Book Review: Hold Her Down By Kathryn Biel #50BookPledge

About the Book:
Elizabeth Zurlo is lost. She's a wife, a mother, a teacher, a PTA volunteer—but somewhere along the way, she's lost herself. Depression and despair can lead to desperate measures and when she is pulled back from the brink of suicide, Elizabeth slowly tries to rebuild her marriage and reclaim her life. Just as she has finally started to put herself back together, a scandalous novel rocks her small town ... and costs Elizabeth her social standing, friendships and ultimately, her marriage. However, the man who seemingly destroyed Elizabeth's life, helps her realize who she is and what she needs to do to become the woman she's not only capable of being, but the woman she used to be.

About the Author:
Kathryn Biel hails from Upstate New York and is a spouse and mother of two wonderful and energetic kids. In between being Chief Home Officer and Director of Child Development of the Biel household, she works as a school-based physical therapist. She attended Boston University and received her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from The Sage Colleges. After years of writing countless letters of medical necessity for wheelchairs, finding increasingly creative ways to encourage the government and insurance companies to fund her clients' needs and writing entertaining annual Christmas letters, she decided to take a shot at writing the kind of novel that she likes to read. Her debut novel, GOOD INTENTIONS, was released in 2013, and her second novel, HOLD HER DOWN was released in 2014. Her musings and rants can also be found on her personal blog, Biel Blather.

My Review of the Book:

I personally believe that if you are a mom and/or married you can relate to this book.  I know so many moms, myself included that love doing things for our family.  You get busy cooking, cleaning and taking care of all of your families needs, but somehow along the line you forget a bit about yourself.  Although, I have to say I have never been in the situation as an adult of being so lost that you feel desperate for a way out.  I have however, been in a situation where I have been envious of other women around me who seem to be managing it all so easy.  It might be just that it appears their kids listen better or they seem to have more energy, better sense of style while still managing to maintain their family.  As a women you see it as though there is something you are doing wrong and your own imperfections.  These women might appear that they are living the dream life, but as it was shown in Hold Her Down reality is being a mother is just living life within a larger scale high school.  All the women will have some sort of struggle and it is important to remember it is just an illusion that they do not!

I loved the message of empowerment from Hold Her Down.  The main character, Elizabeth's journey is really quite inspirational.  She is easy to relate to and loveable all the while coming across as 100% human.  She is a women that you would love to be friends with as she is real in every sense of the word.  She has flaws, struggles and weaknesses, but she is also a protector, beautiful and caring.   I really did love this book and look forward to checking out other books by Kathryn!

Buy the Book!

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Kathryn%20R.%20Biel&search-alias=digital-text

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/kathryn-r.-biel

Kobo:  http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/Search?query=Kathryn%20R.%20Biel&fcsearchfield=Author

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/kathryn-r.-biel/id805022384?mt=11

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/KRBiel

All views expressed are 100% my own and not influenced in anyway.  I was supplied a book for review purposes and not compensated for this post.

 










Views expressed are 100% my own and not influenced in anyway.  I was supplied an ebook for review purposes only and not compensated in any other way. 

Tips From an Author on Staying focused When Writing

 Being a blogger I have days when my brain just does not know what to write or where to even start.  I always wondered how authors do it and love that I am able to share some of the tips with my readers that work for the author of Hold Her Down!  I will be posting my review later today so be sure to check it out! In the meantime why not check out the following tips from Kathryn R. Biel.

Hi all and thanks to Jayda at Two Children and a Migraine for allowing me to guest post today. Today, I'm writing about writing. More specifically, I'm writing about how to stay focused on writing. When presented with this topic, I had a moment (or three) of panic thinking, "Oh crap, how do I stay focused? I can't stay focused. Where did I put my coffee? Oh, look the cat is being cute! 

If you're anything like me, focus is a luxury right up there with going to the bathroom by myself—it doesn't happen very often. In spite of that, I've managed to get three novels written, so I guess I must have found something that works. Here are some strategies that seem to be working for me:

·         National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo): This is a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It happens to be the month of November, which is kind of crappy with the holidays and all, but having that goal and deadline was a huge motivator for me. You sign into the website and post your word counts. There are nice bar graphs that show you your progress and tell you all your stats. I love stuff like that and NaNo 2013 helped me get my third novel mostly written. Because I had a goal and deadline, I made time to write.

·         Writing sprints: There are a lot of online groups that do this. Basically, a time is set (usually about 20 minutes) and you write for that time, posting your word count at the end. This is great for busy people, especially those with the EDJ (Evil Day Job). The idea of writing for hours can seem daunting. Writing for 20 minutes seems so much more manageable.

·         Set realistic goals. I am always amazed at these authors who crank out 10,000 words a day, EVERYDAY. I don't know how they do it (especially when they are still on social media a fair amount). Figure it this way: a novel should be 80,000-100,000 words long. Based on the NaNo goals, writing 50,000 words in 30 days puts you at needing to write 1,667 words per day for 30 days. At that rate, you can write your novel in about two months. If you can do three to four 20 minute writing sprints (at 500-600 words each) per day, you can accomplish writing a full length novel in about a two month time period. You do not need to write your novel in three weeks. If that pace is too high, give yourself a realistic goal for your life. Perhaps 1,000 words per day. But set the end bar so you keep focused.

·         This advice I got from my friend and author, Dennis Mahoney (who may have gotten it from Neil Gaiman). Finish what you are working on, no matter how crappy it is. A finished crappy novel is better than several unfinished works. I used this advice when writing Hold Her Down. I was about 20,000 words in and stuck. I started writing another novel and got about 15,000 words in. Dennis asked the question, "Can all the things in both novels happen to the same character?" Yes, yes they could. That was what I needed to pull it all together and get over that hump. When tempted to jump around, ask yourself if all those things can happen to your current character. If not, write them down for later on and finish your current work.

