Day: August 12, 2017

Blog Tour: The Queen of New Beginnings

Today I am one of the two blog stops on the blog tour for The Queen of New Beginnings by Therese Loreskär! She is published by Bombshell Books. Today I will be sharing my review. The publication date for it was yesterday, August 11th.

Book Description:

Kajsa lives in a large house in Stockholm along with her three children and their dog. Since coming clean about lying on her popular blog she no longer has any work. Not only that but she has kicked her husband out because of his sex addiction.

While her husband is in rehab trying to fix his little problem, Kajsa’s mother-in-law is thrown out of her retirement home and comes to live with her.

Then Kajsa receives an unexpected offer to move to a fashionable part of London. But having to look after her mother-in-law makes life complicated.

Can Kajsa rid herself of her baggage and make a fresh start with her children in England?

This laugh-out-loud comedy looks at the daily struggles we all face with our families and asks if starting again is ever really possible.

Author: Therese Loreskär
Published: August 11, 2017

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: July 17-23, 2017
Jessica’s Rating: 5 Stars

Jessica’s Review:

In The Queen of Blogging we were introduced to Kajsa, who can be described as a modern day Bridget Jones: She is quirky yet flawed. I loved The Queen of Blogging, and it was one of my top reads of last year. My review for it is here. Now Therese Loreskär brings us round two of Kajsa’s adventures with The Queen of New Beginnings which picks up three months after the end of The Queen of Blogging.

The Queen of Blogging was written ‘blog style’ and The Queen of New Beginnings is similar to a diary style, but without the “Dear Diary” part.

Kajsa has lost almost everything due to a huge lie she told: She lost her career which was run through her fitness blog. She has also lost the fame, freebies, and salary that came with the blog. She lastly lost her husband, but that was due to his own fault. She still has her kids and dog…

Kajsa  is having to adjust to life as a single mom and then things get turned upside down as her ‘future former mother-in-law’ comes to live with her. With that, we are back in Kajsa’s crazy and often hilarious life in The Queen of New Beginnings.

All the characters from The Queen of Blogging are back in their glory for round two and we also meet some new characters (Just WHO is Brad!?!?).  We are in for a roller coaster of an adventure with Kajsa (sometimes through her own fault and sometimes not) and you never know what will happen next. You think her life can’t get any crazier then something else happens!

You can see Kajsa slowly get her life back together as the novel reaches its conclusion, to where it feels like she is finally in a position to be The Queen of New Beginnings. I loved this novel and the optimistic ending and I really look forward to seeing more of Kajsa in a third novel.

About the Author:

Therese Loreskär started her career in 2010 as a Swedish author. She self-published her first novel which was very well received and quickly sold out!

In 2014 she signed up to a publishing house. Her novel called “The Queen of Blogging” was released and the feedback was overwhelming! People referred to the book as a modern “Bridget Jones” and couldn’t get enough of the main character, Kajsa. The next book “The Queen of Blogging 2” was released shortly after to all the reader’s delight.

Therese has since then published 4 bestselling children’s books as well. She often does tours at different schools and talks about her books. The children love her visits and Therese always enjoys talking to her little readers.

“The Queen of Blogging 1 & 2” have also been recorded and launched as audiobooks in addition to paper backs in Sweden. Her biggest dream is to have “The Queen of Blogging series” made into films, and she secretly keeps a list in an old drawer of presumptive actors that would do the characters in her books justice.

Her never-ending energy for writing and entertaining people with her characters is her biggest trait.

Therese lives in the countryside along the west coast of Sweden. She has a rather big and busy household, with (one) husband, two children, one deaf cat, five hamsters and a grandmother.

When she’s not busy making up stories and writing silly things, she enjoys the nature, people, history, redecorating the house without asking anyone for permission, and all other kinds of creativity.

Contact Therese:
Website
Facebook
Instagram @loreskar

Blog Tour: Transition


I am on the blog tour for Transition by Jo Huey. Today Jo will be telling us about some of her favorite things!  Now, I feel I must apologize publicly to both the publicist Emma, and also the author Jo for my tardiness in this post.  Life happened and this post did not make it on my scheduled date for the blog tour. I genuinely apologize and feel terrible about that!

