UPDATES and Giveaways!

Hello fellow book lovers! I just wanted to step in and say we are indeed still here.. but obviously neglected the HF-Connection this month in favor of real life and our own personal blogs! Summer is coming to an end, and fall is around the corner already!! I hope everyone has had a safe and happy summer.

Just to update you where we have been, Michelle is co-hosting the Wolf Hall Read Along, feel free to jump in during the conversation posts at any time, even if you've read it a few years ago!

Find more information on Michelle's blog, The True Book Addict and at her co-host Kai's blog at Fiction State of Mind.  The read-a-long will run from August 4 - September 15.  You can find out all the details by visiting the Schedule post HERE.  I hope you will join in!


There are also two very fun giveaways going on at Burton Book Review.. one is a Ten book giveaway of some fabulous Historical Fiction titles! You have to hurry though, because it ends later today on 8/30/2012.

And to celebrate the US release of Elizabeth Chadwick's A Place Beyond Courage, there is a book giveaway for both A Place Beyond Courage AND The Greatest Knight... enter at the book review link here. That one ends 9/3/2012.

Any ideas for a future read along? Some that have been swirling in my head are Katherine by Anya Seton, Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman, and The Crown by Nancy Bilyeau. And always in the back of my mind are titles by Jean Plaidy aka Victoria Holt aka Phillipa Carr... what are you guys in the mood for? I am thinking this would be sometime around October depending on your input! See you in the blogosphere!

After the Fog by Kathleen Shoop

Please welcome to HF-Connection author of After The Fog, Kathleen Shoop




After the Fog (April 12, 2012)

 

For every woman who thinks she left her past behind...

It's 1948 in the steel town of Donora, Pennsylvania, site of the infamous “killing smog.” Public health nurse, Rose Pavlesic, has risen above her orphaned upbringing and created a life that reflects everything she missed as a child. She’s even managed to keep her painful secrets hidden from her doting husband, loving children, and large extended family.

When a stagnant weather pattern traps poisonous mill gasses in the valley, neighbors grow sicker and Rose’s nursing obligations thrust her into conflict she never could have fathomed. Consequences from her past collide with her present life, making her once clear decisions as gray as the suffocating smog. As pressure mounts, Rose finds she’s not the only one harboring lies. When the deadly fog finally clears, the loss of trust and faith leaves the Pavlesic family—and the whole town—splintered and shocked. With her new perspective, can Rose finally forgive herself and let her family’s healing begin?

Love in the Time of Dirt and Grime by Kathleen Shoop

My latest novel, After the Fog, is historical fiction. It bursts with historical details that illustrate what the citizens of Donora, Pennsylvania experienced during the historic 1948 killing smog. Of course, being fiction—the storyline and the characters that bring the historic facts to life are creations of my imagination. After the Fog is a gritty tale as any story set in a vintage mill town must be. The dirt, toxins, and soot coming from the steel mills and from one’s own furnace dirtied even the most conscientious housewife’s home, clothing, furniture, and skin.

For the men, the work of the day was bone-crushing hard and scorching hot. Though the mill-work might have appeared to outsiders to be mindless, most of the jobs demanded intricate skill and complete focus in order to keep from losing a finger, a leg, a life.

Things may have been simpler in 1948, but they were also physically demanding. Depending on economic status and geographical location people may not have embodied the sanitized, sitcom-style language and manners that we have come to associate with that “innocent” post-war era. One article that appeared in The New Yorker (The Fog, Berton Roueche’, 1950) quoted a Donora doctor saying, “My God it [smoke] just lay there! I thought, well, God damn…” The coarse, public language of a physician (and others) was not uncommon in steel towns all over western Pennsylvania.

Even though my characters were crafted to reflect the harsh place and time, they needed to be humanized. I needed something in the book to offset the grittiness and so I gave Rose and Henry a loving though imperfect relationship. Henry is a steel-worker who loves poetry. He tries to work out his worries about the world through his own writing and by reading WH Auden. His wife, Rose, has more trouble accessing and expressing her feelings than Henry. She is a practical, straightforward community nurse—in some ways machine-like. For her, moving ahead means not looking back as her early, orphaned life left her emotional wounds scarred over.

To further humanize Rose and Henry I gave them a sex life. I thought it fit in that the couple found communicating through affection more profitable than by connecting through endless discussion. Henry passes Rose in the kitchen, and pulls her into a quick hug. She gently tends to his slag injury even while scolding him. They are rarely in the same room where one doesn’t touch the other in some way before the scene ends—meanwhile both are keeping secrets.

The touching, the unspoken tenderness affords Henry and Rose the opportunity to hope they are insuring their marital bond is strong, even when their lies distance them. Their intimate moments could hardly be characterized as tantalizing, but instead are utilitarian—a tool for human connection when all else fails. So no, After the Fog is not a romance by genre, but I think it is, indeed, a love story.

About Kathleen Shoop:

After the Fog is the second historical fiction novel by bestselling Kindle author Kathleen Shoop. It has garnered awards including Winner, Literary Fiction, from the National Indie Excellence Book Awards. Her debut novel, The Last Letter, sold more than 50,000 copies and garnered multiple awards in 2011, including the Independent Publisher Awards Gold Medal. A Language Arts Coach with a Ph.D. in Reading Education, Kathleen lives in Oakmont, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

You can download After the Fog on Amazon for $2.99

Join Us for a Wolf Hall Read-a-Long

I am hosting a Wolf Hall Read-a-Long at my main book blog, The True Book Addict.  My co-host is Kai at Fiction State of Mind.  The read-a-long will run from August 4 - September 15.  You can find out all the details by visiting the sign-up post HERE.  I hope you will join us!

