After the Wink and other stories Author: Carolyn Steele Agosta Website: http://carolynagosta.com/ Reviewed By: Anne Holmes for the NABBW If you\’ve enjoyed Carolyn Steele Agosta\’s novels – Every Little Step She Takes and The Pleasure of Your Company — you\’ll want to be sure to check out this collection of 36 short stories and essays — and two poems.As with her novels, these stories are all about the importance of family and home. This book offers up thirty eight stories whose main congruity is that they deal with personal relationships and their trajectories... Read More

Life Studies Author: Nancy Gotter Gates Website: http://www.nancygottergates.com/home.html Reviewed By: Anne Holmes for the NABBW This book opens with narrator Liz Raynor opening the door to a strange young woman, who asks for Liz\’s recently deceased husband, Peter. Liz is still reeling from his loss, two months earlier. After all, it has only been seven months since they found out he was ill. After turning her away, Liz realizes that she needs something to do with her life since she now has no husband, no children, and no need of a job. After a bit of thought, she decides to take up... Read More

The Day the Parrot Died Author: Nancy Gotter Gates Website: http://www.nancygottergates.com/books.html Reviewed By: Anne Holmes for the NABBW This new novel by Nancy Gotter Gates, author of Life Studies and Sand Castles, quickly introduces the reader to an unlikely team of retired sleuths: Viola Weatherspoon and Tyrone Landowski, fast friends and fellow residents of the Glendon Hills Retirement Community. Vi used to be an executive director for the Girl Scouts. She suspects that Ty\’s former career may have involved espionage, though he only admits to have worked for the State Department.... Read More

The 7% Solution: You CAN Afford a Comfortable Retirement Author: John H. Graves Website: http://www.johngravessolution.com Reviewed By: Anne Holmes for the NABBW This book is written for retirees (or those who soon will be) and is designed to provide the reader with a proven, step-by-step program for an affordable and comfortable retirement. Given that so many Baby Boomers find their finances in disarray, it\’s an important read. Author Graves is not just writing theory here, he walks his talk: He\’s earned both ChFC (Chartered Financial Consultant) and CLU (Chartered Life Underwriter)... Read More

Empty Arms Author: Erika Liodice Website: http://www.erikaliodice.com/books/ Reviewed By: Anne Holmes for the NABBW This is the story of Catharine Chase, an ordinary woman, except for the fact that her entire life is built on a secret: She fell in love at 16, got pregnant, was exiled to a maternity home and wasn\’t allowed to keep her daughter. Prior to delivery, no one had told her the maternity home would separate her from her child. As a result, she\’s never been able to forget her child\’s first cries – or her screams as the baby she named Emily was forcibly removed... Read More

Dream New Dreams: Reimagining My Life After Loss Author: Jai Pausch Website: http://www.tworoadsbooks.com/index.php/books/dream-on-jai-pausch/ Reviewed By: Anne Holmes for the NABBW Jai Pausch, the widow of Randy Pausch -the Carnegie Mellon professor best known for authoring THE LAST LECTURE after his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer – gives us a remarkably frank, deeply moving and thematically rich memoir about death, dying and the grieving process. In Dream New Dreams, we hear her story for the first time: her emotional journey from wife and mother to full-time caregiver, shuttling between... Read More

Mixed Feelings About the CDC’s Recent Call to Boomers By Anne Holmes NABBW’s Baby Boomer Expert By now you probably would have to be living under a rock not to have heard that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is suggesting that all Boomers get tested for Hepatitis C. Apparently statistic indicate that one in 30 of us Baby Boomers is infected with virus, according to the experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And most of us don\’t know it. So the CDC is moving ahead with a proposal that all baby boomers (those of us born between 1945 and 1965) get a blood... Read More

The DASH DIET Action Plan: Proven to Boost Weight Loss and Improve Health Author: Marla Heller, MS, RD Website: http://dashdiet.org/newdashdietbook.asp Reviewed By: Anne Holmes for the NABBW The DASH Diet Action Plan is a user-friendly teaching guide to the DASH diet. Which is a good thing, because in late 2011, an expert panel from US News & World Report panel chose the DASH diet as the healthiest diet. Earlier it was reported that the same panel selected the DASH diet was the best diet in the US? Why did they choose DASH versus all the other plans? Because it has been proven in many, many... Read More

When Assassins and Allies Conspire (Visionary Tales) Author: Ronda Del Boccio Website: http://www.profitablestorytelling.com/tag/when-assassins-and-allies-conspire Reviewed By: Anne Holmes for the NABBW This downloadable Kindle book is a collection of four short stories, written by master storyteller Ronda Del Boccio. Each story is prefaced by a brief author\’s introduction which shares with the reader her inspiration for that tale. I won\’t tell you about all of the stories, but I will say that each is different, and hugely creative. My favorite is the last one, a fantasy titled... Read More

The Pleasure of Your Company Author: Carolyn Steele Agosta Website: http://carolynagosta.com Reviewed By: Anne Holmes for the NABBW It’s late in 2008, the economy stinks and Baby Boomer sisters Valerie, Miranda, and Helen are not only faced with the financial challenges of day-to-day life, but must deal with the death of their father and the division of his estate. As we meet the sisters, Valerie, a cellist with the New York City Ballet, is facing job upheaval. Miranda, a free-spirited art gallery owner, is frustrated with shop ownership and considering reviving an old love affair. And Helen,... Read More