Chris Karlsen's Silk - Guest Post and {Giveaway}

A Muse With A Historical Bent

My father taught history. The politics, culture, and people of different periods was a common topic in our house. When I decided to do what I'd secretly wanted to try for many years, write, my long quiet muse went in search of people and events to build a world around.

Not all periods and places interest me while others have a strong draw for me. I write a Knights in Time series where a part of the story is set in medieval England and occasionally France. The battle of Poitiers, a great English victory fought in 1356, is the common denominator for those characters. My latest release, Silk, a suspense/thriller, is set in Victorian England, London in particular.

I chose Victorian London for a couple of reasons. So much changed over that time period, developments in industry and the expansion of the British Empire are two examples. The period conjures up both romantic images perfect for Christmas cards and menacing images of dark allies and people living hard lives. You could turn a corner and run into a polished carriage pulled by a handsome team of horses, or, you could turn a corner and run into Jack the Ripper. I thought it the most atmospheric of cities for my killer and detective to challenge each other.

Another reason I chose this time period (1888) was for my protagonist's personal history and quality of character. Several years ago, I had the occasion to visit the South Wales Borderers regimental museum. I was interested in the Zulu wars of 1879 and in particular two battles fought by that regiment: Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift. Eleven Victoria Crosses, the equivalent of our Medal of Honor, were awarded to the men who fought at Rorke's Drift. After speaking at great length with the volunteers at the museum who gave me a private tour, I knew if I ever wrote a book, one day I'd use a veteran of this battle as the protagonist.

In Silk, Detective Inspector Rudyard Bloodstone was ill with a serious fever when the hospital station at Rorke's Drift was attacked by thousands of Zulu warriors. He managed to rise and fight after saving the lives of several men unable to walk on their own. As a result, he was awarded a Victoria Cross for "Extreme valour in the face of the enemy." Rudyard (Ruddy) keeps the medal and the queen's declaration in his sock drawer. He doesn't consider himself a hero. To him, he was just a soldier doing what was necessary in battle.

I treat settings like characters. They are living, breathing things. They evoke emotions the way the men and women in the story do. They can be beautiful and make you want to stay in that moment and place. Or, they can frighten as cold fog wraps around the human characters and the dark holds danger. In the Knights in Time books, I loved recreating medieval England without the iconic trappings so familiar with today: Big Ben, double-decker buses, black cabs, and tourists gathered around Buckingham Palace. In Silk, I loved showing London through the eyes of the different classes. The multi—facets of the city. One oddity I discovered in my research was an "entertainment" enjoyed by the middle class. There's scene in Silk that takes place in an asylum. I learned for a time asylums made a profit by letting so called normal folk view the lunatics (a common term used at the time) for a penny a tour.

I try to recreate the place and time by walking through it mentally. Every sidewalk my protagonist goes down, every room he or she enters I note the details along with them. Since I can't time travel in reality, I can travel through time on the page.  

About the book       
Genre: Thriller
Author: Chris Karlsen
Website: www.chriskarlsen.com
Publisher: Books to Go Now
Purchase on Amazon

London-Fall, 1888

The city is in a panic as Jack the Ripper continues his murderous spree. While the Whitechapel police struggle to find him, Detective Inspector Rudyard Bloodstone and his partner are working feverishly to find their own serial killer. The British Museum's beautiful gardens have become a killing ground for young women strangled as they stroll through.

Their investigation has them brushing up against Viscount Everhard, a powerful member of the House of Lords, and a friend to Queen Victoria. When the circumstantial evidence points to him as a suspect, Rudyard must deal with the political blowback, and knows if they are going to go after the viscount, they'd better be right and have proof.

As the body count grows and the public clamor for the detectives to do more, inter-department rivalries complicate the already difficult case.

About the author

Chris is a Chicago native. Her family moved to Los Angeles when she was in her late teens where she later studied at UCLA. She graduated with a Business Degree. Her father was a history professor and her mother a voracious reader. She grew up with a love of history and books.

Her parents were also passionate about traveling and passed their passion onto Chris. Once bitten with the travel bug, Chris spent most of her adult life visiting the places she'd read about and that fascinated her. She's had the good fortune to travel Europe extensively, the Near East, and North Africa, in addition to most of the United States.

After college, Chris spent the next twenty-five years in law enforcement with two agencies. Harboring a strong desire to write since her teens, upon retiring from police work, Chris decided to pursue her writing career. She currently writes three different series. Her historical romance series is called, Knights in Time. Her romantic thriller series is Dangerous Waters, and he latest book, Silk, is book one in her mystery/suspense series, The Bloodstone series.

She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and five wild and crazy rescue dogs.

Website / Facebook / Pinterest / Trailer

Giveaway

Enter to win a Silk prize pack (via the Gleam form below) as follows:
One winner will be awarded:

a copy (print or kindle) of Silk
a swag bag
a $10 Amazon gift card
a Kindle copy of Knights in Time (the author's boxed set of historical romances)

* Giveaway is open internationally.

* Giveaway ends at 11:59pm on May 8th.

* You must be 18 or older to enter.

