Blessings and Miracles by Shashicka Tyre-Hill

Success can have many definitions, but ask the people who have obtained it and they will say, “I never gave up.” In BLESSINGS & MIRACLES (June 2013; ISBN: 978-0-9893682-0-9; $15.00) A MEMOIR, Shashicka Tyre-Hill shares how life didn’t begin in the best of circumstances.  At the tender age of four she witnessed her mother and father arguing over him wanting to take food from the family refrigerator and sell it to feed his drug habit. Shashicka’s emotional outburst in response to her parent’s quarrelling landed the young girl in the Savannah Regional Mental Facility. This was the moment that forced her parent’s separation. Things got much worst before they got better. After becoming pregnant at the age of fourteen, there were not many who would have given Shashicka much of a chance in life, but that was not the way Shashicka saw it.  From the time she was young, she knew God had a greater purpose and with determination and dedication, she worked hard to find what God had for her.

Although the road was filled with bumps, including sexual advances from her mom’s boyfriend, to almost losing her child to the system and landing on public assistance to survive as a teen mom, Shashicka finally found her passion—
caring for the sick and shut-in.

BLESSINGS & MIRACLES is a moving memoir that will have readers cheering for a young Shashicka as if they knew her. And upon finishing the story, readers will come to realize they do know her. She is the young girl standing at the bus stop, the young boy getting into mischief on the street corner, the kids loitering in the park or cutting class at school. Shashicka represents the battle and triumph of so many children of color who find themselves being raised in single parent homes, forced to grow up too fast, too soon.

“When I was fifteen, and I had my baby and my mother told me to leave her house I believe God had abandoned me.  As I was walking in the streets, I was thinking that no one cared about me; I didn’t really have anywhere to go.  I cried out to God asking Him why?  Why would he do this to me?  Why did it have to happen to me?  I felt totally alone and I thought that God had forgotten about me — but just for a moment.  I had a couple more moments of, “Why me, God!” like when I almost lost my daughter.  I really questioned God a lot then, especially while I was locked up.  I didn’t understand why when I was doing everything right, when I was working so hard, why I had to go through all of this. But though I questioned God, He was always there.”

Fortunately for her, the opposition allowed her to find passion early in life. A light touch from a caring person can leave a lasting impression and after caring for her ailing grandmother, Shashicka turned her compassion for the sick and shut-in into a career that has not only given her a wonderful life, but has helped others to thrive.

Shashicka’s accounts of her early years force readers to think about the obstacles before them and re-adjust before throwing in the towel. Through her life readers will come to see that the problems we face are often the mental and emotional workout needed to strengthen us for the journey to destiny. Readers will find inspiration as they witness a young girl’s enduring will to succeed, the daunting pursuit to find lasting love and the quest for entrepreneurship.

“When I look back over my life today, I see that there were plenty of times I had to stretch my faith, but the major time for me was when I just couldn’t get my license.  Having to do that three times was a lot.  And the lady who was responsible for giving me the license spoke such negativity into my life.  I remember crying so hard, that I couldn’t even speak.  Then, I talked to my mom and she helped me to stretch my faith.  That was when I went back for the third time.  And, I did it!”

At the age of 21, Shashicka was a married mother of two who had become the youngest person in the country to obtain a home health care license. She started her first business Miracle Health Care in Brunswick, GA. Today she has seven locations in the state of Georgia.  BLESSINGS & MIRACLES offers a uniquely personal, deeply intimate look into the complicated past of a teen mom and her will to succeed.

Each chapter of this memoir carries the reader from tragedy to triumph, as this young girl grows into a woman—a successful business woman, despite numerous setbacks.

Miss Nobody by Nicole Dunlap

~Deception, greed, and fame dismantle their lives~

Charlene and Raven, mother and daughter, are woven together by blood, but separated and haunted by circumstance: personal struggles, concealed demons and uncovered skeletons.

Fifteen-year-old Charlene Shaw is frustrated with life. She embodies every young woman’s starry-eyed dreams and heads for Hollywood. On her rugged road to fame, Charlene’s using everything in her might to erase the past–even at the point of compromising her own love story. Charlene still can’t wipe away her deepest fear that shakes her very core… Raven.

