Book Blast: House of Cards

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome Canadian author Phillippa Mann. Today, Phillippa shares her memoir, House of Cards: Surviving Munchausen by Proxy and a Mother’s Web of Lies.

Blurb

A raw and unflinching memoir of survival, truth, and transformation. Phillippa Mann takes readers deep into the fractured world of a girl who grew up living with a monster–a world where love and fear shared the same face, and silence became a means of survival.

Through heartbreak, chaos, and betrayal, Phillippa’s voice emerges from the shadows as she begins to piece together a life that was never hers to begin with. Her journey is one of courage and reckoning, of facing the unbearable truths that shaped her, and finding strength in vulnerability.

More than a story of pain, House of Cards is a testament to the power of healing and self-forgiveness. It reminds every survivor that bringing hidden truths into the light is not the end – it’s the beginning of reclaiming your story and rebuilding the foundation of who you were always meant to be.

Excerpt

My parents were married in England in June 1969. They emigrated to Canada in 1970, had my brother in September 1972 and me in October 1974. Both sets of my grandparents emigrated to Canada shortly after this to be closer to us.

I was born in Northern BC. My mother separated from my dad and moved to the Lower Mainland in 1976, approximately 900 km away, with her boyfriend at the time. While I have no recollection of that period as I was quite young, I’ve come across photos of my younger self with my dad and brother, and I can see the joy on my face. In those times, I truly felt happy. I remember camping with my dad, fishing, pretending to shave with him, and the smell of the Coleman stove. It was returning home to my mother after spending time with my dad that was the toughest part. Even though I was so little, I knew that something at home wasn’t right. I always felt such intense sadness and anxiety when my dad brought us back home after summer camping, winter break, or his weekend visits. I didn’t know how to articulate what I was feeling, and I struggled to express my emotions at such a young age, but I just knew that I hated it when my dad brought me back home. This is the first recollection I have of the abuse.

Naturally, at such a young age, I didn’t see it as abuse, and it took me over two decades to realize it. My dad would drop me off at my mother’s house before returning north, and even though I knew I’d see him again in a few weeks, to a three- or four-year-old without a grasp of time, it seemed like an eternity. I would cry when he left because I loved him so much and didn’t want him to leave. After my dad left, my mother would be so unkind to me, often ignoring me for days. I do not remember a single word being spoken to me. I recognize she must have said something to me; however, I remember the silence more than anything—the absence of good nights, hugs, or any trace of warmth. It continued until I finally begged her to say something, anything. Eventually, once she got what she wanted, she’d pretend nothing had happened, slipping back into normalcy as if the hurt had never occurred.

Author Bio and Links

Phillippa Mann is a Canadian author who is passionate about helping others find healing through shared experience.

Her memoir, House of Cards: Surviving Munchausen by Proxy and a Mother’s Web of Lies, explores the emotional journey of growing up in chaos and reclaiming strength through forgiveness and self-discovery.

Family is at the heart of everything Phillippa does. She and her husband share a love of creating together, and their children and grandchildren inspire her every day to live with gratitude, laughter, and purpose. When she’s not writing, Phillippa can be found playing with her Corgi, Glenn, crafting handmade gifts, baking cookies and cupcakes for her family business, Sweet Lavender Designs, which she started in memory of a dear friend.

She is currently working on her next creative project, a heartwarming children’s book titled Hop Hop and the Great Garden Adventure, inspired by the wonder and imagination of her grandchildren.

Website | Instagram | Amazon

Giveaway

Phillippa Mann will be awarding a $10 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Find out more here .

Follow Phillippa on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here .

Poetry Collection Review: If Adam Picked the Apple

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

April is National Poetry Month, a month set aside to celebrate poetry and its vital place in our society. Launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, this month-long celebration has attracted millions of readers, students, teachers, librarians, booksellers, and poets.

Each Friday of April, I will share a favorite poetry collection.

Today’s pick is If Adam Picked the Apple by Danielle Coffyn, a collection described as “a celebration of resilience.”

I was first drawn to its beautiful cover with its warm, cheerful color palette and a playful, whimsical tone that mirrors the thought-provoking “what-if?” at the heart of the title. From the start, I sensed this would not be a passive reading experience.

Reading the poems confirmed that instinct. This is a collection that lingers and invites reflection, sometimes demands it. I found myself rereading the poems, not because I didn’t understand them the first time, but because each revisit revealed something new. An overlooked phrase, a sharper edge, an inconvenient truth.