* Only one entry per household.

* All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the system; suspicions of fraud will be decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor. Disqualified entrants are decided at our discretion.

* Winners will be chosen via GLEAM on or around May 9th and notified via email. Winners have 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

* Please email Michelle @ hfconnection@yahoo.com with any questions.

Silk

Spotlight on David Morrell's Inspector of the Dead with Guest Post by Robert Morrison

Thomas De Quincey and the Afflictions of Childhood

Action and brilliant twists of plot are at the crux of David Morrell’s two historical thrillers, Murder as a Fine Art and Inspector of the Dead, both of which are set in 1850s London, and both of which feature assassins whose killing sprees are as ingenious as they are ruthless. What sets the two novels decisively apart from other Victorian murder mysteries, though, is the fictionalized presence of Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859), the notorious English author and opium addict.

Morrell seamlessly weaves details from De Quincey’s writings into the fabric of both novels, but he also exploits in full the circumstances of De Quincey’s remarkable life, as indeed De Quincey himself did in some of his finest essays. Born into prosperity, De Quincey exhausted his patrimony by the time he was 30 (primarily because he could not stop buying books), and spent much of the next forty years harried by debt and debt collectors. He read widely as a boy, and acquired a reputation as a brilliant classicist, especially in Greek. At 17 De Quincey bolted from Manchester Grammar School, and spent four harrowing months penniless and hungry on the streets of London. He entered Oxford University in 1803, but left five years later without taking his degree and moved to the English Lake District to be near his two literary idols, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In 1813 De Quincey became dependent on opium, a drug he started experimenting with during his student days at Oxford, and over the next few years he sank deeper into debt and addiction, before launching himself as a professional writer.

It is, however, the close ties of his family life that most clearly fascinate Morrell. Death cast a terrible blight on De Quincey as a very young boy, and in many ways he never fully recovered. Before he was 8 he had lost his sister Jane, his father, and then another sister, Elizabeth, who was his dearest childhood friend, and whose sudden passing never ceased to haunt him. His portrait of Ann of Oxford Street, the young London prostitute he met as a teenage runaway, and his overwhelming sorrow at the death in 1812 of Wordsworth’s three-year-old daughter Catherine, are clearly shaped by his grief over Elizabeth’s death, as is Suspiria de Profundis (“Sighs from the Depths”), De Quincey’s great 1845 sequel to his Confessions.

In Murder as a Fine Art, Morrell memorably conjures the anguish of these losses in the scene where De Quincey enters Vauxhaul Gardens, and sickly prostitutes hired by the killer call out to him with names that bring his deepest griefs surging back to the surface: “I’m Ann!” one of the women yells. “No, I’m Ann!” cries another. “I’m Jane!” bawls a third. Then more voices and other deaths: “Elizabeth!” “Catherine!” “Love us, Thomas!” De Quincey sinks to his knees, unable to endure the memory of so much sorrow, and horrified to think that the assassin knows so well how to wound him.

Morrell is equally interested in De Quincey as a father. In 1806, as he wandered through the Lake District, the 21-year-old De Quincey made a manuscript list of twelve “Constituents of Happiness,” one of which was the “education of a child.” But by 1816, when he became a father for the first time, his life was already spiralling out of control, and in the years that followed he was often unable to provide for his wife Margaret and a family that grew ultimately to eight children. Perhaps most devastatingly, in 1834, as his teenage son William lay writhing in the grip of leukaemia, De Quincey listened as his son told the doctor of his physical pain, but also of his mental anguish, for the boy’s mind was full of “family distresses” – the fear, and penury, and despair that had surrounded him for his entire life. When William died, De Quincey’s grief – and guilt – were intense.

De Quincey’s youngest daughter Emily was twenty-one months old at William’s death, and while she never really knew him, she grew up like him in chaos – running from bill collectors, sneaking through back streets to deliver her father’s manuscripts to publishers, and watching helplessly as his drug addiction drove him down to rock-bottom. Yet by the 1840s the family’s finances had started to stabilize, thanks to the caution and courage of Emily and her two older sisters Margaret and Florence, all three of whom were devoted to De Quincey, but acutely aware of his failings. “I think no one will make much out of my father who does not take in the extreme mixture of childish folly joined to a great intellect,” Emily once declared.

In Inspector of the Dead, De Quincey’s relationship with Emily is center stage, and Morrell crafts marvellous exchanges between the two, as he plumbs the workings of their relationship, and demonstrates the ways in which Emily has been both constrained and liberated by her father. Yet perhaps the most moving moment in the novel comes when the two discuss – not the present or the future – but the traumas of the past, and De Quincey confesses his guilt. “In many ways, you are the parent, and I am the child,” he tells Emily. “I only wish that I had watched over you with as much devotion. I’m deeply sorry.” In such moments, Morrell brings De Quincey vividly before us, as a man who moved many to deep affection, despite courting the disasters that so often overtook him.

Morrell’s masterful handing of characterization and pace – his ability to combine heart-pounding action with forceful moments of pathos and emotional insight – are what distinguish both Murder and Inspector. De Quincey’s writings on drugs and violence are key to the process, but no less important are those incidents from his private life that both shattered and inspired him.

