Blog Tour + Review: Believing in the Magic by Erica Tucci
Title: Believing In the Magic 
Series: Sarah’s Gift #2
Author: Erica Tucci
Genre: Children’s fiction, paranormal, social issues
Publisher: Publish it Write
Date of Publication: July 18, 2016
Word Count: 12,391
Cover Artist: Nada Serafimovic
Book Description:
Sarah is a fifth grader who has psychic abilities – she can see spirits. At school she meets Leila, a fourth grader and finds out that Leila also has psychic abilities. She uses telekinesis to make things happen, but she uses them to get back at kids in school who taunt her. Knowing how it is to be taunted by her peers, Sarah befriends Leila and helps her learn how to use her powers in a good way. In the end, Leila encounters a situation in which her powers “save the day”.
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/Zs3_pzOhzGY
My review:
For me this was a surprising and enthralling introduction to this author and her books. This story concerns Sarah, a fifth grader, who is able to see and communicate with spirits, including some animal guide spirits. She knows this is an incredible gift, making her different from her peers, but she also knows it can make others uncomfortable so tends to usually keep quiet about it around them. One day when she catches the school bus a new child is there, Leila, she is a fourth grader, with different colour eyes and seems very wary and reticent to make friends, so Sarah tries to befriend her. Later, at school, Sarah sees Leila being ridiculed by older girls – and something weird happens to stop them. Sarah suspects that Leila also has an incredible gift and her animal spirit guide, Crow, advises Sarah on how to help Leila. As the two get to know each other, the idea of using special talents positively is reinforced with a brilliant outcome in the end.
This is a lovely story, demonstrating that people have unique gifts and talents and that, by using these to help others, life can be better for them and those close to them. It also helps children to understand that being different isn’t bad, indeed it can be brilliant. It will hopefully encourage them to be more tolerant of others and to try to use their own skills and abilities to help others. The author has included additional facts, folklore, questions about the story and activities, such as a word search and additional ones are available online. This is the second book in the series, I understand the first one was entitled ‘Standing Up for Yourself’ and I suspect it will also be worthwhile checking out as it deals with, amongst other things, bullying. This is definitely a series I would recommend teachers and parents take a good look at. The insights, explanations and events will strike a chord with many children and the examples of responses may prove a useful guide to children who will also enjoy reading the stories – or having them read to them.
I was intrigued to discover the author’s plans for future books in this series – you can read more about that in her guest post on my blog at http://wp.me/p4RVxD-1SY
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
Book Links: Amazon (UK) Amazon (US)
About the Series:
Sarah’s Gift is a series of chapter books for 7-12 year olds about a young girl with psychic abilities, who uses them to harmlessly deal with different life situations. Standing Up for Yourself is about how Sarah deals with a school bully. Believing In the Magic is about how Sarah helps a girl with telekinetic abilities use them in a good way. There will be a book coming out every two months, with several of them being co-authored by youngsters, the third one being one of them.
“Standing Up for Yourself is a gift that many parents will welcome. It helps parents encourage a child’s gift of second sight perception that is all too often written off as ‘just your imagination’. Through the story telling Ms. Tucci provides support for children for their intuitive and psychic gifts. I’ve noticed how many more children these days are being acknowledged rather than shamed for their capacities to see, hear, and feel those ordinarily non-visible beings that make their appearance known. Both you and your child will thoroughly enjoy this story!”
— Dr. Steven Farmer, author of Animal Spirit Guides, Earth Magic, and the Children’s Spirit Animal Cards
“I am raving about the second book Believing in the Magic in the Sarah’s Book Series by author Erica Tucci. As soon as I started reading the first few pages I couldn’t put the book down. As a young child I remember magical moments in my life. I had great intuition and was always helping and healing friends and the creatures that God created. Sarah’s story took me back in time to my childhood. Each of us have magical gifts that can be used for the goodness of life just like Sarah…The mindset of positive thinking and using your gifts for the greater good as Sarah brought out helping her friend Leila, are belief systems we all can learn from. In this story the messages are we are our own magic and believe in the power of thought for the greater good…This is a book to read to your children and discuss with them…It’s a story of a compassionate friendship with a binding of acceptance in unconditional love.”