What struck me was how a single line or verse could stop me, sometimes with a chuckle, sometimes with a pause, and sometimes with an ache. Each poem seems to hold at least one line that insists on being remembered:

“I no longer wish to masquerade as mozzarella—
revered for her mild scent, her pristine complexion.
I want to mature like a wheel of camembert.” (I Don’t Want to Age Gracefully)

“No boy is worth watering down your intelligence.
Read. Write. Fire up your tongue.” (Reclamation for My Twelve-Year-Old-Self)

“They are surrounded by us,
millions of shark women
camouflaged as goldfish.” (Sharks)

“We were promising as children, gifted girls
with potential. Our options were boundless,
within reason.” (For the Unconventional Woman)

“They forgot we are protective balm,
fierce, dandelion women;
rooted, resilient,
destined to bloom.” (Lion’s Teeth)

Released in 2025, this timely collection encourages women to embrace their uniqueness and embark on journeys of self-discovery and empowerment.

Here’s one of my favorite poems:

If Adam Picked the Apple

There would be a parade,
a celebration,
a holiday to commemorate
the day he sought enlightenment.
We would not speak of
temptation by the devil, rather,
we would laud Adam’s curiosity,
his desire for adventure
and knowing.
We would feast
on apple-inspired fare;
tortes, chutneys, pancakes, pies.
There would be plays and songs
reenacting his courage.

But it was Eve who grew bored,
weary of her captivity in Eden.
And a woman’s desire
for freedom is rarely a cause
for celebration.

Book Blast: A Real Collusion

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome author Stu Strumwasser. Today, Stu shares his new release, A Real Collusion.

Blurb

A Real Collusion is about the secret conspiracy between the Republican and Democratic parties to control the US government through an illegal duopoly.

From the author of the bestselling novel, The Organ Broker, (hailed by Lee Child, New York Times # 1 bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series as, “Exciting and thought-provoking–the perfect package”) comes, A Real Collusion, a stunning political thriller and expose.

A Real Collusion is a David Vs. Goliath(s) story about a man who accidentally becomes the leader of an independent political movement that nearly takes down the two-party system in America, while exposing a conspiracy that affects the results of the 2016 election. It explores universal and deeply human themes of loss, and the tension between justice and power. In the opening sentence the narrator points out that, “Ordinary people often do extraordinary things.” The characters in the book do, and the action is driven by the fantastic events of a unique political satire. It is also the heartfelt story of regular people struggling with lost love, alienation and nearly universal disaffection who find strength in enduring loyalty and friendship

This is the story of John Campbell (a regular guy from the lower east side of Manhattan) as recounted by his friend Skip Winters. Skip becomes John’s campaign manager and later, a congressman in his own right. He narrates the stunning-but-plausible story of how John Campbell and The American Coalition race to popularity, raising over a hundred million dollars from grassroots contributors—and become a threat to the political duopoly of the Democratic and Republican parties. The book sprinkles in references to real events from recent history, and real political leaders including Trump, John McCain, and more. This imbues the novel with a sense of realism, albeit one of an alternate reality. Skip discovers a deep-seated conspiracy within our political system whose leaders orchestrate a murder, destroy his friend and tip the scales of the election. The novel turns out to be Skip’s exposé of the secret collaboration between the two major political parties in our country—a cooperation to protect the duopoly that is, in part, real.

Excerpt

Fenterman and I are forever bound by the one and only direct interaction that he ever had with John Campbell. The tragic events of that day ruined all of our lives, and I will never forgive him for it. Or his handlers.

I have spoken to Father MacCauly about this. I am not a particularly religious man and yet I have prayed—I have prayed less for John, or myself, or our country, than I have prayed, truthfully, for the strength to stop despising Steven Fenterman, to let go of the hate that consumes me, even now, years later. I cannot. Nonetheless, beginning around a year after it happened, every few months I got in the car and somberly headed up the Taconic Parkway toward Ossining. I made those drives alone, leaving the radio off, preferring to listen only to the rasp of the wind upon the windshield and frame of my car. I drove, deliberately and obediently, to Ossining Correctional Facility, otherwise known as Sing Sing. I went to visit the man who was the object of more of my hatred than any other person or thing I have ever been repulsed or angered by. I am probably the only visitor who saw Steven Fenterman who didn’t fall into three distinct categories: media, Secret Service, or women obsessed with murderers on death row.

