R.L. Bartram's Dance the Moon Down - Guest Post

Dance The Moon Down - The reason behind the book.

As August approaches we are reminded that this year is the centenary of the First World War. On August 4th 1914 Britain declared war on Germany and set in motion one of the darkest episodes of English history. In the June of that year the author John Galsworthy wrote a critique of the younger generation in which he remarked that “they had been born to dance the moon down to ragtime”, and we all know what happened next.

It was the very irony of Galsworthy’s statement that inspired me to write my debut novel “Dance the Moon Down” From the outset the biggest challenge I faced was to produce something different on one of the most written about subjects in the world. Neither did I have any intention of adding yet another WW1 story to the mountainous pile that already exists. So I left the mud and trenches of Flanders behind and began to search nearer home. It was there that I discovered the women of Britain.

Extensive research revealed to me that this, incredibly, was an area which had been left relatively untouched. Based on this I decided to make my central character a civilian woman. Thus, “Victoria” was born. An upper-middle class girl, privileged, highly educated (something of an anomaly for those days) whose naive perception of the harsh realities unfolding around her are mirrored by the nation.

I had always intended that my novel should cater not only for those readers with some grasp of WW1 but also for those who have none. To that end I created, what I choose to call, a “docu -drama” This is a medium by which the reader can assimilate the necessary facts and understand why the story unfolds as it does, with myself, the author, acting as an omniscient narrator offering a counterpoint of modern hindsight. It has been said “never let a fact get in the way of a good story.” I do, and they don’t.

Essentially “Dance the Moon Down” is Victoria’s story, a tale of one young woman’s courage and faith against almost overwhelming odds. Through her the reader will experience, first hand, a hitherto untold version of the First World War.

If you were to ask me what kind of a novel I think “Dance the Moon Down” is, I would have to say that first and foremost, I hope, it’s a rattling good read, but it’s also something of a chimera. It’s a non-war war story, it’s a romance with virtually only one participant, it’s an adventure without weapons and a story from a woman’s prospective, written by a man, generally classified as “Historical Drama”.

Throughout this year you will doubtless hear the phrase “Lest we forget”. Agreed, we haven’t forgotten the mud, the trenches, the poppies and the men they represent, but that’s only part of the story. To my mind what we , tragically, always overlook is that the men and, most particularly, the women who lived through those times are not mere images from history, but ordinary flesh and blood people who, like ourselves, treasured their lives as much as we do now. And that is what Dance the Moon Down is truly about.

www.goodreads.com/author/show/5858365.R_L_Bartram/blog

http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00A4E7JGA

About the book

In 1910, no one believed there would ever be a war with Germany. Safe in her affluent middle-class life, the rumours held no significance for Victoria either. It was her father’s decision to enrol her at university that began to change all that. There she befriends the rebellious and outspoken Beryl Whittaker, an emergent suffragette, but it is her love for Gerald Avery, a talented young poet from a neighbouring university that sets the seal on her future.

After a clandestine romance, they marry in January 1914, but with the outbreak of the First World War, Gerald volunteers and within months has gone missing in France. Convinced that he is still alive, Victoria’s initial attempts to discover what has become of him, implicate her in a murderous assault on Lord Kitchener resulting in her being interrogated as a spy, and later tempted to adultery.

Now virtually destitute, Victoria is reduced to finding work as a common labourer on a run down farm, where she discovers a world of unimaginable ignorance and poverty. It is only her conviction that Gerald will some day return that sustains her through the dark days of hardship and privation as her life becomes a battle of faith against adversity.

Featuring Irina Shapiro's The Hands of Time {Giveaway}

About The Hands of Time
Publication Date: December 7, 2011
Merlin Press
eBook
ASIN: B006JRO9WS

When a young American woman vanishes without a trace from a quaint fishing village on the coast of England only one person knows the truth, but he remains silent, allowing the authorities to search for her in vain, safe in the knowledge that she will never be found. As Valerie’s bereft sister returns home alone, she struggles to understand what happened and come to terms with her terrible loss when she suddenly stumbles upon a clue that might finally shed some light on her sister’s disappearance.

Meanwhile, Valerie Crane finds herself transported to the year 1605. Terrified and confused she turns for help to the Whitfield brothers, who take her in and offer her a home despite their misgivings about her origins. Both Alexander and Finlay Whitfield fall in love with the mysterious woman who shows up on their doorstep, creating a love triangle that threatens to consume them all. Valerie must make her choice, deciding between the brother who will lead her down the path of destruction or one who will give her the love she couldn’t find in her own time.

Purchase the Book

Amazon

About the Author
Irina Shapiro was born in Moscow, Russia, where she lived until she was eleven. In 1982 her family emigrated to the United States and settled in New York. Due to her love of reading, Irina was able to pick up English very quickly, and was an honor student throughout her school career.

After graduating from Bernard M. Baruch College in 1992 with a Bachelor’s degree in International Business, Irina worked in advertising for two years before shifting her focus to Import/Export. She worked her way up to the position of Import Manager in a large textile house before leaving the work force in 2007 to focus on her autistic son.

It wasn’t until Irina had been at home for some time that she began to write. Eventually the characters began to take on a life of their own and have conversations in her head, and once she started writing her musings down the stories came easily enough. Irina incorporated her love of history and travel into her writing to create a rich and detailed background for the characters. Since then Irina has written eight novels. She is currently working on book five of The Hands of Time Series.

Irina Shapiro lives in New Jersey with her husband and two children.

For more information, please visit www.irinashapiro.com. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Visit the other tours for more guest posts, reviews and giveaways - HFVBT TOUR SCHEDULE
Follow the tour on Twitter - #HandsofTimeTour #IrinaShapiro #HFVBT

Follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter form below to enter for a chance to win a Kindle edition of The Hands of Time by Irina Shapiro...open internationally!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

(Giveaways!) 1923: A Memoir by Harry Leslie Smith

Harry Leslie Smith has been there, done that. At almost age 90, one wonders about all the things he's seen. He "marvels" at his advanced age.. but the best thing is that he shares some of his fabulous stories with the world. He is offering a lucky follower of HF-Connection e-book copies of all of his books, which are featured below:



Published November 2010

1923: A Memoir
To say that Harry Smith was born under an unlucky star would be an understatement. Born in England in 1923, Smith chronicles the tragic story of his early life in this first volume of his memoirs. He presents his family 's early history their misfortunes and their experiences of enduring betrayal, inhumane poverty, infidelity, and abandonment.


"1923: A Memoir" presents the story of a life lyrically described, capturing a time both before and during World War II when personal survival was dependent upon luck and guile. During this time, failure insured either a trip to the workhouse or burial in a common grave. Brutally honest, Smith 's story plummets to the depths of tragedy and flies up to the summit of mirth and wonder, portraying real people in an uncompromising, unflinching voice.

