Sandra Schwab's A Tangled Web - Spotlight

Publication Date: July 14, 2014
eBook; 104p
ASIN: B00LXU6EWE
Series: Allan’s Miscellany
Genre: Historical Romance

Lawrence Pelham works as a comic artist for Allan’s Miscellany. A chance meeting with a young woman dressed in mourning changes Pel’s whole life, and without his even knowing, he is thrown into a world of mystery and intrigue, where nothing is as it seems to be—especially not the woman he has given his heart to.

Her whole life Sarah Browne has been told how plain she is, how nondescript, destined to become an old maid. For years she has been her family’s dutiful nursing maid and caretaker, but now a secret inheritance and an encounter with the charming Mr. Pelham seem to offer her a chance to break out of her life of duty and drudgery—if she dares to take it. Yet how could such an interesting, witty man like Mr. Pelham be possibly interested in her boring self?

And so, Sarah soon finds herself entangled in a web of lies and deceit, which might even cost her the love of her life.

Praise for A Tangled Web
“Once again [Schwab] weaves brilliantly researched historical details into a story that not only is irresistibly romantic, but also sparkles with wit. To top it off, she has come up with an enchanting couple that truly earns their happy ending.” ~ Tina Dick, LoveLetter

Praise for The Bride Prize
“The Bride Prize is, in a word, delightful. [...] I smiled for a long time when it was over. I cannot wait until the next installment in this series.” ~ Michelle Boule, www.wanderingeye.com

Allan’s Miscellany Series Titles
Book One: The Bride Prize
Book Two: Falling For a Scoundrel
Book Three: A Tangled Web
Book Four: Devil’s Return

About the Author
Award-winning author Sandra Schwab started writing her first novel when she was seven years old. Thirty-odd years later, telling stories is still her greatest passion, even though by now she has exchanged her pink fountain pen of old for a black computer keyboard. Since the release of her debut novel in 2005, she has enchanted readers worldwide with her unusual historical romances.

She holds a PhD in English literature and lives in Frankfurt am Main / Germany with a sketchbook, a sewing machine, and an ever-expanding library. Her new series about the fictional magazine Allan’s Miscellany combines her academic research on Victorian periodicals with her love for story-telling.

For more information please visit Sandra Schwab’s website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and GoodReads.

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Rebecca Hazell's Consolamentum Brings Us to the End of Sofia's Story - Author Guest Post and {Giveaway}

A LOVE WORTH WAITING FOR?

One of the central themes of my historical trilogy, set in the turbulent 13th century, is love. Those who have read the first two in the series, The Grip of God and Solomon’s Bride, know that in the first volume, its heroine, Sofia, was captured and enslaved by a Mongol lord. While he fell in love with her, she was too angry and wounded by her fall into slavery to even notice how he felt.

Yet as she came to see and appreciate him as he was, she also began to learn what love might mean beyond her childish dreams of a handsome prince who would cherish and protect her. Ironically, her master fit that description and all she wanted to do was escape!

And, in Solomon’s Bride, having fallen into a new form of captivity in Iran (isolation in a harem and then in Alamut, capital of the Assassins), Sofia discovered that love and marriage weren’t necessarily going to be part of her destiny. She married twice, out of necessity, but didn’t find love. Only after she traveled west and met a knight who reminded her of her father (shades of Freud) did she fall in love. But he proved to be both mysterious and elusive until, with a crusade looming, it was almost too late for love; and then both politics and duty came between them. The reader is left wondering whether she can ever find the right man to love.

This question is answered in the third novel, Consolamentum, by which time Sofia has matured and become a woman of the world. She’s no longer naïve about marriage, but she still wants love—as well as independence—more than a wedding ring. So, though she has several suitors, she maintains her solitary life, willing to be content with other sources of love like an orphanage and her love child from a brief affair with her knight.

But this third novel also asks further questions about love: where does loyalty fit in where the king comes first and the wife comes second, how much power can a medieval woman realistically retain when she marries, is it worth giving up your independence for love, and can love survive threats to survival? And ultimately, knowing that lovers will always remain a mystery to each other, how can they find the intimacy of mind and heart that we all yearn for? For Sofia, there are compromises to be made, but in the end, she boldly answers her own question: yes, there is a love worth waiting for!

About the book

In the finale of Sofia's memoir, Consolamentum, both dramatic and poignant, her dreams of home are shattered when her own family betrays her. Raising her child on her own, mourning the loss of her beloved knight, and building a trading empire, she seeks safe haven for her child and herself. Her quest takes her from Antioch to Constantinople to Venice. A surprise reunion in Venice leads her to France where she runs afoul of the newly established Holy Inquisition, possibly the greatest challenge she has yet faced. Can a woman so marked by oppression, betrayal, and danger ever find her safe haven, much less genuine happiness?

