So why Does GSP publish poetry?

 So why Does GSP publish poetry?

We like poetry! As a matter of fact, I just read Mending Wall by Robert Frost aloud to a friend yesterday. I am taken with the fact that lots of people know the quote from that poem: "Good fences make good neighbors." What they don't remember is the poem speaking from the heart of the person who doesn't believe in fences. LOL

The Gypsy Shadow name for this genre is Bard's World. The genres of our poetry collection closely follow the major genres of our site:

 The Gypsy Shadow Poetry, Songs and Lyrics

Love is Like a Rainbow

 With words written from the heart and speaking to the soul, Love is Like a Rainbow contains love poems to remind readers to "let love come in."

Between Land and Sea

Between Land and Sea is a collection of poetry.
    The underlyng theme is renewal: spiritual, physical, mental, emotional that can be found within nature. Spring is the greatest example of renewal come to life. 

From Midnight Until Dawn

Light a candle and step into the world of strange. From Midnight Until Dawn is a collection of dark gothic and horror poems guaranteed to trouble your sleep.

 

From the Dark Side of the Moon

As a poem speaks and breathes life, Cairol Dawson’s poems are moments lived the best way possible and captured in the best possible form and language.

Songs Unsung, Poems Unspoken

 Songs Unsung, Poems Unspoken begins with an inevitable departure from home and ends with the finitude of things, traveling a gauntlet of conflicting emotions to get there.

Songs of the Dead

 

 

 

 Dawn Colclasure’s dark poetry collection, Songs of the Dead (formerly named Topiary Dreams), is not only dark, but passionate.

Hymns to the Battlecrow 

Journey back in time and look at battle through the eyes, mind and heart of a Viking Warrior.

Sheila Deeth's Review of Philip and the Angel by John Paulits

ebook available for $3.99

Philip, in common with many fourth-graders, would like a dog. His friend Emery has one, but Philip’s mom remains adamantly opposed, despite all his attempts to persuade her. John Paulits’ Philip and the Angel recounts the events of that long summer between fourth and fifth grade as David walks to the park with his friend and plots how to get his own way. Hilarious disasters, poignant friendships, and enterprising adventures ensue in this novel, peopled with very real children, parents stubborn and attentive, new girl on the block, sharp-eyed neighbor and all the other characters who belong on an everyday street in an everyday suburb.

Philip and Emery’s conversation is delightfully evocative—the perfect non-sequiturs and misunderstandings of childhood, and just the right mix of innocence and concern. Will Philip’s mom lose her dislike of pets? Will Emery lose his distrust for girls? Will the little girl be allowed out to play? And will Philip find four-legged companionship? You’ll have to read to find out. It’s a perfect book to give to or share with young readers—wise and innocent; exciting and safe; gentle and determined as the children whose lives it portrays.

Disclosure: I received a free ecopy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

 

 Sheila Deeth is the author of Refracted among others. Check out her work on Gypsy Shadow's site!

Jezebel Jorge's Review of Umbral Visions by Garrett Calcaterra

Umbral Visions ebook available for $4.99

Garrett Calcaterra's Umbral Visions offers up two stories that will take you to the darkest edges of your imagination. In the first story Dedrick's past sucks him into a house of horrors where he has to reach deep into his psyche to survive and come out alive. The next story has Damon's future is cast into darkness due to a freak accident. What lurks in the shadows of his mind comes on the pages he writes with a voice prompt. Fantasy turns into reality when the words from his pages lead to gristly murders inspired by his stories. It's up to his two best friends, Brad and Hayley, to save them all.

Umbral, the blackest part of a shadow from which all light is cut off, makes a great title since these stories delve into the blackest parts of the characters souls. If you enjoy a journey into the dark side, this is definitely a book you will savor.

-Jezebel Jorge is the author of the upcoming Headlocks and Hexes, first in the Ring Dreams Series.

Sara Dean's Review of Suspicion by Karen Lewis

 

 

Suspicion, by Karen Lewis: ebook available for $3.99

 

It's love at first sight for Lacey and Denman when they meet in a bar. Denman is a soldier who is about to head back to Afghanistan, but both are desperate to hold on to what they briefly shared. After a rushed wedding ceremony, Denman goes back overseas, and Lacey begins counting days unto she's back in her husband's arms. That is until Denman's first wife's mother shows up and claims that Denman is a cold blooded killer who killed her daughter and will do the same to Lacey. Lacey thinks she's crazy until she begins digging into her husbands past, and is shocked by what she finds out about the man she married, the man she doesn't really know. With Denman due home in several months, she has little time to uncover the truth, or risk losing her own life.

 

Suspicion is the kind of book you want to read when you have plenty of free time, because once you start reading, you won't be able to put it down. (However, I would not recommend this book for children under 18, due to graphic sexual situations). I was so caught up in this book that I read the whole thing in one day. I found myself going back and forth between believing he was guilty and believing he was innocent until the very last page. It's a book you won't be able to forget. 

 

Sara Dean is the author of Forgiving Jesse

Jim Woods' review of Born in Sarajevo by Snjezana Marinkovic

Born in Sarejevo by Snjezana Marinkovic opens with a bleak outlook for Sarajevo and the former Yugoslavia. Then the narrative turns to the author’s personal story, as she becomes trapped between religion and ethnic identity. The Bosnian War, as it is commonly referenced, although others may identify the war by naming the participants as Serbs, Muslims and Croats, is the most recent memory of the author’s country and city. The Croat-Bosniak war is often referred to as the war within a war because it was part of the more encompassing Bosnian War. But the suffering ordinary citizens of Bosnia and Croatia could not tell the difference.

