Welcome to Issue 92 of the SUPERIOR BOOK PRODUCTIONS newsletter!
Happy Spring, Everyone!
It may sound silly, but one of the most exciting times of my year is always when the snow starts melting, and that started here this past week. It doesn’t melt fast in Upper Michigan since the temperatures this month are only in the high thirties to low forties and some days down to single digits, but the melting has started with the promise of warmer weather to come.
Spring also brings the announcement of who won the Tyler R. Tichelaar Award for Best Historical Fiction, which I sponsor through the Reader Views Literary Awards. This year’s winner is Becoming Olive W. by S. Lee Fisher. It’s a compelling tale that is the first volume in a family saga. It’s getting rave reviews everywhere, so check out more details about it below.
I’m also thrilled to announce that a book I edited, Robert Ingram’s The Genius Who Saved Baseball, placed not once but twice in the Reader Views Literary Awards. It won the Silver Award in the Young Adult Category and the Bronze Award in the General Fiction Category. Bob, you hit a home run!
And finally, another of my editing clients Christine Miles won the Axiom Gold award in the sales skills and negotiation category for her book What Is It Costing You Not to Listen? Are you impressed yet by the incredible authors I get to work with?
Please check out the books of all the award winners and all the other great books that are blooming this spring that are shared below.
Tyler Tichelaar
This Month’s Great Book Quote:
“Take a good book to bed with you—books do not snore.”
— Thea Dorn
Becoming Olive W. by S. Lee Fisher is this year’s winner of the Tyler R. Tichelaar Award for Best Historical Fiction in the Reader Views Literary Awards.
What is the secret to Becoming Olive W.’s success? Besides its accurate recreation of American farm life in Pennsylvania in the years 1905-1919, at its center is the unforgettable character, Olive Westchester. Olive is only a toddler when the novel begins, but she matures early, both in brains and looks and has a beau interested in her just before she reaches her teen years. But Olive’s physical beauty is nothing compared to her spunk. Since she is an adolescent during much of the novel, perhaps the most appropriate character from literature to compare her to is Anne Shirley of Green Gables fame; Olive is just as smart as Anne, but not as overly imaginative or loveable. Fisher allows no sentimentality to creep into this tale but rather shows the hardships women faced at the time. Olive quickly learns she must survive in a man’s world, a world where most of the boys and men, as well as the females, prove themselves to be not only inferior to her, but also often rude and cruel. Olive must repeatedly speak her mind to avoid being overlooked or discounted, and if others don’t like her as a result, she could not care less.
To read more, visit Becoming Olive W.
S. I. Ossipov’s debut novel Empress Aurora is a surprising and enjoyable excursion through a fictionalized eighteenth-century version of Eastern Europe and Russia, as seen through the eyes of Aurora, princess of the mythical Rubravia.
Aurora, nicknamed Rory, grows up as the younger sister of Crown Prince Kiplund, the golden boy of his kingdom. Rory adores him, but when Kip dies unexpectedly, she finds herself unwillingly having to take over the throne.
Author Ossipov plays fast-and-loose with the eighteenth century, being historically accurate and yet playful, allowing Aurora to learn martial skills from a Japanese sensei, attend a military academy disguised as a boy, and even learn the art of espionage.
Most fascinating of all is Aurora’s first marriage, which ultimately leads to her becoming a powerful empress. How Aurora weds Alexander, the Russian emperor, is too entertaining to spoil here, but they go on to have an intriguing relationship.
To read more, visit Empress Aurora.
Dr. Shaun A. Sullivan’s new book Head for Leading, Heart for Loving: Leveraging Influence, Compassion, and Relationships to Achieve Your Organizational Goals is a revolutionary work that asks us to think long and hard about how we, as leaders, operate in the workplace, as well as in other organizations and even our homes. It suggests that at the end of the day, if we lead with compassion and love and remember that relationships are all-important in getting us to where we want to go, not only will we have more success in achieving our goals, but we and our followers will all experience more sustainable happiness.
Sullivan advocates for servant leadership, which is nothing new, but he goes beyond the general concept of servant leadership to delve into the science of how we feel when love fills our hearts, right down to the oxytocin that makes our brains respond. Beyond paying lip service to servant leadership, we have to feel it in our hearts.
To read more, visit Head for Leading, Heart for Loving.
Mike Oster’s It Starts With Attitude: How to Live in a Place Where Excellence Becomes Our Average is a practical yet inspirational guide to how we can all live happier lives simply by adjusting our attitudes. And who doesn’t need an attitude adjustment? As Mike reveals in these pages, 77 percent of our self-talk is negative, and an estimated 75 to 98 percent of all mental and physical problems are the result of our negative thinking.
In other words, our attitudes are affecting our lives, and usually not in positive ways. Of course, we can’t go from negativity to positivity in an instant, which is precisely why this book will be a godsend to so many. Just like you can’t become a bodybuilder or a rocket scientist overnight, but need to work at it one day at a time, so It Starts With Attitude provides us with tools that will allow us to strengthen our “attitude muscle” on a daily basis.
