Chiseled ~ Audio Book Blog Tour Audio Excerpt, Review, & Giveaway!

CHISELED

Written By, Narrated By, and Published by:

DANUTA PFEIFFER

Length: 13 hours and 22 minutes

Released: May 22, 2018

Genre: Memoir

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A NOTE FROM HALL WAYS: YES, I am featuring this book on my blog for the third time -- it's that good. Get it in print, get it in audio, get it in both formats...but GET THIS BOOK. 

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In this gripping memoir, Danuta Pfeiffer grew up with parents as extraordinary as they were flawed. John and Patricia Rylko and their three children lived a nomadic life following the seasons to accommodate John's work as a gifted sculptor during the summers and as a philandering ski instructor in the winters. They lived in a circus tent, built their first cabin, and lost it for a dollar.

John Rylko flaunted his charm as a story teller, entrancing all who listened of his wartime glories as a Polish soldier and his silver medals in the 1936 Winter Olympics, while Patricia, a nurse, pulled double shifts at hospitals, hitchhiking to work and feeding her family off the land with roadkill deer and blackberry pies.

Those times of resiliency would have to sustain Danuta when she was raped and secretly gave birth to a baby. She escapes her enraged father on a daring journey to Alaska during the storm of the century.

Through betrayals and loss and her search for redemption, she becomes the unlikely co-host to a television evangelist bent on becoming the president of the US. When her past catches up to her, she is caught in the crosshairs of politics and religion. In a gutsy move, she abandons Christianity during a bicycle ride from Canada to Mexico and unravels her father's hidden life in the Carpathian Mountains of Poland, only to discover her own life hidden in the folds of resiliency, tenacity, and grit.

Danuta Pfeiffer now lives in a vineyard in Oregon, making fine wine with her husband Robin Pfeiffer.

  

Danuta (Soderman) Pfeiffer was a national radio and television broadcast journalist, columnist, and talk show host for 35 years. She is the author of 4 books; her first book, Watersafe Your Baby in Six Days, was the first book on teaching water survival skills to infants, and the first to be endorsed by the American Red Cross.

Danuta has been a Water Safety Instructor, a ski instructor, scuba diver, and long-distance bicycle rider, and once called the "most visible woman in modern Christianity today." She was known as the popular co-host of The 700 Club with Pat Robertson. (Her new book, Chiseled, can explain that.) But Danuta returned to her liberal roots expressing her Progressive views as a radio talk show host on radio stations affiliated with Air America.

She was the inspiration behind the Men of the Long Tom Grange Calendar, America’s first international nude spoof calendar that raised over $650,000 for the Junction City School District.

She was the founder of the Oregon Country Trails, Oregon’s first branded, agri-tourism system, representing businesses and attractions in rural Oregon. She served two years on the Oregon Travel Experience Board, appointed by Governor John Kitzhaber, and for over 20 years has chaired or volunteered at the annual Long Tom Grange Daffodil Drive Festival.

Danuta and her husband Robin own and manage Pfeiffer Winery and Vineyards in Junction City, Oregon--one of most reputable vineyards in the state, and one of the first wineries to be solar-powered. Their wine isn’t bad, either. Their 2007 Blue Dot Reserve Pinot noir was served during a private presidential dinner.

Today, she and Robin can often be found sharing their love of wine with friends and family at their winery, swimming in their country pond with their yellow labs, or sipping wine and watching for the first bats to fly at sunset at the top of their vineyard.

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HALL WAYS REVIEWS: While I wasn't a reviewer on this tour, I had to be a part of it because the book is so wonderful. To read my reviews...

