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Unstoppable in Stilettos – A Girl’s Guide to Living Tall in a Small World

Standing 4 feet, 2 inches tall in flats (which she would never be caught dead in anyway), Lauren Ruotolo’s preferred method of transportation is her stiletto heels, and she utilizes them to do everything from hailing cabs in mid-town Manhattan to traipsing along the streets of exotic, ancient places like Greece and Turkey. But how does a girl with a rare genetic disease, McCune-Albright Syndrome, who was originally predicted to live a wheelchair-bound existence become so adventurous, self-assured, successful, and . . . unflappable?

Instead of being hovered over by enabling parents, Lauren tells us in her new book, Unstoppable in Stilettos: A Girl’s Guide to Living Tall in a Small World (HCI Books — $14.95 – October 2010), she was treated the same as her fully-able siblings and subsequently became the role model big sister to them (and landed a hot boyfriend, to boot!) Truly unstoppable, she rose to become Director of Entertainment Promotions for Hearst Magazines.

Lauren Ruotolo avoided the label of “disabled” through uniquely discovering who she really is and thus avoiding playing the label game. The little girl, with the big voice, Ruotolo is a combination of roaring personality, great mind, and humble soul, with a heart bigger than any shoe closet of Carrie Bradshaw. Part of that heart fills this book, as Ruotolo offers the entertaining evolution of a little girl in a big world to living tall in a small one, with advice and encouragement for any woman of any age who is still finding her way.

Watch this video clip of Lauren being interviewed by NBC at: Interview with NBC 

About the Author:

Lauren Ruotolo is the Director of Entertainment Promotions at Hearst Magazines in New York City, where she is responsible for developing strategic key partnerships with TV & cable networks, music labels, and movie studios. She recently helped produce E!’s Style Network show about the inner workings at Marie Claire fashion magazine and is working on two one-hour specials with Scripps Networks for Esquire and The Food Network magazine. Lauren joined Hearst Magazines from TV Guide Magazine, where she was the Director of Consumer Marketing & Promotions and created the first ever U.S. newsstand promotion with CD on the cover.

Ruotolo’s first-person essay “Get Shorty,” which shared her philosophies on living with the rare genetic disorder, McCune-Albright syndrome, was published in Marie Claire magazine in 2009, and was one of the most responded to articles in Marie Claire. Ruotolo is on the advisory board of Glamour Gals, Love Our Children USA, and is an active member in the NY chapter of Women in Communications & Step Up for Women. Visit Lauren on Facebook, follow her on Twitter (laurenjaenyc), or log onto http://www.unstoppableinstilettos.com  and http://www.laurenruotolo.com .

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Secrets to Your Successful Domestic Adoption – Insider Advice to Create Your Forever Family Faster

A social worker, birth mom, and adoption advocate, Jennifer Joyce Pedley shares her proven strategies and unique insights for finding the perfect adoption match.  This is a must-have guide for a faster, successful open domestic adoption; oftentimes without the red tape and wait times of a traditional agency.

Adoptive parents are the ying to the birthparents’ yang; so different, but yet without the other, neither are complete. This is the pull that author Pedley, a birth mother and licensed social worker, understands so well. Based on both years of experience in the field of adoption, as well as a birth mother in a successful open adoption with her now adult son, Jennifer Joyce Pedley shares practical, comprehensive, and legally sound advice for taking charge of your adoption process in her book, Secrets To Your Successful Domestic Adoption: Insider Advice to Create Your Forever Family Faster (HCI Books — $15.95).

Pedley takes the reader by the hand and demystifies the domestic adoption process, explaining exactly why it can be preferable to connect with an expectant mother directly rather than using the facilitation of a traditional agency.

Potential families will find:

  • How to bridge the digital divide and avoid the pitfalls of the Internet
  • Do’s and don’ts of the latest methods available, including classified advertising, written profile, and even video to thoughtfully market your family
  • Critical information about the home study process
  • Help in identifying red flags commonly associated with an expectant mom’s decision to parent
  • Ideas for incorporating adoption especially the topic of birth parents, into everyday life in ways that are practical, creative, and child-centered.

