This is getting to be a pleasant occurrence! You’ll see what I’m referring to if you copy and paste the review link below and bring it up on your own internet address bar:

www.bloggernews.net/117913

As suggested in the comment I posted to the above review (Simon Barrett is a literary gentlemen and teacher from Calgary, Alberta), I’d had no idea of Mr. Barrett’s existence or background until spotting that blog article upon returning from a 2-day author’s conference. I immediately felt the excitement and honor of reading positive words pertaining to my book “3 ACES.”  Words that sailed out of the welkin and back again–to any tuned-in reader across the face of planet earth!

You can spend two days in a fine hotel at a genteel authors’ conference and discuss your work and latest book with a hundred others but you can’t alert the world with a few keystrokes as Simon Barrett had just done. We were  deep in various sessions discussing the phenomenon of Social Networking (in fact, racking our brains! to understand the terminology and methodology of it all) when, suddenly, returning home I found it working FOR ME–before my very eyes! I couldn’t resist adding a comment to Simon Barrett’s review. Isn’t that what conference leaders Jennifer Thompson, Brian Jud, and Dan Poynter had just encouraged us to do?

I realized I’ve been personally guilty of not making comments to other peoples’ blogs. Getting so few comments on my own blog–why place comments on others’ blogs? Had I been fancying that as some kind of retribution? If so, that’s the height of nonsense. The comment blocks below a blog are MEANT TO DRAW OPINION–so opine! Now when I spot something that makes me want to comment…well, I’m going to comment–even if it makes me look silly. And I hope any readers of this site will take me up on it and do the same in my reply spaces. That’s the real beauty of any good blog–the open line of communication to the blogger. If you like what has been said: let ‘em know. If you don’t like it: let ‘em have it! But let’s have it with a comment or reply, please…

I don’t like to boast, but in this instance I can’t help myself.  Earlier this week and by surprise, I received the kindest and most trenchant review anyone could possibly hope for. I’m posting it because the lady who wrote it, in addition to being an author and literary figure of some distinction, pierced in her reading of my book the very depths of the story I had worked so long and hard to tell. I needn’t go on; read her words. You will understand why I feel both honored and humbled:

“Review for: ‘3 Aces’

“It is somewhat of an unspoken rule that the title and the cover can be instrumental in the success of a book, especially a new novel by an unknown author. Those two elements are crucial in drawing the reader to pick up the book. Next, might be the story synopsis on the back cover, the ‘hook’ that grabs the potential reader as a ‘must read’.

“As a reviewer, I chose ‘3 Aces’ from the list offered me based on the ‘hook’, so the third element of this equation was, indeed, instrumental. I was fortunate as the title and the cover simply do not do this book justice. ‘3 Aces’ is a five-star ‘sleeper’ which shuns even a designated genre. It’s too all-encompassing for that restricted labeling. (more…)

Let’s pick up where we last left off…in heart attack country.  Reading my last blog, you’ll fnd that despite being knowledgeable about heart attacks (I once took a Red Cross course in life-saving), when stricken myself I promptly began to DENY the existence of my own symptoms. The leaden feeling in my chest and lower arms, the cold sweat across my forehead, together with an upset stomach, failed to bring me to the immediate realization that I had arisen with an early morning heart attack.

DENIAL, as documented by Sigmund Freud, is defined as a defense mechanism; wherein a person faced with a fact too unpleasant to accept, insists it is untrue despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It has been my observation that men are more apt to indulge in denial regarding personal medical problems; far less so when a friend is afflicted.  Women will generally visit their family physician at the drop of a hat, especially so where their offspring are concerned; yet pull off a bout of denial when it comes to emotional issues–covering up with tears, sudden rage, or an angry outburst that makes little sense at the time. Men treat that kind of thing with sullenness, feigned disinterest, or… simply walk away. Witness such denial in Abner Weaver at the Pacific Rim Casino in Chapter 24 of 3 ACES.  The cause of Abner’s action in that scene is Dawn Carlisle’s denial of her real intentions as she settles down to a prearranged Texas Hold ‘em game. (more…)