Rainy Days With Amanda

      DIRE'S CLUB by Kimberly Packard Publisher: Abalos Publishing Publication Date: March 23, 2021 Pages: 326 Pages Categories: Action & Adventure / Contemporary / Women's Fiction Scroll for Giveaway!     Dying isn't just hard on the ones left behind, the regret of unfinished lives weighs heavily on the terminally ill. That's where Dire's Club steps in, a specialty travel agency that takes a small group of dying people on one final adventure-so they can be free of guilt, be more than a diagnosis, and find a way to confront life...and death. Life Coach Charlotte Claybrooke built a successful second career guiding people out of grief, but the impending tenth anniversary of her own heart-wrenching tragedy sets her on a journey to find life among the dying. Staring death in the face was Jimmy Dire's business. He met it with a warm hug, a kind word, and a smile. Dire's Club gave the terminally ill one final, bucket-list adventure before passing

  A WALL  OF  BRIGHT DEAD FEATHERS By Babette Fraser Hale Publisher: Winedale Publishing Pages: 216 Pub Date : March 1st, 2021 Categories : Short Stories / Literary Fiction   Scroll for Giveaway!   Most are newcomers to the scenic, rolling countryside of central Texas whose charms they romanticize, even as the troubles they hoped to leave behind persist. Twelve stories highlight “the book’s recurring theme of desire—for freedom, for clarity, for autonomy, and for personal fulfillment…When women are alone, unencumbered and unbeholden to anyone, they engage in intense internal reflection and show reverence for nature—and during these scenes, Hale’s language is luminescent” ( Kirkus Reviews).   PRAISE FOR  A WALL OF BRIGHT DEAD FEATHERS:  “Hale shows a great respect for her characters and for the difficulty of their deceptively ordered existence, as well as for the problems they suffer because so much cannot be spoken.”  -- Francine Prose,  on “Silences”   “A vivid set of tales about c