CLICK FOR MY PRINT COPY REVIEW

CLICK FOR MY AUDIO BOOK REVIEW

Spoiler Alert: I gave the book 5 Stars in both reviews. 😊

Prize: Amazon Echo Dot (2nd Gen)

Runs Oct. 7th-14th⎮Open internationally

Chiseled Giveaway: Amazon Echo Dot




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Chiseled: A Memoir of Identity, Duplicity, and Divine Wine by Danuta Pfeiffer

Chiseled: A Memoir of Identity, Duplicity, and Divine Wine by Danuta Pfeiffer. Narrated by Danuta Pfeiffer.
*Readers' Favorite International Gold Medal Winner; Eric Hoffer Finalist Award*
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5 STARS from HALL WAYS BLOG

Publication Date: (Audio) May 22, 2018
Publisher: Audible Audio Book
Length: 13 hours 22 minutes

Publication Date: February 12, 2015
Publisher: Luminare Press
Pages: 426

BOOK DESCRIPTION: Chiseled: to cut, to pare, shape with a chisel, to cut close,to employ unfair practices to obtain an end, to cheat, to defraud, to trick

Through betrayals and loss and her search for redemption an idealistic journalist becomes the unlikely co-host to a television evangelist bent on becoming the president of the United States. When her past catches up to her, she is caught in the cross hairs of politics and religion.

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HALL WAYS REVIEW:  Audio and Print Review. I read this book in print three years ago, and when the author contacted me and asked if I’d listen to the new audio book format, I jumped at the chance. Even three years later, I remembered well the details of the book. Danuta Pfeiffer's Chiseled: A Memoir of Identity, Duplicity, and Divine Wine is the amazing story of Danuta's life -- filled with deception, devastation, and determination -- that takes readers on her courageous journey.  Told in three parts, Danuta begins at her beginning, as a god-fearing child, living a spartan life, under a father she revered despite his abusive hands. Her father's stories of obstacles he'd overcome in the war, in the most brutal of circumstances, carried Danuta through her own travails time and again, even as her father continued to reject her.  

“Women were expected to be seen but not heard. To be instructed but not instruct. To praise the Lord and pass the potatoes

-- but not to preach.”

For readers who remember Danuta (then Soderman) and her mysterious departure from being the co-host of The 700 Club with Pat Robertson, details are revealed of not only her departure, but of how CBN and Robertson operated behind-the-scenes. This provides fascinating insight into the sometimes-sordid world of televangelism, and it ultimately leads to Danuta's "losing God" for some time.  As Danuta navigates her life - out of work, married to an addict, and questioning the very existence of God - she always draws strength from her father's challenges and perseveres.  When she finally allows friendships into her life and allows herself to focus on her own needs, she finds true love with a winemaker, Robin Pfeiffer. Robin takes Danuta to Poland, where Danuta connects with her father's family, and discovers the truth and lies of her father's past.

"Memory is wickedly elusive and necessarily subjective.

Ultimately, this is the memory of a lie."

Many of her sentences are stunning, and the imagery truly takes the story to another level. For example, in talking about her father's decline into depression, Danuta wrote, "His change took place the way a shoelace comes undone, gradually unravelling what was once secure."  Or, when she speaks of her time with The 700 Club, she summarizes it by saying, "I had become a spiritual drug dealer imbued with the halo of power and celebrity, associated with the brokers of money and politics." Her characterization is excellent so that readers not only witness actions but understand and feel Danuta's emotions towards the characters who have the most impact on her life.

Particularly powerful is the story of Danuta's mother, Patricia, who is truly the hero of Danuta's life. In Patricia's strength and commitment to her family, Danuta finds a role model in a time when women were restricted by societal limitations. Throughout Danuta's life, her faith and relationship with God go through many iterations, and it is interesting to see her thought process at all stages and what ultimately leads her back to a life of faith. Sprinkled throughout the text were photographs from various times in Danuta's life, which enriched the story even further.

