The Apothecary by Samantha Jillian Bayarr

An Ebook available from Amazonhttp://tinyurl.com/6359ylq

The Apothecary  is a good mixture of romance, ghosts, and mysteries from the past. Claire Mayfield discovers on her mother's passing that her mother had many secrets that she didn't share with anyone. So it came as a huge shock to find out that she is to inherit a haunted mansion, an orphanage, a cottage and a lot of ghosts.  Her mother's attorney stops Claire as she's leaving the cemetery and gives her his business card and tells her to contact him.
Claire insist that her mother didn't have much when she passed and thinks this attorney has the wrong girl or is just confused. Her best friend Emily, later convinces her that she has nothing to lose by making an appointment and after all he was attractive. Claire nearly faints when she snoops through the paperwork on the attorneys desk because she'd been having terrible nightmares about a house that looks like a photo in the folder. Already stressed from losing her mother and having nightmares she rushes out of the office. Feeling very scared and confused she's sure she doesn't want to see the attorney again. Emily keeps her balanced and sane and once again gets her to investigate what the attorney has to tell her. When she does, she's not sure she wants to accept the inheritance. After all who wants a mansion that the father was accused of killing all his children in and they've haunted the place for the past 100 years. No one's lived in it since. Spooky, very spooky. Overall a fun story and I am always a sucker for a ghost here and there.

Palaces and Calluses by Rebecca Woodhead

Book Review:  Ebook, Palaces and Calluses by Rebecca Woodhead.

Mary at first seems to be a another shallow twenty something pleasure seeker. Unformed and a product of someone else's creation or desires. Married at 16, to an older man, a millionaire, seems like a fairy tale dream come true. Mary is very in love with her prince charming and is finessed by him for the 10 years of their married life. Mary was so young, and naive when they married that she had no life experience to see that she was manipulated by her husband and just a mere bauble on his arm. When she was physically matured into a woman of twenty six he trades her in for a younger version. Devastated Mary's parents take her home to family homestead where she can recuperate emotionally.

For the first weeks Mary is an emotional wreck but her very strong willed mother directs her to find a job. This is a huge problem for Mary as she has never done a lick of work and has no marketable skills. Her mother gets her involved in selling Pert 'n' Perki Paws a line of foot care products, and pays the initial astronomical fees for the starter kit. Mary does not want to sell this product it's similar to selling Avon products in the United States. Except with a diabolical twist. You have to sell not only the product but recruit new people to become reps. Pert 'n' Perki Paws has a minimum order amount that you can order and if your order is less than that, they won't take the order. After getting a recruit Mary has to make sure they fill a qualifying order and also get new recruits.

Mary would not have signed the contract had her dog Rock not bitten the recruiter. Edna, the evil recruiter threatens to turn Rock into the authorities for that bite, but if she will just sign and sell Pert 'n' Perki Paws she won't. Loving her dog Rocky so much, she submits and hell begins. The evil recruiter Edna is a much like The Wizard of Oz with the wicked witch trying to take away Dorothy's dog. The wicked witch would have been easier to deal with than Edna.

Mary does meet some interesting people when searching for new recruits,  that become an integral part of her life. Like Clive and Ron. Clive arranges for  Mary to come and do a Pert 'n' Perki Paws showing at a gay bash they're throwing. Mary meets the Organic Fox at this bash and they hit it off in a big way. Mary is sensible and doesn't let her attraction magnet zero right in on the Fox and she's concerned about his moniker 'The Fox'. So she puts him on a back burner. Clive gets her a plum job that's opened at the swank restaurant he works at. Mary is thrilled with this opportunity to get to wear her nice clothes and dress up more. So she starts as hostess in the day time when it's less busy. She likes the job and most the people she works. Being a hostess in a posh place is not as easy as it sounds.

She thinks she has fulfilled her obligation to Pert 'n' Perki Paws, wait, not so quick, Edna the evil recruiter is suddenly demanding that she find two new recruits and fill an order herself or she is going to still turn Rock over to the authorities and let them put him to death for that bite. She's working full time and really doesn't have much time to go door to door finding new recruits but finally bends to Edna's will under the threat of losing Rock.

Mary meets Jackie during one of her sojourns to find new recruits. Jackie is down in the dumps with life's problems and Mary likes her and gets her mother to hire Jackie as a housekeeper. A close friendship develops between them. Eventually Jackie moves out of her gloomy apartment and in with Mary and her parents. They have many good times together and are supportive to each other. I was sorry when the book ended and wanted more. So glad to hear that Rebecca Woodhead is writing a sequel.

