Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Book Excerpt: Hatch: A Change Your Life Guide by Jamie Linn Saloff #bookexcerpt #bookspotlight #blogtour

 


Title: Hatch: A Change Your Life Guide
Author: Jamie Saloff
Publisher: Sent Books
Publication Date: June 25, 2023
Pages: 384
Genre: Self-Help/Motivational, Religion/Spirituality, Personal Growth/Personal Transformation

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If you could, how would you change your life?

While bravely facing the motherlode of difficult life challenges, you never dreamt the result would be a soul-sucking, heart-crushing existence.    

Although you try to ignore the emptiness, detachment, and feeling that you don’t belong, you rarely make changes. It just seems too impossible for so many reasons. Instead, you silenced your heart’s nagging with self-sacrifice, food stuffing, or by becoming a workaholic.  

Contemplating ending her life, Jamie Saloff chose instead to hatch a new one. She knows how self-doubt and unworthiness can cloud our ability to move forward after the darkness of illness, grief, trauma, or tragedy – because she’s faced it too.    

In Hatch – A Change Your Life Guide, Saloff walks readers through her step-by-step method to:  

• Awaken your soul’s purpose by listening to your heart’s voice   

• Find confidence in your next forward step by hearing your body speak

•See messages of guidance everywhere by learning where to look    

• Uncover your future in your past by examining your ancestral heritage      

• And much, much more…  

“It’s a simple question “Do you wish you could change your life for the better” while the answer is an easy one – do you have any idea of how to accomplish the task? “Hatch – A Change Your Life Guide” gives you a systematic process that will take you on a journey of physical, emotional, and spiritual healing…I highly recommend this wonderful and enlightening book” – Yolanda Renee

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 Excerpt

As long as I can, remember—though I’m not sure why—I’ve been labeled a misfit—a square peg, a Goonie, an outcast (every generation seems to have its own word for this). 

In kindergarten kids laughed at me saying I had a boy’s name. In elementary school, they said I hadn’t grown up with them, I wasn’t from there. Or maybe it was because even though I have never been outspoken, I decided I wouldn’t tolerate the bigoted French teacher and refused to go back to her class. The principle reprimanded me, called me “a quitter,” but I wasn’t swayed. I don’t think the kids (or the teacher) could quite understand that kind of rebellion from a ten-year-old. 

Another time, the teacher ordered me into the hallway where she told me to repeat to the principal what I’d just told her. I explained my drawing of an aneurysm to him. (Due to cholesterol or other blockage in a vein, a balloon-like area forms expanding the side of the vein. If it would burst, my father would have 45 minutes to live.) My teacher didn’t approve of my mother sharing the details of my father’s illness with a child. The principal only shrugged.

In middle school, I argued with the principal that, due to a highly publicized paper shortage, it was stupid to waste it by writing punishment sentences hundreds of times. I ended up having to run around the gym in front of my class, which did very little for my already degraded social status, but it was a win for my cause.

If you’ve been in this position, you know there is no going back. Once you’re tagged as an outlier, that’s where you stay. As I entered high school, I wasn’t “the right fit” to be one of  the majorettes. They can give whatever reasons they liked, but I’m pretty sure none of them had 60 trophies attesting to their ability and, while they were marching up and down the muddy hometown football field, I performed all over the world, including for servicemen at Pearl Harbor, in the shadow of Scotland’s Edinburgh castle, and other cities across the US and Europe. As they continued buddying up with football players in their cliques, I was privileged to experience foreign cultures and see historic sites firsthand instead of reading about them in a text book.

When we are mistreated or outcast by someone, we may blame ourselves. We falsely wonder, “Am I ugly?” “Fat?” “Horrible?” and all sorts of self-degrading ideas. This self-blame can cause us to slip into isolation because we feel unliked or unloved. 

Eventually, if you give yourself space, you learn that being a misfit is a good thing. It allows you to do things your way without others caring. You may discover you are a bit of a loner, and that’s okay. This is particularly true for creatives and those who have suffered for their uniqueness. Yet it is your uniqueness that can make you great.

It doesn’t matter what labels they put on you. You can’t change their actions. Instead, you must realize that deep down they know you’re somehow different in ways they can’t understand. Whether that means you become a target or are simply ignored, they know there is something special about you, more specifically, you’re not like them—you’re not like “everyone else.” And maybe that scares them a little because they’re afraid to step out of the crowd—and you’re not.