ABOUT THE AUDIO BOOK: One word: OUTSTANDING. I loved this memoir when I read it, and I loved it when I read it with my ears and heard the author narrate her life for me.  It makes the already intimate feeling memoir feel even more intimate, more real (and more painful), and her triumphs more glorious. Pfeiffer’s training serves her well as her narration is perfectly paced and her voicing of various characters really enriches them. The voicing of her Polish relatives was particularly good. She nailed everything from the humor of her Uncle Frank to the awkwardness of his translating for others and the pain and confusion as Danuta tried to reconcile the father she thought she knew with the man his Polish family knew him to be.

Chiseled is a masterfully written story of a woman spending a lifetime searching to find peace, love, and acceptance within herself.  At times, readers will have to remind themselves that Chiseled is a memoir and not fiction. It is unbelievable that any one person endured all the heartache and challenges that Danuta faced, and even more amazing that she survived it and now lives a healthy, happy life.  I highly recommend Chiseled, as Danuta Pfeiffer eloquently shows that truth can be more dramatic and fascinating than fiction. Readers be prepared to be angry -- and possibly shed a few tears -- but in the end, feel inspired. 

Thank you to the author for reaching out to me and offering an audio download in exchange for my honest opinion – the only kind I give.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Danuta Pfeiffer graduated from the University of Colorado with a B.A. in Communications and Journalism with a minor in Philosophy.  She is a community activist, the author of three books, a motivational speaker, and a long-distance bicycle rider. She married Robin Pfeiffer, an Oregon wine grape grower she met through her newspaper ad.  He proposed in 12 days and they have been making wine and love together for more than 20 years.

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Dark Harvest ~ ~ Blog Tour, Review, & Giveaway!

DARK HARVEST

Author: Chris Patchell

Narrators: Lisa Stathoplos, Corey Gagne

Series: The Holt Foundation Stories, Book 2

Length: 11 hours 7 minutes

Publisher: Audible Studios

Released: Sep. 27, 2017

Genre: Suspense, Thriller

SCROLL DOWN FOR GIVEAWAY! 

Becky Kincaid ventures out in the middle of a snowstorm to buy a car seat for her unborn baby and never makes it home. When a second pregnant woman disappears, Marissa Rooney and the team at the Holt Foundation fear a sinister motive lurks behind the crimes.

Lead investigator Seth Crawford desperately searches for the thread that binds the two cases together, knowing that if he fails, another woman will soon be gone. While Seth hunts for clues, a madman has Marissa in his sights and she carries a secret that could tear her whole world apart.

Can Seth stop the killer before he reaps his...dark harvest?

Chris Patchell is the bestselling author of In the Dark, Dark Harvest, and the Indie Reader Discovery Award winning novel Deadly Lies. Having recently left her long-time career in tech to pursue her passion for writing full-time, Chris pens gritty suspense novels set in the Pacific Northwest, where she lives with her family and two neurotic dogs.

Website⎮Twitter⎮Facebook⎮Instagram

Lisa Stathoplos has been a professional actor working onstage, in film and commercial VO work for many years as well as narrating books and performing in Audiodramas for Audible.com and Hachette Audio. Most recently, Lisa played Nina Locke in Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’ epic multiple Audie award-winning 13-hour audio drama of their wildly popular graphic novel LOCKE AND KEY produced by Pocket Universe Productions’ AudioComics division and Finalrune Productions for Audible Studios.

Corey Gagne is an audiobook narrator, stage, and voice actor from Portland, Maine. Corey trained at Mountview Theater Conservatory (now Mountview Academy) in London, England, and has appeared on stage in London, New York, Philadelphia, Austin, and Portland. His work as an audiobook narrator includes Inci by Mike Resnick and Tina Gower, The Constable's Tale by Donald Smith, the Sin du Jour series by Matt Wallace, The Goblin Crown by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, The Twilight of the Gods Series by Christopher G. Nuttall, The Black Wolves of Boston by Wen Spencer, The Builders by Daniel Polanski, and Dark Harvest and In the Dark by Chris Patchell.

HALL WAYS REVIEW: Dark Harvest (A Holt Foundation Story, #2) continues right where In the Dark, book one of the series ended.  Author Chris Patchett immediately sets a new scene and tone that has readers on edge as we see the horror of what’s coming – but we don’t know why.