— Cindy Hively, Intuitive Healing Catalyst for Women
Excerpt: Introduction Believing In the Magic
Sarah lay in bed. She had just started reading The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts. Her digital clock on her nightstand read 8:30. Stifling a yawn, she turned the page to keep reading; she was engrossed in the book and finding out more about Katie.
“Just for the fun of it, Katie had shifted the air current then so that the pollen drifted under his nose; when he sneezed, Pastor Grooten had to grab for his sermon pages before they sailed off the lecturn.”
Wow! Sarah thought. To be able to move things by just thinking about it. How does Katie do it? But then she thought about what she was able to do. I can talk to ghosts. I wonder if there are others out there who have psychic abilities. I can’t be the only one! Katie was different, like her, just in a different way. Wouldn’t it be nice to meet someone else who was different. There have to be others like her somewhere. Sarah wished she could meet Katie. They could be best friends!
She delved into the book, reading passage after passage of Katie’s harmless pranks: making her horrible babysitter tremble at the sight of a floating fork and creating a gust of wind that caused a door to slam into her pesky neighbor’s face.
Sarah understood Katie’s predicament. Katie had silver eyes and was odd to people around her. Sarah felt the same way. Most people shied away from her because they thought she was “cursed.”
She was so enamored by the book that she read until her eyes became very heavy. She remembered when she was younger how her dad would say “Your eyes are getting heavy; you are getting sleepy, sleepy, sleepy” when he was trying to put her to sleep. How she missed her dad. She knew that he was okay on the other side since her grandmother who had come to her one day told her so. She wondered if he would come to her directly someday. It would be so nice to see him and talk to him, even if he was in spirit and not on the earthly plane anymore.
Turning off her bed lamp and laying her book on her nightstand, Sarah snuggled under her duvet and fell fast asleep. She had no problem falling asleep; in fact, she would fall into such a deep sleep, she would have the most vivid dreams. And that night was no different.
She was sitting in the back seat of her mom’s car peering out the window. The crow came up to her window and started tapping on it with his beak. He started talking to her telepathically. “Pay attention to the magic in the world,” he chirped. “You can create anything you like through magic. Your thoughts are powerful!”
Sarah woke up the next morning thinking about the dream and how she felt that crow was trying to tell her something, but what? She had to put it out of her mind for now since she had to get ready for school. She would ponder over it when she got home in the afternoon.
About the Author:
Erica Tucci had a full life as a corporate manager of a Fortune 500 company, a healing arts business owner and an author. It all came to a screeching halt in June 2011 when she had a stroke. During her recovery, she gained much wisdom about what’s really important in life. Although she was a Reiki master, massage therapist and life coach as well as a corporate cog, she realized that her passion was her books. Her hope now is that the messages of her books will be an inspiration for others, young and old. Her most recent venture has been her Sarah’s Gift series, chapter books for 7-12 year olds about a young girl with psychic abilities, which speak to the children with special gifts, helping them deal with different life situations. Her other books include Moms and Their Young Spirited Boys (1998), Anything is Possible, a novel based on a true love story (2011), Zesty Womanhood at 40 and Beyond (2011), Radiant Survivor (2013 – Amazon bestseller), and most recently the first book of the Sarah’s Gift series Standing Up for Yourself (2016 – Amazon bestseller). The second book Believing In the Magic will be available for pre-order June 30 and is being released July 18.
For more information, visit
www.facebook.com/sarahsgiftseries
www.facebook.com/radiantsurvivor
www.twitter.com/sarahsgiftsries
www.twitter.com/EricaTucciMuse
www.linkedin.com/in/ericatucci
Tour giveaway
10 Copies of the first book in the series, Standing Up for Yourself, winner’s choice Kindle or Paperback.
Enter the giveaway here: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/ba112ffc1406/
Many thanks to Bewitching Book Tours for organising and providing materials for this post and Blog Tour.
splashesintobooks 
Thank you so much for the lovely review! ♡ And thank you for participating in my book tour. I really appreciate it.
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My pleasure! I enjoyed the book and your guest blog post, thanks for sharing where you wish Sarah’s Gift to go. I hope to read and review more from you in future 🙂
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