What a perfect read for the spooky season! Congratulations to T.J. Eckhart on the release of her magical Urban Fantasy novel, True You 101!
Read on for an exclusive excerpt and book details!
True You 101
Publication Date: October 20, 2020
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Liminal Press
If one class during high school could help you become the person you were meant to be, would you take it? At the Reinholdt Institute of Sortilege Arts, sophomores are required to take True You 101 no matter whether they live in the mortal or magical realm. Over the course of a year, each student must confront all possibilities until their outer form matches their inner self. Blake Trudeau has always just wanted to be normal and hopes the class will make that a reality, but will the final spell conjure Blake’s fondest wishes or worst nightmares?
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Excerpt
Chapter 1: Most Loved, Most Hated
In the mundane world of Collegiate Academy, where everyone in New York City thinks I go to school, Professor Russo’s course would be called Human Sexuality. Here at the Reinholdt Institute of Sortilege Arts, the course is called True You 101. It’s the most loved and hated course of the sophomore year.
I look at the textbook, similar to the school journals, because each copy will be blood-bound to one student. The magics we’ll be working with can track our progress, our changes, and our reactions on physical, emotional, and mystical levels. However, professors, tutors, and even administration can read it at any time. At the end of the course, the books erase and reset for the next year.
How do I know? I read all the materials my uncle gave me about this place at the end of eighth grade, when Grandmother informed me that I needed to leave the private school in Brooklyn and attend a magic school in Manhattan. My family taught me that the best way to keep a secret from the mortal world is to learn everything about it. I read, watch, and listen to everything I can get my hands on. I study things that not even my family knows about, and certainly not anyone at school. I once thought about telling Seb, but I’m worried that he’ll be afraid of me, as I am of myself most days. I’m grateful when the professor speaks up again, because it disrupts this distressing line of thought.
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About the Author
Since 1995, TJ Eckhart’s fiction and non-fiction work has been challenging readers to look at themselves and their world through a different lens. True You 101 continues Eckhart’s challenge to reimagine a magic world colliding with the mortal one in regard to our true nature, one that rejects either a reversal or continuation of our everyday biases in favor of the more realistic complexities of what such a realm might be like. If you’re willing to risk opening up your mind, you may find Eckhart’s worlds opening up your heart as well. You may find her via her email (dr.tj.eckhart@gmail.com), on her main website (https://www.tammyjoeckhart.com/), or join her adventures on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/tammyjoeckhart).
Book Blitz Organized By:
An author and friend of mine recently released another book that you should check out. It is called The Little Breadwinner: War and Survival in the Salvadoran Heartland by Lucia Mann.
Synopsis: FROM 1980 TO 1992, A TURBULENT CIVIL WAR ravaged the Central American state of El Salvador, claiming the lives of approximately 75,000 Salvadorans. The Little Breadwinner is a story of tyrannized, frightened families—mostly poor peasants, indigenous peoples, and child farm workers—whose lives signified nothing to the military death squads.
Lucia Mann, who was in El Salvador at the time, recalls this vivid historical portrait of human rights violations during and after the “dirty” war between the military-led government and left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. This brutal conflict was backed politically, economically, and militarily by the United States with CIA involvement.
Throughout these pages, you will experience intense trials of courageous survival with unforgettable characters who yearn for peace, justice, and normalcy. One of the brave women you will meet is Estella Godwin Lozano (a Waorani tribe descendant of the Amazon rain forest), who suffered terribly before her brutal demise in Laredo, Texas in 2019. She was a “little person” who became traumatically affected by the abuse perpetrated by National Guard soldiers outside her pueblo home. She heroically joined the Sandinistas (Cuban-backed guerillas) to seek revenge upon the villains of her country.
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Welcome back bookworms! Since you enjoyed the first time I let my boyfriend choose my TBR, I decided to let him do it again. Find out which books he chooses for me to read during the month of November and let me know in the comments which ones are the best a.k.a which ones I should pick up first! Check out the video below:
