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Fool’s Errand: Treasure Hunt Filled with Surprising Twists Offers the Perfect Escape

Fool’s Errand: Treasure Hunt Filled with Surprising Twists Offers the Perfect Escape

(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The love between a father and a son can be both complicated and compelling, especially when the father is a charming rogue. “Blackie” Rinaldi had ties to the mob, and his only son has done all he can to avoid the pitfalls of his father’s chosen path. But when an enigmatic letter hinting at a cache of stolen money surfaces six years after Blackie’s untimely death, the younger Rinaldi is forced to confront his father’s colorful past.

An international treasure hunt ensues, with surprising twists and engaging characters. Fool’s Errand from Jeffrey S. Stephens, author of the popular Jordan Sandor series, is an entertaining story of family ties and a parent’s never-ending influence.

Blackie’s son follows a series of clues from the mean streets of New York to the Las Vegas Strip, and ultimately to the South of France. Along the way, he is confronted by dangerous mobsters, dishonest relatives, suspicious friends, a mysterious woman and the risks of a journey his father may or may not have planned for him.

With the ideal balance of humor and heart, adventure and romance, Fool’s Errand features compelling, relatable characters and a fast-paced narrative that will keep readers guessing as each new secret is revealed.

Author Jeffrey S. Stephens lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. He is also the author of the Jordan Sandor espionage thrillers, beginning with Targets of Deception and, most recently, Rogue Mission. He is also the author of the recent thriller, Crimes and Passion, the first in a planned series featuring Lieutenant Robbie Whyte.

For more information, please visit www.jeffreystephens.com.

Fool’s Errand
Publisher: Post Hill Press
ISBN-13: 978-1642937381
ISBN-10: 164293738X
Available from Amazon.com

Trish Stevens
Tricia Noble
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
[email protected]
www.ascotmedia.com
281.333.3507 Phone

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Resilience Without Regrets: Acclaimed Physician on Finding Miracles and Facing Adversity

Resilience Without Regrets: Acclaimed Physician on Finding Miracles and Facing Adversity

(This press release may be reprinted in part or in its entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet or used by any means of social media sharing.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Many people reach the end of their lives wishing they could change the past. Turning back the clock is impossible, but Dr. Harley Rotbart’s new book, No Regrets Living, offers sage guidance to help us better appreciate what we have in our lives, and take greater pride in what we’ve done with our lives — without spending precious time and energy wishing things had turned out differently.

In No Regrets Living, Dr. Rotbart describes the seven keys to a life of wonder and contentment: Belief, Discovery, Healing, Appreciation, Acceptance, Seeking and Growth, and how to cultivate each in your life. Woven into the timeless message of the book are especially timely observations on the COVID-19 pandemic from Dr. Rotbart’s expert perspective as an infectious diseases physician, including coping mechanisms and paths for going forward as individuals and as a society.

Dr. Rotbart is a man of science who also believes in, and “collects,” miracles. No Regrets Living is the much-awaited follow-up to his previous book, Miracles We Have Seen – America’s Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can’t Forget. In this new work, Dr. Rotbart reconciles science and faith from his unique perspective as physician, scientist, heart surgery patient and child of a Holocaust survivor.

“I have a simple definition of a miracle,” Dr. Rotbart says. “Miracles are objects and events in nature and in our lives that cannot be fully explained or re-created. Yes, like the unimaginable true stories written by physicians in the Miracles We Have Seen book, but I believe the inside of the living human beings I have seen in the operating room and the tiniest of human cells I have seen under a microscope in my laboratory are equally miraculous and unexplainable. And you needn’t go to medical school or use a microscope to appreciate the ubiquity of miracles. They are all around us — we only need to open our eyes and hearts to recognize them.”

A nationally renowned infectious disease specialist, Dr. Rotbart is also a pediatrician, parenting expert, speaker and educator. He is Professor and Vice Chair Emeritus of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and author of more than 175 medical and scientific publications, and five previous books for general audiences: Miracles We Have Seen; 940 Saturdays; No Regrets Parenting; Germ Proof Your Kids; and The On Deck Circle of Life.

To learn more, please visit www.harleyrotbart.com, or connect with the author on Facebook (HarleyRotbartMd) or Twitter (@HarleyRotbart).

No Regrets Living: 7 Keys to a Life of Wonder and Contentment
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
Release Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN-10: 0757323944
ISBN-13: 978-0757323942
Available from Amazon.com

Trish Stevens
Lindsey Mach
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
[email protected]
www.ascotmedia.com
281.333.3507 Phone

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Son’s Quest for Father’s Buried Treasure Leads to Unforgettable Journey

Son’s Quest for Father’s Buried Treasure Leads to Unforgettable Journey

(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

John “Blackie” Rinaldi had been dead for more than six years before his enigmatic letter surfaced. In it, Blackie described a cache of stolen money — hinting at its origins and its whereabouts — and prompting his son to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.