The first time I made the long, quiet drive to Sing Sing, past the suburbs and through the tree-lined stretches of highway in Westchester and Putnam counties, I was shocked that Fenterman agreed to see me. It was the summer of 2016. Trump had clinched the Republican nomination in May and Hillary clinched for the Democrats a few weeks later. I was running for Congress at the time but was still largely unrecognized out in public. I fully expected to be denied access, turned away at the rifle-guarded gates, pointed back to the city after having accomplished nothing more than sending a signal. Still, I wanted him to know that I had been there. I wanted that vermin to think about it—alone in the worn bed of his barren cell—that I had driven an hour along that tree-lined stretch. I wanted him to know that I was thinking about him, that I remained committed. I wanted him to be reminded, every god-damned day, that someone hadn’t forgotten, and to be afforded constant reminders of the fate that he was slipping forward toward there on death row. He should know that I want to confront him, I had thought. He should never stop thinking about all of it, not for one second, never be allowed the respite of a lapse in those memories—just like me. However, the irascible bastard admitted me.

Buy Links

Amazon Link (ebook) | Amazon Link (hardcover) | Barnes & Noble (ebook) | Barnes & Noble (paperback) | Kobo | Apple Books | Google Play (ebook) |
Google Play (audiobook) | Payhip

To read the first two chapters of the novel please visit the following link.

Author Bio and Links

Stu Strumwasser is a modern-day muckraker who writes literary novels that address important sociopolitical issues. His first novel, The Organ Broker, was published by Skyhorse (distributed by Simon & Schuster) and shortlisted as one of five finalists for the Hammett Prize for literary excellence in crime writing. Strumwasser was also the primary songwriter and drummer for the indie rock band Channeling Owen. He is a longtime investment professional (investing in sustainable technology that improves the manner in which we make food) and hails from Brooklyn NY. His new novel, A Real Collusion, is both an exposé and analysis of broken government and a fictional David Vs. Goliath(s) story of the man who almost took down the two-party system in America.

Website | Goodreads | Instagram | TikTok

Here is a link to the author’s op-ed piece in Fortune Magazine: https://fortune.com/2026/04/01/congress-lower-approval-rating-than-hitler-rigged-system

Giveaway

Stu Strumwasser will be awarding a $25 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Find out more here.

Follow Stu on the rest of his Goddess Fish tour here.

Enhancing the Story’s Heart

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

In a recent post on the Writer Unboxed blog, USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Heather Webb shared the following advice. Here’s an excerpt from that post:

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves what our goals are with our book to not only find the heart of the story but also to enhance it. I’ve found the best way to do that is to drill down and ask myself some questions. I basically stop and take stock of what I have, what I’m trying to do, and how I want my readers to feel. Here are a few prompts and tips that help me and may help you:

1. What drew you to writing this story in the first place?

2. Identify the story questions you want answered by the end of the book. How would you like those questions tied up? How do they relate to your protagonist’s journey? Are the story questions a mix of external and internal? Let the questions lead you down an intuitive path.

3. More about the protagonist- are their yearnings clear? What do they not yet know about themselves or their journey? If the reader doesn’t know why they’re reading, the story lacks drive and likely lacks a true core or center, a true heart.

4. Hone your pitch and title. Something this simple can help you identify or focus core themes of the manuscript.

5. Practice being okay not knowing everything up front or in a timely manner. The discovery process is key to developing a good story, regardless of how much plotting you’ve done. Our brains need time to process and meld ideas, time to be inspired, time to be curious and experimental so that the heart of the story can reveal itself to you. As frustrating as that can be when we want answers, it’s also a beautiful part of the fiction-writing process. I’m never happier than when I have an A-HA moment that suddenly makes everything clear.

6. What do I want my readers to walk away with in terms of messages, or in a way that creates a lasting impact? Remember that an impact doesn’t have to be to shatter your readers (although that’s fun, too!). It can be to uplift them, inspire them, make them fall in love, or to entertain them.

When we’re lost in the pages—something so easy to do as we try to juggle a million little pieces in our heads—drill down and let the answers to questions like these inspire and guide you. Let them help you join the mechanical, structural mind of the novel with the emotional beating heart of the story.

Source: Writer Unboxed


Spotlight on Words for Patty Jo

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

I’m happy to welcome writer and artist Jill Arlene Culiner. Today, Arlene shares her new release, Words for Patty Jo.

Blurb

A passion for books creates a lasting bond between teenage Patty Jo and David, but small-town prejudice and social differences doom their romance.