Jo Huey is an inspirational & motivational speaker, coach and author.

Book Description:

An autobiography of Jo’s life from the trauma and unpredictability of living in an alcoholic home, through self-development transformation to the more content, happy and successful business woman she is today.

Jo shares her many insights into alcoholism and the effects on the family. An honest and brutal account of Jo’s experience with her father’s addiction to alcohol, she shares the highs and lows of life with an absent father and busy mother.

After life hit an all-time low in adulthood she decided to turn her life around and start a journey of self-discovery. Jo transformed herself through therapy, self-help books, groups, events and more which she shares in the book.

If you have experienced the challenges of living with someone’s drinking, then you’ll relate to Jo’s experience and feel the connection with her story.

If you are interested in an inspirational and motivational story, then you won’t be disappointed. Within the book, Jo shares several techniques you’ll be able to learn and use in your life if you really want the change you seek.

Jo gets up every morning wanting to help those with experiences like hers, those affected by someone’s drinking. She connects the dots to form a new picture using practical tools & techniques.

Buy Transition Now:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Some of Jo’s Favorite Things:

I’m a passionate and loving person and I have a lot of friends and a very close family. My immediate family is my Mum, step-dad, older and younger sister and two nephews. I have an aunt and uncle, two cousins and two step brothers which 2 nephews and nieces.

I’ve lived in Bournemouth pretty much my whole life and I love it here. I wouldn’t really want to be anywhere else but you can never say never!

As a child I learnt to bake, sew and do a number of creative things which I still love to this day. I’ve manage to make myself a good few clothes and certainly have baked a lot of cakes and treats in my time. You could say I have a sweet tooth, I blame my Mum.

I didn’t really have a lot of friends growing up but the ones I did have were neighbours and we use to love playing a game called ‘block’, baking and playing on the computer. I’m still very much into technology, I worked for an IT company for 14 years and had a number of roles and it’s something I find very exhilarating. Apart from the times when I can’t get it to work then it’s the most frustrating thing on the planet.

I’ve recently developed a love of yoga, I’ve tried it in the past but never really taken to it and that’s one example of something I always share with people. Just because we may not like something now or if we try something it may not suit us in the moment, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try it again in the future. I really believe in timing and sometimes it just isn’t the right time, if we try and force it I think it loses its attraction.

My self-development journey started over 20 years ago and I have to say it’s something I’m committed to for life. I’ve seen so many positive changes I’d be stupid to not continue with it. I’m so passionate about it and getting to the bottom of problems and helping others to do the same. I think helping people has been part of my DNA since I was at secondary school. I think I learnt about helping others from my Mum.

When I’m not working on my business which I love, I’m socialising with friends and going to events. I love to sing and I’m part of a great soul choir and we sing once a week as well as performing in events every so often.

More recently I’ve become an AFC Bournemouth football fan, they were promoted to the premiership league a few years ago and it’s been an exciting journey. It’s such a great atmosphere and I really feel part of something which is important to me.

Another passion of mine is TV series, I love quite a few that are released by the CW channel and sadly one of my most favourite TV series ended. The Vampire Diaries was introduced to me by my older sister and I was hooked immediately. Even though it’s finished there is a spin off series called ‘The Originals’ which is almost as good so the void isn’t quite so great.  I have too many to list but some others I enjoyed were Grimm, Blacklist, Scandal and True Blood.

About the Author:

Jo is an inspirational speaker, coach and author. She is also an adult child of an alcoholic and shares her personal story of living with an alcoholic father for 16 years and how that has impacted her adult life.

Jo is brutally honest about her experience, explaining how she coped as a child in an alcoholic home and the self-development journey she took in her twenties to overcome the trauma.

If you’ve experienced the impact of living with a heavy drinker, someone’s addiction or mental health problem you’ll relate to Jo’s story. For those of you that haven’t experienced what an alcoholic home brings it will give you an insight into the damage it causes to the family.

Jo shares her story for two reasons, the first is to connect with those that have been affected so they know they aren’t alone and the second to educate and inform others about this very hidden problem.

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