The novel is available both in paperback and Kindle versions and through your local bookstore by special order.

About the author

Rebecca Hazell is a an award winning artist, author and educator. She has written, illustrated and published four non-fiction children’s books, created best selling educational filmstrips, designed educational craft kits for children and even created award winning needlepoint canvases. She is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, and she holds an honours BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz in Russian and Chinese history.

Rebecca lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1988 she and her family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in 2006 she and her husband moved to Vancouver Island. They live near their two adult children in the beautiful Cowichan Valley.

Visit Rebecca:

Website | Goodreads | Facebook

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Follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter to enter to win the entire trilogy, The Grip of God, Solomon's Bride and Consolamentum, Kindle editions - open internationally! Good luck!

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Kari Edgren's Goddess Born - Guest Post

Have Imagination, Will Travel

I am passionate for history. My children might even use the word ‘fanatic’ after a family vacation to France. Not that I blame them entirely, stumbling upon me as I gazed in awed reverence at an old stone privy. But, hello, Richard the Lion Heart had once sat there—in that exact spot. Who in their right mind wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the very place he’d set his naked buttocks and perhaps contemplated his next military maneuver?

The idea of time-travel is enough to leave me shaky with anticipation, and inevitably, unfulfilled longing. Heaven knows, I’ve had enough conversations (rather one-sided I admit) with Elizabeth Tudor and Eleanor of Aquitaine, that they now feel like old friends. And if I ever snagged a fairy or unearthed a genie, I’d wish for the ability to traverse time.

The first place I’d visit would be eighteenth century England. The Enlightenment was in full swing, as were the people on all levels of society. They were bawdy, rambunctious, and full of life—not at all stayed and uptight like their descendants that would soon fill the Regency and Victorian eras. They had a sense of humor and used it liberally, whether laughing at each other or at themselves. I mean, who couldn’t love a period that gave us Shamela and The Beggar’s Opera.

Of course, I couldn’t leave without visiting the American Colonies to experience the tremendous vitality that precipitated the birth of a nation. Those who flocked to this new land—adventurers, religious zealots and criminals—may not have been as easy going as their English cousins, but they certainly didn’t lack for spunk. They’re also family, so crazy or not, they’re mine to claim.

My trips through time could never last long though, maybe a week or two at the most. I am too much a daughter of the modern world. Inevitably, I would shoot off my mouth and be carted to the gallows for either treason or blasphemy. And that would put a damper on any vacation.

So perhaps it’s best that I put my passion into writing to recreate the history I love. A partial time travel, if you will, of the mind if not the body. It’s not a perfect solution, but at least the conversations are two-sided.

About the book

Publication Date: May 29, 2014
Carina Press
eBook; ISBN: 9781426898365
Genre: Historical/Fantasy/Paranormal/New Adult/Romance

2013 RWA Golden Heart© Finalist
2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist

The power to heal is her divine gift, the fear of discovery, her mortal curse.

Selah Kilbrid is caught between two worlds. A direct descendant of the Celtic goddess Brigid, she is bound by Tuatha Dé law to help those in need. Yet as a human, she must keep her unique abilities hidden or risk being charged for a witch. In 1730 Pennsylvania, the Quaker community of Hopewell has become a haven for religious freedom—and fanaticism—and there are those who would see her hanged if the truth were revealed.

For eighteen years, Selah safely navigates the narrow gap between duty and self-preservation, until the day a prominent minister uncovers her secret. Obsessed with her power, Nathan Crowley disregards her betrothal to a distant cousin from Ireland and demands marriage in exchange for his silence. Selah stalls for time, but when news reaches the Colonies of her cousin’s death, time has run out.

Rather than submit to Nathan, Selah coerces a stranger to pose as her husband. It’s a good plan—her only plan—even though Henry Alan harbors his own dark secrets. But when she returns to Hopewell a married woman, the real fight has just begun. As unseen forces move against her, Selah doesn’t know which poses the greater danger—a malignant shadow closing in from outside or the internal fire that threatens to consume her heart.

Book Two in the Goddess Born series will be published in November 2014 and Book Three in June 2015.

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Carina Press

About the Author
Kari Edgren did not dream of becoming a writer. Instead, she dreamed of everything else and was often made to stay inside during kindergarten recess to practice her letters. Despite doting parents and a decent school system, Ms. Edgren managed to make it through elementary school having completed only one book cover to cover – The Box Car Children, which she read approximately forty-seven times. Things improved during high school, but not until she read Gabrielle Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude in college, did she truly understand the power of a book.

Ms. Edgren aspires to be a Vulcan, a world-acclaimed opera singer, and two inches taller. She resides in the Pacific NW where she spends a great deal of time torturing her husband and children with strange food and random historical facts. Ms. Edgren hasn’t stopped dreaming, but has finally mastered her letters enough to put the stories on paper.

