“This is a story that everyone should read. It tells of how only nine days and one person can change your world into a better place. And, I ask you, if one person can make such a dramatic change for the better, can you imagine what ten, one hundred, or one thousand people could do?”

Enter the magical world of Azar—a lush and fantastical landscape filled with all sorts of magical creatures and sights beyond your wildest imagination.  For centuries, Azar has been getting visitors from other planets and their latest is an Earthling. The Enlightenment (June 2024, ISBN: 979-8324902551) by Victoria Raikel is a new middle grade novel that follows Tom, a lawyer from California, who is suddenly dropped into the middle of Azar and all its curiosities. 

Luckily for him, Azar’s welcome crew knows just how to show visitors all of the delights their land has to offer! Together, Emilie the beautiful super-strong fairy, Dracodian the fastest dragon in Azar, and Nala the magical winged white tiger help Tom adjust to Azar for his 9-day visit. Young readers will join Tom as he’s mystified by his tour of Azar. He meets adorable characters with big personalities like Bakari The Emperor Cat, The Mermaids of Meridien, the mystical Unicorns and the joyous Wuzzlies that will hop, jump and sing their way into your hearts.

Tom also begins to notice that Azar is very different from Earth. While Azar’s skies are blue and the ocean waters pristine, Earth suffers from things like pollution, poaching, and global warming. Tom feels the way many of us do about the environment; he wants to help but isn’t sure where to start on such a big problem. With the help of Azar’s “Three Golden Rules” and a little Azarian magic, Tom learns how much a difference he can make.

Within the folds of this narrative lies a timeless lesson – the magic we seek is often found within our own hearts. With imaginative characters and gorgeous illustrations, The Enlightenment teaches readers about one of the toughest problems the Earth is facing and how they, too, can play their part in creating a future where our planet finds harmony once more.

The Enlightenment
By Victoria Raikel
Publication Date: June 2024
ISBN: 979-8324902551
Original Trade Paperback | Hardcover | eBook
Price: $18.99 | Pages: 208

“It’s rare that a scientifically verified program is actually so successful.  This book is a must read for anyone interested in helping or understanding relationships.”

—John Gottman, author of Fight Right

“Make it safe to connect. Decide don’t slide. Do your part.” These are the three keys the authors of Fighting for Your Marriage: Positive Steps for Preventing Divorce and Building a Lasting Love (Jossey-Bass; September 11, 2024, 978-1-3942202-9-8; Trade Paperback) have used to help millions of people live better and happier lives with their partners.   

Since 2020 there have been many changes in how we live.  One of the most fundamental differences is how both online dating and job mobility have provided opportunities to meet and fall in love with partners who come from different backgrounds, cultures, religions, and more.  This has added new dynamics to solving conflicts, and it is common for partners to fight about issues without coming to comfortable resolutions they can work on together.  Fighting For Your Marriage contains research-based strategies and tools for averting heated, destructive arguments while increasing mutual understanding and closeness,

Some of the new challenges Fighting for Your Marriage can help couples navigate are:

• Strongly divided political views: Political differences between partners can cause tension and distance. It doesn’t have to be that way. 
• Major differences in cultural backgrounds: Partners may have different holiday, food and meal customs that create stress at family gatherings and burden their relationship.
• Power and love imbalances and asymmetrical relationships: When one person is more invested in the relationship than the other, a relationship faces many threats – that can be overcome.
• Social media and digital habits: Couples learn to deal with conflicts over how much time is spent on social media or what is shared. 
• How to keep love, fun, friendship and sex alive at any age or stage in a relationship: In a world rife with international crises and economic stress, relationships suffer from the loss of renewal that comes from positive times together. 

Fighting For Your Marriage is full of examples of couples and conflicts as well as thoughtful questions for discussion and resources at the end of each chapter.  The book makes it possible for people to learn how to approach their partners and make positive changes without having to contemplate the last resort options of separation and divorce.

Fighting for Your Marriage
Positive Steps for Preventing Divorce and Building a Lasting Love
By Howard J. Markman, Scott M. Stanley, Galena K. Rhoades, and Janice R. Levine
Publisher: Jossey-Bass (a division of Wiley)
Publication Date: September 11, 2024
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-3942202-9-8
Original Trade
Price: $25
352 pp

“Riveting, HIGH SPEED, CINEMATIC ADVENTURE. This ain’t your history teacher’s 16th century.”
–Hummus Aficionado – One vat is never enough

A wise man once said, “The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.” If this is true, then it stands to reason that Captain Lanning Delaford is about to have the most meaningful day of his life.

In Neal Rabin’s newest, action-packed novel, FLAT (Ponderosa Publishing, Spring 2024, ISBN: 978-0-997046830), Lanning Delaford is torn from his typical routine in 16th Century Spain by a series of comically unfortunate events. Thrown into a swashbuckling adventure he had no intention of taking, Delaford becomes a reluctant explorer.

Set at the tail end of the Spanish Inquisition, when seafaring exploration and discovery were THE thing, FLAT follows the intrepid tales of Delaford and his makeshift crew as they embark on a journey teeming with betrayal, romance, murder, sea battles, and a healthy dose of satirical Renaissance humor. 

A part-time tennis instructor for the prince of Spain, part-time merchant seaman, Lanning lives a comfortable but financially precarious life in Andalusia. In the course of a single day, the fiscal scales tip out of his favor following a narrowly-escaped assassination attempt, a double mugging, and the loss of his loaner boat and its cargo to pirates. Now deep in the red, he has no choice but to rent another boat and make for the nearby trade port of Tangier to recover some of his losses. 

As luck would have it, passage on Lanning’s ship is in high demand, so the captain and his eclectic crew soon set sail. Accompanied by an engaging and diverse cast of characters including Ignatius Loyola, Ferdinand Magellan, (mostly) evil pirates, a mediocre Portuguese butcher, an alluring, bad-ass courtesan, and a peregrine falcon named Doug, Lanning finds that his short trip to Tangier is about to become a life-changing, epic voyage into the unknown Great Sea. 

Fraught with ruthless pirates, brutal storms, and worries about falling off the edge of the Earth, FLAT is a clever, cinematic odyssey. Neal Rabin has crafted a fast-paced piece of historical fiction that is at times both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny with a wit that readers of Douglas Adams or Christopher Moore will enjoy. 

Faced with your own personal precipice, would fear stop you at the edge, or would you dare to venture beyond it?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Neal Rabin is a UCLA graduate who worked for Club Med as a tennis and surf instructor on Reunion Island off the coast of Madagascar. He stocked refrigerators, xeroxed scripts, and served as a ‘fetch’ for Time Life Films. Neal cofounded and spent fifteen years as CEO of the Santa Barbara based global software company, Miramar Systems. He continues to live in Santa Barbara with his wife, two daughters, two dogs, multiple guitars, his piano, and a flock of chickens. Neal is an instrument pilot and has an active lifestyle that includes surfing, volleyball, yoga, and tennis.