After a summer of reading and falling in love, David heads for university, foreign adventure, and a dazzling career; Patty Jo marries slick, over-confident Don Ried.

Yet plans can go horribly wrong. The victim of her violent husband, Patty Jo abandons her home and children to live on the streets of Toronto. David, a high-ranking executive in Paris, is dismayed by the superficiality of corporate success.

Forty years later, Patty Jo and David meet again. Both have defied society; both have fulfilled their dreams. And what if first love was the right one after all, and destiny has the last word?

Excerpt

“I’ve had two husbands, but neither was what people call a great love.” As soon as the words are out, she regrets them. They smack of failure, and she has betrayed an honorable dead man. The two women at the table are startled (perhaps secretly gleeful). Hadn’t she been the adored wife of a respected judge? Isn’t she a well-off widow, owner of a fine brick Victorian house, a woman with an impressive career behind her? What unsightly cracks has she just exposed?

It’s the fault of four glasses of white wine and the anticipation of what morning will bring. Or is it this rare evening of confidences, the conjuring up of vanished sweethearts and irrecoverable youth?

Secretive, she listened to the other women’s stories of faded romances, lost chances, marriages gone sour, but didn’t mention her many lovers. Yet, she remembers them fondly, for time affords indulgence (although, surely, she has forgotten some, and others were less than agreeable). But isn’t this a sign of aging—remembering positive things, blocking out the negative, showing tolerance?

The others want more. How to divert their curiosity? What can she give them? Not the truth, for that might jinx her prospects (the superstitious thought almost makes her smile). Would they, twenty years her junior, find ridiculous the romantic dreams of a silver-haired woman in her seventies?

Author Bio and Links

Writer, artist, and teller of tall tales, Jill (J.) Arlene Culiner, was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived on the Great Hungarian Plain, in a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave dwelling, and a haunted house on the English moors. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village where she protects spiders, snakes, and weeds. She delights in hearing any nasty, funny, ridiculous, or romantic story, and when she can’t uncover gossip, she makes it up.

She has won the Tanenbaum Prize in Canadian Jewish History, the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Memoir, was shortlisted for the Foreword Magazine Prize, and twice for the Page Turner Awards.

Website (Author) | Website (Artist) | Storytelling | Instagram | Goodreads | Facebook | YouTube | All Links

Giveaway

Jill Arlene Culiner will award a $10 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly selected winner. Find out more here.

Follow Jill on the rest of her Goddess Fish tour here.

An unlikely couple from opposite sides of the tracks, Patty Jo and David first meet as teenagers in the 1960s. Despite their different upbringings, they bond over books and fall passionately in love during an unforgettable summer. Afterward, they are forced to part ways: David heads for university and a life of privilege while Patty Jo quits school and starts waitressing.

In the decades that follow, Ms. Culiner traces their diverging lives with great care and insight. David drifts into the life prescribed for him and achieves what appears to be success—a career, a marriage, stability—yet beneath the surface lies a growing discontent.

Patty Jo faces a harsher path. Her marriage to a charming but abusive salesman erodes her self-esteem as her sons bear witness to the indignities she endures. Her eventual escape to Toronto is an act of survival, an attempt to reclaim what has been suppressed for too long. Living on the margins of society, she experiments with theater while meeting and connecting with a colorful cast of characters. Among them is a kind, older gentleman who alters the trajectory of her life.

Ms. Culiner’s writing style is both lyrical and precise, rich with vivid imagery that brings emotional depth to the narrative. Patty Jo and David emerge as fully developed, three-dimensional characters, flawed and easily recognizable. They do not simply inhabit the story; they stay with us long after we turn the final page.

A compelling and beautifully written story that gently dismantles romantic illusions while bringing a hard-won sense of closure.

Highly recommended!




Poetry Collection Review: To the Women

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

April is National Poetry Month, a month set aside to celebrate poetry and its vital place in our society. Launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, this month-long celebration has attracted millions of readers, students, teachers, librarians, booksellers, and poets.

Each Friday of April, I will share a favorite poetry collection.

Today’s selection, To the Women: Wise Words Every Woman Needs, has been described as “a celebration of the beauty, strength, and joy of being a woman.”

When Donna Ashworth self-published the original version of this book in 2020, she could not have anticipated how profoundly it would reshape her life. At the time, she was adrift, unsure of what she was doing, where she was going, and what she wanted. Motherhood had slowed her down and allowed her to readjust her perspective. The “rat race” had lost its promise. She was tired of running too fast all the time and never keeping up.