Epub, Document Viewers, Nook, Sony Reader

Epub

EPUB is for reading text on an EReader like Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, or any other brand EReader. FireFox has a downloadable add on to the browser that will allow you to read an Epub file within FireFox. You can read more and get it here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/epubreader/
There are many readers available and which one you like is a personal preference and your budget. Most are proprietorial so if you buy Kindle, it will mainly download books or files you purchase from Amazon. I saw that Kindle is making itself available to libraries and is going to launch soon.
I am not that knowledgeable about Ereaders as I'm mainly interested in Audio Books. You can find some information here http://tinyurl.com/3styg89 or check out http://www.jedisaber.com/ebooks/Readers.asp for more detailed information.
I wanted to purchase Rebecca Woodhead's newly released Ebook from Amazon,  Palaces & Calluses. Amazon provides a small downloadable program that is similar to Adobe Reader. There was much about Kindle on the website so I had to look around for the alternate reader. I did not find it that easy, so I called the 800 number provided and the tech emailed the program to me. From there is was very simple. Just clicked on the link he provided, clicked download and then went on to make my book purchase. Barnes & Noble is about the same a little tricky locating the downloadable reader if you don't own a Nook. The process was a bit harder and I had to call the tech # which was provided over the phone from my local B&N. The gal that answered the phone did not know why I was getting strange error messages. The tech didn't either although he could see on his end my purchase order and my information for joining. Alas, I never did get it, so will try again later.
If you don't own an Ereader then it's best you do a lot of research and read reviews about them before making your decision.
Most libraries have Overdrive, NetLibrary, and Mobi, MP3 and so forth, books that are downloadable and readable on your device. I am recommending http://www.jedisaber.com/ebooks/Readers.asp for more detailed information on Readers. CNet has some good discussion on Sony Vs. Kindle which e-reader should I buy at http://tinyurl.com/42xuytc. I used Tinyurl to shorten the long links.
A viewer emailed me that she was able to download my site to her Sony Reader this way, "I saved some of your blog as a file on the computer. Then I converted it using Calibre and put it on my Sony E-reader. So I can catch up on it as I have the time at lunch at work or whenever.  It converted really well to my ereader. I used your blog photo as the book cover. To be more detailed what I did was saved the page as html. I wanted the photos. I assume I could just do it in text too. Anyway, then I opened Calibre. I located the file and added it to the Calibre library. Then I converted it to an epub file.  Then I just had it send it, to my  Sony ereader. Thanks, from Pat"
Calibre, is the very popular and easy to use program to handle your text and e-book files. You can get it here http://calibre-ebook.com/
Feel free to do a Guest Posting here if you have any tips to add.
Free Ebooks
http://www.free-ebooks.net/
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.manybooks.net/
http://tinyurl.com/3lwvv3
A simple google search for free e-books or audiobooks will bring up tons of excellent sites as well as the one's I listed.

Palaces and Calluses by Rebecca Woodhead

Very excellent romance story. I liked the dog, but Mary is cool too. lol read it for yourself and remember what romance is about. I am looking forward to when Rebecca becomes a narrator. Her voice is lovely, clear and a pleasure to listen to. 

To get a copy of her book that is now on Amazon you can either get it off Amazon or from her links twitter @rebeccawoodhead  or webpage. http://rebeccawoodhead.com She lives in The Cotswolds, England, you know how all of us cozy mystery lovers like books that take place in the Cotswolds. Living there should give Rebecca some good ideas for writing a new book, a cozy mystery we hope.

Palaces and Calluses by Rebecca Woodhead

Very excellent romance story. I liked the dog, but Mary is cool too. lol read it for yourself and remember what romance is about. I am looking forward to when Rebecca becomes a narrator. Her voice is lovely, clear and a pleasure to listen to. 

To get a copy of her book that is now on Amazon you can either get it off Amazon or from her links twitter @rebeccawoodhead  or webpage. http://rebeccawoodhead.com She lives in The Cotswolds, England, you know how all of us cozy mystery lovers like books that take place in the Cotswolds. Living there should give Rebecca some good ideas for writing a new book, a cozy mystery we hope.

Chit chat about where to get audiobooks

Audio Book Swap

Many of you who come here to read narrator reviews may wonder where you can get a good selection of audio books. Your public library could be your biggest source if they have Overdrive or Netlibrary. Of course they will no doubt have a good selection on CD's if you prefer to listen to your books that way. I feel fortunate that my library has both Netlibrary and Overdrive. Log into your library account and look for the tab that says databases or internet.
If your searching for a specific book from the regular library database it will have an icon indicating that it is available as a downloadable book. Sign into either with your library card number and download the software you need. The instructions are much clearer now than when I started using it a few years ago. They are compatible now with many more devices than when they started out. There are hundreds of Epub books that you can read if  you want to do that too.
I prefer Overdrive for it's easy to use interface. It has an excellent bookmarking ability. You can easily burn, or transfer your book from within it's window or you can listen to it on your computer.
I like Netlibrary because you don't have to wait to check out a book. If they have it you can download it right away, whereas on Overdrive you may end up having to wait for it to become available. It will show how many people are on the waiting list. The selection of books at either is dependent on what your library provides. There are some free sites also like librivox except the books are not read by professional narrators. I have listened to a few books from them and heard some excellent readers. What I don't like is between every single chapter, they repeat the librivox ad and information. I've even had a few readers giving kudos to some friend that graduated from college. That is really annoying. Personally I think at the beginning of the book is sufficient. It can be disturbing to have it breaking the flow of the story so often.