Ashes to Flame Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

Nonfiction

Date Published: March 3, 2025

Publisher: MindStir Media

 

Childhood trauma leads to perseverance and personal growth in this empowering memoir.

Born into a world shrouded by multi-generational cycles of abuse and child marriages, Donna Simmons navigates a harrowing landscape of pain and betrayal, detailing the challenges that devastated her early years but ultimately did not define the person she became.

Through poignant storytelling, she shares both moments of despair and the small victories that fueled her resilience. Each chapter reveals the transformative process of healing and self-discovery, touching on the importance of embracing nature, finding solace in creativity, and connecting with a community. Ashes to Flame recounts a powerful, deeply personal, and transformative journey from the ashes of childhood trauma to the vibrant light of purpose.

About the Author

My name is Donna Simmons, and I’m a wife, mother, author, and avid advocate for breaking cycles of generational trauma and mental health recovery.  As a Governor appointed member of the Kentucky Juvenile Justice Advisory Board and member of the Bakhita Empowerment Initiative Advisory Board, I work with public servants and providers across the state to support a reduction in juvenile system involvement and strengthening protective factors for high risk youth.  My passion for this work comes from my direct experience as a child abuse survivor, involvement in a behavioral health facility when I was 14, and resulting grooming and exploitation by a 29 year old mental health professional who I was married off to as a child.

In my healing journey, I have recognized that true trauma recovery can only occur when we are willing to examine the generational cycles that keeps us bound in harmful patterns.  My mission is to help others transform their trauma into purpose so they can break these cycles and reach their full potential as individuals and parents.

 

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Instagram- @transformingashes2flame

TikTok- @ashestoflame

 

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You Are A Queen Teaser #rabtbooktours

 

Nonfiction / Self-Improvement

Date Published: October 1, 2024

 

Celia Anzalone Bowers went from a drug addict hooked on methamphetamine and cocaine to a pageant queen, Love Waits for You podcast host, TEDx speaker, nationally ranked-triathlete, mother, committed spouse, published author, and a multi-million-dollar business entrepreneur.

After surviving a traumatic childhood accompanied with abandonment, sexual abuse, drug abuse, and physically and verbally abusive relationships, Celia overcame her trauma and all the ways she coped with it—overachieving, people-pleasing, and addictive behaviors—by transforming her pain into her power and healing herself—body, mind, and soul.

If someone would have told her twenty years ago that she would found a nonprofit that touches countless lives, continually be featured on local talk shows across Tennessee for inspiring others, write not one, but three books—much less, use her voice at all—she would have thought they had lost their mind.

She didn’t believe she could ever “come back.”

Two decades ago, Celia had no concept of what she was capable of—what anyone is capable of—because no one had shown her the way.

Trapped in her own darkness, Celia had to feel her way to the light.

Ultimately, Celia realized the healing had resided within her the entire time. She will show you so that you may see to believe for yourself—if she could turn her pain into power—anyone can.

No matter where you are in your healing journey, you will find hope and practical guidance in You Are a Queen: Transform Your Pain into Power.

Whether you are struggling with a break-up, some form of addiction, a lifetime of trauma, financial struggles, a loss of someone or something, or simply searching for a new way to live and to feel less “stuck,” this book will offer you strategies for not only some relief, but for your lasting healing.

 

About the Author

Celia Anzalone Bowers is the Founder and President of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Lead with Love International. Through her nonprofit, she has facilitated therapeutic writing workshops in five states and counting since becoming established in August of 2023.

During her workshop, she donates a copy of her first book (Celia’s Eyes, 2011). She shares her raw, authentic story of childhood trauma, addiction, recovery, and ultimately the path that led her to where she is today.

She is an entrepreneur in the mortgage industry, mother of five-year-old twin boys, wife to husband, Dr. Dane Bowers (Au. D.), and is a nationally ranked triathlete.

She is also the host of her podcast, Love Waits for You, serves on the board for CASA, and holds a Bachelor of Science from Bryan College, while she lives and works in the Nashville, Tennessee area.

Her latest book, You Are a Queen: Transform Your Pain into Power is available to purchase!

