Emily Rachelle Writes

by Sarah Brooks At various times in our lives, and for an assortment of reasons, we seek inspiration to help us move forward. Sometimes external forces provide us with the spark we are looking for, but more often than not, inspiration comes from somewhere inside us. Whether you are stuck in a rut, looking for ways to elevate yourself, or simply striding forward through life; inspiration is at the center of your ability to succeed.  Beauty, charity, selflessness, natural sensory experiences, and a host of other external influences inspire us to feel and do things we might never touch-on otherwise.  But inspiration from within is highly personal; custom fitted to our individual wants and needs. Finding your true inspiration starts with inward reflection; tapping passion, faith, strengths and even weaknesses.

About the author: Anne Elisabeth Stengl is the author of the award-winning Tales of Goldstone Wood series, adventure fantasies told in the classic Fairy Tale style. Her books include Christy Award-winning Heartless and Veiled Rose , and Clive Staples Award-winning Starflower . She makes her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Rohan, a passel of cats, and one long-suffering dog. When she's not writing, she enjoys Shakespeare, opera, and tea, and practices piano, painting, and pastry baking. She studied illustration and English literature at Grace College and Campbell University. Scene from Chapter Three: Sairu made her way from Princess Safiya’s chambers out to the walkways of the encircling gardens. The Masayi, abode of the Golden Daughters, was an intricate complex of buildings linked by blossom-shrouded walkways, calm with fountains and clear, lotus-filled pools where herons strutted and spotted fish swam. Here she had lived all the l...

Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl A novel of Goldstone Wood Beyond the Realm of Dreams is a World She Never Imagined Masayi Sairu was raised to be dainty, delicate, demure . . . and deadly. She is one of the emperor’s Golden Daughters, as much a legend as she is a commodity. One day, Sairu will be contracted in marriage to a patron, whom she will secretly guard for the rest of her life. But when she learns that a sacred Dream Walker of the temple seeks the protection of a Golden Daughter, Sairu forgoes marriage in favor of this role. Her skills are stretched to the limit, for assassins hunt in the shadows, and phantoms haunt in dreams. With only a mysterious Faerie cat and a handsome slave—possessed of his own strange abilities—to help her, can Sairu shield her new mistress from evils she can neither see nor touch? For the Dragon is building an army of fire. And soon the heavens will burn.

FOCUS means saying no.  It means giving up the things that eat my time but no longer -- or maybe never did -- seem worth it to me. It means giving up something I'd like to do for something I'd love to do -- or, yes, something that just has to be done. It means logging off LibraryThing forever so I can spend my time on sites I like better (or even offline entirely.) It means turning down a book review offer, no matter how great the book, because I already have a stack of unread tomes on my nightstand. FOCUS means living now.  I will focus on what the pastor is saying, not on my Sunday afternoon to-do list. I will hear what my friends are saying and not formulate my response before they're halfway through a sentence. I will log off the computer before my blog post is complete to play a board game with my brothers. I will attempt to slow down and actually enjoy the novel. “In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather ...

I received this email from a friend the other day: A company has approached me about sponsoring them on my blog. I've never done anything like that before, and I know you have. How do you decide if the company is right for you? And how do you not compromise your blog's integrity for money? After I sent my response, she and I agreed it would make a great blog post. So for any other bloggers wondering, here's what I told her! Hey there! First of all: as a minor, I have never been able to be sponsored for actual money. (I'm an adult now! Still not sponsored for money, though.) I've been sponsored with free products, books, services etc. to review/promote, but never straight money. I do, however, have a close friend who blogs and is sponsored this way regularly. So I can combine my knowledge of personal and her experience. Personally, I don't think accepting a sponsor compromises integrity. Now, it may depend on the sponsor. How to Decide If a C...

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Free Kindle version Amazon Page  for the version I read This review was originally written as a school report, so it will differ in style to my other reviews. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne discloses the tale of a woman, living in an early American Puritan settlement, whose pregnancy reveals her sin of adultery, but who refuses to share the name of her partner in sin. Opening with Hester's walk of shame from prison to the punishment scaffold, readers then follow both Hester and other villagers important to her tale through seven years of humiliation, remorse, fame, and infamy. Hester Prynne is made to walk, with her infant child, through the streets of her town and stand for several hours on the scaffold, as punishment for her sin. The titular punishment given is that of the scarlet letter A on the breast of her gown, worn at all times. Upon the scaffold, before all the townspeople, the young minister Dimmesdale urges...

I'm back, my lovely readers! And just in time for Valentine's Day. I already did the whole blogger-waxes-philosophical-on-consumerism bit last year. So, today, I'm going to just share a conglomeration of things I'm loving this Valentine's Day. Have fun with it, and don't forget to enter the giveaway at the end! :) P.S. All movie clips are likely to contain spoilers. Watch at your own risk! P.P.S. I make no promises about the photos or art, either. Basically this entire post is probably spoilers. P.P.P.S. All videos stolen from YouTube and all images from Pinterest. Nothing here is mine.