"1923: A Memoir" tells of a time and place when life, full of raw emotion, was never so real.

Hamburg 1947: A Place for the Heart to Kip

Published November 2011

Twenty-two years old and ready for peace, Harry Leslie Smith has survived the Great Depression and endured the Second World War. Now, in 1945 in Hamburg, Germany, he must come to terms with a nation physically and emotionally devastated. In this memoir, he narrates a story of people searching to belong and survive in a world that was almost destroyed.

"Hamburg 1947" recounts Smith's youthful RAF days as part of the occupational forces in post-war Germany. A wireless operator during the war, he doesn't want to return to Britain and join a queue of unemployed former servicemen; he reenlists for long term duty in occupied Germany. From his billet in Hamburg, a city razed to the ground by remorseless aerial bombardment, he witnesses a people and era on the brink of annihilation. This narrative presents a street-level view of a city reduced to rubble populated with refugees, black marketers, and cynical soldiers.

At times grim and other times amusing, Smith writes a memoir relaying the social history about this time and place, providing a unique look at post-WWII Germany. "Hamburg 1947" is both a love story for a city and a passionate retailing of a love affair with a young German woman.




Published November 2011

The Barley Hole Chronicles

These Chronicles document one Yorkshire family's descent into the wilderness of poverty and hunger. It is a personal record of one young man's struggle to survive the Great Depression, the Second World War and the hazards and wonders of life in postwar Germany.

Follow Harry on Twitter http://twitter.com/1923TheBook
Visit Harry's site, or his page on Facebook

To all those folks with E-readers, this is triple giveaway for you! If you would like to enter for this ebook giveaway, please comment on this post and say hello to Harry! Leave me your email address so I can coordinate your prize.
 
If you don't win, fire up that Kindle and get this bargain while it's hot: 99 cents for 1923: A Memoir! His other works in ebook format are pretty easy on the wallet also, and I have a feeling these will be great stories for those interested in the era(s!) that Harry has seen, as reviewers have already noted. They are also available in paperback format for us old fashioned folk.
 
Giveaway ends March 26, 2012. Good Luck!

{Give@way!} Guest Post: Tina Boscha, author of River in the Sea

WINNERS of River in the Sea:

Print copy--author Christa Polkinhorn

eBook--hitchcockbe44

CONGRATS! I have sent you emails.  Please respond within 48 hours.  Thanks!

RIVER IN THE SEA
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Giveaway details at the end of this post.

Please welcome the author of River in the Sea, Tina Boscha:

I have bad news for my mom: readers want a sequel.

Of course, this isn’t bad news at all, for either her or me. But when your daughter writes a novel based on your life, as I did for my mother, it may be a bit surprising, even shocking, to think that readers want to know more. It took my mom a few months to crack the book open and read it. My dad had to read it first and let her know it was okay, and in the meantime I tried not to pressure her. Still, it was difficult for me until I put myself in her shoes. If my early life was shaped into fiction and displayed for all to read and see and perhaps judge, I’d be nervous too.

I originally set out to write River in the Sea as a stand-alone book, and my motivations to write it were many. There is the most selfish one, and that is because I have always, always wanted to write and publish. It was never enough for me to say, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, that I wanted to be a writer. I always said author. To me, even as young as six or seven, that was a crucial difference.

I also wanted to write my parents’ story, most notably my mother’s, as they grew up during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during WWII.  During my childhood, I silently collected the stories my mom and dad told my siblings and me about what they experienced as kids during the war. They talked of hiding out in hollowed out potato heaps, surprise raids where soldiers took everything from jewelry to milk, throwing their bikes into the canal to avoid giving them to German soldiers, downed pilots ferried out to England by the Frisian and Dutch resistance.

It was mind-boggling that these events were something my parents lived through, and in particular, my mother's father and brothers experienced events that most modern kids and adults just can't fathom. Openly defying the orders of the German army and going into hiding? It's amazing, dramatic, thrilling, and sobering. Studying World War II is one thing, knowing those who lived through it is another. (The actual research for the book was easy; I interviewed my parents and took notes of our conversations. If I ever had a question, another phone call or an email was all it took.)

Furthermore, I often think the domestic side of war gets overlooked, and I wanted to show it from the viewpoint of a 15-year-old girl. And not just any 15-year-old. My mom openly defied orders of her own, unspoken but ironclad rules about what girls must be like. She was not demure, quiet, and resigned to become what everyone else expected of her – which back then was a homemaker and mother. She did eventually become those things, but at 15, she smoked (publicly!), drove her father’s truck and tractors (illegally, I might add, beginning when she was just 12), and worked outside in the fields alongside her brothers. All the while wearing very bold red lipstick. Later, at age 19, she decided to forge a new path and immigrated by herself to America.

It took me a long time to understand the significance of that sentence I just wrote; River in the Sea focuses mostly on the events that transpired the last six months of the war. I wanted to end the book with a satisfying resolution to those events, but to leave what happens to Leen afterwards open, because after all, there is much more life after 19! (Hint: the book does not end with a “Reader, I married him” moment.) Today’s readers are too smart to accept pat endings, where everything ties neatly in a bow.

But what surprised me was that readers wanted to continue following Leen’s adventures. One of my early reviews said, “I was actually thinking I would love for the author to continue her mother’s story of her life in Amerika. Did I really just ask for a sequel. Yep! I guess I did.” I recently spoke at a book club and the wonderful women there said the same thing, even starting to chant, “Sequel! Sequel!”

My mom – who was actually born Leen De Graaf, as in the book – considers herself just a regular person. Normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. But anyone who has ever known her, or knows her history, speaks differently. While the Leen in the book is my version of her, and therefore fictionalized, I tried to capture my mom’s essential characteristics – of trepidation falling before courage, of willingness to flout convention, of taking on big responsibilities because that’s what you do. Of her humor and warmth and sometimes need to be impetuous.

I’ll be honest – the idea of writing a sequel is a bit mystifying. And scary. From a pure plot point of view, how do you top WWII? But yet I feel more and more compelled to consider it. Maybe not a full-length novel, maybe a novella…. Who knows? I don’t have to figure it out right now. I’m still trying to get this book off the ground and my mom is still getting used to the idea that a book with her face on the cover is out in the world!

Ultimately, though, no matter what happens next in my own saga of writing and publishing a book about my very much alive mom, I have come to understand that this reader reaction is perhaps the highest compliment I can receive as a writer. Readers love Leen and want to follow her journey. She is a character that sticks with you. And in turn, this becomes the compliment I wish to pay to my mother:

Leen De Graaf, it really isn’t bad news, not bad news at all, to learn that you are anything but ordinary.