Fool’s Errand from Jeffrey S. Stephens takes readers on a fast-paced quest for riches that skillfully explores the complexities of father-son relationships through the eyes of Blackie’s son, who feels compelled to unravel the mystery his father left him to solve. Why hadn’t his father simply told him about the hidden treasure before his death?

It’s just one of many questions as Blackie’s son follows the letter’s trail of breadcrumbs from the mean streets of New York to the Las Vegas Strip, and ultimately to the South of France. Along the way, he is confronted by dangerous mobsters, dishonest relatives, suspicious friends, a mysterious woman and the risks of a journey his father may or may not have planned for him.

Each secret revealed leads to more questions, as his life-altering pursuit for answers takes thrilling twists and perilous turns until the very end.

Fool’s Errand is poignant and entertaining, humorous and exciting, romantic and mysterious — an adventure that convincingly explores the dynamic between a father and son, and the events that will eventually lead a young man to discover both the treasure and himself.

Author Jeffrey S. Stephens lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. He is also the author of the Jordan Sandor espionage thrillers, beginning with Targets of Deception and, most recently, Rogue Mission. He is also the author of the recent thriller, Crimes and Passion, the first in a planned series featuring Lieutenant Robbie Whyte.

For more information, please visit www.jeffreystephens.com.

Fool’s Errand
Publisher: Post Hill Press
ISBN-13: 978-1642937381
ISBN-10: 164293738X
Available from Amazon.com

Trish Stevens
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
954.263.6827 Direct
800.854.1134 Office
[email protected]
www.ascotmedia.com

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Your Veterinarian Needs Help

Your Veterinarian Needs Help

(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Your veterinarian chose to dedicate his or her life to the altruistic pursuit of tending to the health and lives of pets. What you may not have considered is that the health and life of your veterinarian also needs protecting: he or she is nearly four times more likely to die by suicide than someone among the general population. But there are ways you can help.

Sandy Weaver, author of the groundbreaking new book Happy Vet Happy Pet: Caring for Your Pet’s Caregiver, is on a mission to ease the lives of veterinarians, one client’s heart at a time.

“I’ve known for years, as have those in the veterinary field, that there was an issue with suicide and veterinarians,” Sandy says. “Then in early 2019, the CDC report on veterinary suicide was published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, and what had been anecdotal became data: male veterinarians are 2.1 times more likely, and female veterinarians are 3.5 times more likely, to complete suicide than their non-veterinarian peers.”

Happy Vet Happy Pet is a distillation of Sandy’s research into neuroscience, neuroplasticity and positive psychology mixed with data from the CDC report. The result is an impactful approach that weaves easy-to-understand science with stories that touch the minds and the hearts of pet owners — empowering them to be part of the solution.

Chapters dive deep into topics all pet owners should understand, including:

  1. The heart, mind and life of a person who decides to become a veterinarian;
  2. The very human, very vulnerable person behind the scrubs;
  3. The ways clients unknowingly mistreat their pets’ caregivers;
  4. Three simple rules to follow to help your veterinary team; and
  5. What to do if you feel that someone near you is facing suicidal desperation.

Happy Vet Happy Pet shares Sandy’s unique point of view that it takes a village to save a veterinarian. “Making pet owners mindful of how their behavior impacts their veterinarian mobilizes the village to help solve the problem,” she adds.

This book will change your relationship with your veterinarian and their team forever. And what you learn in this book could save your veterinarian’s life.

Author Sandy Weaver is an expert speaker, trainer, mastermind facilitator and lover of all things dog.

As the Program Director of the Center for Workplace Happiness, Sandy creates the training programs, workshops, mastermind groups and keynotes that help people lead happier, more successful lives. She is also a citizen-scientist in the fields of neuroscience, neuroplasticity and positive psychology. In 2019, she took the resilience tools and strategies she’d been teaching to general audiences and crafted programs specifically for veterinary teams. Her goal is to touch the life of every veterinarian and technician in a way that helps them avoid the pain and despair that comes with an inability to manage stress.

Now in her 40th year of Siberian Husky ownership, Sandy is a passionate advocate for veterinarians and their teams and an ongoing donor to Not One More Vet.

For more information, please visit www.centerforworkplacehappiness.com, https://sandyjweaver.com, or connect with the author on social media at https://www.facebook.com/SandyJWeaver/.