In addition, Secrets To Your Successful Domestic Adoption carefully examines many of the legal considerations of domestic adoption including clarification of types of agencies, the roles played by facilitators and attorneys, plus essential information on Interstate Adoption.  With warmth, experience, and passion, Pedley is a wise advocate and mentor in this must-have resource.

Pedley recently appeared in MTV’s hot reality show Teen Mom when one of the teens attended a birth mother retreat that she was leading.  For more information, please visit:
http://www.mtv.com/videos/teen-mom-ep-5-a-little-help/1629031/playlist.jhtml  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jennifer Joyce Pedley, MJ, is a birth mother and social worker who has been helping people build their families through adoption since 1995. It was her own personal experience of placing her son in an open adoption, following his birth in 1990, which prompted her to become a social worker and make the field of adoption her primary professional focus.

Pedley is a founding board member of the On Your Feet Foundation; the first of its kind, a not-for-profit organization established in 2001 to provide ongoing support to birth parents after making an adoption plan for their child. Support is in the form of both monetary scholarships as well as in the establishment of a formal support network for women who previously would have kept their adoption choice a secret.  In 2003 she established and began co-facilitating therapeutic weekend retreats for birth mothers. Today, On Your Feet For Life retreats continue to be held biannually and, to date, have engaged hundreds of birth mothers from all over the United States.

Pedley lives in Michigan with her husband and two young sons. She continues to maintain close ties to her birth son as well as with his adoptive family. 

Available online and at bookstores or to order directly from the publisher, contact:
http://www.hcibooks.com   or (800) 441-5569.

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In spite of our country’s current woes, audiences are entertained by Jeff Havens’ hilarious advice on everything from politics to business

In addition to being an accomplished author, Jeff is also an excellent television panelist.  A regular guest on The Willis Report on Fox Business News, Jeff is able to speak intelligently about an astounding variety of topics – including politics, business, finance, law and entertainment news – while at the same time incorporating a comedic edge that enhances every subject he discusses.  A natural in front of the camera, Jeff will provide your show with a sharp, relevant, and entertaining segment that, if history is any guide, will lead to several follow-up appearances.

We don’t want you to take our word for it.  See some of Jeff’s appearances for yourself at   http://www.jeffhavens.com/appearances.html  , or read the testimonials below from television producers.  Simply put, if you are looking for an engaging and intelligent television guest who can make your audience (and show host) laugh out loud while staying on-point, then look no further.  Jeff Havens is the kind of entertaining guest every television show is looking for.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Vanderbilt University, Jeff began his career as a high school English teacher before moving into the world of stand-up comedy and corporate speaking.  To learn more, visit http://www.jeffhavens.com  

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Testimonials:

Jessica Tomidy, Producer, The Willis Report:  “He was serious about a topic he cared about and then brought the funny…we loved it!”

John Karcher, Guest appearances booker, The Tom Sullivan Show: “[Your] panel segment was one of the best I have seen lately.”

Michele Lazcano, Segment Producer, Fox25-Boston:  “Jeff Havens is the IDEAL guest for TV.  One of the best interviews I ever booked!”

Cindy Perman, CNBC : “Havens offers some serious advice about how to stay hired in this era of ME-ME-ME, NOW-NOW-NOW.  And it’s funny, funny, funny!” 

Thomas Holmes, The Willis Report FOX NETWORK- Gerri is Gerri Willis: “Can you come back this Friday?  Gerri loved you.”

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Former NFL Wife: It’s time the ladies had their say – and they do, oh so well, in this rip-roaring, how-to guide that empowers women to get what they want

Shanae Hall’s experiences from being married to Cory Hall of the Cincinnati Bengals and Atlanta Falcons, as well as dating regular guys, makes up a virtual how-to and how-not-to guide for women with its straight-shooting advice.  In Why Do I Have to Think Like a Man? How to Think Like a Lady and Still Get the Man (Farrah Gray Publishing), Hall and Frost have no problem saying it like it is and they do it well in their abundantly clear, no-nonsense approach that gives readers the benefit of their inter-generational perspectives.  They remind us that the persistent ‘player’ mentality in today’s men is fashioned, nurtured and created by the very women who hate it so much.  Their book is a categorical retort to Steve Harvey’s Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man and they give readers what Harvey’s book could not – an uncensored, woman’s view on dating!

