Category Archives: Articles

Great interview on Linda’s Book Bag!

Linda Hill, of Linda’s Book Bag.

Linda kindly invited me to contribute to her website. Linda has an award-winning blog, reviewing and sharing good books with her vast ocean of fans and followers.

 

Check it out: https://lindasbookbag.com/

“Lovely Diane Solomon has appeared here on Linda’s Book Bag a few times and when I heard she had a new book, Eva, I simply had to invite her back.  I asked Diane about her experience of writing Eva and she kindly provided a super guest post and an extract from the book that I’m delighted to share today.

Let’s find out about Eva.”

A Guest Post by Diane Solomon

Welcome back to Linda’s Book Bag Diane.  And congratulations on your new romantic suspense novel, Eva. Has writing this book helped you realize anything about yourself in the same way Eva has a voyage of discovery?

It’s nice to be back, and that’s a great question! I came up with the idea for this novel 20 years ago, but it took me until now to feel ready to write it, to truly understand what I wanted to say.

Here’s a wee bit about the story. Eva, the 26-year-old protagonist, has not committed to love since the day when she was eleven, when she found her mother dead on the kitchen floor. Since then, believing she is better off alone, she has kept a safe distance from people, only connecting deeply with animals.

Then she discovers she possesses a powerful skill. Maybe it is a gift. But it might be a curse. She realizes she can heal an animal simply by holding it and meditating to a deep inner space where she connects with its spirit. Things get even more shocking when she finds she can heal humans as well. When through her healing, her grandfather recovers miraculously from the incapacitation of a stroke, word spreads quickly and her life is no longer her own.

Journalists hound her relentlessly and hand-delivered death threats confirm someone wants to kill her. Forced into the limelight she’s avoided all her life and facing challenges at every turn, Eva must fight to protect her newfound ability while also doing the most difficult thing of all: staying alive.

Eva is a deep love story, full of twists and turns, with the theme of our universal yearning for connection. Plus, it is loaded with heart.

I resonate strongly with the path Eva travels, that of her struggle is to overcome her inner demons in order to own her power and to flourish. To grow. Eva is continually challenged, when all the time, all she wants to do is look after animals. That’s where she feels safe and loved and where she can give love unconditionally without fear.

Some of that is me! This hit home as I wrote the book. What kept me from connecting deeply with other people my whole life was very simply the walls I created to protect myself. The walls Eva created. The walls we all create! We hide behind those walls, protecting ourselves from pain. Yet, ironically, those walls insulate us from the very thing we need to alleviate the pain. Connection to other people. I believe we all yearn for that connection.

Writing this book has been one of the most fascinating and rewarding experiences of my life. And I wrote it from my heart, hoping to grab yours!

 

Eva sounds fabulous Diane!   CLICK HERE TO READ “EVA” EXTRACT

 

 

 

Why do so few men read books written by women?

Women read male authors, but few men read female authors. Can you believe this, in 2023?

Research shows that for women authors, only about 19% of their readers are men and 81% are women. But for male authors? 55% are men and 45% are women. 

This may help to explain why so many women authors use initials instead of their given names, so their gender is not immediately revealed. Sadly.

This might simply be a perception problem. It turns out that once men have read a book by a woman, they tend to like it as well or better than a book by a man. In Goodreads, the average rating men give to books by a woman is 3.9 out of 5; for books by men, it’s 3.8.

But men just don’t PICK UP a book by a woman as often.

Is it just a perception problem? “That’s a chick’s book,” I can hear a guy say with a degree of derision. There is certainly that piece. But perhaps there is a real, natural divide, that we can’t get away from. Men don’t want to watch “chick flicks” and they don’t want to read a “chick’s book.” Because it’s about love, family, relationships, and about communicating deeply and sharing emotions. That’s not really their thing. (For most men, anyway.) Just as I don’t particularly want to watch macho, testosterone adventures, at least not all the time! And as for gratuitous violence, I can truly do without it. So maybe there’s a natural division.

Comments? I’d love to know what you think.

        *        *       *

The Guardian published a very good article about this very conundrum, and it covers the research data:

GUARDIAN ARTICLE: Why do so few men read books by women?

By MA Sieghart  (a woman)

“No matter if it is Austen or Atwood, the Brontës or Booker winners, data shows men are reluctant to read women – and this has real world implications.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/09/why-do-so-few-men-read-books-by-women

 

ALSO, the Literary Gender Gap: another recent article: https://lithub.com/why-are-so-many-men-still-resistant-to-reading-women/   

Why Are So Many Men Still Resistant to Reading Women?

“Maybe the men assumed that novels by women weren’t as good, but how could they tell if they weren’t even reading them?”

 

 

Aches and pains? Tips for relief

Displeased curly haired woman bites lips, touches painful shoulder, suffers from injury, wears grey top, isolated on white background. health problems, medical conceptHave you twisted your ankle? Suffering from some overuse injury in muscles? Arthritis in your knee or shoulder? Many of us immediately reach for an anti-inflammatory drug such as ibuprofen, or even the prescription drug diclofenac. Or many of us don’t. That’s because it causes us stomach pain. Even for those who it doesn’t seem to bother, ibuprofen taken systemically can cause bleeding or irritation to the stomach lining. So, it’s not a good idea to take it often even if you believe you are fine with it.

Now, most of you know I’m a homeopathic and nutritionist, so you wonder why I’m suggesting a drug! True, I think you should first reach for homeopathic Arnica, 30 C, or a good Arnica cream. But if you really need an extra whammy, try ibuprofen cream. Now I know you can buy this over the counter in the pharmacy, but it’s pretty expensive.

TIP: I simply take an ibuprofen tablet, and crush it up, in any body lotion or body cream I have. Works like a charm. There you have it: topical ibuprofen cream. Cheap and useful.

But don’t forget your homeopathic Arnica!

(A good brand is *Traumeel or Traumed… And I have no connection with the company that makes them.)

 

Research links:

~ Topical Administration of Ibuprofen for Injured Athletes: Considerations, Formulations, and Comparison to Oral Delivery

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5629190/

 

~  Efficacy and safety of 5% ibuprofen cream treatment in knee osteoarthritis. Results of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14994406/

 

~ Treatment of knee osteoarthritis with a topical non-steroidal antiinflammatory drug. Results of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study on the efficacy and safety of a 5% ibuprofen cream.   Rovenský J, Miceková D, Gubzová Z, Fimmers R, Lenhard G, Vögtle-Junkert U, Schreyger F.Drugs Exp Clin Res. 2001;27(5-6):209-21.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14994406/

IMAGE BY <a href=”https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/displeased-curly-haired-woman-bites-lips-touches-painful-shoulder-suffers-from-injury-wears-grey-top-isolated-white-background-health-problems-medical-concept_12700534.htm#query=shoulder%20pain&position=0&from_view=keyword”>Image by wayhomestudio</a> on Freepik

Hi! from Diane and Mark

Mark & Di garden 6 2012 crppdThis is just to welcome you to our new website. We decided to lump all our various projects under one umbrella website, and have named ourselves “Eloquent Rascals.”

Eloquent, hopefully. Rascals, definitely.

We are glad to have you with us, and hope you find music, books or articles that fascinate or amuse or entertain you.

And do feel free to leave a comment or say hi, we’d love to hear from you!

Mark and Di