For more information please visit Kari Edgren’s website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

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Mirella Schirillo Patzer's The Novice - Spotlight and {Giveaway}

Publication Date: September 15, 2014
H&W Press
Formats: eBook, Paperback; 380p
Genre: Historical Fiction/Historical Romance

A young woman on the verge of taking her vows to become a nun.
A desperate flight from a murderous massacre.
One honorable man comes to her rescue.
Another becomes her nemesis and captor.
And a life and death search to reunite with her one true love.

In 10th century Naples, Saracens run rampant, annihilating villages, murdering women and children. Death and despair is everywhere. Alone in the world, Sara is a young novice plagued with doubts about taking her final vows to become a nun. When her convent is attacked, she flees for her life straight into the arms of a group of Saracens who leave her to die alone in the woods. An honorable cavaliere named Nicolo comes to her rescue and offers to take her to the safety of Naples. As they journey together, they are irresistibly drawn to each other. Believing Sara to be a nun, the honorable Nicolo is torn between love and duty to respect her vows. Heartbroken, he does what honor demands and sets her free before she can tell him the truth that she is not a nun. In her search to reunite with Nicolo, she encounters Umberto, a dark and dangerous man who will stop at nothing in his obsession to possess her. With her sharp intellect, and her heart, Sara must rely on her own courage and strength to escape her abuser and find the only man she will ever love. A story that burns with intensity, intrigue, and passion from the author of the highly successful novel, Orphan of the Olive Tree.

Excerpt

Chapter One
Village of Gaeta
North of Naples

THE MASSACRE CAUGHT the villagers of Gaeta by surprise. In the convent of Santa Maria delle Vergine, the first shrieks of the Saracen raiders as they raced down the hills and then into the outskirts
of the village had forced the small group of nuns from their beds. Some rushed to the chapel to face the enemy. The others fled terrorized into the summer night. They were the lucky ones; that desperate flight
would save their lives.

Protected by the hood of her mantle, Sara, a novice, the convent’s only inhabitant who had not yet taken her vows, stood among the sisters clustering together on the crest of a hill next to a grove of trees. She shivered against the fading night’s breeze. A full moon and the first rays of dawn combined to shed a scarce light over the valley below. She gazed down at the village of Gaeta, a sprawling mass of land surrounded on three sides the sea, that consisted of a handful of buildings and homes, a church, and their convent. An eerie mist hung above it.

The desolate tolling of the church bell suddenly rose up on the wind.

Sara watched in horror as Muslim warriors galloped through the village bellowing their war cries. A knot of terror jammed in her chest when she saw them enter the convent. She held up a hand, a plea for the women to listen. The church bell suddenly ceased ringing. Screams, shrieks, and moans leapt out of the silence like sparks from a fire. Stunned, Sara could not tear her gaze away from the Saracen marauders who attacked homes, broke down doors and windows, and dragged villagers and nuns outside to meet their demise. The world was truly desolate, without redemption. The villagers were people she knew, whom she had toiled with, and served. There had been no time to warn or save anyone. To each his own. The Saracens were bent at slaughter.

A group of villagers had barricaded themselves inside the church. The attackers set fire to the building and waited for them to flee the smoke and flames. Then the bloodthirsty murderers, wielding axes and swords, struck them down. For years, these Muslim enemies had burned towns, hamlets, churches, orchards, pastures, and vineyards. The hatred the Saracens bore for the people of the Italian peninsula had resulted in battles that had raged for decades. The reason for the hatred, however, had long faded from everyone’s minds.

Sara had never experienced anything like this before – the massacre of an entire village. Cold stark horror gripped her.

Gaeta's rude houses were scattered over a wide area. Even if most of the villagers had not been surprised in their beds, they had little chance to help one another. The Saracens slew without mercy, torching structures at random. Known for their merciless brutality, Sara had heard stories of captives being impaled, of fingernails pulled out and limbs hacked off, even decapitations or being roasted alive at the stake.

All she and the nuns could do was watch in horror. The women were unable to tear their gazes from the death striking those who had not been fortunate enough to escape. Some of the sisters fell to their knees to pray and weep. One fainted and lay huddled against a tree trunk.

About the Author
A true blue Taurean in every way, Mirella Sichirollo Patzer grew up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a city famous for the Calgary Stampede, oil companies, and the wild west. Historical fiction books are one of her obsessions, especially those that pertain to medieval eras and with Italy as a backdrop. Her fascination for women of history and Italy is often reflected in her work, her various blogs, and website. She lives in Cochrane, Alberta, Canada with her husband and family. Her house is brimming with books and toys. For her, life couldn’t get any better.