About the book:
"At fifteen, Leen De Graaf likes everything she shouldn't: smoking cigarettes, wearing red lipstick, driving illegally, and working in the fields. It seems the only thing she shares with her fellow Dutchmen is a fear of the German soldiers stationed nearby and a frantic wish for the war to end. When a soldier's dog runs in front of Leen's truck, her split-second reaction sets off a storm of events that pitches her family against the German forces when they are most desperate - and fierce. Leen tries to hold her family together, but despite her efforts, bit by bit everything falls apart, and just when Leen experiences a horrific loss, she must make a decision that could forever brand her a traitor, yet finally allow her to live as her heart desires. Inspired by the life of the author's mother, River in the Sea is a powerful and moving account of one girl reaching adulthood when everything she believes about family, friendship, and loyalty is questioned by war."

Review from Portland Book Review


We would like to thank the author for offering a two copy giveaway of River in the Sea.  Up for grabs for two lucky followers of HF-Connection are a print copy (US/Canada) and an eBook copy (International)!

Interested? Please leave your email address in the comments as well as sharing this post with your twitter or facebook friends! Please leave the link to your shared link (required!) in your comment. Good luck!

Giveaway ends on February 10, 2012 at 11:59pm CST.

International Giveaway! Guest Post from Paul Clayton, author of White Seed

Giveaway details can be found at the end of the post and author info.  Giveaway extended until January 15, 2012!!!


Publishers Weekly: White Seed… hews closely to the record of Sir Walter Raleigh's second doomed attempt to plant the British flag in Virginia… The depiction of the colony's physical and moral disintegration between 1587 and 1590… evokes a harrowing sense of human fallibility. Readers… will find this saga, which… soon achieves page-turner velocity, to be both a dandy diversion and an entertaining education.

I can’t remember exactly what triggered my determination to write a historical about the lost colony. It may have been the fact that there were no ‘big’ books about it, the way From Here to Eternity was the first big book about WWII, or Gone With the Wind was the first big book about the Civil War. So I set out to write that big book.

The historical record by itself is a riveting read: 1587. The colonists’ ships were crewed by riff raff more intent on seizing Spanish ships then getting their charges to the New World. When they spotted a ‘prize’ moving up the coast, the colonists were put ashore in a ‘bad neighborhood’ (Roanoke, where the local natives had been brutalized by the last group of English to live there; the actual destination of the colonists was Chesapeake.) Then, Governor White was sent back to England (I get into the why in White Seed). When he arrived, the Armada was threatening and no ships could be spared. He wouldn’t return until three years later.

In July of 1590, three ships anchored off Hatarask, one of the barrier islands. Governor White tells us in his writings, “… we let fall our grapnell neere the shore and sounded with a trumpet a call, and afterwards many familiar English tunes of songs, and called them friendly; but we had no answer…”

In White Seed I dramatized the event thus:

Captain Cocke and the others were silent as they sat in the boats and listened. “I think we had better spend the night in the boats,” said Cocke. We will go ashore at daybreak when it is safer.”

“Aye,” said White, relieved that the captain had not ordered the boats back to Hatarask.

Cocke called his orders over to the other boat and White heard their anchor splash into the sound. The men behind him dropped anchor. The rope thrummed as it ran out. As the anchor took hold, the boat swung about and came to rest in the currents, its stern to the island. The men shifted about as they lay claim to their spaces to lie down for the night.

White listened to the quiet of the island. The familiar smells of chamomile and dandelion reached his nose. He stood and hailed again. “Ananias Dare! Parson Lambert! Captain Stafford!”

Silence hung heavy in the air as everyone waited for a response. None came.

The men again began talking quietly among themselves.

“Governor White,” said Captain Cocke, “perhaps a round of song will do the trick.”

White said nothing.

“Men,” said Cocke, “let us sing a few verses. That is how we shall rouse them.”

“You mean that is how we shall roust them,” said Chandler.

The men laughed. Cocke started the song in the dark, “’Twas a lover and his lass...”

The others joined in, “with a hey and a ho, and a hey nonnino...”

Cocke's voice rang out, “That o'er the green cornfield did pass...”

White listened wordlessly, hoping those on shore would hear. He pictured again his tiny little granddaughter, Virginia. She would be three years of age now. Why had they not come out, he wondered. What in God's name had happened?

Paul Clayton is the author of a three-book historical series on the Spanish Conquest of the Floridas ― Calling Crow, Flight of the Crow, and Calling Crow Nation (Putnam/Berkley).

One of his books, Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam (St. Martin’s Press, 2004), was a finalist at the 2001 Frankfurt eBook Awards, along with works by David McCullough and Joyce Carol Oates.

Paul’s latest historical is White Seed: The Untold Story of the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

Visit Paul:  Website | Facebook

White Seed is available for purchase at Amazon

I'd like to thank Paul for sharing the inspiration behind White Seed.  The lost colony of Roanoke is a very interesting topic to me.  I'd also like to thank Paul for offering this HUGE giveaway...and it's INTERNATIONAL! 


(5) signed paperbacks for U.S./Canada entrants and (25) eBook copies for U.S./Canada and International entrants are up for grabs! 


THIRTY WINNERS TOTAL!
Entrants will receive one extra entry for each Facebook and tweeted link to this giveaway (come back and share the link in the comments each time you share).  Also, please leave a way to contact you in the comments.  Since this is such a huge giveaway, it will end on December 31, 2011 January 15, 2012 at 11:59pm CST.  Good luck!

Addendum:  If you are in the U.S., please indicate if you prefer the paperback or eBook version.  That way I'll know who to award the paperbacks too.  Thank you! And thanks to cyn209 for helping me to realize the necessity for this stipulation.

Quickie Book Giveaway! 'Queen Hereafter' by Susan Fraser King..2 WINNERS!

Available in paperback December 6, 2011:

QUEEN HEREAFTER

A Novel of Margaret of Scotland

By Susan Fraser King

Read an Excerpt

Visit Scotland today and you will undoubtedly hear about the highly revered and very much adored Queen Margaret. Scotland ’s only royal saint, Margaret’s reign ended in the eleventh century and yet, to this day, legends and links to Margaret still flourish throughout the country. A Saxon princess, she was a refugee seeking shelter in Scotland when she married the warrior-king, Malcolm Canmore of Scotland . At first despised for her foreign ways, Margaret’s incredible acts of charity and kindness changed minds and the Scots who once resented her quickly grew to adore her. Shortly after her death, a contemporary biography of Margaret’s life was written by her personal confessor, Bishop Turgot of England , adding to the mystique of the good and saintly queen. Turgot praised Margaret as a devout woman and devoted monarch, painting a portrait of pure perfection—but for author Susan Fraser King, something was very much missing. In doing her own research into Queen Margaret’s life, King discovered Margaret had a fierce temper, a taste for adventure, and even a reckless side. For all her good qualities, Margaret was a real woman with real flaws, and in QUEEN HEREAFTER: A Novel of Margaret of Scotland (Crown; December 7, 2010), King set out to portray the very real and complex woman behind the legend, offering readers a glimpse into the life of a medieval queen as it might have been.