Happy Vet Happy Pet: Caring for Your Pet’s Caregiver
Publisher: Panoma Press
Release Date: January 29, 2021
ISBN-10: 1784529311
ISBN-13: 978-1784529314
Available from https://www.amazon.com/Happy-Vet-Pet-Caring-Caregiver/dp/1784529311/

Trish Stevens
Chloe Taylor
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
[email protected]
www.ascotmedia.com
281.333.3507 Phone

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Break the Fear Cycle: Brain Expert Shares Advice for Building Resilience During Challenging Times

Break the Fear Cycle: Brain Expert Shares Advice for Building Resilience During Challenging Times

(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Forced social isolation, shuttered businesses and canceled or scaled-down worship services have contributed to an overwhelming sense of loss and fear among people all over the world. And there’s a scientific reason for these emotions, explains Timothy R. Jennings, M.D., board-certified psychiatrist, master psychopharmacologist and founder of Come and Reason Ministries.

Dr. Jennings is a much sought-after speaker who regularly addresses non-medical professionals on the subjects of Spirituality in Medicine, Depression and its Spiritual and Physical Connections, and Alzheimer’s Dementia. He also speaks to medical professionals on the topics of Psychotherapy in Clinical Practice, Major Depression in the Primary Care Setting, and the Neurobiology of Depression — among many others.

He describes how the measures taken to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 can have physiological and psychological impacts that, like dominoes, will topple our sources of strength and resilience.

“Research shows that social rejection, isolation and loneliness activate the brain’s stress pathways, thereby increasing inflammatory factors, diminishing immune response and increasing vulnerability to viral infections and cancer, and make you less resilient in life,” he says.

In the shadow of government mandates that restrict our interactions with others, what can we do within our four walls to build our resilience and guard our overall wellbeing?

Dr. Jennings suggests we can boost our resilience through physical exercise, eating a healthy diet, getting regular sleep, cognitive training, having a healthy relationship with God and spiritual development — measures that can actually alter the way our brains react to stress.

“Healthy spirituality confers resilience in a multitude of ways,” he says. “It develops your higher cortex, which calms your fear circuits. You have less fear and you’re less anxious if you’ve got a developed prefrontal cortex. And if you have a loving relationship with a God you trust, that’s part of your prefrontal cortex. And if people have more love, they have less fear.”

Another part of our prefrontal cortex is altruism — something those with healthy spirituality are more likely to engage in — and helping others also calms fear circuits.

Our ability to face a crisis and bounce back is, in part, inherited from our parents and even grandparents through our genetic makeup, Dr. Jennings explains. But through a combination of mental, physical and spiritual adaptive measures, we can boost our resilience and improve our ability to overcome life’s challenges.

Dr. Timothy R. Jennings operates a private practice in Chattanooga and has successfully treated thousands of patients. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and Life-Fellow of the Southern Psychiatric Association.

He is also a prolific author whose books include The God-Shaped Brain: How Changing Your View of God Transforms Your Life; Could It Be This Simple? A Biblical Model for Healing the Mind; The Aging Brain: Proven Steps to Prevent Dementia and Sharpen Your Mind; and The God-Shaped Heart: How Correctly Understanding God’s Love Transforms Us.

To hear his presentations and to learn more about Dr. Jennings and his approach to brain and body health, please visit: www.comeandreason.com.

Possible discussion topics for Dr. Jennings:

  1. How do positive social interactions reduce our inflammatory markers?
  2. How does wearing masks contribute to feelings of social isolation?
  3. Explain epigenetic markers and the role they play in our ability to be resilient.
  4. Explain how our life experiences can alter our gene expression and lead to improved resiliency.

Trish Stevens
Helen Cook
Senior Publicist
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
903.654.0938 Direct
281.333.3507 Office
[email protected]
www.ascotmedia.com

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Accomplished Musicians Honor Family’s Legacy with Three Tributes

Accomplished Musicians Honor Family’s Legacy with Three Tributes

For brothers Robert and James Freeman, who are both accomplished musicians, music and family mean everything. To honor their family’s musical legacy, which spans three generations, the brothers commissioned three breathtaking, original scores included on Three Tributes, a music CD (with an accompanying booklet), which would make a welcome addition to anyone’s collection of beautiful new music.

Three Tributes features award-winning composers Kevin Puts, Andrea Clearfield and Gunther Schuller, along with a host of world-class performers. The CD will immerse listeners in the magnificent sounds of an emotional violin solo, stunningly prestissimo strings, and the layered splendor of four hands on two pianos.

For Robert and James, a music CD seemed an appropriate way to honor their family’s multigenerational love and appreciation of music. Their parents, Henry and Florence Knope Freeman, were both children of musicians and graduated from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester in 1930.

Both Robert and James studied piano and theory at Cambridge’s Longy School while graduating from Milton Academy, and studied performance during the summers at Tanglewood, Blue Hill and Marlboro. They went on to Harvard, where each graduated with honors, followed by travelling fellowships for study in Europe.