About the book

Publication Date: March 24, 2015
Mulholland Books
Hardcover; 342p
ISBN: 9780316323932
Genre: Historical Mystery

David Morrell’s MURDER AS A FINE ART was a publishing event. Acclaimed by critics, it made readers feel that they were actually on the fogbound streets of Victorian London. Now the harrowing journey continues in INSPECTOR OF THE DEAD.

Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his Confessions of an Opium-Eater,confronts London’s harrowing streets to thwart the assassination of Queen Victoria.

The year is 1855. The Crimean War is raging. The incompetence of British commanders causes the fall of the English government. The Empire teeters.

Amid this crisis comes opium-eater Thomas De Quincey, one of the most notorious and brilliant personalities of Victorian England. Along with his irrepressible daughter, Emily, and their Scotland Yard companions, Ryan and Becker, De Quincey finds himself confronted by an adversary who threatens the heart of the nation.

This killer targets members of the upper echelons of British society, leaving with each corpse the name of someone who previously attempted to kill Queen Victoria. The evidence indicates that the ultimate victim will be Victoria herself. As De Quincey and Emily race to protect the queen, they uncover long-buried secrets and the heartbreaking past of a man whose lust for revenge has destroyed his soul.

Brilliantly merging historical fact with fiction, Inspector of the Dead is based on actual attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria.

Praise for Inspector of the Dead
“Riveting! I literally thought I was in 1855 London. With this mesmerizing series, David Morrell doesn’t just delve into the world of Victorian England—he delves into the heart of evil, pitting one man’s opium-skewed brilliance against a society where appearances are everything, and the most vicious killers lurk closer than anyone thinks.” —Lisa Gardner, New York Times bestselling author of Crash & Burn and The Perfect Husband

What the Victorian Experts Say:

“Even better than Murder as a Fine Art. A truly atmospheric and dynamic thriller. I was fascinated by how Morrell seamlessly blended elements from Thomas De Quincey’s life and work. The solution is a complete surprise.” —Grevel Lindop, The Opium-Eater: A Life of Thomas De Quincey

“The scope is remarkable. Florence Nightingale, the Crimean War, regicide, the railways, opium, the violence and despair of the London rookeries, medical and scientific innovations, arsenic in the food and clothing—all this makes the Victorian world vivid. The way Morrell depicts Thomas De Quincey places him in front of us, living and breathing. But his daughter Emily is in many ways the real star of the book.” —Robert Morrison, The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey

“I absolutely raced through it and couldn’t bear to put it down. I particularly liked how the very horrible crimes are contrasted with the developing, fascinating relationship between Thomas De Quincey and his daughter, Emily, who come across as extremely real. It was altogether a pleasure.” —Judith Flanders, The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Reveled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime

Buy the Book
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
iBooks
IndieBound
Kobo

About the Author
David Morrell is an Edgar, Nero, Anthony, and Macavity nominee as well as a recipient of the prestigious career-achievement Thriller Master away from the International Thriller Writers. His numerous New York Times bestsellers include the classic espionage novel. The Brotherhood of the Rose, the basis for the only television mini-series to be broadcast after a Super Bowl. A former literature professor at the University of Iowa, Morrell has a PhD from Pennsylvania State University. His latest novel is INSPECTOR OF THE DEAD, a sequel to his highly acclaimed Victorian mystery/thriller, Murder as a Fine Art, which Publishers Weekly called ”one of the top ten mystery/thrillers of 2013.”

For more information visit David Morrell’s website. You can also connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.

Visit the Tour Schedule
Hashtags: #InspectoroftheDeadBlogTour #HistoricalMystery

Twitter Tags: @hfvbt @_DavidMorrell

Mary F. Burns' The Spoils of Avalon - Guest Post and {Giveaway}

Doing Research OnSite – Wondrous Things Happen 

I spent three weeks in September visiting the main locations that are featured in my first Sargent-Paget mystery, The Spoils of Avalon: Lanercost Priory and Brampton Town in the north of England (Cumbria), and the village of Glastonbury with the ruins of the Abbey in Somerset in the south. I had anticipated having a good time, and learning some interesting facts, but I soon found myself overwhelmed by the deep sensory and spiritual experience of being alive in the places I had just spent a year writing about. I carried around with me an advance copy of my book and wrote in it constantly, making changes and adding scenes as the spirit moved me—and it often did!

In my book, I alternate between two time periods: 1877, with John Singer Sargent and Violet Paget, best friends from the age of 10, embarking on an adventure that takes them north to Cumbria, and which starts with murder and ends with magic; and 1539, in Glastonbury, with a young novice monk named Arthur Joseph, who witnesses the tragedy of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell.

LANERCOST PRIORY

Built in 1169 by the Dacre family, the Priory was the home of Augustinian canons who, unlike monks in a monastery, did not live a cloistered life, but rather went out to the people in the surrounding areas, preaching and teaching and serving the poor.