In QUEEN HEREAFTER we meet Margaret, a young Saxon princess forced into exile upon the death of her uncle, the English king. While fleeing the country from Norman invaders, she is shipwrecked with her family on the coast of Scotland where the recently widowed King Malcolm Canmore offers them sanctuary. Malcolm’s kindness, however, is not without motive. In Margaret he sees a political prize and so he promises to help her brother, the outlawed rebel Edgar of England, in return for his sister’s hand in marriage.

Despite their less than ideal beginnings, Margaret and Malcolm come to love and care for one another. Their marriage, a challenge at first, evolves, while Margaret steps wholeheartedly into the role of queen, immediately setting out to improve the lives of her people. However, tensions with the northern Scottish kingdom, ruled by the conniving Lady Macbeth, escalate and put Malcolm on edge. To ensure Lady Macbeth’s good behavior, the king brings Eva, a female bard and Macbeth’s granddaughter, to court as a hostage. While Eva expects to dislike and resent Margaret, the two discover an unlikely bond as outcasts of a sort—Eva as a wild Celtic spirit captive among her enemies and Margaret suppressing her passions as she endures increasing pressure as a queen and a mother of princes. Eva must betray the king and the new queen, however, in order to honor her devotion to her kinswoman and former monarch. Torn between loyalties, will Eva betray the queen she has always known—or the queen she has come to love?





King combines elegant, lyrical prose with detailed research conducted alongside prominent Celtic and medieval scholars to create an imaginative retelling of Queen Margaret’s life. QUEEN HEREAFTER offers a fresh, unique perspective on the remarkable young queen who would become a saint.

http://www.susanfraserking.com/

http://www.wordwenches.com/

http://www.crownpublishing.com/

2 LUCKY WINNERS OF THIS BOOK GIVEAWAY COURTESY OF THE PUBLISHER!!

OPEN TO HF-CONNECTION FOLLOWERS IN USA or CANADA..

PLEASE LEAVE A  COMMENT WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS..WHAT INTRIGUES YOU ABOUT THIS STORY? HAVE YOU READ THE AUTHOR'S PREVIOUS WORK, LADY MACBETH?

THIS GIVEAWAY ENDS DECEMBER 8TH! GOOD LUCK!

Int'l Book Giveaway! Asenath by Anna Patricio

Two Destinies...One Journey of Love

In a humble fishing village on the shores of the Nile lives Asenath, a

fisherman's daughter who has everything she could want. Until her

perfect world is shattered.

When a warring jungle tribe ransacks the village and kidnaps her,

separating her from her parents, she is forced to live as a slave. And

she begins a journey that will culminate in the meeting of a handsome

and kind steward named Joseph.

Like her, Joseph was taken away from his home, and it is in him that

Asenath comes to find solace…and love. But just as they are beginning

to form a bond, Joseph is betrayed by his master’s wife and thrown

into prison.

Is Asenath doomed to a lifetime of losing everything and everyone she loves?

Please welcome the author of Asenath, Anna Patricio (See below for the International Book Giveaway details!):

On Asenath

by Anna Patricio

I have always been fascinated with the Biblical account of Joseph of the coat of many colours. It is an intriguing tale of strength and perseverance. Sometime ago, I realised that while much is known about him, hardly anything is known about the woman he married - Asenath. All we are told about her is that she was the daughter of a priest of On (also known as Heliopolis).  Curiosity drove me to research. The results were scant.
Possibly the most known story about her is the first century Greek text JOSEPH AND ASENATH, which is also in the Apocrypha (books that were left out of the Bible). Basically, this story centers on Asenath's conversion to Judaism. Asenath is a proud and beautiful woman who shuns all ideas of marriage and lives alone in a tower. One day though, she sees Joseph outside riding in his chariot, and immediately changes her mind about marriage. She asks her father to introduce them. Alas, Joseph refuses because she worships idols. She then locks herself in her room and weeps. An angel who looks like Joseph then appears to her and feeds her sacred honey. Asenath is then converted. When she meets Joseph again, he accepts her hand in marriage. Sometime after Joseph's brothers arrive in Egypt, Pharaoh's son notices Asenath and hatches a plan to get rid of Joseph. Benjamin, Joseph's youngest brother, comes to the defence of his noble relatives. The tale ends with the wayward royal son defeated and, if I am not mistaken, with Joseph as Pharaoh after the current king's death.

I might add, by the way, that my novel sort of pays homage to the Greek JOSEPH AND ASENATH. There is a scene with bees, inspired by the ancient tale.
Some tales have Asenath as Dinah's long-lost daughter. Dinah, as you may know, was Joseph's half-sister who was violated by the prince Shechem. Asenath was apparently born as a result of this, and the brothers got rid of her to hide Dinah's shame. In one Jewish folktale, the brothers abandon the baby in the desert.
An eagle gets the baby and deposits her at an altar in Heliopolis. There, the priest finds Asenath and adopts her as his own. Asenath, however, has evidence of her true lineage: a medallion bearing Hebrew inscriptions. Years later, after Joseph becomes vizier, he immediately recognises his niece because of the medallion. (I find it rather peculiar how Asenath becomes Joseph's niece, but this was still an interesting story.)

Yet other accounts have Asenath as the daughter of Potiphar, Joseph's master. The reasoning behind this is the striking similarity between  the names "Potiphar" and "Potiphera," the name given to Asenath's father in Genesis. There is one story in which the infant Asenath cries out Joseph's innocence after the latter is falsely accused by his master's wife. Asenath's reward later in life was marrying Joseph. Some contemporary fiction, by the way, makes use of this legend - Asenath being Potiphar's daughter. This didn't make it to my novel,
but I find it an interesting idea; it has a potential for a really riveting plotline.

Other than the abovementioned, I didn't find much on Asenath. Hence, I imagined what she might have been like: how she lived before she met Joseph, how she felt upon her marriage to him. I like to think that
just as Joseph was a strong person, so was Asenath. Hence, my novel ASENATH.

Anna Patricio is a lover of ancient history, with a particular interest in Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Rome. She is also intrigued by the Ancient Near East, though she has not delved too much into it but hopes to one day.


She undertook formal studies in Ancient History at Macquarie University. She focused mostly on Egyptology and Jewish-Christian Studies, alongside a couple of Greco-Roman units, and one on Archaeology. Though she knew there were very limited job openings for ancient history graduates, she pursued her degree anyway as it was something she had always been passionate about.
Then, about a year after her graduation, the idea to tackle historical fiction appeared in her head, and she began happily pounding away on her laptop. ASENATH is her first novel.
Recently, she traveled to Lower Egypt (specifically Cairo and the Sinai), Israel, and Jordan. She plans to return to Egypt soon, and see more of it. In the past, she has also been to Athens and Rome.


