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Book Spotlights

A Song of War by Christian Cameron, Libbie Hawker, Kate Quinn, Vicky Alvear Shecter, Stephanie Thornton, SJA Turney, and Russell Whitfield – Book Spotlight & Tour Wide Giveaway (US/Can)

October 20, 2016 by Darlene

songwar

Today I’ve got a spotlight on a novel I’m very much enjoying called A Song of War by Christian Cameron, Libbie Hawker, Kate Quinn, Vicky Alvear Shecter, Stephanie Thornton, SJA Turney, and Russell Whitfield- a few of my favorite authors in this list.  Unfortunately I’ve got a sick puppy in the hospital again so I haven’t been able to finish the book but as soon as I do I’ll have a full review up for everyone.  In the meantime my apologies to the authors.  For now I’m going to spotlight the book and please be sure to enter the tour wide giveaway at the end of the post.

About the Book

Troy: city of gold, gatekeeper of the east, haven of the god-born and the lucky, a city destined to last a thousand years. But the Fates have other plans—the Fates, and a woman named Helen. In the shadow of Troy’s gates, all must be reborn in the greatest war of the ancient world: slaves and queens, heroes and cowards, seers and kings . . . and these are their stories.

A young princess and an embittered prince join forces to prevent a fatal elopement.

A tormented seeress challenges the gods themselves to save her city from the impending disaster.

A tragedy-haunted king battles private demons and envious rivals as the siege grinds on.

A captured slave girl seizes the reins of her future as two mighty heroes meet in an epic duel.

A grizzled archer and a desperate Amazon risk their lives to avenge their dead.

A trickster conceives the greatest trick of all.

A goddess’ son battles to save the spirit of Troy even as the walls are breached in fire and blood.

Seven authors bring to life the epic tale of the Trojan War: its heroes, its villains, its survivors, its dead. Who will lie forgotten in the embers, and who will rise to shape the bloody dawn of a new age?

Other tour stops with HF Virtual Book Tours
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Buy: Amazon, Amazon UK, Kobo

About the Authors

CHRISTIAN CAMERON was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1962. He grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts, Iowa City, Iowa,Christian Cameron and Rochester, New York, where he attended McQuaid Jesuit High School and later graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in history.

After the longest undergraduate degree on record (1980-87), he joined the United States Navy, where he served as an intelligence officer and as a backseater in S-3 Vikings in the First Gulf War, in Somalia, and elsewhere. After a dozen years of service, he became a full time writer in 2000. He lives in Toronto (that’s Ontario, in Canada) with his wife Sarah and their daughter Beatrice, currently age four. And a half.

LIBBIE HAWKER was born in Rexburg, Idaho and divided her childhood between Eastern Idaho’s rural environs and the greater Seattle area. She presently lives in Seattle, but has also been a resident of Salt Lake City, Utah; Bellingham, Washington; and Tacoma, Washington. She loves to write about character and place, and is inspired by the bleak natural beauty of the Rocky Mountain region and by the fascinating history of the Puget Sound.

After three years of trying to break into the publishing industry with her various books under two different pen names, Libbie finally turned her back on the mainstream publishing industry and embraced independent publishing. She now writes her self-published fiction full-time, and enjoys the fact that the writing career she always dreamed of having is fully under her own control.

KATE QUINN is a native of southern California. She attended Boston University, where she earned a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Classical Voice. A lifelong history buff, she has written four novels in the Empress of Rome Saga, and two books in the Italian Renaissance detailing the early years of the infamous Borgia clan. All have been translated into multiple languages.

Kate has succumbed to the blogging bug, and keeps a blog filled with trivia, pet peeves, and interesting facts about historical fiction. She and her husband now live in Maryland with two black dogs named Caesar and Calpurnia, and her interests include opera, action movies, cooking, and the Boston Red Sox.

VICKY ALVEAR SHECTER is the author of the young adult novel, Cleopatra’s Moon (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic, 2011), based on the life of Cleopatra’s only daughter. She is also the author of two award-winning biographies for kids on Alexander the Great and Cleopatra. She is a docent at the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Antiquities at Emory University in Atlanta. The LA Times calls Cleopatra’s Moon, “magical” and “impressive.” Publisher’s Weekly said it was “fascinating” and “highly memorable.” The Wall Street Journal called it “absorbing.”

STEPHANIE THORNTON is a writer and history teacher who has been obsessed with infamous women from ancient history since she was twelve. She lives with her husband and daughter in Alaska, where she is at work on her next novel.

Her novels, The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora, Daughter of the Gods: A Novel of Ancient Egypt, The Tiger Queens: The Women of Genghis Khan, and The Conqueror’s Wife: A Novel of Alexander the Great, tell the stories of history’s forgotten women.

