Bitter Harvest
by Ann Gimpel
Publisher:
Ann Gimpel Books, LLC
Breaking the world is a hard act to follow.
“Provocative and engaging.
A fast-paced, supernatural ride.” Michelle Fox, NYT Bestselling Author
Guest Post from Ann Gimpel
The Keys to Change
Like
many of you, I view the year that just ended as a time for introspection. For
paging through and gauging what went well—and what didn’t. Obviously, no one
wants to repeat their mistakes, but it’s seldom that simple. Take the mess
in our nation’s capital. I’m sure you’re all heartily sick of the endless post
mortems. The bottom line is this: strategies someone thought would work didn’t.
That doesn’t mean throwing out all ideology, but it might mean dissecting just
what went wrong and why.
Fortunately,
our individual lives are easier to manage. We can take stock of what we want to
accomplish in the year to come and apply the filter of our wisdom to figure out
what steps to take to bring our goals to fruition. Sometimes it works best to
pay attention to the elements of reaching a goal, rather than the goal itself.
For example, if you’re trying to lose weight, every time you take the stairs or
go for a walk or leave the table when you’re still hungry is a victory. Pile
enough of them together, and you’ll see a difference over time.
That’s
the key to any sort of significant change. Patience and prioritizing the
components to make it happen. It’s easy to get sidetracked. We all have busy
lives. Days get away from us and we fall into bed saying, “I’ll do that
tomorrow.” Nothing of value comes without effort. Sometimes a lot of effort.
The effort can be subtle, but that doesn’t make it any less challenging. Like
smiling at someone you detest because they’re your husband’s closest friend. We
can suck things up. It’s not that hard. Sometimes when we “act as if”, we
discover the person we thought we couldn’t stand isn’t so bad after all.
We’re
all just people. For the most part we’re motivated by the same things. Once our
basic needs for food and shelter are out of the way, we’d like to be loved and
we want to be happy. Having rewarding work helps, too. Sometimes we get
sidetracked. It’s always helped me to look beyond a behavior that grates on me
to try to see the person hiding underneath.
What plans
do you have for 2018? Is it going to be the best year yet? It could be, but
that depends entirely on you. We can have the best intentions, work our butts
off, and still not meet our goals. It’s what happens afterward that defines us.
So what
if something you were banking on didn’t work out the way you’d hoped? Be
resilient. Be flexible. Take the good parts, jettison the bad, and pay it
forward. Anything we do to help others comes back tenfold.
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Review of . . . the Bitter Harvest Series . . . This series brought to me a new world,
new heroes, new shifters, new adventure. All wrapped in the beautiful package that
Ann Gimpel puts out so well. There was depth, intrigue, alluring fantasy,
paranormal mystic, magic, action, drama, rich characters. Each new addition brought
you further in to the world of Ushuaia, with scientist, shifters, vampires,
witches and more. Come join the struggle, the search, the journey with each of
our couples and their friends and foes.
Another compelling paranormal fantasy romance from Ann Gimpel.
Betrayed
Bitter Harvest
Publication Date: February 5th
2018
BLURB
Karin’s watched magic ebb and
flow over her long life. A healer by nature, as well as a wolf Shifter, she
fixes what she can and buries her personal needs deep. In a race against time,
she and a small group of Shifters and humans are sailing toward a gateway in
the Arctic. If they can’t close it, Earth will be doomed, but getting that far
is proving tricky.
Daide’s a scientist, first and
foremost. Once a world-renowned expert on treating cetaceans, his skills are
rusty. Ten years as a Vampire altered a whole lot, and he’s still exploring his
brand-new Shifter magic. Karin caught his eye before they left Ushuaia, but she
seems to be in love with a dolphin Shifter. Immersed in jealousy, Daide
considers walking away, but he can’t give up. The only woman he’s ever loved is
worth fighting for. Consequences be damned.
Vampires, Witches, high-handed
gods, Kelpies, and a host of others all want either the ship or the Shifters’
magic. Even the simplest tasks develop thorny edges, and misunderstandings
threaten to destroy everything.