Taking umbrage with Steve Harvey’s best-seller, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, this unique mother-daughter perspective on relationships takes it one step further by including a bonus chapter in their book that is devoted totally to rebutting Harvey’s follow-up book Straight Talk, No Chaser.  Readers will be privy to a woman’s viewpoint of Harvey’s philosophy on commitment as to why men cheat.  By following their impressive advice in Why do I Have to Think Like a Man? readers will learn how to think like a lady when it comes to finding, keeping and understanding a man and how to date with boundaries and rise above any form of violence and cheating.

There is no doubt these two amazingly vibrant women have done their homework.  Why Do I Have to Think Like a Man? is based on more than three hundred interviews with men and women over 25, and on the authors’ own dating dramas.  The book reveals no-holds-barred truths on deal breakers, commitment, baggage, intimacy, and what men really want and getting what you want in return.   Using their own real-life experiences with marriage, divorce, cheating, single motherhood and  being the other woman, they hope to empower women to stop ‘selling themselves short’ by hearing, but not really listening to, what their men say that makes them blind to the obvious red flags that pop up and they ignore.

Frost and Hall have undoubtedly ‘walked the talk’ when it comes to love, sex, dating, marriage and divorce and they cover the gamut in their funny and sincere, common sense advice on men and relationships by stressing that ‘getting the guy isn’t about knowing how they think; it’s about dating smart – knowing what you want and raising your standards.’

As a Sirius Satellite Radio personality on Jaime Foxx’s ‘Foxxhole’ and a former NFL wife appearing on ‘E! True Hollywood Stories – Sports Stars, Private Lives, Shanae Hall is never one to shy away from life’s difficult conversations.  If it has to be said you can count on her to say it – and she does in her ‘can’t put it down’ page-turner that leaves readers gasping with surprise from the first paragraph.

Both survivors of emotional and physical abuse, Hall and Frost are donating a portion of the book proceeds to battered women shelters and other agencies that help women in distress.  Please check out their great new book at:
http://www.hcibooks.com/p-4056-why-do-i-have-to-think-like-a-man.aspx

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TIP SHEET:

Cedric the Entertainer, One of the Original King’s of Comedy and well-known television star.: “Shanae Hall is a candid and witty personality who has a unique way of telling you the truth just how she sees it.  Read this book and you’ll know what I’m say’n. “
   
Gena James Pitts, Founder – Professional Sports Wives Assn: “Are you ready for a real self-help relationship book that is an eye-opener, and will leave you speechless?”

Rita Ewring, best-selling author & ex-wife of Patrick Ewing & Partner in Hue-Man in Manhattan:
“Thank goodness for Shanae Hall being a voice I can relate to! God forbid the moment when women believe we have to think like men in order to be in relationships with them. What is this world coming to?”

Frank Ski, V103-FM Atlanta: “From the first time I met Shanae, I knew she was a no nonsense person that would give it to you straight-up holding nothing back. This book has proved me right!”   

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When Big Issues Happen to Little Girls

Picking up where Reviving Ophelia left off sixteen years ago, this book is a contemporary look at the big issues adolescent girls face in the 21st Century, and how a generation of parents is as ill-equipped to deal with them as the daughters themselves.

Nothing since Reviving Ophelia (and the dozens of copycats that came after) has garnered widespread attention or addressed on a large scale the tremendous responsibility and challenges of raising girls. But that was sixteen years ago. When Big Issues Happen to Little Girls (HCI Books– $14.95), provides new help for a whole new generation of parents.

It is not another book on “raising girls,” or the psychology of girls, or of eating disorders, and body issues. We know those are symptoms and coping mechanisms of greater things, and When Big Issues Happen to Little Girls poses the question: Why are our girls not able to cope?