To read more, visit It Starts With Attitude.
Isaac Russell’s new book Improving Profits Through People: Boosting Your Organization’s Bottom Line with Results-Oriented Leadership Strategies is all about how leaders can invest in their people as the best way to invest in their business.
And Isaac knows what he is talking about. He has more than thirty years of combined experience as a leader and business owner. As the principal of Success Plus Consulting, he has worked with numerous businesses, including Coca-Cola, Trident Seafoods, and Johnsonville Sausage, to help them increase their profits by learning how to use their people as their greatest asset.
Written in short, straightforward chapters, Improving Profits Through People offers practical advice and a dose of Isaac’s Southern charm to provide pragmatic solutions for business leaders to improve performance within the business by managing both up and down.
To read more, visit Improving Profits Through People.
The Gargoyle’s Gift is a prequel by Ryan Oliver to his popular Beasts of Men and Gods Series. The main character of this novella is Nestor, first introduced to readers in Soldiers of Fire as a retired general in the Gargolian kingdom on the continent of Ruxar. In that novel, Nestor’s son Orion was more of the main character, but he relied upon his father for support and knowledge about the kingdom’s past as they prepared to fight an enemy seeking to take over the entire continent. It was also revealed that Nestor had once had a falling out with the king, which is why he retired, and that past event becomes an obstacle for Orion’s efforts to save Ruxar.
Nestor is a pivotal character in the series because of his rare gift of seeing visions that foretell the future. The reader continually sees Nestor struggle with that gift, trying to decide whether to reveal what he knows of the future.
To read more, visit The Gargoyle’s Gift.
Rob Bare’s new book Braving Your Adversity: Life Strategies to Endure Your Road Ahead With Hope, Faith, and Courage is part memoir and part self-help/personal development book. In it, Rob tells the story of his and his wife’s relationship, which culminated in her truly epic battle to defeat cancer. Cancer may have won the battle, but Tiffany won the war. Tiffany came away a winner because of her courage, positive attitude, and ability to provide powerful lessons to everyone involved in her battle. While Rob thought he was helping her, in the end he realized she had helped him by modeling strategies for dealing with adversity in every aspect of life.
Tiffany’s journey is amazing because she fought cancer for years and Rob, their children, extended family members, and friends all rode the cancer roller coaster with her as she went from being diagnosed, to fighting, to being declared cancer-free, to having the cancer return, to ultimately losing the battle. Tiffany’s journey models strength, courage, resilience, the power of faith in God to provide comfort in the darkest moments, and for those who loved her, how to reconcile yourself to loss.
To read more, visit Braving Your Adversity.
Matt Ward’s new book The High-Five Effect is a groundbreaking business book that will especially be welcomed by seasoned business owners who are still operating from a startup mentality.
Matt begins by discussing the different stages of a business owner’s life: survival stage, security stage, discovery stage, and respect stage. He clarifies how to determine what stage you are in and then how to move into the next stage. As an owner of several businesses himself over the last couple of decades, he knows these stages very well. He understands that when we first go into business, we are so desperate that we will say yes to any client and do just about anything to keep their business. He understands how this dedication leads to working long hours, giving up time with family and friends, losing sleep, and ultimately, having our passion and joy for our business decline.
Instead, for Matt, being in business should be about experiencing joy.
To read more, visit The High-Five Effect.
Katy Jean Marzolf’s new book The One Body of Christ: Discovering The Truth That Will Set You Free is a refreshing look into Scripture, the struggles that Christians endure, and how we have failed to see the wonderful truth that lies right before our eyes by often overanalyzing Scripture.
Katy Jean grew up with a strict Christian viewpoint that believed in putting God first in everything and abiding by the Bible. She memorized tons of Scripture to get closer to understanding God, and she would even write letters to her pastor if she didn’t think her church was following the Word of God to the letter.
Then what she calls the “big bang” happened in her life. I won’t get into that story here, but it led Katy Jean to questioning everything in her life and what was real or not, what was true or untrue. And it led her into a new phase of her relationship with God that made her see things in new ways.
To read more, visit The One Body of Christ.
At long last, Sacred Truths: The Back Side of the Mountain, the final volume of Linda Kendall McLendon’s trilogy, has been published. In the previous books, Unintentional Lies and Accidental Lives, we watched Catherine DeLong try to piece back her life after her husband, James, was killed in a tragic car accident. After buying a farm in Florida and immersing herself with animals to love and care for, Catherine’s world began to get better. Then Zane Wheeler entered her life and she found herself struggling with her feelings for him. What she didn’t know was that Zane had secrets of his own, and some of those secrets concerned Catherine’s dead husband. The first two novels’ titles were appropriate for everything that happened as we discovered a string of lies Catherine was told, although they were told to protect rather than hurt her.
Now, in Sacred Truths, aware of all the lies, including that her husband faked his death, Catherine has to decide what her life will be like going forward.
To read more, visit Sacred Truths.