·         Write stuff down. I keep a notebook next to my bed and in my car. If an idea strikes me, I write it down. Then, when I'm writing, I look at the notebooks for prompts and hints, especially when I'm stuck. When trying to carve out writing time in a busy schedule, there is nothing more frustrating than staring at your screen thinking, "I know I had a good idea for this, but now what the heck was it?"

·         This sounds so basic that it is stupid, but trust me, it will help. Disconnect your internet when you are writing. If you only have a short amount of time to write, it is so easy to get sucked into Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest. Before you know it, poof—your writing time is gone and all your have is eight more cake recipes that you'll never have time to try. Now, sometimes I need the internet when writing. I need to look things up or I do want to search Pinterest so I can find an outfit for my character to wear. But just be prepared that you will not have the word counts at the end of the session. There is no need to have Facebook or Twitter open when you are seriously trying to write. Also, I cannot write with the TV on. In order to have a writing career, I've given up watching most TV shows. It has not been much of a sacrifice, even though I am a former TV-addict.

·         Read. It is hard to read when I'm writing, but reading a good book motivates me to want to write better. I want to be as good as that author. Also, reading bad books motivates me to get my book done, because if that person can get their book out there to the world, then so can I.

I hope these tips are somewhat helpful in helping you to get writing and stay writing. Remember, every book was written one word at a time. Just keep writing words and it will happen.




No compensation was received for this post, but a book for review purposes.

What in Your Life Holds you Down? Do you Feel Better Knowing Your Not Alone?

Later today I will be sharing my review about the book Hold Her Down!  However, in the meantime I thought it would be fun to give you a little taste bit of a taste of the book!

The marriage seemed to work out well for Peter, but not so much for Elizabeth. Peter got up every morning, showered and went to work. Every so often, he would pop a frozen waffle in the toaster, or pour a cup of juice for one of the kids at breakfast. Sometimes he would put the food away from the dinner Elizabeth cooked at night. Sometimes not. He would stack the dishes up next to the sink, rather than in it, which drove Elizabeth mad. About once a month he would load the dishwasher, although he seemed incapable of actually running it. As his business travel was increasing, Elizabeth was left alone more and more. When he was home, Peter played the doting father role perfectly. He attended school and sporting events. He hung out with the children in the evening. He was a fun daddy. Things were generally amicable between Peter and Elizabeth with the kids there, as long as she was not yelling. 

But there were occasional biting comments that criticized the way Elizabeth handled things. Small, but pointed, remarks that one really had to pay attention to hear. But she always heard them and took them to heart. And of course there were the fights about money. Always about money. When the kids were not around, Elizabeth and Peter were either bickering about how the household was run or ignoring each other. When she really thought about it, it was almost worse when Peter was home. He loved the kids as best he could, and was great with them, but paid little attention to Elizabeth. It was one thing to sleep alone every night when your husband was away. It was quite another to sleep next to someone who refused to touch you. On the nights he even bothered to come upstairs to share her bed. She could not remember the last time they had had sex.

But Elizabeth didn't know how to define herself outside of the context of wife and mother. She knew she was not happy but could not see herself ever really making a move to leave Peter. She knew she didn't have the guts to do it. After all, in her experience, she was the one who was left, not the one who did the leaving. And her mother had assured her over and over that no one would want a divorced, middle-aged mother of two. She asked Peter to go for counseling in the past. His response was to laugh at her, telling her that she could go if she wanted, but he was perfectly fine the way he was. Agnes' advice on the situation was that Elizabeth should try harder to meet Peter's needs better. That was the job of a wife.

Elizabeth was failing as a wife and probably failing as a mother. She knew she had failed as a daughter, never able to live up to Agnes' high standards. No matter how hard Elizabeth tried, it seemed that she was doing nothing but failing. She tried to hold back the tears that accompanied this realization. The sky was quickly growing dark and sleet had started to fall. Elizabeth was thankful for her GPS, a voice in the darkness, telling her where to go. If only she had a GPS for her life.

It looked as though she had about forty-five minutes left before she would reach her destination. She was in a rather remote area with narrow, winding roads, and the houses were farther and farther apart. Often the houses were not even visible from the road, just dots of light peeking through the trees. The smell of wood burning stoves was permeating through the vents of the mini-van. Elizabeth was praying that a deer would not run out across the road. She had hit a deer when she was first married. Actually, the deer had hit her, but Peter never thought that way. She was so focused on watching out for a deer that she didn't see the very large pothole ahead and struck it square on the front-passenger-side tire.

Within an instant, with the tell-tale thumping from the front wheel well, she could tell that she had a flat tire. She cursed as she guided the van to the side of the road. The road was very narrow with very little discernible shoulder. The embankment sloped steeply down. Brush speckled the hill. Elizabeth couldn't see the bottom of the hill or how far down it was. She put the van in park and turned the key so that power was left to the vehicle, but the engine was no longer running. She screamed, banging the steering wheel with her fists. Dammit. She had known it was going to be one of those days.



Have you loved what you read so far and want to just go and buy your own copy???
Well, here you go!!

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Kathryn%20R.%20Biel&search-alias=digital-text

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/kathryn-r.-biel

Kobo:  http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/Search?query=Kathryn%20R.%20Biel&fcsearchfield=Author

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/kathryn-r.-biel/id805022384?mt=11

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/KRBiel

I was in no way compensated for this post, but was supplied a book for review purposes.  All views are 100% my own and not influenced in anyway.