SJA TURNEY lives with his wife, son and daughter, and two (close approximations of) dogs in rural North Yorkshire.

Marius’ Mules was his first full length novel. Being a fan of Roman history, SJA decided to combine his love of writing and love of the classical world. Marius’ Mules was followed two years later by Interregnum – an attempt to create a new fantasy story still with a heavy flavour of Rome.

These have been followed by numerous sequels, with three books in the fantasy ‘Tales of the Empire’ series and five in the bestselling ‘Marius’ Mules’ one. 2013 has seen the first book in a 15th century trilogy – ‘The Thief’s Tale’ – and will also witness several side projects seeing the light of day.

RUSSELL WHITFIELD was born in Shepherds Bush in 1971. An only child, he was raised in Hounslow, West London, but has since escaped to Ham in Surrey.

Gladiatrix was Russ’s first novel, published in 2008 by Myrmidon Books. The sequel, Roma Victrix, continues the adventures Lysandra, the Spartan gladiatrix, and a third book, Imperatrix, sees Lysandra stepping out of the arena and onto the field of battle.

GIVEAWAY

To win a paperback copy of A Song of War: A Novel of Troy by the H Team, please enter via the Gleam form below.

Rules

– Giveaway ends at 11:59pm EST on November 12th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
– Giveaway is open to US & Canada residents only.
– Only one entry per household.
– All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspect of fraud is decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion.
– Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

A Song of War
 

songwar1

 

Source: All post information obtained from the tour company. No compensation was received.
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Filed Under: Book Spotlights, Historical Fiction Virtual Blog Tours

The Girl Who Fought Napoleon by Linda Lafferty – Book Spotlight & Giveaway (US/Canada)

October 13, 2016 by Darlene

napoleon

 

The Girl Who Fought Napoleon by Linda Lafferty is a great pick for historical fiction fans.  Here’s a bit about the book and be sure to enter the giveaway for your chance to win a copy!

About the Book

In a sweeping story straight out of Russian history, Tsar Alexander I and a courageous girl named Nadezhda Durova join forces against Napoleon.

It’s 1803, and an adolescent Nadya is determined not to follow in her overbearing Ukrainian mother’s footsteps. She’s a horsewoman, not a housewife. When Tsar Paul is assassinated in St. Petersburg and a reluctant and naive Alexander is crowned emperor, Nadya runs away from home and joins the Russian cavalry in the war against Napoleon. Disguised as a boy and riding her spirited stallion, Alcides, Nadya rises in the ranks, even as her father begs the tsar to find his daughter and send her home.

Both Nadya and Alexander defy expectations—she as a heroic fighter and he as a spiritual seeker—while the battles of Austerlitz, Friedland, Borodino, and Smolensk rage on.

In a captivating tale that brings Durova’s memoirs to life, from bloody battlefields to glittering palaces, two rebels dare to break free of their expected roles and discover themselves in the process.

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Buy: Amazon, Books-a-Million, Barnes & Noble

About the Author

nap-1Linda Lafferty was a teacher for nearly three decades, in schools from Madrid, Spain, to Aspen, Colorado. She completed her PhD in bilingual special education and worked in that field; she also taught English as a second language and bilingual American history. Linda is the author of four previous novels—The Bloodletter’s Daughter, The Drowning Guard, House of Bathory, and The Shepherdess of Siena—all of which have been translated into several languages. The Drowning Guard won the Colorado Book Award for Historical Fiction. She lives in Colorado with her husband.

GIVEAWAY – OPEN TO US & CANADIAN RESIDENTS
1 copy up for giveaway
*CLICK HERE* and fill out the form to enter
Draw Date October 29/16

 

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Source: All post information and giveaway obtained from TLC Book Tours.  No compensation was received.
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Filed Under: Book Spotlights, TLC Tours

The Couple Who Fell to Earth by Michelle Bitting

June 20, 2016 by Darlene

couple-who-fell-to-earthToday I’m spotlighting a poetry collection entitled The Couple Who Fell to Earth by Michelle Bitting. Her collection is receiving attention from the Poet Laureate of the United States and others. Her work was also chosen to be featured by Kirkus as one of their top 35 starred reviewed works (that’s out of hundreds) in a literary publication/forum they are set to launch so that gives you an idea of how great this collection is. Here’s a bit about it:

These meditations, cosmic-toned, yet utterly visceral, demonstrate Michelle Bitting’s continuing growth and power as a poet of love, loss, the daily and deeply human experience, together with a maturing eye to understanding greater mythological tropes. Woven throughout her contemplation of the terrible beauty and struggle of family dynamics, corporeal desire, the injustices and revelations of life in the 21st century, thrums a vital connectivity to the mystic and mythological strains of the past, newfangled to the present in a way that ultimately sheds light on what it is to be alive and conscious of who we’re called to be.

