Serious about Series: Retail Links to your favorite series by Laurel A. Rockefeller

If you love to read or love to write for that matter, you know that book series are all the rage. But how do you find all the books in the series you love?

Many, but not all retailers, collect or at least tag books that come from the same series. In my experience these pages are often incomplete – which is why this blog includes all the books from each series in specific posts so dedicated. But what if you don’t want to scroll through all of that here? Easy: browse this post and you will find links to each retailer’s page for each series. Know of any pages I haven’t found (yet)? Comment with those links and I will check them out!

The Peers of Beinan series

genres: science fiction, paranormal romance, social scifi,

Explore a civilization in peril as blood feuds, political corruption, and tyranny seek to rip apart Beinarian society. Strongly influenced by Frank Herbert’s “Dune” series, Gene Roddenbury’s “Star Trek,” Glen Larson’s “Battlestar Galactica,” JRR Tolkien, and Dorothy “DC” Fontana, The Peers of Beinan takes you to a far away galaxy that feels just like home. Social issues explored include climate change, pollution, abortion, terrorism, domestic violence, and many more.

Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords

The Legendary Women of World History

genres: non-fiction history, narrative history, historical fiction, biography, women’s history

Begun in response to a lack of basic historical literacy in western Pennsylvania, the Legendary Women of World History seeks to improve history literacy for readers of all ages. With more than 75% available in audio format, many titles are accessible to children as young as four years old (use parental discretion in deciding age appropriateness). The series spans antiquity through the early 17th century. Most books are translated into multiple languages including Welsh, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, and Italian.

Amazon, Audible (minus newer releases Mary Queen of the Scots and Margaret of Wessex), Smashwords, Kobo.

Legendary Women of World History Textbooks

genres: history, narrative history, textbook, social studies, world history, ancient history, women’s history

The Legendary Women of World History Textbooks presents the same core content as the original Legendary Women of World History biographies – but with the addition of study questions after every chapter. These questions are exactly the same sort of questions that were presented in my textbooks in junior high and high school and are designed to promote both home school and public school learning, and augment existing curriculae.

In audio format, only two textbook editions are available: Hypatia of Alexandria Student-Teacher in English and Aliénor d’Aquitaine (Eleanor of Aquitaine in French edition). For reasons unknown, Audible is not offering Alienor, but you can find it on Apple Audiobooks. On Alienor, the student questions appear at the end of the book.

Find the Legendary Women of World History Textbooks series pages at Amazon and Smashwords.

Life with Cockatiels

genres: pet birds, pet guides, cockatiels, budgerigars, parrots, biographies, nature, science

More than any other books, the Life with Cockatiels is the most personal. Grounded in over 40 years of daily experience living with parrots, these books share what works, what doesn’t, and how to achieve a long, happy, and healthy life with your birds. The series starts with “Preparing for My First Cockatiel” which breaks down exactly what you need to buy to prepare your home for what cockatiels need, along with scientific data helping you understand who and what cockatiels are. “Preparing for My Senior Cockatiel” centers on nutrition and changes that come as your bird ages and develops age-related challenges like sight loss, along with practical suggestions on how to make needed adjustments. “Mithril and Me” is a biography for all my birds starting with my first bird, Luke, whom I bought in the third grade, through all my budgerigars and cockatiels from the early 1980s to its publication date in 2021.

All of these are filled with photos, including personal snapshots, to help guide you into a long, happy life with your birds.

Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Audible

Life in America

genres: American history, modern history, American Revolution, Early Republic, political science, women’s history, patriarchy, women’s rights, poverty

The Life in America series is all things American history. Beginning with the flash fiction “A New Start In the Niobrara for Mr. and Mrs. O’Malley,” the series steps outside of Laurel A. Rockefeller’s medieval history comfort zone. American Poverty and American Patriarchy are topically arranged, beginning with essays whose problems are then addressed in part two of each book with analysis and data from such sources as Forbes, Inc., Feeding America, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the Bureau of Justice. The history of patriarchy and the resulting women’s rights movements are explored in depth with many surprises when it comes to women’s legal rights (including reproductive rights and abortion) in the United States. In Founding Mothers the lives of twelve women from diverse backgrounds are explored – both the famous and the largely forgotten. Music enters the series with Founding Mothers in a special appendix showcasing songs popular in colonial America and the Early Republic. Hear those songs sung in the audio edition.

Amazon, Smashwords

Notable Books Not in any series

Two of my books are not in series: the award-winning “His Red Eminence, Armand-Jean du Plessis de Richelieu,” and “The Arban and the Saman.” Both are historical in nature. Eminence is narrative history just like the Legendary Women of World History whereas Arban/Saman is a straight historical romance with some supernatural elements to it. Find links to these on this blog.

Find books and audiobooks by Laurel A. Rockefeller at your favorite retailer.

Amazon, Audible, Apple Books, Apple Audiobooks, Chirp, Everand, Barnes/Noble, Books A Million, BookBub, Good Reads, and YouTube.