 

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You Are A Queen Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

 

Nonfiction / Self-Improvement

Date Published: October 1, 2024

 

Celia Anzalone Bowers went from a drug addict hooked on methamphetamine and cocaine to a pageant queen, Love Waits for You podcast host, TEDx speaker, nationally ranked-triathlete, mother, committed spouse, published author, and a multi-million-dollar business entrepreneur.

After surviving a traumatic childhood accompanied with abandonment, sexual abuse, drug abuse, and physically and verbally abusive relationships, Celia overcame her trauma and all the ways she coped with it—overachieving, people-pleasing, and addictive behaviors—by transforming her pain into her power and healing herself—body, mind, and soul.

If someone would have told her twenty years ago that she would found a nonprofit that touches countless lives, continually be featured on local talk shows across Tennessee for inspiring others, write not one, but three books—much less, use her voice at all—she would have thought they had lost their mind.

She didn’t believe she could ever “come back.”

Two decades ago, Celia had no concept of what she was capable of—what anyone is capable of—because no one had shown her the way.

Trapped in her own darkness, Celia had to feel her way to the light.

Ultimately, Celia realized the healing had resided within her the entire time. She will show you so that you may see to believe for yourself—if she could turn her pain into power—anyone can.

No matter where you are in your healing journey, you will find hope and practical guidance in You Are a Queen: Transform Your Pain into Power.

Whether you are struggling with a break-up, some form of addiction, a lifetime of trauma, financial struggles, a loss of someone or something, or simply searching for a new way to live and to feel less “stuck,” this book will offer you strategies for not only some relief, but for your lasting healing.

 

 

About the Author

Celia Anzalone Bowers is the Founder and President of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Lead with Love International. Through her nonprofit, she has facilitated therapeutic writing workshops in five states and counting since becoming established in August of 2023.

During her workshop, she donates a copy of her first book (Celia’s Eyes, 2011). She shares her raw, authentic story of childhood trauma, addiction, recovery, and ultimately the path that led her to where she is today.

She is an entrepreneur in the mortgage industry, mother of five-year-old twin boys, wife to husband, Dr. Dane Bowers (Au. D.), and is a nationally ranked triathlete.

She is also the host of her podcast, Love Waits for You, serves on the board for CASA, and holds a Bachelor of Science from Bryan College, while she lives and works in the Nashville, Tennessee area.

Her latest book, You Are a Queen: Transform Your Pain into Power is available to purchase!

 

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Instagram

Website

Facebook

Instagram

 

Purchase Today

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Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge 2024: Ultimate Betrayal

I saw this drama based on true events when it first came out in 1994. Adult sisters leading troubled lives recall being molested by their abusive rageaholic father. 

Agnes's Broken Dreams Book Tour and Giveaway

 

From shattered illusions to resilient determination, 

Agnes's Broken Dreams reveals a tale of courage and redemption.

Agnes's Broken Dreams

by Judy King

Genre: Fictional Memoir 

It has been thirty years since Agnes last visited the country of her birth and upbringing. While it is at the request of her aging, narcissistic mother, she has her own reasons for making the journey to Australia from her home on Mallorca.

Something has blighted her life since childhood. Something has cast such a long shadow over her existence that her ability to grasp at life fully, to appreciate her own sense of self-worth, to attain any semblance of happiness, to trust without reservation, has been damaged. Those whom she chooses, and who choose her, seem to want only to exploit her.

Having undergone a long period of psychotherapy, Agnes can now return to re-experience the places that featured in her youth in the hope that burning questions will be answered, haunting mysteries solved, and buried memories let out into the light…

This is the vibrant, heartening, and often amusing tale of a buoyant and irrepressible woman whose natural energy and determination continue to drive her forward. Having reached middle age, she is determined to grapple with - and heal - the ills that have beset her.