Anna is currently working on a second novel, which still takes place in Ancient Egypt, but hundreds of years after ASENATH.

GIVEAWAY!
If you would like to enter for your chance to win your own copy of Asenath, leave a comment on this post.
Open to all International followers of HF-Connection. Please leave your email address so we can contact the winner!

Plus one entry if you follow/like HF Connection on facebook
Plus one entry if you share a link to this post on facebook
Plus one entry if you tweet this post on Twitter

Good Luck!! Ends December 1, 2011

GIVEAWAY!! The Amazing Untold Real-Life Adventure of Jane Lane, article by Gillian Bagwell

Please welcome author Gillian Bagwell, who is stopping by HF-Connection during her blog tour for The September Queen (read to the end for giveaway details!):

The September Queen, available November 1, 2011

The Amazing Untold Real-Life Adventure of Jane Lane
By Gillian Bagwell

During the course of my research for The Darling Strumpet, my novel about Nell Gwynn, I read Derek Wilson’s book All the King’s Women, about the numerous women important to Charles II. As all of us who know anything about Charles II are aware, he liked women. His mistresses were many and famous, whether loved like Nell Gwynn was or hated like Louis De Keroualle.

So I was intrigued to read Wilson’s account of Jane Lane, an ordinary Staffordshire girl who played a starring role in an extraordinary part of Charles’s life – his six-week odyssey after the Battle of Worcester trying to escape to safety in France.

On September 3, 1651, Charles and his ragged and outnumbered army were defeated by Cromwell’s forces, ending the hopes of the Royalist cause. Charles barely escaped the battlefield and legendarily dashed out the back door of his lodgings as the enemy was entering at the front, slipping out the last unguarded city gate. From that disastrous night until he finally sailed from Shoreham near Brighton on October 15, he was on the run, sheltered and aided by dozens of people – mostly simple country folks and very minor gentry – who not only could have earned the enormous reward of £1000 offered for his capture, but risked their lives to help the fugitive king, who had been proclaimed a traitor.

One of Charles’s companions during his flight from Worcester on September 3 was the Earl of Derby, who had recently been sheltered at a house called Boscobel in Shropshire. He suggested that the king might hide there until he could find a way out of England.

Jane Lane, a young woman of about 25 years old, lived at Bentley Hall in Staffordshire, not far from Boscobel. She became involved in the king’s flight because she had a pass allowing her and a manservant to travel the hundred miles to visit a friend near Bristol – a major port where the king might board a ship. Her brother, Colonel John Lane, had served under Charles’s companion Lord Wilmot, who was with him and trying desperately to get him to safety.

In a story that sounds like something out of fiction, the 21-year-old king disguised himself as Jane’s servant, and Jane rode pillion (sitting sidesaddle behind him while he rode astride) along roads traveled by cavalry patrols searching for Charles, through villages where the proclamation describing him and offering a reward for his capture was posted, and among hundreds of people who, if they recognized him, had every reason to turn him in and none – but loyalty to the outlawed monarchy – to help him.

It was an improbable scheme. Charles was six feet two inches tall and very dark complexioned, not at all common looking for an Englishman of that time. And yet time after time he rode right under the noses of Roundhead soldiers without being recognized. He narrowly eluded discovery and capture so many times that the whole event eventually became known as the Royal Miracle.

I was enthralled when I read Derek Wilson’s account of Jane’s travels with Charles, and was convinced by the evidence he presented for his belief that they became lovers when they were in each other’s company, in close physical contact, and in perilous circumstances from September 9 to September 18, 1651. Without giving away the whole story, I’ll just say that Jane’s part in Charles’s escape was discovered, she had to flee for her life, she remained in contact with Charles until he was restored to the throne in 1660. Then Jane became famous, and Charles rewarded her richly. His escape was an enormously formative experience, he told the story for the rest of his life, and Jane was clearly someone who he regarded with respect and affection until his death.

I was surprised and delighted to learn that no one had previously told Jane’s story in fiction, and titled my book The September Queen because it is the passionate love story between the young king and the girl who risked her own life to save him – and might possibly have been his queen, had he been free to choose where his heart led him.





Gillian Bagwell, author

Gillian Bagwell’s novel The September Queen will be released on November 1, 2011. Please visit her website, http://www.gillianbagwell.com/, to read more about her books and read her blog Jane Lane and the Royal Miracle http://www.theroyalmiracle.blogspot.com/ which recounts her research adventures and the daily episodes in Charles’s escape after Worcester.




Gillian's publisher at Berkeley was kind enough to offer one copy of her book for giveaway!
To enter for the book giveaway, please leave a comment with your email address, and be sure to remember to follow HF-Connection! Open to followers in US/Canada. Ends November 4, 2011.

Plus one entry if you follow/like HF Connection on facebook
Plus one entry if you share a link to this post on facebook
Plus one entry if you tweet this post on Twitter
Good Luck!

{GIVEAWAY!!}} MURDERESS! A Guest Post from Rebecca Johns, author of THE COUNTESS

Please see the end of this post for details on the book giveaway of THE COUNTESS!

Courtesy of Crown Publishing Group: In January 1611, one of the highest-born members of the Hungarian nobility, Countess Erzsébet Báthory, was walled inside her castle tower and imprisoned for the rest of her life. Her crime—the brutal torture and murder of at least thirty-five women and girls, mostly servants in the countess’s employ. Nicknamed the “Blood Countess,” Báthory is the first and one of the most prolific female serial killers in history. While her story is horrific, her legend has nevertheless persisted in the popular imagination—inspiring a well-established cult following intrigued by her strange gothic legacy. The real-life countess was one of Bram Stoker’s two inspirations for Dracula, and her character has appeared in film, video games, and classic and contemporary literature. She was even referenced on a recent episode of True Blood.

The Countess: A Novel (Broadway Paperbacks, September 27, 2011) by Rebecca Johns:

Please welcome the author, Rebecca Johns, as she tells us her following story:

The Female Perspective

I’d like to thank Marie for inviting me to write this guest post. Taking over someone’s blog, even for a single post, is a little like taking over someone’s life for a day—not unlike the ways in which historical fiction takes over someone’s life, usually in its entirety. You’d better get it right, or at least make it interesting.

In the dim, distant past, all the way back in the winter of 2008 when I first heard of the mass murderer named Elizabeth Báthory and decided to write her story in a new (dare I say “feminist”) perspective, I knew I was taking on perhaps the biggest challenge of my writing life. Even Edgar Allan Poe knew you couldn’t keep a reader in the mind of a psychopathic killer for 300 pages, which is why “The Tell-Tale Heart” is so short. And yet I couldn’t resist. Báthory’s story had everything I was hoping for in a first-person narrator: a cool, calculating mind; a sense of righteous indignation; a massive ego; an ability to lie, even to herself. The more research I did, the more I discovered that the elements of her story that are the most well-known to the public (the 600+ virgins she supposedly sacrificed to bathe in their blood to preserve her beauty) were myths perpetrated by Victorian-era men as a warning against female vanity. The story got better and better. Where was the real Báthory, I wondered, and could I breathe some life back into her story? Find the “psych” in “psychopath”?