When I first arrived at the site, which is now managed by the English Heritage Society, I was struck with the beauty and color of the old stonework. The ruins are unbelievably magnificent, and many of the stones used to built are said to be taken from the relatively nearby (1/4 mile up the hill) remains of Hadrian’s Wall, which was plundered of its dressed stone for many a century after the Roman soldiers left in the 300’s.

The Priory is set in the midst of rolling hills alive with numerous flocks of sheep and small herds of cattle that move from meadow to meadow throughout the day. Surrounded with the chirping of birds, roosters crowing, and jackdaws swooping and calling, the Priory begins to feel rather homey and domestic. After a very little while, however, I began to feel it was just exactly the right size, and felt very good just walking around the building and grounds. The baa-ing of the sheep, lowing of cattle, and the roosters and chickens clucking and carrying on made it feel timeless, as if these were the sounds that the people in the Middle Ages heard all day long, too. There were no airplanes overhead, and the car noises were relatively infrequent, especially after dusk.

Although the ruins are extensive, there is a considerable part of the original church that is still in use as an Anglican church today, St. Mary Magdalene--it had been repaired and maintained since the late 1500's, and still is home to parishioners and worshippers who are baptized, married and buried within its ancient walls.

Both sets of my characters, from both timelines, are visitors to Lanercost Priory after it has been laid waste, and I was deeply moved by standing in the forlorn and sacred space of a once-magnificent and holy place, and that experience allowed me to re-write some passages in my novel more authentically.

BRAMPTON 

The small town of Brampton is where John and Violet stay during their week-long visit to the North, and I was delighted to visit the village and see that it wasn’t very much different from how I had pictured it. It’s barely two miles from the ruins of Lanercost Priory, and as we drove back and forth on the (very) narrow road between the two places, I often pictured what it would be like to ride along in an open carriage, hearing the horse’s steps and the rattle of the carriage. I discovered that one such trip I had written about needed revising, as a castle that I had described as being “espied from the road” was in fact deep beyond some hills and woods, and could never be seen from that particular road!

Brampton itself is a nice little town with winding streets, and the tallest building is the church, St. Martin’s. It was designed and built by Philip Webb, an architect who worked for the Arts & Crafts firm of Morris & Co—and a very special element of the church is the presence of stunning stained glass windows designed by Edward Burne-Jones.

GLASTONBURY ABBEY

After a week at Lanercost and Brampton, we took a train down to Bristol, rented a car and drove the thirty miles or so to Glastonbury through a flat, watery country—Somerset, often called The Summer Land, and the ancient places where the legends of King Arthur, the Round Table, and the Holy Grail sprung forth from the Isle of Avalon, or the Isle of Glass.

Glastonbury has become rather commercialized, especially with the popularity of the summer outdoor concert, but also because of the thousands of people who flock there to find spiritual succor at its various holy and sacred sites: the Chapel of St. Michael on the Tor (meaning ‘hill’), the Chalice Well, the Thorn Tree of St. Joseph, and the ruins of the great Abbey itself.

September, which threatens rain every day, turned out to be a good time of year to visit, and none of the sites we visited were in the least bit overrun with people.

I was exceedingly lucky to be able to sign up for a day-long workshop on Gregorian Chant, which was held in the only building that was not destroyed during the Dissolution, the Abbot’s Kitchen. The professor of music who led the class taught us how to read the music, and we sang the Office of St. Dunstan (appointed as Abbot of Glastonbury in 943 by King Edmund) all during the day, learning the pieces bit by bit. I felt as if I had been transported to the 16th century, or earlier, and was experiencing a little of what the monks and other folk who lived at the Abbey did and felt in those times. This event also helped me fine-tune some scenes in my book, based on the sense of place and time I had experienced.

I have to say, though, that I don’t think I would have wanted to visit any of these site before I wrote my novel. I think it might have gotten in the way of actually writing the story, as if the scope and grandeur and beauty of these places would have overwhelmed and intimidated me. There’s no real way of knowing if that’s true or not, but I can say that I am very glad to have visited these places with my book in hand, and that making changes to the descriptions or scenes afterwards worked very well for me.

You can see a lot more photos and read about my research trip at my blog for this mystery series: www.sargent-pagetmysteries.blogspot.com. Thanks for reading, and I would be delighted to answer questions or read your comments!

About the book 

Publication Date: November 1, 2014

Sand Hill Review Press

Paperback; 300p

ISBN: 978-1937818289

Series: A John Singer Sargent/Violet Paget Mystery (Book One)

Genre: Historical Fiction/Historical Mystery

The death of a humble clergyman in 1877 leads amateur sleuths Violet Paget and John Singer Sargent into a medieval world of saints and kings—including the legendary Arthur—as they follow a trail of relics and antiquities lost since the destruction of Glastonbury Abbey in 1539. Written in alternating chapters between the two time periods, The Spoils of Avalon creates a sparkling, magical mystery that bridges the gap between two worlds that could hardly be more different—the industrialized, Darwinian, materialistic Victorian Age and the agricultural, faith-infused life of a medieval abbey on the brink of violent change at the hands of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell.