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CHAPTER 1. SURVIVING DANIEL

She is dreading the arrival. Since boarding the plane in London, like a dog pulling against a lead, she has felt she is going the wrong way – sucked back into a past she thought she had escaped forever. Freedom isn’t the price of a plane ticket, she thinks, as we take ourselves wherever we go. Her apprehension has no effect on the big Boeing that, landing with a thud, sways from side to side in a series of kangaroo hops before the mighty brakes tether the beast and bring it to heel. A spontaneous uproar of cheers and clapping explodes in the cabin as the sensation of rolling smoothly on terra firma signals the turbulent flight is at an end. The uproar is tempered when passengers are advised to remain in their seats. Two burly Bermuda-shorted men are enacting the Australian ritual of disinfecting the plane by moving through the aisles to spray the cabin from high-held aerosol cans. When the red-headed one pauses near her aisle seat, his freckly lower arms seem familiar. But, she realises, it is the odour of hair oil, fermented with alcohol-impregnated upper-body sweat, that is resurrecting her long-dead father. The father who holds her from the grave. Who traps her in troubled, hard, blue eyes –before vanishing.

A deep foreboding amplifies the resistance she is experiencing. All is then quickly swept into the noisy hubbub of movement and chatter that follows the signal to disembark. She is delayed by the act of searching under the seat for a book called ‘Families and How to Survive Them’. She has scoured it for clues during the long flight, in preparation for returning to the place where she was born and grew up.

The delay means that, when she finally gets to the overhead locker across the aisle, she sees a red-gloved hand at the end of a crane-like arm snatch her stashed duty-free bag and dash away with it through the cabin. She is left with a blurred image of a tall woman with curly auburn hair, merging like a film fade into the avalanche of disembarking passengers. The woman might have been wearing a grey track suit, but she cannot be sure. The red glove, however, sticks in her mind. She imagines herself screaming THIEF! THIEF! as she has seen in the movies but, instead, simply stands there in disbelief, opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

Conditioned from childhood not to make a fuss when it comes to anything untoward, she doesn’t react like other people. Subterfuge and evasion are old friends. Like a lizard changing colour, she feels safe blending into the background. She never screams. Not that she can remember anyway. Perhaps the potential was killed off in her before it got started. Once or twice, she has contemplated buying a battery-operated ‘screamer alarm’ for her handbag but, because so rarely conscious of her safety, the idea would waft away from her when the threat that provoked it abated.

All the carefully chosen presents during the stopover in Singapore gone! What can she do? The evidence is flimsy: tall woman, a mass of curly hair that could well be a wig, and an easily removed red glove. Even if she apprehends the thief, it would be no use as, by the time she spots her, the stolen goods would have been transferred and the plastic bag discarded in a convenient bin.

Agnes bites her lip. Tears sting the back of her eyes, then slither like sluggish raindrops down her cheeks. She is struggling to get a grip. After all you’ve been through in recent years this is a minor blip, she tells herself. For God’s sake just put it out of your mind. It’s not the end of the world.

A popular quote, attributed to Albert Einstein, and read in a magazine she browsed on the plane, sticks in her mind: ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.’ Her two marriages, and most of her romantic liaisons, had ended in similar fashion. On her knees and seriously out of pocket. If the Einstein quote was accurate, it was a definite confirmation of her insanity. But what is she repeating, over and over? What is it that she cannot see? 

Anxiety caused by abuse in my early teenager years interfered with my concentration so profoundly, it resulted in amnesia and I lost the ability to read and write fluently. Devested of the power of language indelibly undermined my life. Unable to understand what was happening to me, I felt I had no defence against the judgement of the world which propelled me into a life-time search to discover what lay behind the lost memories.

Agnes’s Broken Dreams, written on the advice of a gifted psychiatrist, is a fictionalize account of my odyssey. Regaining concentration and with it the ability to develop as a writer has been the most miraculous gift of my life.

It is my greatest desire that this book will bring solace to other adult sufferers of childhood abuse.

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$20 Amazon giftcard – 1 winner,

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Getting to My Enough Book Blitz #rabtbooktours

 

A Story of Faith, Resilience, and Survival

 

Memoir / Self-Help

Date Published: March 30, 2022

Publisher: ‎Fideli Publishing, Incorporated

 

A cathartic experience that examines both the power of determination and the will to survive.

In her memoir, Getting To My Enough, Dr. Marie Brown Mercadel describes her remarkable journey of persevering through unspeakable childhood sexual trauma, the loss of a baby at an early age, and her tenacious resolve to get to her enough. Her frank and detailed descriptions of her life experiences are riveting and provide proof that it is possible to achieve personal triumphs in spite of the odds.