Even when my editor urged me to turn the novel into a third-person book (which certainly would have been a lot easier on everyone, me especially) I just knew I had to let Báthory speak for herself. For the past hundred years men have been telling Báthory’s story from the outside looking in. How much more terrifying, for me and for the reader, perhaps, to be her for the duration of the book, to look into ourselves and ask what kind of a monster lives there, in each of us?

If you’re going to revisit a subject so familiar to the public, so reviled and yet so fascinating, you’d better have something new to say, or at least a new way of saying it. John Gardner knew it when he wrote Grendel. Jean Rhys knew it when she wrote Wide Sargasso Sea. Letting Báthory tell her own story, tell us what the world looks like from her tower, seemed to me (and still seems to me) the most dangerous way of approaching a familiar tale. What could be more interesting than that?


Thank you to Rebecca for visiting us! And now dear readers, do you think you could sympathize with the Countess? Do you want to read her story first?

Would you like to win a copy of THE COUNTESS? Please leave a comment with your email address, and you are entered!

THREE WINNERS!!
Plus one entry for each facebook and tweeted link to this post! Good Luck! Giveaway ends 10/22/11, open to USA only.

Giveaway! Scimitar by Robin Raybould

THE STORY

The date is 1439 and Eduardo Ferrucci, a young Italian working in a bookshop in Florence, is unwittingly trapped in a conspiracy by agents of foreign powers. He is banished to Constantinople by the Florentine authorities and forced to spy on the Greeks. The Turkish forces have surrounded the city and are on the verge of invading Europe. SCIMITAR follows the life and loves of Ferrucci in the dangerous world during the last days of the Eastern Roman Empire, his eventual betrayal, his part in the great siege of the city by the Turks in 1453, his subsequent role as ambassador for the Turkish Sultan back in Florence and his final revenge on those who had betrayed him many years earlier. But Ferrucci’s first love was always books and during his exile in Constantinople he makes time to search for the remains of a secret text, part of which he had found in a Greek codex in Florence. Finally, after many years, he discovers and deciphers the whole text and is able to locate documents which have a decisive influence on the history of Renaissance culture. This edition includes an introduction by the translator describing the discovery of the original manuscript of this story as well as a transcription of one of the documents found by Ferrucci.

REVIEWS

"Robin Raybould has a certain unmatched dedication to historical accuracy."Scimitar" is a fine addition to general fiction and is very highly recommended." (Midwest Book Reviews)

"Compelling...fascinating and awe-inspiring...I suspect this was Raybould's ultimate aim-to inspire his readers into reveling in antique literature and philosophy, and expanding their minds exponentially.  If so, he has achieved his aim." (The Compulsive Reader)

SCIMITAR

Release: Available on Amazon and Kindle April 1^st 2011

Author: Robin Raybould

Category: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Tetrabiblion Books/CreateSpace

40 East 94^th St., Suite 16B, New York, NY 10128

212 410 6154

Pages: 372; paperback; no illustrations

Website: www.scimitarthebook.com

ISBN: 978-0-61-543316-5

Amazon Price: $18.95 Kindle Price: $6.99

For further information contact Robin Raybould at rraybould@camrax.com or at Camrax Inc: 212 410 6154.  Visit www.scimitarthebook.com and jump on the carousel!

Robin was kind enough to offer one copy of his book for giveaway!


To enter for the book giveaway, please leave a comment with your email address, and be sure to remember to follow HF-Connection! Open to followers in US/Canada. Ends September 20, 2011.


Good luck!

Tudors & Boleyns, Oh my! Fall Non-Fiction releases

A certain buzz has already been created about the collaborative effort of the upcoming Philippa Gregory non-fiction work, The Women of the Cousin's War, featuring scholars David Baldwin and Michael Jones. This book will take a look at Jaquetta of Luxembourg, her daughter Queen Elizabeth Woodville (mother of the lost princes) and Margaret Beaufort (mother to Henry VII). The book features family trees and other illustrations.

Also upcoming is Bessie Blount: The Story of Henry VIII's Longtime Mistress, which features one of the main characters in Henry VIII's young life, as Bessie gave Henry a longed-for son, however illegitimate. Author Elizabeth Norton will try to shed some light on Bessie, who was rumored to have been quite beautiful and perhaps Henry's first love.

And not to be forgotten, those once powerful and always scheming Boleyns: The Boleyn’s: The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Family by David Loades will tell us some of the story of the trio of siblings George, Mary and Anne, the treachery and haters who helped bring them down.. while Mary Boleyn enjoys some more attention this fall with a new biography penned by Alison Weir.

I wouldn't mind reading each one of these titles, though one has to wonder how long can the allure of the Tudors and Boleyns last?

Giveaway! A Rather Remarkable Homecoming by C.A. Belmond

Written with her trademark wit, wisdom and verve, C.A. Belmond’s A RATHER REMARKABLE HOMECOMING (NAL Trade; September 6, 2011) is the fourth novel in a RATHER delightful series, featuring her beloved and thoroughly likeable characters, Penny and Jeremy, who often find themselves in hot water as they investigate historical mysteries that take them globe-trotting to Europe’s most glamorous locales.


In A RATHER REMARKABLE HOMECOMING, Penny and Jeremy return from their honeymoon to their London townhouse, only to be greeted by emissaries of Prince Charles, who has a special assignment for them. His Royal Highness would like them to solve an historical mystery in Cornwall, England, in the hopes of rescuing the charming village where Penny and Jeremy first met as kids. A property developer is bulldozing his way across the seacoast’s countryside. Now the only hope for rescuing the beautiful area is if Penny and Jeremy can solve an Elizabethan riddle, leading to a far greater quest than they bargained for.

Amid Celtic lore and tales of Shakespeare, smugglers and shipwrecks, Penny and Jeremy contend with an eccentric cast of Cornish locals: a posh restaurateur, a bird-watching earl, a vain actor, a New Age farmer, a rebel rock-and-roller and a band of determined “eco-warriors”. Their mission takes the intrepid pair to the lush island of Madeira and the legends of Tintagel, in a race against time to stop the wrecking ball from striking.

Are you interested in joining Penny and Jeremy for a voyage of travel, food, wine, love and life’s little pleasures? The publisher is offering one lucky follower of HF-Connection a copy of A RATHER REMARKABLE HOMECOMING.

To enter for the book giveaway, please leave a comment with your email address, and be sure to remember to follow HF-Connection! Open to followers in US/Canada. Ends September 2nd, 2011.

Visit the author's website here, and the book's Amazon page here.

Coveted Historical Fiction Releases for Early Fall!