First in a new series of historical mysteries, The Spoils of Avalon introduces two unlikely detectives and life-long friends—beginning as young people on the verge of making their names famous for the next several decades throughout Europe and America: the brilliant and brittle Violet Paget, known as the writer Vernon Lee, and the talented, genial portrait painter John Singer Sargent.

Friends from the age of ten, Paget and Sargent frequently met in the popular European watering places and capitals, frequenting the same salons and drawing rooms in London, Rome, Paris, Florence, Venice, Vienna and Madrid. Both were possessed of keen minds and bohemian tendencies, unorthodox educations and outsized egos (especially Paget). Their instant, natural bonding led them to address each other as “Twin”, and they corresponded frequently when they were apart.

Henry James once described Violet Paget as having “the most formidable mind” of their times, and he was an active fan and patron of John Sargent, introducing him to London society and his own inner circles of literary and artistic genius.

Praise for The Spoils of Avalon
“An artist, a writer, a murder, a mysterious tome, a dissolving time, a crime, Arthurian legends, ancient saints books and bones. Burns’ prose drives and is sublime, with characters and settings that live on in your mind. This is an original historical mystery connecting the Age of Industry with the Age of Miracles.” – Stephanie Renée dos Santos, forthcoming novel: Cut From The Earth

Buy the Book
Amazon

About the Author

Mary F. Burns is the author of PORTRAITS OF AN ARTIST (Sand Hill Review Press, February 2013), a member of and book reviewer for the Historical Novel Society and a former member of the HNS Conference board of directors. A novella-length book, ISAAC AND ISHMAEL, is also being published by Sand Hill Review Press in 2014. Ms. Burns’ debut historical novel J-THE WOMAN WHO WROTE THE BIBLE was published in July 2010 by O-Books (John Hunt Publishers, UK). She has also written two cozy-village mysteries in a series titled The West Portal Mysteries (The Lucky Dog Lottery and The Tarot Card Murders).

Ms. Burns was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, where she earned both Bachelors and Masters degrees in English, along with a high school teaching certificate. She relocated to San Francisco in 1976 where she now lives with her husband Stuart in the West Portal neighborhood. Ms. Burns has a law degree from Golden Gate University, has been president of her neighborhood association and is active in citywide issues. During most of her working career she was employed as a director of employee communications, public relations and issues management at various San Francisco Bay Area corporations, was an editor and manager of the Books on Tape department for Ignatius Press, and has managed her own communications/PR consulting business, producing written communications, websites and video productions for numerous corporate and non-profit clients.

Ms. Burns may be contacted by email at maryfburns@att.net. For more information please visit Mary Burns’s website. You can also connect with Mary on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads, or read her blog posts at:

www.jthewomanwhowrotethebible.com

www.literarygracenotes.blogspot.com

www.portraitsofanartist.blogspot.com

www.sargent-pagetmysteries.blogspot.com

www.genesisnovel.blogspot.com

Visit other blogs on the tour--Tour Schedule

Twitter Hashtag: #SpoilsofAvalonBlogTour #HistoricalFiction

Twitter Tags: @hfvbt @jwriter9

Follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter form below to enter for a chance to win one copy of The Spoils of Avalon (eBook or Print, Winner's choice), open to US, UK, Canada, and Australia residents.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Merryn Allingham's The Crystal Cage - Spotlight

Publication Date: August 4, 2014
eHarlequin
eBook; ASIN: B00JTPU72S
Genre: Historical Romance

Captivated…or captured?
Appearances don’t always reveal the truth. Grace Latimer knows this better than most. Illusions of commitment and comfort have her trapped—until bohemian adventurer Nick Heysham charms his way into her world. Commissioned to recover a Great Exhibition architect’s missing designs, he persuades her to assist in his research. The mystery of the Crystal Palace seduces Grace, and once she discovers clues about a forbidden Victorian love affair, she’s lured into the deep secrets of the past…secrets that resemble her own.

As Grace and Nick dig into the elusive architect’s illicit, long-untold story, the ghosts of guilt and forbidden passion slip free. And history is bound to repeat itself, unless Grace finds the courage to break free and find a new definition of love…

Buy the eBook

Amazon Kindle
Barnes & Noble Nook
Kobo Books

About the Author

My father was a soldier and most of my childhood was spent moving from place to place, school to school, including several years living in Egypt and Germany. I loved some of the schools I attended, but hated others, so it wasn’t too surprising that I left half way through the sixth form with ‘A’ Levels unfinished.

I became a secretary, as many girls did at the time, only to realise that the role of handmaiden wasn’t for me. Escape beckoned when I landed a job with an airline. I was determined to see as much of the world as possible, and working as cabin crew I met a good many interesting people and enjoyed some great experiences – riding in the foothills of the Andes, walking by the shores of Lake Victoria, flying pilgrims from Kandahar to Mecca to mention just a few.

I still love to travel and visit new places, especially those with an interesting history, but the arrival of marriage and children meant a more settled existence on the south coast of England, where I’ve lived ever since. It also gave me the opportunity to go back to ‘school’ and eventually gain a PhD from the University of Sussex. For many years I taught university literature and loved every minute of it. What could be better than spending my life reading and talking about books? Well, perhaps writing them.