To her astonishment, the book resonated with women in the United Kingdom and far beyond. What followed was not just success, but a whirlwind of connection, far greater than she had hoped. The 2025 edition has been revised and updated with over seventy new poems.

I set aside an entire day to read and sit with this collection, savoring the wisdom, comfort, and inspiration of beautifully written poems such as “Be That Woman,” “Age Gracefully, “There Will Be Days,” “Remember Her,” and “To the Woman Who Thinks She Isn’t Good Enough.” Underlying each poem is the importance of listening to our innermost voices, reconsidering long-held beliefs, and embracing the call to reinvent ourselves.

An ideal gift for any season or occasion, this collection will delight and resonate deeply with the poetry readers in your circle.

Here’s one of my favorite poems:

Age Gracefully

Age gracefully, they say
but I fear that what they mean
is age quietly, slip aside
be wise but stay unseen

age gracefully, they say
but I think, they’re afraid
that we may all wear purple
and wrap silver hair in braids

age gracefully, they say
don’t succumb to the knife
but don’t let standards drop
don’t wear your clothes too tight

age gracefully, they say
but don’t be looking old
likewise, not too young
take your place, fit the mold

age gracefully, they say
but grace means, being at ease
flowing with the winds of change
so, doing as we please

age gracefully, age tastefully
age like a fine red wine
just age with your acceptance
and you’ll never fear the lines

age gracefully, my friends
whatever path you tread
walk it with your own permission
it’s your home, so make your bed.

Relax! God is Working

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

Here’s a thought-provoking reflection from international speaker and bestselling author Joyce Meyer:

Being relaxed feels wonderful. Being nervous, tense, and worried are not so wonderful. Why aren’t more people relaxed? Jesus said if we are weary and overburdened, we should go to Him and He will give us rest, relaxation, and ease. Jesus wants to teach us the right way to live, which is different from the way most of the world lives.

It would be putting it mildly to say that I was an uptight woman for the first half of my life. I simply did not know how to relax, and it was due to me not being willing to completely trust God. I trusted God for things, but not in things. I kept trying to be the one in control. Even though God was in the driver’s seat of my life, I kept one hand on the wheel just in case He took a wrong turn. Relaxation is impossible without trust!

If you know you can’t fix the problem you have, then why not relax while God is working on it? It sounds easy, but it took many years for me to be able to do this. I know from experience that the ability to relax and go with the flow in life is dependent upon our willingness to trust God completely. If things don’t go your way, instead of being upset, you can believe that getting your way was not what you needed. God knew that, so He gave you what was best for you, instead of what you wanted.

If you are waiting much longer than you had hoped to , you can get frustrated, angry, and upset, or you can say, “God’s timing is perfect. He is never late. And my steps are ordered by the Lord.” Now you can relax and simply go with the flow of what is happening in your life. When it comes to things that are out of our control, we can either ruin the day or relax and enjoy it while God is working on the situation. As long as we believe, God keeps working!

Source: Trusting God Day by Day by Joyce Meyer

Don’t Be Afraid to Dream

Posted on by Joanne Guidoccio

On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

In The Rules of Life, international bestselling author Richard Templar shares a personal code for living a better, happier, more successful kind of life. Here is an excerpt from Rule 18, “Don’t Be Afraid to Dream”:

This may seem incredibly obvious, incredibly easy but you would be surprised how many people seriously limit their dreams. They’re your dreams for heaven’s sake. There should be no limit to them. Plans have to be realistic; dreams don’t.

You are allowed to dream as high, as wide, as big, as extravagant, as impossible, as wacky, as silly, as bizarre, as unrealistically nonsensical as you want.

You are allowed to wish for anything you want as well. Look, wishes and dreams are all private affairs. There are no wish police, no dream doctors who are on the rampage, looking out for unrealistic demands. It is a private thing, between you…and that’s it. Between you and absolutely no one else at all.

The only note of caution here—and I do speak from personal experience—is to be very careful of what you do wish for, what you dream of, it might just come true. And where would you be then?

A lot of people think their dreams have to be realistic to be worth dreaming about. But that’s a plan and that is something quite different. I have plans and I take logical steps to make them come to fruition. Dreams are allowed to be so improbable that they are never likely to come true. And don’t go thinking you’ll never achieve anything by sitting around day-dreaming all day. Some of the most successful people have also been those who have dared to dream the most. It isn’t a coincidence.

Source: The Rules of Life, pp. 38-39.