For the audio book, listeners are again treated to the dual narration team of Lisa Stathoplos and Corey Gagne, who both seem more comfortable with the characters (there are at least 10 returning from book one) and better define them. I noticed Seth sounds a little more subdued than in book one, but it becomes clear quickly that he is fighting some internal battles and working to keep his emotions under control.

"Hope is a crappy strategy...but right now she had nothing else."

Conversely, Marissa seethes and is quick to fly off the handle, succumbing to the stress of taking care of PTSD-suffering daughter Brooke, being a corporate slave, and trying to keep her relationship from Seth from tanking. The narrators do an excellent job voicing all the characters, but particularly with Marissa and Seth, who are returning from book one and dealing with some serious issues.

The plot line of Dark Harvest is horribly creepy – and fully enthralling. What seems at first straight-forward in why the disappearances are happening soon twists into something even darker and disturbing. As with In the Dark, readers discover who is the perp early on, but in Dark Harvest, it’s more of a race to stop the crimes instead of a mystery to solve. Patchett has created some new characters who are truly loathsome, and the author continues to flesh-out some of the returning characters, so readers get to better know them. There is one character’s back-story that seemed overly detailed, lengthy, and unnecessary, and there are other characters about whom I want to know more. Hopefully there will be a third novel that dives-in to some of their stories. In any case, the explosive ending will have readers on the edge of their seats and leaves a set-up perfect for a next installment in the series.

While the subject matter is grim, and the body count is high, Patchett doesn’t get overly graphic in her descriptions, leaving the finer details mercifully up to the readers’ imaginations. As with the prior novel, I could do without the profanity, which fits even less with most of the characters in this book. Audio book listeners need to be mindful of who else is in listening range; it’s an adult book with sex and violence.   

Thank you to Audiobookworm Promotions and the author for providing me a free audio download in exchange for my honest opinion – the only kind I give.

TWO WINNERS WIN AMAZON ECHO DOTS!

Runs Feb. 11th-25th⎮Open internationally (via Amazon US or UK)

The Holt Foundation Stories Giveaway: Amazon Echo Dot

Dark Harvest, Book 2

Feb. 18th:

Next Book Review

T's Stuff

Cali Book Reviews

Turning Another Page

Feb. 19th:

What Is That Book About

Jazzy Book Reviews

Feb. 20th:

Lilly's Book World

Dab of Darkness Audiobook Reviews

2 Girls and A Book

Feb. 22nd:

Wall-to-Wall Books

Notes from 'Round the Bend

Feb. 23rd:

alistenersslant

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In the Dark ~ ~ Audio Book Tour, Review, & Giveaway!

IN THE DARK

Author: Chris Patchell

Narrators: Lisa Stathoplos, Corey Gagne

Series: The Holt Foundation Stories, Book 1

Length: 14 hours 5 minutes

Publisher: Audible Studios

Released: Sep. 27, 2017

Genre: Suspense, Thriller

SCROLL DOWN FOR GIVEAWAY! 

Marissa Rooney stands in her daughter's empty dorm room, a half-used vial of insulin clutched in her trembling hand. Brooke has been missing for days. Her roommate hasn't seen her since that night in the bar. And if Marissa has Brooke's insulin, it means that Brooke does not.

But Marissa isn't alone in her terror. A phantom from her past is lurking in the shadows, waiting in the night, and holding her family captive...in the dark.

 

Chris Patchell is the bestselling author of In the Dark, Dark Harvest, and the Indie Reader Discovery Award winning novel Deadly Lies. Having recently left her long-time career in tech to pursue her passion for writing full-time, Chris pens gritty suspense novels set in the Pacific Northwest, where she lives with her family and two neurotic dogs.