I’ve always had a desire to write but there never seemed time to do more than dabble with the occasional short story. And my day job ensured that I never lost the critical voice in my head telling me that I really shouldn’t bother. But gradually the voice started growing fainter and at the same time the idea that I might actually write a whole book began to take hold. My cats – two stunning cream and lilac shorthairs – gave their approval, since it meant my spending a good deal more time at home with them!

The 19th century is my special period of literature and I grew up reading Georgette Heyer, so when I finally found the courage to try writing for myself, the books had to be Regency romances. Over the last four years, writing as Isabelle Goddard, I’ve published six novels set in the Regency period.

Since then, I’ve moved on a few years to Victorian England, and I’ve changed genre too. The Crystal Cage is my first novel under the name of Merryn Allingham. The book is a mystery/romantic suspense and tells the story of a long-lost tragedy, and the way echoes from the past can powerfully influence the life of a modern day heroine. The next few Allingham books will see yet another move timewise. I’ve been writing a suspense trilogy set in India and wartime London during the 1930s and 1940s, and hope soon to have news of publication.

Whatever period, whatever genre, creating new worlds and sharing them with readers gives me huge pleasure and I can’t think of a better job.

Connect with Merryn Allingham on Facebook and Goodreads.

Visit other blogs on the tour--Tour Schedule

Hashtags: #TheCrystalCageBlogTour #HistoricalRomance
Twitter Tags: @hfvbt @merrynallingham

Alison Atlee's The Typewriter Girl - Book Blast {Giveaway}

Author Alison Atlee's The Typewriter Girl is now an audio book, narrated by Audie winner Rosalyn Landor, and in celebration she'll be touring the blogosphere from August 4-29 with HF Virtual Book Tours!



Audible Audio Book Edition Audible.com
Release Date: April 4, 2014
Listening Length: 12 hours and 39 minutes
Publisher: Audible Studios
Language: English
ASIN: B00JH0L9HW
Genre: Historical Fiction

     

A Pub­lish­ers Weekly Best Books of the Year pick: The Type­writer Girl is a “spec­tac­u­lar debut, set in a per­fectly real­ized Vic­to­rian England.”

When Bet­sey Dob­son dis­em­barks from the Lon­don train in the sea­side resort of Idensea, all she owns is a small valise and a canary in a cage. After an attempt to forge a let­ter of ref­er­ence she knew would be denied her, Bet­sey has been fired from the typ­ing pool of her pre­vi­ous employer. Her vig­or­ous protest left one man wounded, another jilted, and her char­ac­ter per­ma­nently besmirched.

Now, with­out money or a ref­er­ence for a new job, the future looks even bleaker than the deba­cle she left behind her.

But her life is about to change … because a young Welsh­man on the rail­road quay, wait­ing for another woman, is the one finally will­ing to believe in her.

Mr. Jones is inept in mat­ters of love, but a genius at things mechan­i­cal. In Idensea, he has con­structed a glit­ter­ing pier that astounds the wealthy tourists. And in Bet­sey, he rec­og­nizes the ideal tour man­ager for the Idensea Pier & Plea­sure Build­ing Company.

After a life­time of guard­ing her secrets and break­ing the rules, Bet­sey becomes a force to be reck­oned with. Together, she and Mr. Jones must find a way for her to suc­ceed in a soci­ety that would reject her, and fig­ure the price of sur­ren­der­ing to the tides of love.

Praise for The Typewriter Girl

“Atlee’s out¬standing debut unflinchingly explores … the unforgiving man’s world of Victorian England.” –PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)

“Easily one of the most romantic books I’ll read all year … John and Betsey are compelling and worth rooting for.” –DEAR AUTHOR (a Recommended Read)

“Sweeps readers to a satisfying conclusion.” –LIBRARY JOURNAL

Buy the AudioBook

Amazon UK Amazon US Audible.com

About the Author

Alison Atlee spent her childhood re-enacting Little Women and trying to fashion nineteenth century wardrobes for her Barbie dolls. Happily, these activities turned out to be good preparation for writing historical novels. She now lives in Kentucky. For more information please visit Alison Atlee's website. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads and Pinterest.