If you visit the Historical Novel Society's website, you will find lists of titles that are due out for the upcoming months. We won't repeat them here verbatim because they might get mad, but we will definitely note a few of those novels that we are very eager to read for ourselves! There is going to be a flurry of happy historical fiction fans this fall!

Seymour Chawast's The Canterbury Tales  (August 30, 2011) Accompany a band of merry medieval pilgrims as they make their way -on motorcycles, of course- to Canterbury. Complete with illustrations and diagrams. The cover looks jovial, should be an interesting retelling.

Kimberly Cutter's The Maid: A Novel of Joan of Arc Already boasting 5 star reviews on Amazon and it's not due out till October 18, 2011. The author writes of Joan's teen years and humanizes the saint.

Carrolly Erickson's The Favored Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Third Wife (September 27, 2011) The third wife being Jane Seymour, the one who toppled Anne Boleyn and gave Henry his much wished-for male heir. This one may be a slightly different take on the downfall of Anne and the supplanting of Jane, as the product description states Jane was "deeply reluctant to embark on such a dangerous course".  One wonders, though.

Stella Duffy's Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore (Sept 27, 2011) Previously released in the UK to good reviews, this novel is about Theodora of Constantinople, a very controversial but powerful woman from the 6th century. Something a little different for readers.

Anna Elliott's Sunrise of Avalon (September 13, 2011)  Final book in her Avalon trilogy about Trystan and Isolde. I read the previous two, so of course I must read the grand finale! Isolde is such an intriguing character.

Kate Emerson's Secrets of the Tudor Court: At the King's Pleasure  Another in her Tudor series, this one is based on the story of Lady Anne Stafford. The series all feature different courtiers and can be read as stand alones. Slated for September but has been rescheduled nearer to December, so put it on your Christmas list!

Kimberley Freeman's Wildflower Hill (August 23, 2011 according to Amazon) A story of a ballerina who returns to Australia after a career-ending injury and discovers she has inherited a sheep estate and is none too pleased; multigenerational saga. (You got me at multi-generational saga.)

Philippa Gregory's The Lady of the Rivers Latest in the Cousins’ War series tells the story of Jacquetta, mother of Elizabeth Woodville (with ties to Melusina, ya know!) You either love her or hate her. Does she need an introduction? I will be aching to read this one.. just because.

Maggie Holt's A Nurse At War   Features an attractive nurse during WWII, love found and lost and found again.. touted as a romantic saga.. there's that saga word again...it does look like it is chunkster at around 500 pages.

Gotta ADORE this cover! So different than the typical royal covers..

Fiona Mountain's Cavalier Queen  "Epic historical novel about the lives and loves of Charles I's queen, Henrietta Maria. An English Gone With the Wind." It's never very fair to compare new novels to beloved classics, therefore my heart already goes out to the author. I do want to read it since it is so "epic" and see how she portrays Henrietta. And that cover!

Sharon Kay Penman's Lionheart (October 4, 2011) The much anticipated epic story of Richard the Lionheart, son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and his not-so-merry adventure of the Third Crusade. Penman is a Queen of historical fiction and all its many details.


Click on over to the September list at HNS and tell us what caught your eye!

Giveaway! Madame Bovary's Daughter by Linda Urbach

Have you heard of the scandalous Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert? His first published novel in 1850, and it was a pioneering one at that. And the scandal! The criticism of social classes, the affairs..Flaubert himself was hit with an immorality charge when Madame Bovary was serialized in a literary magazine.

I asked the author of the upcoming Madame Bovary's Daughter (just released!) to elaborate on a few key topics for her potential readers. Please welcome author Linda Urbach with her introduction to her newest novel, and a book giveaway, too!


Why I wrote Madame Bovary’s Daughter.
When I encountered the novel Madame Bovary for the first time in my early twenties I thought: how sad, how tragic. Poor, poor Emma Bovary. Her husband was a bore, she was desperately in love with another man (make that two men), and she craved another life; one that she could never afford (I perhaps saw a parallel to my own life here). Finally, tragically, she committed suicide. It took her almost a week of agony to die from the arsenic she’d ingested.

But twenty- five years later and as the mother of a very cherished daughter, I reread Madame Bovary. And now I had a different take altogether: What was this woman thinking? What kind of wife would repeatedly cheat on her hardworking husband and spend all her family’s money on a lavish wardrobe for herself and gifts for her man of the moment; most important of all, what kind of mother was she?

It was almost as if she (Berthe Bovary) came to me in the middle of the night and said, “please tell my story.” Having adopted my beautiful daughter at age 2/12 days I had a big soft spot in my heart for the orphan Berthe Bovary. I totally sympathized with her lack of mother love. Also, I remembered how much I loved Paris when I lived there. I had a strong desire to return-- which I was able to do in my head as I wrote the novel.

The research and writing process of Madame Bovary’s Daughter.

This is the first historical fiction I’ve ever written, so research played a big part. My first two novels were all about me but my life had gotten very boring which is why I turned to historical fiction. I used the Internet almost extensively. I found sites where I could walk through Parisian mansions of the times. Sites that not only showed what women wore but also gave instructions on how to create the gowns that were popular. I bought this great book, Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management which gives you details of absolutely everything you need to know about the running of a house in the 1850’s. You want to serve a 12-course dinner, she’ll tell you how. She’ll also tell you how many servants you need and how many pounds of paté you need to order.

The thing about research is you have to be careful not to let research get in the way of the writing. I tended to get so interested and involved in reading about the Victorian times and France in the 1850’s I would find the whole day had gone by and I hadn’t written a word. So the important thing for me is making sure I’ve got the story going forward. That’s the work part. The fun part is then filling in the historic details. It’s like I have to finish my dinner before I’ve earned my dessert. The other thing about research is that I learned to keep room open for a character I hadn’t thought about before. For example, I suddenly came across the famous couturier Charles Frederick Worth, an Englishman who went to Paris and revolutionized the fashion business. He jumped off the page at me and insisted on being part of my novel. So my advice to writers is always keep a place at the table of your book for an unexpected guest.

Summary of Madame Bovary’s Daughter

What you may remember about Madame Bovary is that she was disappointed in her marriage, shopped a great deal, drove her family into bankruptcy, was abandoned by two lovers, and finally took her own life. With all that drama, who even remembers she had a daughter?

And what ever happened to the only, lonely daughter of the scandalous Madame Bovary? Poor Berthe Bovary. She was neglected, unloved, orphaned and sold into servitude before the age of 13. It seems even Flaubert didn’t have much time for her. She was the most insignificant and ignored character in that great classic novel.

But in Madame Bovary’s Daughter we see how Berthe used the lessons she learned from her faithless, feckless, materialistic mother to overcome extreme adversity and yes, triumph in the end. As a young girl, Berthe becomes a model for famed artist Jean Francois Millet, later a friend to a young German named Levi Strauss and finally a business associate of Charles Frederick Worth, the world’s first courtier.