This book answers that question by introducing and explaining the concept that today’s young girls are facing adult-sized issues that are not only beyond their own level of emotional, intellectual, and physical capacities but beyond those of their own parents. The problem is not only that our girls are immersed in adult-sized conflicts, but the adults who love them are ill-equipped to deal with them or help the child deal with them. This is where the main mission of the book comes in and the uniqueness to the market is offered.

When Gen-Xers were growing up their parents were worried about things like kidnappings and how to answer embarrassing questions about oral sex, or about bisexuality or homosexuality, or helping their child deal with divorce. Now, such questions, issues, and rites of passage would be a parental dream!

While they might not have been “ready” to have the sex talk, they were equipped to have it nonetheless. But with issues that have arisen faster than you can say tweet, now grown-up Gen- X parents can’t keep up with the tutorials that are required to stay current and understand what their girls are faced with. They literally don’t know how to handle the new problems or the psychological and emotional repercussions that come with them, how serious they really are, and more important, where to start.

We need new guidelines. Enter Erin A. Munroe, LMHC, who has been counseling adolescents for more than a decade and sees children, adolescents, and families experiencing a range of issues–including trauma, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorders, adjustment disorders, and more. Because her specialty is trauma and anxiety, Munroe is in a unique position to help parents understand how girls cope and react to stressors and adult-sized problems today, so they can be active and effective participants in their daughters’ reality. But what is most valuable is Munroe’s identification of common denominators that can shed light on our girls’ coping styles in a broad sense. Therefore, she is the perfect person to teach parents what to do when, inevitably, big issues happen to little girls.

Erin Munroe, LMHC, is the author of the upcoming From Stressing Out to Chilling Out: The Anxiety Workbook for Girls (Fairview Press, 2010). She is also the author of the newly-published The Everything Guide to Step-parenting: Practical, Reassuring Advice for Creating Healthy, Long-Lasting Relationships (Adams Media, 2009, with credited technical reviewer Irene Levine, Ph.D.).

Currently, Erin works as a licensed mental health counselor at the South Boston Community Health Center. She sees children, adolescents, and families experiencing a range of issues—including trauma, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorders, adjustment disorders, and more. Erin’s position at the health center started as a part-time position in their confidential teen clinic, where Erin still provides counseling and support to teenagers struggling with everything from college applications to talking to their parents about pregnancy.

Erin has worked in the mental health field since 2001. She has worked with adolescents in schools as a licensed school guidance counselor and adjustment counselor, and outside of school as a licensed mental health counselor. She dedicated herself to the field after working with a program whose goal was to reunite families whose children had been taken away due to abuse and neglect.

Erin attended Boston University where she earned her graduate degree in mental health counseling and behavioral medicine. As an undergraduate, Erin attended the College of the Holy Cross, where she majored in English and completed significant coursework in deaf studies. Erin also provides trainings in self-care, relaxation, life balance, and identifying and managing mental illness in the classroom.

Available online and at bookstores or to order directly from the publisher, contact:
(800) 441-5569 or http://www.hcibooks.com .

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Veteran Hollywood writer offers zombie novel with brains

With Rise Again (Simon and Schuster), veteran Hollywood writer, artist, and designer Ben Tripp raises the bar for horror and science fiction alike.  With an uncertain future ahead of us, Tripp goes for the jugular with a worst-case scenario that is hard to beat.

Tripp’s twenty-year career as an artist, writer, and designer who has worked with major entertainment companies and motion picture studios and traveled the globe has prepared him to both entertain and challenge readers.  He is one of the world’s leading public experience conceptualists, with an international portfolio of projects ranging from urban master planning to theme parks.  His expertise in crowd dynamics allows a realistic portrayal of what could really happen if the dead rose again!

Vast corporate experience and knowledge gained from diverse career travels culminate in his unique worldview, which offers an unusual balance between entertainment and spectacle.  Understanding that entertainment does not necessarily require the sacrifice of quality writing, Ben Tripp keeps thrilled readers turning page after page.

