavlesic family against. Rose, a public health nurse, mother and wife is the main character. She is hard to like for some readers, but she loves her family fiercely. She just doesn’t know how to let that love totally out into the world. She harbors secret “sins” that she can’t let go of and it’s during the smog that she finds she’s not the only one hiding things.
Like all good stories, the plot thickens and things get worse than imaginable. But, After the Fog is a hopeful story at its heart. With all that’s difficult in life, this Pavlesic family finds a way to do more than just survive. They find a way to grow and come together as they never had before. Donorans were a lot of things, but they were tough.
The “five days of fog,” is the event that was the impetus for the development of the EPA and the Clean Air Act of 1955. It’s something that is still remembered today in Donora—both for good and bad. It was such an honor to have eyewitnesses describe the experience and I can only hope I did the town justice in the book.
Thanks again, Bonnie!
Sounds like a wonderful book and such an interesting story. I’m looking forward to reading it!
After the Fog is the second novel by bestselling Kindle author Kathleen Shoop. Her debut novel, The Last Letter, garnered multiple awards (IPPY Gold medal, Indie Excellence Book Awards Finalist, and International Book Awards Finalist). A Language Arts Coach with a Ph.D. in Reading Education, Kathleen lives in Oakmont, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.
You can learn more about Kathie and her literary ventures here:
Website http://kshoop.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/kathieshoop
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kathleen-Shoop/359762600734147
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