To read Michelle’s poetry is to take a wild, passionate ride through the rubble of the quotidian, to be shocked by sensual discovery and awakened to a relentless curiosity for both the surreal and historical. These poems travel–an expansion in service of communion with the world, confrontation and acceptance of self.

And now I’ll share a few of Michelle’s poems from The Coulke Who Fell to Earth…

Elegy for a Body

There was a time I’d spend an afternoon
digging the bitter green sliver from a fair garlic thumb,
seed mountains of weepy Heirlooms, thread hunks
of yellow dough through a roller’s metal teeth,
the long Rapunzel locks strung from one end
of our tiny kitchen to the other, then snipped off quick
into boiling fumes. Meanwhile, my baby suckled,
siphoning fuel, sheen of buttered stars poking through
my shirt’s thin firmament; child I’d soon nurse to bed
only to get up three times in the night
and knowing that, I still had the juice to be cheerful,
to lift high the steaming nest of noodles,
to center that tangled gold on my husband’s everyday plate
and everything about the moment slow motion focus
on his face: grateful; love rising through the numbness,
melting the day’s cold. He’d look up at me, at his food
and lean closer into that delicious heat,
his mouth a flower flamed open by the sun.

The Goods

It’s the corporeal feelings
I crave the most: aridity, lust,
their aches’ redaction, love-weariness,
kiss-quest, falling in bed again
when loneliness breaks a sweat
and we mount a horse
called faith borne
on this wheel of March,
charge and stamping
heat of the noble
night that will carry us,
tongue and thigh
entwined and shuddering
against our own coming history.

Here she reads “Lupercalia” from the collection, which was published by C&R Press in March 2016:

 

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Author links: Website
Buy: Amazon

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Filed Under: Book Spotlights, Poetic Book Tours, Poetry, Uncategorized

Spotlight on Murder on Safari by Peter Riva & Giveaway (Int’l)

November 6, 2015 by Darlene

Happy Friday everyone!  Today’s spotlight is on Murder on Safari by Peter Riva which is touring right now with iRead Book Tours.  This is one African safari you don’t want to miss.  Check out the details on the book and be sure to enter the giveaway for your chance to win a copy for yourself!

safari

About the Book

Only a reality TV producer and an expert safari guide can stop a terrorist attack.

Every adventure starts at the fringes of civilization. For expert safari guide Mbuno and wildlife television producer Pero Baltazar, filming in the wild of East Africa should have been a return to the adventure they always loved. This time they’d be filming soaring vultures in northern Kenya and giant sea crocodiles in Tanzania with Mary, the daughter of the world’s top television evangelist, the very reverend Jimmy Threte.

But when a terrorist cell places them in the crosshairs, there is suddenly no escape and they must put their filming aside and combine all their talents to thwart an all-out al-Shabaab terrorist attack on Jimmy Threte’s Christian gathering of hundreds of thousands in Nairobi, Kenya.

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Buy: Amazon, B&N, Chapters/Indigo

About the Author

safari2Peter Riva spent many months over thirty years in Africa, many of them with the legendary guides for East African white hunters and adventurers. He created a TV series (seventy-eight 1-hour episodes) in 1995 called WildThings for Paramount TV. Passing on the fables, true tales and insider knowledge of these last reserves of true wildlife is a passion.

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GIVEAWAY – OPEN INTERNATIONALLY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

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Source: Post info obtained from the iRead Book Tours website. Giveaway via iRead Book Tours. No compensation was received.
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Filed Under: Book Spotlights, iRead Book Tours

Spotlight on The King’s Sisters by Sarah Kennedy

November 3, 2015 by Darlene

Today I’m spotlighting The King’s Sisters by Sarah Kennedy which is the third novel in The Cross and Crown Series.  I’ve read and would recommend the first two novels, The Altarpiece (my review) and City of Ladies (my review), which I enjoyed a great deal so I’m looking forward to this one soon as well.  For now read on to learn more about the book.

king's

About the Book

The King’s Sisters continues the story of Catherine Havens, a former nun in Henry VIII’s England. It’s now 1542. Another queen, the young Catherine Howard, is executed for adultery and treason, the Catholic church is fully suppressed, and Henry VIII still rules over an increasingly unruly England. The boy who will be king is growing, and the line of Tudor succession seems secure. But Henry has grown secretive and suspicious, especially of women.