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Abandoned
Bitter Harvest
Publication Date: December 18th
2017
BLURB
A handful of Shifters. A hardy
ship. An upside-down world where evil runs rampant and none of the old rules
apply. Taking a stand against the Cataclysm solved a few problems, but others
rushed in to fill in the void.
Recco misses his cozy lab and
well-organized veterinary clinic, but ten years as a Vampire stripped him of
any illusions. Life is done handing him everything he wants. He could rail
against fate—which never bought him much—or suck it up and keep going.
Defeating the Cataclysm broke Vampirism’s hold on him, though. Even better, it threw
Zoe square in his path.
When Zoe left Ireland for a
visiting professorship in Wyoming, she assumed she’d be home in a year, but her
assumption swung around and bit her in the ass. The Cataclysm, a spell trapping
her in Ushuaia for a decade may be gone, but it left a hell of a legacy. One
that’s far from done chasing her.
Darkness stalks the ship. Evil
that will stop at nothing to protect itself.
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Twisted
Bitter Harvest
BLURB
A small group of Shifters sails
south from Ushuaia, determined to assess what’s left of the world. A Vampire
attack, a possessed priest, and a gateway to Hell mean fallout from the spell
gone bad that pinned them in Ushuaia for years is far from gone.
Back on a ship again, Juan
reconstructs what’s always been a comfort zone. The sea is the only life he’s
ever known—if you don’t count the ten years he spent as a Vampire. His new
magic, fueled by a bond with a mountain cat, brings its own set of challenges,
but they pale in comparison with the white-hot need knifing through him
whenever Aura is anywhere close.
A historian by trade, Aura deals
in prophecies for her Shifter pack. Attraction for Juan ignited when they
fought the Cataclysm, but she figures he left a string of broken hearts during
his years as chief navigator on cruise ships. They have to work together. A
self-indulgent affair could ruin everything. She does her damnedest to keep
distance between them, but the ship’s not big enough to escape yearning for a
future together.
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Deceived
Bitter Harvest
Magic shattered the world, but
the worst is yet to come.
BLURB
The sea may have been a harsh
mistress, but Viktor longs for the challenges of wind and weather, for the
sound of waves crashing over his hull. Turned by a Master Vampire, he hates
what he’s become, but there’s no escape. Not from Ushuaia that’s turned into a
city of bones, or from the Vampire who rules him.
Ketha and eleven other Shifters
traveled to Ushuaia to harness the power of an eclipse and were trapped there
when the world turned upside down. Ten years later, they’re staying one step
ahead of Vampires who blame them for the cataclysm.
With her luck running low, Ketha
turns her badly depleted magic on the Vampire assigned to lock her away and
gets sucked in by her own spell. Maybe magic can’t save the world, but love
might be able to salvage what’s left.
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Author Info
Ann Gimpel is a mountaineer at heart. Recently retired from a long career as a psychologist, she remembers many hours at her desk where her body may have been stuck inside four walls, but her soul was planning yet one more trip to the backcountry. Around the turn of the last century (that would be 2000, not 1900!), she managed to finagle moving to the Eastern Sierra, a mecca for those in love with the mountains. It was during long backcountry treks that Ann’s writing evolved. Unlike some who see the backcountry as an excuse to drag friends and relatives along, Ann prefers solitude. Stories always ran around in her head on those journeys, sometimes as a hedge against abject terror when challenging conditions made her fear for her life, sometimes for company. Eventually, she returned from a trip and sat down at the computer. Three months later, a five hundred page novel emerged. Oh, it wasn’t very good, but it was a beginning. And, she learned a lot between writing that novel and its sequel.
Around that time, a friend of hers suggested she try her hand at short stories. It didn’t take long before that first story found its way into print and they’ve been accepted pretty regularly since then. One of Ann’s passions has always been ecology, so her tales often have a green twist.
In addition to writing, Ann enjoys wilderness photography. She lugs pounds of camera equipment in her backpack to distant locales every year. A standing joke is that over ten percent of her pack weight is camera gear which means someone else has to carry the food! That someone is her husband. They’ve shared a life together for a very long time. Children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out their family.
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