What they sense is that you carry traits offering you the potential to do great things, even if you don’t realize it or feel like it could ever be possible. As it turns out, some of the worst things that have happened in your past, particularly in your youth, formed the exact survival traits you need to succeed as you trod forward.1

Despite the obvious definitions of hatch, i.e., “hatching new life from an egg,” “an escape hatch,” or “hatching a plan,” for readers of this book “hatch” means all that and more. It means realizing that no matter what brought you to this point, you have options and choices available to you right now to help you to Hatch a new and better life, one worth loving. And it doesn’t matter if they mark  you as “an outcast,” “a misfit,” or whatever else they want to label you because once you “hatch” it will no longer matter. 

Some of you are what I call the “Endurers.” You are still on the inside of the “egg” feeling trapped and not realizing there is a whole other, much better life waiting for you “out there.” (It’s hard to see through those thick-shelled walls.)

Others of you have potentially “hatched” but are now looking at all the broken pieces of your life. You may be feeling all “Humpty Dumpty” (who couldn’t put it all back together again) and are wondering, “what do I do now?” 

This book is about how I found myself in those positions and hacked my way out with very little guidance or direction. With much angst, I began seeking my way as a young adolescent and continue to machete my way forward as a senior. 

As you read on, in Phase One, you’ll learn how to listen to and follow the longings of your heart. 

Scratch that. If you knew what your heart wanted and how to follow it, you wouldn’t be reading this book. You’d be doing it. Instead, in Phase One you’ll learn how to listen to your body groan and soul weep. I’ll show you how those nagging little aches and pains, illnesses, and even accidental injuries can be translated into Marvelous Messages™ that can help you plan your Hatch. (This is where I had my first real breakthrough in my life.)

In Phase Two, we will circle back to your heart and all it desires. I’ll teach you ways to identify what your heart’s aching for you to do and how it ties into your soul’s purpose. Now, having a clearer idea on what you really desire—(you have known it all along, you’ve simply silenced it)—you can now set goals and a plan to obtain it. We’ll take a “look back to leap forward” to understand how some of the challenges you face today are the result of inherited trials that were never properly resolved in the generations that came before you. Lucky you, it’s now your turn to see if you can make it right. But, you’ll also learn about the gifts implanted within your spiritual DNA to help you along in your soul’s journey. 

In Phase Three, we will dig a little deeper. Having opened up the lines of inner communication, I’ll show you many ways to recognize and follow your intuition. 

In Phase Four, we will talk about the hard stuff—those barriers holding you to where you are now and how to overcome them—fear, mistaken perceptions, and other beliefs that cloud your mind and prevent you from being the “you” you came here to be. 

Lastly, in Phase Five, you’ll see how, once you open these doors to your body and soul, you not only are creating a new and better path for your life, you can create a better world. And that is a true transformation. Let’s begin…

 

 About Jamie Linn Saloff


Jamie Linn Saloff
is passionate about aiding fiercely independent, misfit, square pegs trapped in an unfulfilling life. Author, teacher, story weaver, spiritual counselor, seer of visions, pathfinder, for over thirty years Jamie’s taught how to reignite your heart by listening to your body groan and your soul weep. She is the author of twelve books including Hatch: A Change Your Life Guide and her Marvelous Messages™ series.

Author Links  

Website | Facebook | Facebook Author Page | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | Amazon Profile

 


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Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Book Excerpt: Home Rule: Book III of The Tribal Wars by Stella Atrium #bookexcerpt #bookspotlight #blogtour

 



Title: Home Rule: Book 3 of The Tribal Wars
Author: Stella Atrium
Publisher: Stella Atrium Writes LLC
Pages: 458
Genre: Science Fiction

Sarafina di Ramonicc In book 3 of the award-winning series, photojournalist Hershel Henry witnesses the loss by self-torching of tribal women. The Madquii and Gora tribes have laid siege to the city of Urbyd, and Brianna Miller must seek a peace treaty.   

Kelly Osborn travels to Stargate Junction to set the wedding of ambassador Otieno. Hershel Henry opens a gazette to report on pending elections for home rule, but then shocking events upset their plans.  

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C44QT91N

 Excerpt

Dkar was my landlord in Cylay. A Putuki man with bulging eyes that judged everything, he owned a converted warehouse eight blocks from the governor’s house, if you can call them blocks. I paid rent for two rooms above the storefront where Cylahi-constructed furniture was sold to the newly rich residents of the Putuki city section. People on the street did not bother me much, sometimes to beg alms. My rooms were tossed and robbed, however, whenever I left to pursue a news story. 

Aging and maimed warriors lingered in Cylay; desperate women with toddlers, free-roaming fowl and pigs. Electricity came on for two hours a day and the faucets never worked. Rabbenu Ely and the Putuki bazaari still held authority in Cylay, but rabbenu provided few services to the people. Unblessed ones, as poor residents were called, understood little of where the city funds originated and why foreign aid arrived at the governor’s mansion. 