Catherine Havens is living with her young daughter at Richmond Palace, in service to Henry’s rejected fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. When the Howard queen dies, Anne of Cleves believes that she may become Henry’s wife again. But the mood of the country is gloomy. The king is melancholy, and his growing circle of spies are watching for any misbehavior. Inevitably, their eyes fall onto the household at Richmond.

Catherine has secretly been indulging the attentions of a widower, and she finds herself, just as the court turns dark once again, carrying a child. She is unmarried . . . and now fears that permission to wed for a second time will be denied. Lent is approaching, and no marriages can take place during that time. A woman of Catherine’s station cannot bear a child without a husband by her side, and Catherine’s choices are limited to three break the law and marry without permission, conceal the pregnancy and hide the child away, or end the pregnancy before it is discovered.

As she agonizes over her choices, Catherine finds herself trapped among the king’s new spies. Anne of Cleves brings yet more attention to their household with her hopes of becoming queen. Will Catherine’s misstep ruin the chances of her mistress to become queen? And worse, will she herself fall victim to the spies’ desire to bring information to the king?

Catherine still has her friend Ann Smith to give her advice, but the laws of the land do not favor women–and unmarried women have few refuges. Former nuns, even wealthy ones, have even fewer choices . . . and all of them involve risk.

In a world where love is labelled a sin and error is called heresy, will Catherine follow the rule of English law or the rule of her conscience? And can she escape the dangers of being one of The King’s Sisters?

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Buy: Amazon, B&N, Knox Robinson Publishing

About the Author

sarahI was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. After completing a Ph.D. in Renaissance poetry, I took a position at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, where I currently teach creative writing, both on campus and on line, and head the English Department. When I completed an M.F.A. in Poetry Writing, I began writing historical poetry.

Seven books of poems later, I’ve turned my scholarly interests in Tudor England to fiction. Everything has now come together, and in The Cross and the Crown series, I can finally bring Tudor England to life. When I began researching the fates of nuns under Henry VIII, I didn’t imagine that the record would be so scattered . . . and that it would take an act of imagination to bring these women to life!

I teach writing and literature at Mary Baldwin College, where I am Professor of English and Head of the English Department. Please visit my department at http://www.mbc.edu/english and see what we are up to!

When I’m not researching, teaching, or working on my next book, I spend my time traveling, gardening, cooking, and watching the birds—and sometimes bears—that visit my yard in Virginia.

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Source: Post information obtained from the author’s website. No compensation was received.
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Filed Under: Book Spotlights

Spotlight on Lum by Libby Ware

October 26, 2015 by Darlene

Today’s spotlight is on a debut novel entitled Lum by Libby Ware which released on October 20.  This novel sounds fascinating.   It’s about an intersex woman named Lum who is living in the time of the Great Depression.  I will definitely be reading this one just as soon as I can.  In the meantime read on to learn more about the novel.

lum

About the Novel

In 1933 in the Shenandoah Valley, there isn’t a place for Lum (short for Columbia), a 33-year-old intersex woman. She travels by schedule from one branch of the family to another, assisting with cooking, child care and housework. Always an outsider, even in her own family, Lum secretly collects postcards of people like the Dog-faced Girl, imagining their stories, and nurtures her lifelong friendship with Smiley, an African-American man who sells furniture, odds-and-ends, and a little moonshine.

But Lum’s world changes when a local banker becomes ill and needs care. Sent to assist, she forms an unlikely friendship with the curmudgeonly old man. At the same time, the federal highway administration comes scouting land, wanting to buy the family farm for a new scenic highway. Lum’s brothers don’t want to sell, and they’re not alone. But the Blue Ridge Parkway offers an opportunity for Lum to get a job—something she has longed to do.

As tensions over the highway escalate toward violence, and as hearts are exposed, Lum takes a bold step to create an independent and happy life.

In LUM, Libby Ware introduces an unforgettable character and gives readers an engrossing and moving story about outsiders, race, history, and hope.

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Buy: Amazon, B&N, IndieBound

About the Author

lum1Libby Ware is a native of West Virginia, and she feels most at home in the Appalachian mountains, although she has made her home in Atlanta, Georgia for more than 30 years. She is the owner of Toadlily Books, an antiquarian and collectible book business. Her short story, “The Circuit,” (the beginning of LUM in slightly different form) was a finalist for the Poets and Writers Award for Georgia Writers, judged by Jennifer Egan. She is a member of Georgia Antiquarian Booksellers Association, the Atlanta Writers Club, and the Georgia Writers Association and is a fellow of The Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences.

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Source: Post info provided by the publicist and author’s website. No compensation was received.
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