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THE NEW DAY

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, ENTREPRENEUR'S GUIDE, & SPIRITUAL PRIMER

Engaging leap-of-faith answers to the big questions.

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Entrepreneurial advice and astonishing tales from a tire company founder and pitchman retracing his spiritual journey.

Charles “Chuck” Curcio first made his mark starring in his own late-night television commercials for Tire Kingdom, the highly successful South Florida–based company he built from scratch. The inventive musical parodies and his colorful personality have achieved near-cultish adoration; the ads are still viewable on YouTube. But in this cosmological autobiography, Curcio says he always had other talents, particularly as a healer and psychic. One October morning in 1995, his life changes forever when he pauses beneath a banyan tree while riding a golf cart across his 10-acre Jupiter Island oceanfront estate. From out of the blue—and out of the author’s own mouth—God speaks to him, asking if he is ready to fulfill his purpose as a divine servant. It’s the dawning of a new day, as referenced in the title. So, Curcio embarks on a fantastic—arguably a bit too fantastic—journey of metaphysical discovery that, he says, is now more open than ever for all humanity to join. His path leads him to the Great Pyramid in Egypt to the healers and channelers of Brazil and elsewhere, and ultimately to Delphi University of Spiritual Studies in Georgia, where he’s a director and teacher. Along the way, he leaves his wife and children for his teacher and soul mate, a striking blonde with exceptional psychic credentials whose entry into Curcio’s life had been foretold to him. Curcio doesn’t merely believe in what the earthbound would call miracles; he witnesses and performs them frequently and even suggests that his healing work extends to curing the gravely ill and raising the dead. A chapter entitled “Signs and Wonders” begins with the author’s bare back to the sun as he absorbs what he calls the Christ energies, “which many believe emanate from the Sun.” This spiritualist path will be a revelation to the uninitiated, as will many of the book’s other esoteric, believe-it-or-not pronouncements. Gratuitously over-the-top asides may further raise doubts about the veracity of the whole. In one example, Curcio says he can send love over telephone lines, such that loved ones on the other end feel their receivers warming from the abundance of love energy. The latter part of the book is pure Christian–Eastern mystic theology, where explanations of reincarnation and karma appear to show clear understanding of these theories. Why did God come out of the void in the first place? As He tells Curcio, “Charles, I just couldn’t contain my Self.”

Engaging leap-of-faith answers to the big questions.

Pub Date: May 30, 2012

ISBN: 978-0578105567

Page Count: 222

Publisher: Delphi University Press

Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2012

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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