Ben D’Alessio: Binge Until Tragedy

Laden with the grief of losing his childhood best friend to suicide and the weight of the “Real World” approaching fast, Joel Lupo buys a one-way ticket to Paris after graduating from college. With his faithful friends, Riley and Kev, at his side, a carry-on full of whiskey nips, and the promise of drugs, women, and the chance to finally speak French (the damn beautiful tongue), Joel heads to Europe to seek adventure, excitement, and new vices.

But through the haze of hallucinogens and prostitutes, new friends and new lovers (Joel quite liked to use the word ‘lover,’ when in Europe), bloody red wine and absinthe, something gnaws at Joel in the pit. It follows him from Paris, across the pulsating cities of the continent. It takes hold of him and eats away at his thoughts, his mood, his friendships.

Across the warm waters of the Mediterranean, an awakening foments on the coasts of North Africa: Revolution.

Binge Until Tragedy is Ben D’Alessio’s debut novel. He lives in New Orleans with a very mischievous cat named Kennedy.

Tanya Binford Crossing The Wake

Readers will come away surprised by her varied human encounters, inspired by her accomplishments, and shocked to see what she faces upon her return home.
Crossing the Wake: One Woman’s Great Loop Adventure is both beacon of hope, and an emotionally transformative tale anyone eager to test their own strength will enjoy. A motivating read guaranteed to energize readers into pursuing their passions, Tanya Binford’s memoir is not to be missed.
Readers yearning to be whisked away on an exciting true journey need look no further than the upcoming nonfiction release Crossing the Wake: One Woman’s Great Loop Adventure. Debut author Tanya Binford walked away from her stable life into a voyage unknown – a solo six-month boating excursion circumnavigating the Eastern United States in a 25 foot Ranger Tug Boat. Throughout both triumphs and troubles readers will find themselves rooting for Tanya wholeheartedly as she sails toward her dream.
As a single mom and a psychiatric nurse practitioner, Binford seemingly had little time for chasing dreams but couldn’t shake her fiery urge to sail the Great Loop (a 5,000 mile journey looping through Atlantic ocean waters, Great Lakes, rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico). When her boat falls behind the group, she quickly finds herself out of her element, but not out for the count. Now as the first lone woman on the Great Loop expedition, Tanya’s journey becomes internal as she discovers her strength and independence.

About the Author
Tanya Binford grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She got married in her second year of college and dropped out when she was pregnant with her daughter at 19. Her son was born two years later. When her children were young she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. After a difficult ten year marriage, she divorced and went to nursing school to earn her associates degree in nursing. After becoming a nurse, she moved to Tucson, Arizona, where she lived for the next 14 yrs. During that time, she obtained her advanced degree and became a psychiatric nurse practitioner, working in public mental health. For ten years, she practiced as a nurse practitioner in Nogales, AZ, the later years through tele-psychiatry, out of her home in North Carolina. At 51, she took a year off work to fulfill her dream of circumnavigating the Great Loop cruise route.
www.crossingthewake.com

JoAnn Franklin: The Raindrop Institute

THE FATE OF HUMANITY RESTS WITH ONE WOMAN . . . AND HER FOUR RENTERS
Dart Sommers is 58, divorced, and an assistant professor of psychology at a North Carolina coastal university. She’s three months shy of promotion and tenure, down to her last chance to make a career in academe, when her new boss questions her research.
Dart isn’t a doomsayer. She has evidence to prove that civilization collapse is imminent, and that she can stop it. Dean J. Asher Wright doesn’t believe her. He insists she find something more practical to study that will make a difference, and if she doesn’t, she’s out of a job.
Should Dart stay and fight for the job she’s earned or leave?
Before she can act to implement The Raindrop Institute, a think tank that will, she hopes, prevent civilization collapse, her father, a crusty old farmer in Illinois, has an accident and she must go to him. As Will Sommers struggles to defy death, Dart struggles to understand that everything she believed about her relationship with her father might be wrong. Dart confronts her fears, heals old regrets, and finds the courage she needs to risk her tenure bid, her job, and her reputation.
Back home in North Carolina, Dart trains four older single women to use insight as a weapon to bring about societal change. These reluctant superheroes aren’t cut out for the job, but they’re willing to give it their all.
If you like engaging, well written dialogue framing change and social upheaval at the core-family level on to the greater society, pick up a copy of The Raindrop Institute today.
Experience these odd superheroes and their thought-filled adventures.

The author bio:
JoAnn Franklin lives near the ocean in North Carolina with her handsome husband, a sandcast of a Labrador puppy and fond memories of a black cat named Baxter. She has a Ph.D. in educational administration, and finished her educational career teaching graduate courses to principals and superintendents who wanted to earn a doctorate and to educators who wanted to become principals. She left academe to write stories that can make a difference.