For more information please visit Mirella’s website. Mirella also blogs at History and Women & Historical Novel Review. Connect with Mirella on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Pinterest.

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Regan Walker's The Red Wolf's Prize - Guest Post

What Women Did Following the Norman Conquest

In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy took England by force, his knights spreading across the land like a horde of locusts. Many English, both Saxons in the south and those farther north, died at the Battle of Hastings and the Battle of Stamford Bridge that preceded it. Although William took the title of King of England, not all of England accepted him as such. His dominion was primarily in the old kingdoms of Wessex, Kent, Sussex and Essex in the south. Those who did not accept him continued their defiance for
years. But what was a woman to do in the midst of this?

In a feudal society, the king owned all the land. Though some women owned land in England before the Conquest, this involved less than 5% of the land. While some Anglo-Saxon nobles retained their land because of their loyalty to William, eventually he pulled nearly all the land to himself and rewarded those men who followed him to England, in some cases ordering them to build a castle on the land he gave them, and in all cases requiring an oath of loyalty, taxes and service. The Anglo-Saxon nobles, for the most part, lost their lands and titles—and many of their women, too, since William married his followers to English heiresses. So many English landowners were killed at Hastings and the battles that followed, there were a great number of heiresses (both daughters and widows) available to be married off to Normans.

But not all the English noblewomen went along with William’s plans. Many chose to take the veil and become nuns rather than be subjected to abuse by Norman knights and mercenaries or risk marriage to Norman nobles. It was “not for love of religious life but from fear of the French,” according to Oderic Vitalis, that they joined convents. These women would, of course, be required to endow the nunnery they entered with the amount they would have for a dowry.

Still, there was another option open to an English maiden, one that my heroine, Serena, in The Red Wolf’s Prize would choose—escape to Scotland. Anglo-Saxons from England sought refuge in Scotland and King Malcolm III was happy to provide it. The Scottish Lowlands, where King Malcolm established his capital in Dunfermline, already played host to a mix of Scots, Britons, Angles and Saxons, so what was a few more? After the Conquest, Edgar Aetheling, heir to the Saxon throne, joined them and fled to Scotland. One of his sisters, Margaret, married the Scottish king and did much good, becoming St. Margaret of Scotland, revered to this day.

About the book
Publication Date: October 1, 2014
CreateSpace
Paperback; 245p
ISBN: 978-06-15978-14-7
Genre: Historical Romance

HE WOULD NOT BE DENIED HIS PRIZE

Sir Renaud de Pierrepont, the Norman knight known as the Red Wolf for the beast he slayed with his bare hands, hoped to gain lands with his sword. A year after the Conquest, King William rewards his favored knight with Talisand, the lands of an English thegn slain at Hastings, and orders him to wed Lady Serena, the heiress that goes with them.

SHE WOULD LOVE HIM AGAINST HER WILL

Serena wants nothing to do with the fierce warrior to whom she has been unwillingly given, the knight who may have killed her father. When she learns the Red Wolf is coming to claim her, she dyes her flaxen hair brown and flees, disguised as a servant, determined to one day regain her lands. But her escape goes awry and she is brought back to live among her people, though not unnoticed by the new Norman lord.

Deprived of his promised bride, the Red Wolf turns his attention to the comely servant girl hoping to woo her to his bed. But the wench resists, claiming she hates all Normans.

As the passion between them rises, Serena wonders, can she deny the Norman her body? Or her heart?

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Praise for The Red Wolf’s Prize

“Ms. Walker has the rare ability to make you forget you are reading a book…the characters become real, the modern world fades away and all that is left is the intrigue, drama and romance.” – Straight from the Library

“An engrossing love story grounded in meticulous research. Regan Walker makes the transition from Regency London to Anglo Norman England with consummate ease.” – Glynn Holloway, author of 1066 What Fates Impose

“Regan Walker has delivered an exciting tale and a passionate love story that brings to life England after the Conquest—medieval romance at its best!” – Virginia Henley New York Times Bestselling Author

“Regan Walker has once again written a story that grabs hold and doesn’t let go. There is intrigue, action and a beautifully developed romance.” – Vickie Moore, The Reading Cafe

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About the Author
As a child Regan Walker loved to write stories, particularly about adventure-loving girls, but by the time she got to college more serious pursuits took priority. One of her professors encouraged her to pursue the profession of law, which she did. Years of serving clients in private practice and several stints in high levels of government gave her a love of international travel and a feel for the demands of the “Crown” on its subjects. Hence her romance novels often involve a demanding sovereign who thinks of his subjects as his private talent pool. Regan lives in San Diego with her golden retriever, Link, whom she says inspires her every day to relax and smell the roses. For more information please visit Regan Walker’s website andblog. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

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