Rise Again is available in bookstores everywhere.  Visit this amazingly creative thinker’s blog at: www.bwhitneytripp.blogspot.com  or the novel’s website at http://www.riseagainthenovel.com 

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TIP SHEET:

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing: “…Tripp raises the stakes so high that the book becomes nearly impossible to put down…”

Jessica Moyer, Booklist: “…Tripp’s debut is a thrilling page-turner that will delight fans of zombie fiction and post-apocalyptic stories, including Charlie Huston’s Sleepless and Justin Cronin’s The Passage…”

Harriet Klausner, Alternative Worlds: “…George Romero will love Rise Again… a zombie thriller that would make a terrific action movie due to a strong cast of starring characters… “

Melissa, reviewer at Books & Things: “…The ending is haunting and may keep you awake…”

Rock, Killingboxx: “…Rise Again has much to offer the discriminating horror reader… character development, intelligent detail, and a fast paced story-line that one cannot fathom putting down…”

Starred Review, Library Journal: “…The final sentence takes it to another level…”

Los Angeles Magazine, Reading List Top Pick, October 2010

Lavanya Karthik, Bookpleasures: “…a hero as compelling as they come, all damage and daring, with a strong maternal instinct that keeps her on the trail of an elusive redemption…”

Any New Books? Staff Pick, New Horror

Bookswim Springboard Author Award winner

Amy Phelps, News & Sentinel: “…a great thrill ride of a story…”

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To Have Control Of The Formula That Will Replace Fossil Fuels Is To Control The World

There is no telling the chaos that would result from an announcement that someone discovered a formula that would enable us to replace fossil fuels.  Every nation would want to get their hands on it – there would be no end to the lengths they would go to in order to get control of the secret that would make them the most powerful nation on earth!

No Urn for the Ashes (Bayfire Press Publishing) is an outstanding novel by Alison Sawyer Current.  It is the perfect blend of adventure, thrills, compassion and grief, and the author’s choice of her dynamic characters reflects an incredible insight into human nature.

Tennyson Garland is the genius behind the discovery of this formula and he knew he must keep it a secret.  After this brilliant scientist and his young daughter tragically die in a fire at their isolated mountain cabin, his widow realizes there are evil forces at work that will stop at nothing to control the world with this discovery.   Eight years pass and Taylor is in the midst of a failing marriage, still suffering the loss of her first husband and child, and finds herself having to deal with the past once again.  She gets caught up in the treachery of Kevin Levine, the former colleague of her first husband who was always left behind in the wake of Tennyson’s brilliance.  The drama that follows leads her to believe that her daughter may actually be alive!

In this suspense-filled, page-turning story readers get transported to Nicaragua and on to Mexico when a new struggle arises – with the prize being the greatest discovery of modern times.  We follow Taylor in her search for her long-lost child as she deals not only with the past, but with the return of her absent father who is tortured by his own demons, and the mysterious stranger who was hired by him but who may represent an even greater threat than even Levine’s insatiable ambition for control!  Readers share Taylor’s warm relationship with Ruby, her dearest friend and most intimate confidant, and the uneasy and emotion-packed truce with Patricia, the mother by adoption of a girl named Emma – who may well turn out to be Taylor’s long-lost child, Rebecca.

No Urn for the Ashes is action-packed to the very end.  For more information on either the book or its creative author, please visit Bay Fire Press 

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TIP SHEET:

Midwest Book Review:  “Unlocking the key to a discovery, which could potentially change the world, has its downside. Taylor loses her husband … and her daughter in a bizarre fire. Now eight years later as her second marriage is dissolving, Kevin, who was Taylor’s former colleague …surfaces and sparks the almost unimaginable: Taylor’s daughter may not be dead after all and her husband did not accidentally die, he was murdered. As all the plots unfold readers bear witness to Taylor’s emotional journey as she attempts to make sense of her past and how to deal with the dilemmas of the present. In this brilliant novel, author Alison Sawyer Current will delight mystery readers and those who enjoy moving character studies.”

Anita Finley, Boomer Magazine: “This is a compassionate, heart-rending tale of loss, grief, and hope set against the backdrop of a struggle to control the fate of the world’s future.  No Urn for the Ashes offers a unique blend of adventure and psychological insight.”

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