Snjezana paints a vivid picture of a city and country of diverse peoples, customs and mores that once existed in harmony, but the populace lost its cohesion and fragmented into ethnic groups at war with one another. The Serbs, Croats and Muslims depicted in this book are as war made them, not as God did. If they are not all pleasant people, it’s because the story of war is the story of hate and misunderstanding. Hate and misunderstanding destroy people spiritually just as the fighting destroys them bodily. Personal names of the faction leaders become real people rather than names in the news or characters in the story.

Seemingly random thoughts invade the author’s narrative, and her meaning is murky for a paragraph or so before clarifying. Her numerous digressions do not distract, but merely reflect the turmoil of the times and experience. Her story depicts a life of deprivation, struggle and loneliness as friends turn on friends and her own family circle is fractured beyond repair and has nothing to do with the horrors of war. Her story is a bit of a scrapbook in which are pasted clippings and memories relating the transformation of a ruptured country and the mending of a torn life.

As hard as the war and family separation was on her, returning home to Sarajevo after the war was the hardest experience of all when she finds she is foreigner in her own homeland. Eventually her dream of immigrating to the United States becomes reality. The author chastises the United States for its detachment to the Bosnian War and perhaps for having too much when she and her friends had so little; but also shows her appreciation of the United States for the freedom she now has, replacing that which was taken from her during the war years. Still she dreams of returning to the time of Marshall Tito, when Yugoslavians were not classified as Serb, Croat or Muslim, but only as Yugoslavians.

Snjezana Marinkovic is a poet who shares her philosophy of life and religion and reflections on ethnic polarization, and presents a poignant personal account of courage, determination and most of all, survival.

Review by Jim Woods, Author of So You Want to be an Author?

R. M. Brandon's Review of Lady of the Veils by M. L. John

Lady of the Veils (available ebook $5.99)

Lady of the Veils by M. L. John is a captivating novel that grabs the imagination from the first page. Woven fluidly between modern day and fantasy, the line between reality and imagination easily slips away leaving the reader wrapped inside a world that could easily exist. The daughter of a Princess Dragonslayer turned corporate wife and mother takes upon herself the task of ensuring her true love's safety in a world where nothing is safe and little is as it originally appears. Fierce sword play, steamy love scenes oozing with the passion of love that consumes the very soul, enchanted forests, and modern day humor make this novel easily not only a must read, but a story that will stand the test of literary time. In this humble reader's opinion it is easily a five-star read, and I highly recommend it. Pick up a copy, and be sure to clear some time. Once you turn the first page you will be remiss to put it back down until the last page has been turned.

 

—R. M. McClaren, a.k.a. R. M. Brandon, author of Witan Vid (coming soon)

Lee-Ann Vinson's review of Nancy by Charlotte Holley

 Nancy (ebook available $2.99)

by Charlotte Holley

Nancy is a true coming of age story that portrays the underlying issues of jealousy, fear and insecurity in the young adult.

Nancy was the girl to be admired. She was the pretty one. She always wore a kind smile for everyone she met. Hers was a life any girl would want, but when her classmate found a letter Nancy had written to her grandmother, the illusion of perfection collapsed. The letter told of the true difficulties in Nancy’s life. It revealed that what people saw on the outside was not what it seemed. Nancy also had her troubles in life.

The author reveals the impact that true friendship has on our lives. ‘Nancy’ is a story that indeed many young readers can identify with. It is a tale of exposing one’s personal issues to overcome the fear of being alone. One cannot receive without first giving, and ‘Nancy’ teaches us that happiness is possible, no matter the circumstance.

Reviewed by Lee-Ann Graff Vinson, Author of Georgia's Smile and Love's Trust

Lisa Farrell's Review of Journey by Sarah Deckard

 Journey (ebook, available for $3.99)

 

Journey by SarahDeckard is a medieval fairy tale with a modern message. Princess Victoria is betrothed to her true love yet discontented, something she does not realise until her prince rejects her and so compels her to embark on a quest. She thinks she journeys to seek her lover, but she finds herself on a journey of self-discovery. If “every girl's a princess”, then every girl should read this story. This author has something important to teach her heroine, and she makes the lesson a pleasant one for the reader. Journey is a prettily written, magical tale for any woman who's ever questioned a “happily ever after” ending.

This review is by one of our authors, Lisa Farrell. Her books are The Cursed (ebook, available for $3.99) and The Mother (available for free download).

A GREAT AUTHOR!!!

Oh and did I mention? - there is a kind of Spam you will like - the latest ebook and first release print book from Elizabeth Ann Scarborough:

Spam Vs. the Vampire

Ode to a Second Rate Author

So, I had an author tell me today that he didn't need to try to perfect spelling or grammar, since all publishers have an editing department and that is what editors are for. He left me absolutely speechless. I wish him all the best, but does anyone else feel that way?

I expect my authors to try to turn in an A+ paper for publication, to do their very best and work with me to make it the best it can be. He turned in a C- paper and expects me to set aside time and make a supreme effort to transform it by myself. My favorite thing about selecting works and authors on Gypsy Shadow is finding people who want to become expert wordcrafters.

We are privileged to have people from all walks of life submitting their manuscripts, doing their darnedest to produce well-written stories and working to promote them on the Internet, at bookstores, at fantasy, sci-fi and writer's conventions as well as in their hometowns. My experience today made me want to thank each of you all over again for being 'my' authors and gracing Gypsy Shadow Publishing with your integrity and diligence.

If you are a reader, please stop by, read a few excerpts and pick something out!