I was in Dkar’s office to lodge a complaint about being robbed again. Dkar sat in a squeaky chair behind a desk scrounged from an abandoned hotel. “The thefts are friendliness, Hershel Henry,” he said. “Their way of saying that you are useful to them.”

“Look, if you refuse to take my complaint seriously—” 

“I like you, Softcheeks,” he interrupted. “You can feel safe here. Safe as long as you allow the activity. If you should bother Putuki police about the theft, well . . . that’s different, huh?”

“Is that a threat? Are you making a threat?”

“I want to help you, Henry. I’m helping here. Tomorrow we go to the bazaar, and there we find your solution.” Dkar leaned forward with a grin, showing the absence of two teeth on the left side. “Trust me.” 

I had washed the insect repellent from my hair and beard, now a silvery blond against tan skin. I wore the dungarees and shirt of the clutch of Kenru, provided to me when I first visited Uburu land. I had a field vest with notepad and light meter. And I constantly wore the sheathed beltknife that was a gift, more for show against the hungry eyes of local beggars than for soldiering. 

I was forced to keep my cameras and everything but a change of clothes at the hotel Press Club. John Milan and other journalists jeered at me for preferring to live among the people, and I was beginning to get the message. 

“You got a woman, Henry?” Doug Endicott guessed when I was sharing drinks with John Milan and Regan Villines at the Press Club. Endicott was the network dog who parceled out paychecks.

I squinted at his smirk. “Just closer to events.”

“You stink of that slum,” Endicott complained. “You bring their diseases in here.”

“I’ll try not to infect the tribes with your attitude.” 

“Why did you even come to Westend?” Endicott demanded. “What was it, Henry? The lure of exotic locales, or running away from a broken heart?”

“Where I come from, everything is broken. The savannah tribes have a purpose.”

Endicott shook his head slightly. “So . . . it’s the romance thing. Your tour will end six months early. Mark my words. You’ll shake with malaria chills for a decade.”

“Maybe not. Australian pioneer stock.”

“An urban pioneer?” Endicott realized his drink was empty and stepped to the bar for a refill. 

The comtech over the bar had the volume turned down, but the news clip replayed Rabbenu Ely announcing a new business in Cylay for an upstart stock exchange. The rotund rabbenu wore a dark suit and blue silk sash to designate his office. Ely made a stately stroll down a gilded hallway to step up to the podium and face reporters. Three suited Putuki men and General Sector in a starched uniform, head of Consortium peace-keeping troops in Cylay, crowded behind Ely. 

“Ely has gained weight,” Regan said derisively. “And he chose blue for that sash.”

“Why blue?” I asked.

 “Blue is forbidden on the savannah,” Regan said, seated shoulder-to-shoulder with me. “In honor of the blue macaw, the god-agent of Rularim.”

“What’s a god-agent?” I asked. 

“You have much to learn about the tribes, Henry.” John Milan said. “It’s like a witch has a black cat, but some animals can share dream images with favorites.”

“With you?” I asked him. 

John made a snorting noise and looked around for the waiter. He sighed and went to the bar to order, lingering with Endicott. 

“Why does General Sector lend himself to this charade?” Regan asked as she watched the comtech news. “That’s the real question.” 

We saw Ely encourage a shorter man in a blue suit to step up to the podium, further crowding the ministers. 

“Manenowski! Can you believe it?” Regan said. Her weathered face and khaki clothes tagged her as a veteran reporter. “He was promoted to captain under General Sector,” she added. “He resigned his commission for this new position as a stock trader. And Sector just stands there, like that turncoat act was nothing at all. Man, this job will make you cynical.”

John returned with drinks for him and Regan but not for me. I took the hint. I headed out from the Press Club, just catching Regan’s comment as she speculated to John Milan, “How much different from Henry’s station in Australia is that slum alleyway?”

 About Stella Atrium


Stella Atrium is writing The Tribal Wars series. The first trilogy is available as ebooks and in print. BookLife has awarded the Editor’s Pick designation for each book upon its release.    

Home Rule rounds out the first trilogy and received first place in the 2023 Artisan Book Review Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy.     

Book 4 titled Tribal Logic is scheduled for release in early 2024. Also be certain to pick up Atrium’s standalone novel Seven Beyond that won a 2014 Reader’s Favorites award in science fiction.   

Website: https://stellaatrium.com   

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/SAtriumWrites 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SAtriumWrites
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