This is a Sex and the Cité tale of a beautiful woman who goes from rags to riches, from sackcloth to satin, from bed to business. Busy as she is, she still has time to wreak revenge on the one man who broke her mother’s heart. And, of course to have her own heart broken as well.

From her grandmother’s farm, to the cotton mills to the rich society of Paris, it is a constant struggle to not repeat her mother’s mistakes. She is determined not to end up “like mother, like daughter”. And yet she is in a lifelong search for the “mother love” she never had.

Berthe Bovary is a Victorian forerunner of the modern self-made woman.

Thanks so much to Linda Urbach for introducing us to her new novel! If this novel intrigues you as much as it does me, then sign up for the giveaway! The author is offering one lucky follower their own copy of Madame Bovary's Daughter, open to the USA. Please leave your email address in the comments as well. Ends August 6th.

(This post was reprinted with permission via Burton Book Review)

The RAVEN and the WOLF: Chronicle II - Land of Ire By Christopher Spellman

The RAVEN and the WOLF: Chronicle II - Land of Ire By Christopher Spellman
ISBN-13: 9781614342555
Publisher: Booklocker.com
Date: May 2011
Page Count: 306




Available at
http://booklocker.com/books/5477.html
http://www.amazon.com/RAVEN-WOLF-Chronicle-Land-Ire/dp/1614342555/
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-raven-the-wolf-christopher-spellman/1031308549

There is currently a giveaway contest for June. Two winners will receive a free copy of Land of Ire. Details on my blog: http://christopher-spellman.tumblr.com/


Chris Spellman
Author of The Raven & the Wolf Series
Blood Oath: http://booklocker.com/books/4631.html
Land of Ire: http://booklocker.com/books/5477.html

The sequel to The Raven  the Wolf trilogy's 2010 debut novel Blood Oath, Land of Ire continues the dramatic saga of two Anglo-Danish brothers on the isle of Britain embroiled in a bitter, dark age blood feud.


Synopsis:
940 AD. Having departed alive and triumphant from the blood-washed fields of England's greatest battle, Wulfric, the ill-starred brother and rival of a Viking Jarl, makes way homeward in hopes of finding the peace of a simple life. But his fate-threads are intricately and sinisterly woven toward a less forgiving destiny.

The Norse King of Ireland, though vanquished, has yet to abandon his aspirations to the throne of Jórvík, the seat of power in Northumbria. The walls of the old city surrounded and the shadow of misfortune falling, Wulfric must rally his brotherhood of warriors in hopes of safeguarding their homes and families.

In this second and equally foreboding tale of The Raven & the Wolf, the sworn brethren forged by Wulfric must follow a noble calling, journeying toward an unfriendly land across a sea that is both lonely and rife with menace. But what lies in between is a path sown with peril, injustice and a menagerie of wayward foes and unlikely allies.

The gods are restless and the seas reddening with the blood of the damned. Just who will survive the upheaval the Norns are left to decide.


See Christopher Spellman's previous visit to HF-Connection here.

Giveaway! Signed copy of Rivals in the Tudor Court by D.L. Bogdan

Please welcome author D.L. Bogdan with this guest post regarding her newest Tudor novel:

About RIVALS IN THE TUDOR COURT

 by DL Bogdan



2010 release



My fascination with Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk evolved while writing my debut novel SECRETS OF THE TUDOR COURT. I had been writing about his daughter, the oft’ overlooked Mary Howard, who was the wife of King Henry VIII’s illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy, and trying to fill in the gaps of a tragic life that remained far too sketchy. As I wrote about her, I wondered what factors could have led her father to become the callous abuser he was during his daughter‘s life. Did the answer lie in the old “nature vs. nurture” debate? As most psychological studies indicate, abuse is typically cyclical, passed down from one abuser to another. Who abused Norfolk? Or did he start the cycle? With these questions in mind, I began to delve deeper into his life, along with the lives of his wife Elizabeth Howard and mistress, Bess Holland.

Bred for ambition and fueled by avarice, the duke’s lot wasn’t easy. The Howard family were the “comeback kids” of their time, falling from grace to rise again on numerous occasions. I imagine, as the eldest child and heir to the on-again-off-again dukedom of Norfolk, this had to put a lot of pressure on Thomas Howard, who was a “hostage” in King Henry VII’s court along with his brother since childhood while their father, the attainted Earl of Surrey, was doing time in the Tower of London for his supporting Richard III. Thomas was married to Lady Anne Plantagenet and together they had a family of four children. There is little indication is his early years that he would be the abuser he became as he aged. Besides a by-the-whip childhood typical of a medieval upbringing, I assert that the major turning point in Thomas’ life was the loss of his first wife and all four children in quick succession. I cannot imagine any normal human being surviving such grand-scale loss and coming out unscathed.

Shortly after Lady Anne’s death, Thomas was encouraged to marry again to ensure the Howard line. He chose the fiery Elizabeth Stafford, daughter of the Duke of Buckingham. Years of struggle and misunderstandings ensued as the couple bore and lost children, entwining their fates with Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, alliances that would become a divisive factor in their marriage. As Thomas gained power and lost perspective, he took on a mistress Bess Holland and became progressively more abusive toward his wife and controlling of Bess and his children. Elizabeth was a woman ahead of her time, seeking help from Privy Seal Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII himself. She was a lone voice in a time when women were silent. Her cries for justice were ignored by the men of her time, but they resonated through the centuries to our time. If the reader only takes away one thing from this book, I would hope it would be this: that women today have a voice. We don’t have to be the prisoners so many of our sisters in the past were: there is help and there is healing for both the abused and the abusers.

While trying not to impose contemporary thought into their unbearable situation, remaining true to the ideals and accepted values of the time period, the novel is a powerful illustration of abuse in a brutal time when getting through each day alive and sane remained an act of heroism, a fact that is rarely appreciated in our desire for larger than life, save-the-day leads. RIVALS IN THE TUDOR COURT explores Thomas’ descent into inhumanity and chronicles the remarkable women who loved him despite himself.
~~
Thanks so much to D.L. Bogdan for stopping by! You can read a review of Secrets here or here, and Rivals here.
Also, D.L. was here before with this article she provided for HF-Connection. You can also visit her blog here. 

If you would like to read Rivals in the Tudor Court, comment here for your chance to win your very own autographed copy! The author is generously providing this to one of our lucky followers, so let's show her some well deserved love!

Comment with your email address telling us what intrigues you about the Tudor courts, or Thomas the Creep Howard!
Get an extra entry for each tweet, facebook that you link this post to!
And get an Extra 3 entries for posting on your blog with the graphic above, linking to this post.
Be sure to leave those links in the comments.

Open to USA Followers of HF-Connection, ends 5/21/11. Good luck!