She is courageous in writing about the deep-seated emotions that caused her to be overwhelmed with self-doubt, fear, and shame for much of her adult life. Her acts of forgiveness and the adoption of self-love represent an important source of her healing.

Getting To My Enough reveals how a broken and damaged girl gained inner peace, affirmed the positive aspects of her life, and embarked on a mission to mentor and motivate women dealing with similar issues.

About the Author

Dr. Marie Brown Mercadel is a survivor of childhood sexual assault and a retired human services executive with 38 years of experience serving communities across the nation. She currently manages a consulting business that specializes in individual coaching, motivational speaking, and strengths-based leadership development. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, Alvin.

 

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Unburdening Review #rabtbooktours

Memoir

Date Published: October 4, 2022

 

 

Teresa Benitez—an engineer, doctor, and professor—had three abortions between 2004 and 2022. Although she was against abortion until 2004, her first pregnancy awakened her deepest fears: was she good enough to raise a family? Or would her unresolved childhood trauma, and resulting mental illness, render her incapable of love?

In Unburdening, each pregnancy termination is meticulously described. The aftermath of each abortion is explored, including the mystifying blend of relief and distress that often remains after the procedure is over.

A moving memoir infused with poetic prose, Unburdening is a story of motherhood, abortion, and mental health. It delves into generational trauma, survival, love, self-forgiveness, and healing.

As a teenager, seeking for love elsewhere

“I wanted someone to show me that I mattered. I sought approval. I longed for it. Maybe even for love. But I did not know what love was. I did not know when the attention received was positive. When I looked good, I was noticed. And when I was drunk, I did not bother to scrutinize the type of attention that I was getting. So, I concluded that I needed to look physically attractive and collect bottles at will. This way, they, whoever “they” were, would smile at me, love me, dance a slow song with me, my face on their shoulders, our breathing melodic, our hearts in sync.”

Review

Rating: Five out of Five Stars

This book is at once a difficult read and a hopeful journey. Although the author and I are very different people professionally speaking and I have never undergone an abortion, we nonetheless share similarities in our family backgrounds, particularly when it comes to our fathers.

 Both Teresa's father and my father were college professors, and both were men who encouraged and indulged their daughters in some ways while tuning out uncomfortable and traumatic events in their daughters' lives because such events were too difficult for them to look at head-on. 

Teresa's father took her for a follow-up procedure at the clinic when the first procedure was discovered to be incomplete but was unwilling to discuss what was going on in her life. He instead took her out for a meal and tried to turn the conversation to subjects such as an upcoming trip to Paris. 

Similarly, when I was eighteen years old, I tried to tell my father I had been sexually assaulted. He admonished me that I should not have been out after dark alone and should not have gone anywhere with someone I didn't know very well. I told him never to speak of the incident again because I'd deny that I'd told him anything. I gave him a packet of corn seeds to plant in his garden and said I'd see him later.

My mother was not physically abusive like Teresa's mother was to her. However, my parents yelled a lot. It bothered me and I vowed never to yell and lecture if I had kids. When I found myself doing the same thing to my son, I felt like the worst person in the Universe.

Obviously, I felt quite a connection to this book. It is extremely well written and illustrates the harms that not only physical abuse but feeling rejected by one's family can have, even years later. I related very well to Teresa's description of seeking acceptance and fulfillment outside myself through self-medication and doomed relationships with emotionally unavailable or abusive men.

No matter how one feels about abortion as a personal option, Teresa's book illustrates why keeping the procedure safe and legal is necessary. Her story also personalizes what might seem a vague and incomprehensible issue to some people. I grew up hearing the lie that the only women who had reason to seek an abortion were "loose women." As I've gotten older, I've learned that there are many reasons why abortion might be the best option. I've also learned that many "loose women" are promiscuous because of low self-esteem and past trauma.

While some parts of Teresa's story could be triggering for readers who have experienced abuse, I found myself connecting with the author. She is forthright and honest in revealing her difficult story. This book contains powerful lessons for readers from all walks of life to learn and benefit from. I am pleased to give Unburdening five out of five stars.

About the Author

Born in Puerto Rico in 1984, Teresa Benitez has a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. She was an engineering professor for nine years. Teresa currently lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her ten-year-old daughter and three cats.

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