The Typewriter Girl Blog Tour & Book Blast Schedule

Monday, August 4
Review at Peeking Between the Pages (Audio Book)
Book Blast at Mina's Bookshelf
Book Blast at Princess of Eboli
Book Blast at Literary Chanteuse
Book Blast at What Is That Book About
Tuesday, August 5
Review at A Bibliotaph's Reviews (Print)
Book Blast at So Many Books, So Little Time
Wednesday, August 6
Book Blast at Let Them Read Books
Thursday, August 7
Book Blast at Mari Reads
Book Blast at Book Lovers Paradise
Friday, August 8
Book Blast at Book Blast Central
Saturday, August 9
Book Blast at Caroline Wilson Writes
Sunday, August 10
Book Blast at Book Nerd
Monday, August 11
Review at Just One More Chapter (Audio Book)
Book Blast at Gobs and Gobs of Books
Tuesday, August 12
Book Blast at Queen of All She Reads
Wednesday, August 13
Review at Historical Tapestry (Audio Book)
Book Blast at The Lit Bitch
Book Blast at CelticLady's Reviews
Thursday, August 14
Review at A Bookish Affair (Print)
Guest Post at Historical Tapestry
Friday, August 15
Review at Brooke Blogs (Audio Book)
Guest Post at A Bookish Affair
Saturday, August 16
Book Blast at Broken Teepee
Sunday, August 17
Interview at Closed the Cover
Monday, August 18
Review at The Maiden's Court (Audio Book)
Tuesday, August 19
Book Blast at Layered Pages
Book Blast at Always with a Book
Wednesday, August 20
Book Blast at Literary, Etc.
Thursday, August 21
Review at Books in the Burbs (Print)
Book Blast at Bibliotica
Friday, August 22
Review at Bibliophilia, Please (Audio Book)
Saturday, August 23
Book Blast at Reading Lark
Book Blast at Ageless Pages Reviews
Sunday, August 24
Book Blast at Passages to the Past
Monday, August 25
Review at Flashlight Commentary (Audio Book)
Book Blast at Historical Fiction Connection
Tuesday, August 26
Interview at Flashlight Commentary
Wednesday, August 27
Book Blast at Susan Heim on Writing
Thursday, August 28
Review at Luxury Reading (Print)
Review at Jorie Loves a Story (Print)
Friday, August 29
Interview at Jorie Loves a Story
Review at The True Book Addict (Audio Book)

The Typewriter Girl Swag Giveaway

One copy of The Typewriter Girl (Audio Book or Print)
Set of earbuds in a cute typewriter print pouch
A Typewriter Girl Happily-Ever-After t-shirt (features last lines from famous novels)
A vintage style postcard "from" Idensea, the setting of The Typewriter Girl
A "dream wildly" ribbon bookmark with typewriter key charms

To enter, please complete the Rafflecopter giveaway form below. Giveaway is open to residents in the US, Canada, and the UK.

Giveaway ends at 11:59pm on August 29th. You must be 18 or older to enter. Winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter on August 30th and notified via email. Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Joyce Wayne's Cook's Temptation - Book Blast and {Giveaway}

HF Virtual Book Tours invites you to join Joyce Wayne as she tours the blogosphere for The Cook's Temptation! Enter the giveaway to win an eBook of The Cook's Temptation or a $10 Amazon Gift Card!


Publication Date: February 1, 2014 Mosaic Press
Formats: Ebook, Paperback



Joyce Wayne brings to life the complexities of Victorian life, first in County Devon and then in London’s East End. The ‘big picture’ is about one woman’s life, class conflict, religious intolerance, suspicion and betrayal. The central figure is Cordelia, a strong-minded Jewish woman who is caught between her desire to be true to herself and her need to be accepted by English society.Cordelia Tilley is the daughter of a Jewish mother and an Anglican father. Her mother has groomed her for a life in English society while her father, a tough publican, has shown no tolerance for his wife’s social climbing or the conceits of their perspicacious daughter. Cordelia’s mother dies from typhoid fever, she tries to run the family ‘s establishment, she falls prey to a local industrialist, she gives birth to a son, she is tormented by her husband and his family. Finally, she is rescued by suffragette friends and sets off to start a new life in London.The Cook’s Temptation is about a woman who is unpredictable, both strong and weak willed, both kind and heinous, victim and criminal. It is a genuine Victorian saga, full of detail, twists and turns, memorable scenes, full of drama and pathos.

Praise for The Cook's Temptation

“Joyce Wayne’s debut novel, The Cook's Temptation, has the stately bearing of a nineteenth century novel – the mercilessness of Thomas Hardy, the black allegory of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the tense marriages of George Eliot. It is a story of how people become what you blame them for being.” – Ian Williams, poet and fiction writer, short listed for the 2012 Griffin Poetry Prize

Buy the Book

Amazon CAN
Amazon UK
Amazon US (Kindle)
Amazon US (Paperback)
Barnes & Noble
Book Depository
Chapters.Indigo
Kobo
Mosaic Press

About the Author

Joyce Wayne has an MA in English literature, has taught journalism at Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario, for twenty-five years, and lives in Toronto, Ontario. She was a winner of the Diaspora Dialogues contest for fiction and the Fiona Mee Award for literary journalism. She is the co writer of the documentary film So Far From Home (2010), a film about refugee journalists persecuted for their political views, and various of her other works have been published in Parchment, Golden Horseshoe Anthology, Canadian Voices, and TOK6.

For more information please visit Joyce Wayne's website. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. She is happy to participate in Books Clubs by phone and Skype.