Website⎮Twitter⎮Facebook⎮Instagram

Lisa Stathoplos has been a professional actor working onstage, in film and commercial VO work for many years as well as narrating books and performing in Audiodramas for Audible.com and Hachette Audio. Most recently, Lisa played Nina Locke in Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’ epic multiple Audie award-winning 13-hour audio drama of their wildly popular graphic novel LOCKE AND KEY produced by Pocket Universe Productions’ AudioComics division and Finalrune Productions for Audible Studios.

Corey Gagne is an audiobook narrator, stage, and voice actor from Portland, Maine. Corey trained at Mountview Theater Conservatory (now Mountview Academy) in London, England, and has appeared on stage in London, New York, Philadelphia, Austin, and Portland. His work as an audiobook narrator includes Inci by Mike Resnick and Tina Gower, The Constable's Tale by Donald Smith, the Sin du Jour series by Matt Wallace, The Goblin Crown by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, The Twilight of the Gods Series by Christopher G. Nuttall, The Black Wolves of Boston by Wen Spencer, The Builders by Daniel Polanski, and Dark Harvest and In the Dark by Chris Patchell.

HALL WAYS REVIEW:   In the Dark (A Holt Foundation Story), the first book in the series by Chris Patchell, is an exciting and engaging story to read with your ears.  The premise of the primary mystery, though not entirely unique, has more than a few spins on it that make it a stand-out story.  

For the audio book, listeners are treated to a dual narration team to add authenticity to the characters’ genders. Both Lisa Stathoplos and Corey Gagne have even deliveries and do well with projecting a wide range of emotions.  It’s a good thing, too, as there are A LOT of characters to keep up with, which is always a little harder with an audio book than reading print. But the teenagers sounded annoyingly teenager-ish, jerks sounded jerky, and creepy males sounded creepy.  The distinct voices created by the narrators helped a lot.

There is significant character and world building in the first half, as readers are introduced to the key players who will likely return in the sequel(s). Surprisingly, the bad guy is revealed fairly early on; however, once readers learn the identity of the perp, there is still significant suspense and the story isn’t so much about the WHOdunit but the why – and Patchett does a great job revealing that aspect.  The pace picks-up significantly in the second half of the story, and the urgency and tension are ratcheted-up a few notches. The story put me on edge, which made me uncharacteristically nervous when there was an unexpected knock on my door while listening. (I didn’t answer!)

In the Dark contains gritty and disturbing scenes, with detail just short of being graphic put descriptive enough to stick with the reader. I could have done without the profanity, particularly the liberal dropping of the F-bombs across multiple characters (always a bummer when those hit and there are others in listening range).  It is realistic with some, adding to the abrasiveness of their personalities, but for others it seemed unnecessary and/or odd.   The author does ask for some suspension of disbelief with certain plot elements, but overall, it works, and the story ended strong enough that I want to read (or read with my ears) the next book, Dark Harvest. Happily, there is a generous sample of it at the end of In the Dark, so I kept on listening and am now fully hooked-in for book two.

Thank you to Audiobookworm Promotions and the author for providing me a free audio download in exchange for my honest opinion – the only kind I give.

TWO WINNERS WIN AMAZON ECHO DOTS!

Runs Feb. 11th-25th⎮Open internationally (via Amazon US or UK)

The Holt Foundation Stories Giveaway: Amazon Echo Dot

In the Dark, Book 1

Feb. 11th:

Next Book Review

Jazzy Book Reviews

Turning Another Page

Feb. 12th:

Hall Ways Blog

What Is That Book About

Feb. 13th:

T's Stuff

Dab of Darkness Audiobook Reviews

Feb. 14th:

Lilly's Book World

La libreria di Beppe

2 Girls and A Book

Feb. 15th:

Wall-to-Wall Books

Notes from 'Round the Bend

Feb. 16th:

alistenersslant

The Book Addict's Reviews

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Twisted Book Junkie

Lomeraniel

Cali Book Reviews

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Hall Ways Review coming 2/23/18!