Robert took his Ph.D. in music history at Princeton and taught there for five years before moving to MIT, where he made tenure just before moving for 24 years to the directorship of the Eastman School — his parents’ alma mater — followed by two years as president of the New England Conservatory and six as dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

James went straight from Harvard to Swarthmore College, where he taught and conducted for 37 years, served as departmental chair for 16 years and as Daniel Underhill Professor of Music. In 1988 he founded Philadelphia’s new music group Orchestra 2001, directing it until 2015 when he resigned to take on a new ensemble, Chamber Orchestra FIRST EDITIONS. In 1991 he was a Fulbright lecturer and conductor at the Moscow Conservatory, and has returned to Moscow many times since then to give concerts of new American music.

Both brothers have made lots of recordings, and have published their share of well-reviewed books and articles. When the idea arose to commission some original scores to honor their family legacy, Robert and James sought out music’s finest to bring their vision for Three Tributes to fruition.

Two of the composers featured on the CD have won the Pulitzer Prize. Kevin Puts is currently at work on an opera for the Metropolitan Opera. Andrea Clearfield, who took her DMA at Temple, is the founder of the Philadelphia Salon Concert Series, featuring contemporary, classical, jazz, world and electronic music, together with multimedia and spoken word arts. The late Gunther Schuller was one of the 20th Century’s music stars as composer, conductor, author and administrator. He was a great admirer of their father’s bass playing, and a good friend.

Robert and James hope that Three Tributes will inspire others to undertake similar projects. Neither of them is aware of any similar event in the history of music where two brothers from a family of professional musicians — spanning at least two generations before them — have commissioned significant works as a tribute to their parents and for future generations to enjoy.

Three Tributes CD
Available at: https://www.innova.mu/albums/james-and-robert-freeman/three-tributes

Trish Stevens
Teresa Hinojosa
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
832.569.5773 Direct
281.333.3507 Phone
[email protected]
www.ascotmedia.com

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The Home Stretch: Uplifting Coming of Age Story Explores Complex Themes of Mortality and Forgiveness

The Home Stretch: Uplifting Coming of Age Story Explores Complex Themes of Mortality and Forgiveness

(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The diagnosis of leukemia at age 43 laid bare a brief flirtation with escape for Bill Smith. After all, he had battled depression and suicidal thoughts from a young age; mortality was really nothing new for him to grapple with. To put it bluntly, for Bill Smith, the end had always been in view. But that life-defining moment — that brief descent into darkness — triggered a profound fight for survival.

The Home Stretch, from award-winning author Wayne M. Johnston, features everyman Bill Smith (loosely based on Johnston himself), who, throughout his life, is confronted with extraordinary circumstances. His is a coming of age story in which the peace that allegedly comes with maturity is often shunted aside to make room for yet another crisis. It is also an uplifting story in its candid, reality-based portrait of a man struggling to find personal integrity through challenging conditions.

From an early age, Bill grapples with depression. Raised in a religious cult, he cannot reconcile his own experience with the worldview of his parents, and although he’s bound to them by love and obligation, he rejects their beliefs. His father’s palpable disappointment in Bill leads him to contemplate suicide and to provoke his father into a confrontation with a surprising outcome that would redefine their relationship and alter the course of both of their lives.

Given to a physical, adventurous life, Bill becomes the chief engineer on a seagoing tugboat, and his tales of weathering gale-force winds and violent storms at sea provide metaphorical undercurrents for his fraught relationship with his father, his failed early marriage, his father’s descent into Alzheimer’s and his own battle with leukemia, which he is told will kill him. Just when Bill has come to believe he has put the worst of it to rest, he learns something more about his father that opens everything up again, except this time, Bill’s sister is the victim.

The Home Stretch is a poignant, ultimately inspiring coming of age story that weaves themes of mortality and forgiveness through life-defining moments of reckoning that many adults have to face head-on and learn to overcome.

Wayne M. Johnston taught English, Creative Writing and Publications at La Conner High School for 19 years. Prior to that, for 22 years he worked on tugboats, usually as chief engineer, towing freight barges between Canadian and West Coast American ports. In 2011, he won the Soundings Review First Publication Award for his essay, “Sailing,” and has published other essays locally. For his debut novel, North Fork, he drew from years of experience reading student journals to reproduce the way kids voice serious matters to a trusted adult. The Home Stretch is book two in a planned trilogy. North Fork was released in 2016 as a YA novel. The story is told through the voices of three 17-year-olds as journal entries for their English class. Bill Smith, the protagonist in The Home Stretch, is their English teacher, and The Home Stretch is his back story.

Johnston lives with his wife, Sally, on Fidalgo Island in Washington State where he is working on another book length project. Connect with the author on Facebook (

The Home Stretch
Publisher: Black Heron Press
ISBN-10: 1936364344
ISBN-13: 978-1936364343
Available from Amazon.com, BN.com, Target.com and anywhere books are sold

Trish Stevens
Vicky Rockwell
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
[email protected]
www.ascotmedia.com
281.333.3507 Phone

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