Find books by Laurel A. Rockefeller on the series pages on this blog:

Peers of Beinan

Legendary Women of World History

Legendary Women of World History Textbooks

Legendary Women of World History and Peers of Beinan Dramas

Life in America

Life with Cockatiels

Audiobooks by Laurel A. Rockefeller

The Myth of Perpetual Trauma

Originally posted June 25th, 2012

“You really need to see a therapist” advises a perfect stranger responding to my comment on a news blog where I discuss the gross under-reporting of sex crimes and domestic violence. My remark is sociological in nature, referencing data I learned in my university education which included sociology, social psychology, and pre-counseling psychology courses. The person reading it regards my data as “angry” and “hurt” in nature and assumes that I am a survivor of some sort of domestic violence or sex crime who needs professional help.

She was correct in assessing that I survived something, but completely off-base in her assumption that surviving something automatically means that the person is so traumatized by the event(s) that she presently needs professional therapy. Knowing nothing else about me, she could not know my personal medical history, much less the details of the crimes, yet she felt it appropriate to stick her head into very private personal business. Her underlying assumption was “if victimized, then need help.”

As well-meaning as her intent was, it is faulty in its logic. Every single person and every crime is different. We each respond to the stressors in our lives differently.
Sometimes a stressor like domestic violence or rape un-nerves us, undermining our capacities to live normal life. In these cases, it is probably advisable to seek professional help in getting back to a more productive mental state.

But the point of therapy is not to stay in therapy forever; the point of therapy is to get BETTER and NOT be in therapy any longer. The point of therapy is to HEAL – just as you heal from a physical wound. It is SUPPOSED to end; if no end is in sight, then the treatment isn’t working and a new therapist and/or approach is needed, just as you would do for any physical condition – like my chronic migraines where prescription drugs didn’t help, but a change to holistic therapy DID in reducing my physical pain.

Just as a stressor may unnerve us, it may equally INSPIRE us; we can and typically do respond to stress POSITIVELY. Surviving domestic violence or a sex crime often provokes us to make positive changes in our lives, allowing us to break destructive habits, increase in wisdom/insight, and grow deeper in our chosen spirituality. We learn from every experience in our lives; the most stressful events are generally the best teachers.

Despite living my life today with physical scars on my body that will never really go away from the crimes I suffered, I can honestly tell you that I would not change anything about my life, even and especially the mistakes I’ve made.
I am not less of a person. I am not weak for surviving criminal behavior. All of these experiences have given me insight, forced me to grow religiously, and developed inner resources and skills I would never have been able to. Through the crimes I suffered, I came to finally overcome several bad habits I’ve had that, in hindsight, have been rather self-destructive. Under the stress of coping with these hurtful events, I have discovered that I BLOSSOMED as an individual. My insights and understanding of the world is rooted in them.

Have I ever gone to therapy? Absolutely, many times over the course of my life, and using many different approaches. But therapy did its job: to help me cope and move on.

Surviving a crime is not a life sentence, no matter how brutal, horrible, or long-lasting. We all heal and move on. Surviving is not weakness, not something to be pitied. The strongest people in the world all survived some sort of serious trauma. Remember that next time you hear someone suffered something; odds are really good they are tougher inside than you are!

Analysis: Top Ten Storytelling Cliches that Need to Disappear Forever

This hospitaler, a stand in for both Lord Knight Corann and for Lord Knight Elendir, stands as the perfect medieval knight.

This afternoon I gave across one of the most poignant columns on writing and the writing process I’ve seen in a rather long time.  The subject:  literary cliches.

http://litreactor.com/columns/top-10-storytelling-cliches-that-need-to-disappear-forever

It is very hard to disagree with Mr. Hart here; he hit a lot of the bigger cliches right on the head — and shown us why knocking someone unconscious is a REALLY BAD IDEA to put in a story.

Avoiding cliches is difficult.  Write in an archetypal character — like Lord Knight Corann from The Great Succession Crisis — and you run the risk of such a character being called cliche.

One matter I do have a bit of disagreement on was his talk about bad parenting.  True, people do over use that device, but his description here really comes off to me, as someone who endured a violent childhood, as rather — dismissive.

In my humble opinion, Mr. Hart does not appear to really understand the psychology of abuse nor how it provides a genuine obstacle to success — not insurmountable — I am living proof of that — but an obstacle nonetheless, something people must work at to overcome.

Domestic violence is not something to talk about lightly, as if it is no big deal.  Rather, it is a serious matter that must be addressed by our society through prevention (as Sir Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame talks about) first and foremost.

Now should a challenging childhood really be the main motivator for villainy?  Absolutely not — yes, that is overdone.  But it should also never be described as if it is no big deal.

We as writers possess a social and moral responsibility.  Ours is the greatest power for social change.

The cliche about the pen and the sword is genuinely true.  As strong as physical might may appear, it is the power of ideas and words, filtered through the talents of writers, journalists, and authors, that changes our world most.

Endeavor always to make the world as better place through your pen and your works — published and otherwise.