Raven Shaw grows up in her mother’s tiny Christian town Bellwood, North Carolina. She’s a feisty, confident young thing who won’t hesitate to use her fist when bullies mock her as a bastard. Overcoming teen depression, she finds love. A first love, a teenage romance to die for. Now, Raven can’t be fully committed to the man that has her heart until she learns shy she’s been neglected.

When their path’s collide, Raven asks to questions–two family secrets–that can ruin their lives, leading mother and child on the road of feeling like a “Miss Nobody”

 

Excerpt:

The instructor had on leggings, as if there wasn’t something bulging in the front of his pants. His belly protruded like a Teletubby. He wore a French beret cocked to the side of his head, and his silky, curly hair looked even better than Charlene’s.

Charlene didn’t find out how difficult the class was until standing on the stage in a historical theater attempting to “act.” Every time she read her lines, he shot her down.

“No! No! No! Charlene!” The instructor snapped his fingers as he walked onto the stage. Stiletto heels clicked on the floor emphasizing his disagreeable words. “More dismal. You’re acting is… shitty! I don’t even know how you got in my class.” He put Engine Red nails to his temples, massaged. Rolling his eyes, he added, “Ugh! Not another one–wasting your sugar daddy’s money because you’re bored when he’s working.”

Then he tried on his gloomy face, mascara eyelashes fluttered. “Listen, the script says that your husband has just cheated on you with a sexy man, almost as sexy as me! And you look like that? You must be ecstatic? Want your husband to leave?” He enunciates every word when explaining the script, as if English was her second language.

She huffed, having read the lines a thousand times. If only I hadn’t dreamed about Roy last night. Charlene had taken a couple of pills on the way to class. It was the only place she normally went without taking the Valium. Thinking about Raven, she contemplated what life would be like if she’d cared for her daughter. Her daughter would be starting senior year soon. Tears streamed down her face as she spoke the lines from memory, all the while, thinking about all the milestones in her daughter’s life that she would miss. Graduation…prom…tours to college campuses… In the zone, she began.

When she finished, the theater was quiet as the instructor and the other students stared at her. Warmth crept across her cheeks as she ran off the stage, feeling like a nobody. I was awful! I can’t act… great! Seventeen years and I can’t act!

In the empty bathroom, she grabbed tissue paper from one of the stalls and wiped her face. I don’t deserve to cry. I abandoned Raven for nothing. She opened her purse and pulled out the pills and took a breath. Then on second thought she put the pills back. Looking into the mirror, tussled her curly hair. She put a cold paper towel on her eyes to get rid of the redness. With her head held high, she walked back out of the restroom, into the theater, and onto the stage, ready for the instructor to ridicule her again.

A round of applause echoed across the room.

She was all smiles.

“Charlene, I felt sooooo sorry for you. Honey, with that face you can take a man for all his dough!” The instructor waved his hands around delicately for the crowd to stop applauding. When it was quiet, he added, “I think you’ve got it!” as he clapped, he jumped, he smiled as tears pooled at the corner of his eyes.

Charlene’s face streaked with streams of mascara. I can use my guilt over leaving Raven to my advantage!

 

         Nicole Dunlap holds a Bachelors Degree in Psychology and Child Development, and a Masters Degree in Educational Counseling from Azusa Pacific University. She lives her dream of counseling in the inner city of San Bernardino; motivating teens dealing with depression, pregnancy, gang membership and abuse. But, she admits to two passions–writing being her first love. She has been self dubbed the “gumbo genre” novelist, because books shouldn’t be lightly seasoned… Her stories revolve around family and relationships, women’s issues, drizzled with drama, peppered with suspense, and finished off with aromatic notes of romance.

The Shaw Family Saga pays homage to dysfunctional mother-daughter relationships, with well developed characters that readers can root for; love them, hate them, cry for, and most of all, yearn to flip through the pages to the end of that character’s journey.

 

Renee 2: The Protege by Brandie Davis

September 2013

The Prada Plan 4 by Ashley Antoinette

January 2014