Part 4: The Queen's Vow FINAL Discussion Post

(Click for Read Along Schedule)
Part I's Discussion Post
Part II's Discussion Post
Part III's Discussion Post


Part IV: The Fallen Kingdom 1481-1492

Final Thoughts:


As I write 1492 as the end of Part IV.. is that where it ends? 1492? It is a year that is entrenched in our heads as the year of Cristobal Colon sailed the ocean blue.. and here we are finally at the conclusion of The Queen's Vow.


We do meet Cristobal Colon aka Columbus, and all his saucy ways as he introduces himself to Isabella. Isabella is portrayed as being very interested in exploring the world unknown. Does Isabella see World Domination in her future as she gazes at Colon?

Also in this part, Isabella is a target of assassination. One wonders what would have become of the Inquisition if the attempt succeeded? Would Fernando have taken up the banner and continued his fight against the Moors and Jewish?

Did you feel that the decision to conquer the Moors was a good one, considering the financial state of both Castile and Aragon, and the Cortes' reluctance to borrow heavily from the Jewish citizens?


Isabella is willing to send prisoners to slavery, only to be ransomed for money to be released. Yet another sad state of the times connected to Isabella is the slavery issue. I can appreciate how Gortner is adding these small details so that we can discern for ourselves the character of Isabella, especially when he is making sure he doesn't paint her in an all too positive light.

One can't help but wonder how Isabella would feel knowing that her daughter Catherine was divorced by Henry VIII but that her grand-daughter Mary had the same zealous religious intolerance as Isabella.

If you've read The Last Queen, do you have any thoughts on the scene between Juana and her grandmother? Juana, in general, is given a lively, stubborn personality in this book and a loving relationship with her father; do you feel it plays up well to the author's novel on her life?

From previous comments during this read-along, it is apparent that we all have different perspectives and reading tastes. Did you find the political maneuverings, the religious strife or Isabella's personal life the most pleasing to read?

Throughout the story, which characters have been your favorites?

How do you interpret the title, The Queen's Vow? What was Isabella's vow, and did she carry it out to your expectations?

What are your final thoughts? Please feel free to post your review links if you are a blogger as well as continue our discussion on Part 4 and on the novel as a whole.

You can read Michelle's review here.
You can read Marie's review here.
You can read Arleigh's review Monday. ;)


AND...Drum roll, please!

Arleigh offered a special giveaway, and it's time to announce our winner:

Christina!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Please put your email address in the comments so we can discuss shipment!

Thank you so much for participating, this was a lot of fun!


If you are itching for another read along Michelle is co-hosting a read along of Wolf Hall, posts will be held at other blogs.. see the details here.

Till next time...

Part 3: The Queen's Vow Discussion Post

(Click for Read Along Schedule)

Part III: The Double-edged Sword 1474-1480 (pages 219-299)

This section opens up with Isabella finally obtaining the crown of Castile. Her husband is away, and Isabella goes through the motions of becoming Queen without Fernando at her side. This does not bode well when he returns from Aragon, as we see Fernando green with envy, or angry at her advisers, or upset that Isabella is not a whimpering female willing to wait for Fernando's approval.

As we turn the pages, we see Isabella grow confident and struggle less with major decisions, and although she adores Fernando, she also adores Castile. If she had to choose, who will she choose? The same could be said for Fernando: if he had to choose Aragon over Isabella, what would his choice be?

The apparition-like figure in white makes an appearance when Isabella is crowned..is she hallucinating? Is she touched by God? It can only be a sign of things to come. And we learn Fernando is not faithful to Isabella, how has this changed your view of him? Several of our readers here had expressed a liking for him, is that still the case?

After reading the Tudor novels featuring Catherine of Aragon, Isabella's daughter, we have had visions of Isabella in our heads of the fearless warrior of Isabella fighting the moors and birthing her many babies. Part III does indeed have Isabella running off into the middle of conflict. Does this telling change your previous views of Isabella, and of her marriage?

What if the first person narrative was taken away and Gortner used a third person perspective? Do you think there would be more depth to the story if Gortner had that ability?

"Would I never be satisfied by the efforts of anyone, most of all my own self?"


In her own words, Isabella laments over her self expectations and those she sometimes irrationally sets to others. Do you feel this is a failure of hers, or does it make her a stronger monarch?

Isabella felt a shift in her marriage after the stand-still with Portugal. Do you feel her relationship with Fernado changed after this event?

What is your opinion of Carrillo? Were you disappointed with him, or did you see his perfidy coming?

As the story shifted from gaining the throne and subduing the nobles to church reform, were you surprised to find Isabella so lax toward the Jewish community and loath to bring upheaval to her newly won subjects?

Heirs, printing presses and eclipses...what was your favorite surprise from this part of the story?

For those who have read The Last Queen, what did you think of the (prophetic?) birth of Juana? (my favorite scene).

The section ends with the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition. Were you surprised at Isabella's reluctance (as I was), and Fernando's support of the religious purging?

~~

Now that we've read three parts of Gortner's novel, we need to begin to gather our final thoughts for the discussion post this Saturday. We have all been applauding Gortner's writing, the story, our awe for the characters. Let's get deeper, and see if we can find something that irked us. Was there anything in the story that bothered you? Was there anything missing? Is there something you would have preferred to be explored deeper? Which 'Part' was your favorite? Save those final thoughts for Saturday! And get your reviews ready, you can post your review links on the final discussion post as well.