Virtual Tour & Book Blast Schedule

Monday, June 9
Review at 100 Pages a Day

Tuesday, June 10
Book Blast at Bab's Book Bistro
Guest Post & Giveaway at Passages to the Past

Wednesday, June 11
Book Blast at History From a Woman's Perspective

Thursday, June 12
Book Blast at WTF Are You Reading?
Book Blast at I'd So Rather be Reading

Friday, June 13
Book Blast at Literary Chanteuse

Saturday, June 14
Book Blast at A Bookish Affair
Book Blast at Griperang's Bookmarks
Book Blast at Just One More Chapter

Sunday, June 15
Book Blast at Historical Fiction Obsession

Monday, June 16
Review at Book Nerd

Tuesday, June 17
Review at Seaside Book Corner
Book Blast at Lily Pond Reads

Wednesday, June 18
Interview at From the TBR Pile
Book Blast at Historical Tapestry

Thursday, June 19
Review at Flashlight Commentary
Book Blast at Kelsey's Book Corner

Friday, June 20
Interview at Flashlight Commentary
Book Blast at The Mad Reviewer

Saturday, June 21
Book Blast at Bibliophilic Book Blog

Sunday, June 22
Book Blast at Book Lovers Paradise
Book Blast at Historical Fiction Connection

Monday, June 23
Book Blast at History Undressed
Book Blast at CelticLady's Reviews

Tuesday, June 24
Book Blast at Mina's Bookshelf
Book Blast at Peeking Between the Pages

Wednesday, June 25
Review at Svetlana's Reads and Views
Book Blast at Broken Teepee

Thursday, June 26
Review at Caroline Wilson Writes

Friday, June 27
Review at Historical Novel Review
Interview at Oh, For the Hook of a Book

Giveaway

Up for grabs are 3x eBooks of The Cook's Temptation and 3x $10 Amazon Gift Cards! To enter, please complete the Rafflecopter giveaway form below. Giveaway is open to US & Canada residents only.

Giveaway ends at 11:59pm on June 27th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
Winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter on June 28th and notified via email.
Winner have 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

{Giveaway!} Guest Post by author Debra Brown, A Passion for the Victorian period

Please join me in welcoming to our blog today...author, Debra Brown.  

Greetings! I have enjoyed a life of reading and various kinds of creative pursuits. Although I read many Nancy Drew books as a child and especially enjoyed Charles Dickens in my school years, I didn’t really have much time for reading in my earlier adult life. Therefore, I did not find my niche, or at least realize
it, until the last decade. I now realize that the things I remember from Nancy Drew revolve around old Victorian houses! Period. And that is the sort of thing that stands out to me in anything I’ve read in the past. For the last decade and a half I had a jewelry business that was doing well, but the creative part of it was the first few years. After that, I was filling orders for repeats of the same items. It was not creative and not fulfilling. It was boring. I began to put on movies, and before long I began to order only period movies. I had fallen in love with the genre decades ago, but only realized it more recently. As the economy began to take down my jewelry business and I began to run out of new period movies to watch, I decided to, just for fun, write my own Victorian story. I had no intention of publishing it at the time. I obtained books from the library and began researching the period and enjoying pictures of the British landscape. It was then as if the book mushroomed into being in my mind. I could not get it down on paper as fast as it grew, and it was nearly impossible to sleep at night for needing to write! I fell in love with writing, and it is what I will be doing for the rest of my life. I hope others can enjoy my work as much as I do.

My book, The Companion of Lady Holmeshire, will be published this spring. Please watch for it! My book site and a Reader’s Game are at http://t.co/MmYrIEh. I will give away a download copy of the book here, via the Historical Fiction Connection. I thank Michelle for the privilege of posting here. And now for the story!


A foundling infant, early in Queen Victoria's reign, grown to become the lovely servant girl, Miss Emma Carrington, has been chosen by the Countess of Holmeshire as her companion to keep her from the lonely hours of widowhood. Emma returns from London, where she had been receiving training in the arts of refinement, to the country castle home of the Lady in Northumbria. There she receives a warm welcome from her former workmates downstairs. The Countess intends to introduce this former servant girl into aristocratic society, alongside herself, despite much anxiety over it on the part of the former housemaid. Soon the Lady’s son, the 7th Earl of Holmeshire, who is engaged to an aristocratic London lady, returns from his travels to the Continent. How does he take to the presence of this former servant girl at tea? A day in the village below reveals some hint of danger to Emma; what is the source of that threat? Follow the enjoyable (nonerotic) romantic developments and enjoy life with both the aristocrats and the servants. Join them as they travel into London for The Season, and learn how Emma is received, or not, in snobbish upper class society. See some of the harsh realities of life while visiting a poor area in Victorian London. Attend a ball along with the young Queen Victoria. Follow the backstory into the Regency era. Last, but not least, quite some intriguing mystery has been woven through the book: an expensive bracelet has been stolen, and the identities and behaviors of several people are puzzling. See what you can deduce before reading the last two chapters! Please leave your guesses on my Reader's Game page. And then watch for the great surprise ending!

If you would like to win this download copy of Debra's book, please comment below with your email address and tell us what is your favorite aspect of the Victorian period in history.


--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.  You may put everything in ONE comment.
--Since this is a download copy, the giveaway is open worldwide and will end on Tues, 5/31 at 11:59 pm CT

Thanks for stopping by and for entering! And thanks again to Debra for being our guest today!