Mary Anne Yarde's Blog: The Coffee Pot Book Club , page 40

Welcome to Day #4 of the blog tour for A Rooster for Asklepios (A Slave's Story Trilogy, Book 1) By Christopher D. Stanley #HistoricalFiction #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub @aslavesstory @BritonandDane

 

January 4th – January 15th 2021
Amazon UK • Amazon US • Amazon CA • Amazon AU 

Publication Date:  May 23rd 2020
Publisher: Amelia Books
Page Length: 522 pages Genre: Historical Fiction
Marcus, a slave in the household of Lucius Coelius Felix, enjoys a better life than most slaves (and many free citizens) as the secretary and accountant of a wealthy aristocrat.  His master is rising in the civic life of the Roman colony of Antioch-near-Pisidia (central Turkey), and his responsibilities and income are growing as well. If this continues, he could soon earn enough to buy his freedom, set up a small business, and even marry.  
Then misfortune strikes, and his master falls into a deep depression that is exacerbated by a nagging illness that his physician is unable to cure.  The future looks bleak until the physician receives a dream from the healing god Asklepios calling Lucius to travel hundreds of miles across western Asia Minor to his sanctuary at Pergamon for treatment and, he hopes, a cure. Accompanied by Marcus and his new wife Selena, Lucius embarks on a long and eventful journey in which both master and slave encounter people and ideas that challenge long-held beliefs about themselves, their society, and the world around them.  Values are questioned, loyalties tested, and identities transformed in a story that brings to life a corner of the Roman empire that has been neglected by previous storytellers.
Check out Let Your Words Shine... to find a book spotlight and excerpt from this fabulous book!
Click HERE!

 

Welcome to Day #4 of the blog tour for A Painter in Penang (Penang Series, Book 3) By Clare Flynn #HistoricalFiction #APainterinPenang #CoffeePotBookClub @clarefly @CraftygasheadZo

 

January 4th – January 15th 2021

Amazon

Publication Date: 6th October 2020

Publisher: Cranbrook Press

Page Length: 362 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

Sixteen-year-old Jasmine Barrington hates everything about living in Kenya and longs to return to the island of Penang in British colonial Malaya where she was born. Expulsion from her Nairobi convent school offers a welcome escape – the chance to stay with her parents’ friends, Mary and Reggie Hyde-Underwood on their Penang rubber estate.

But this is 1948 and communist insurgents are embarking on a reign of terror in what becomes the Malayan Emergency. Jasmine goes through testing experiences – confronting heartache, a shocking past secret and danger. Throughout it all, the one constant in her life is her passion for painting.

From the international best-selling and award-winning author of The Pearl of Penang, this is a dramatic coming of age story, set against the backdrop of a tropical paradise torn apart by civil war.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Clare Flynn is the author of twelve historical novels and a collection of short stories. A former International Marketing Director and strategic management consultant, she is now a full-time writer. 

Having lived and worked in London, Paris, Brussels, Milan and Sydney, home is now on the coast, in Sussex, England, where she can watch the sea from her windows. An avid traveller, her books are often set in exotic locations.

Clare is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of The Society of Authors, Novelists Inc (NINC), ALLi, the Historical Novel Society and the Romantic Novelists Association, where she serves on the committee as the Member Services Officer. When not writing, she loves to read, quilt, paint and play the piano. She continues to travel as widely and as far as possible all over the world.

Head on over to Zoe's Art, Craft & Life to find a review of this fabulous book!
Click HERE!

Check out David Fitz-Gerald's fabulous book - She Sees Ghosts #HistoricalFiction #Paranormal #CoffeePotBookClub @AuthorDAVIDFG

 

Publication Date: October 25, 2020 Publisher: Outskirts PressPage Length: 270 pagesGenre Historical/Supernatural
A blazing fire killed her family and devoured her home. A vengeful demon haunted her. Ghosts of the Revolutionary War needed help that only she could provide. A young woman languished, desperate to survive, and teetered on the edge of sanity.
Mehitable grew up in a freshly tamed town, carved from the primeval forest. Family, friends, and working at the mercantile filled her days and warmed her heart. For Mehitable, life was simple and safe, until tragedy struck. When her family perished in their burning home, she retreated into a world of her own making.
As a young girl, she had seen glimmers, glimpses, and flickers of the spirit world. She closed her eyes. She turned her back. She ignored the apparitions that she never spoke of, desperately hoping they would leave her in peace. She was mistaken.
Grief-stricken, Mehitable withdrew from the human world. Ghosts were everywhere. They became bolder. She could no longer turn her back on the spirit world. Her friends feared for her survival. Nobody understood her. She would have to find her own way.
Fans of TV’s Ghost Whisperer and Long Island Medium will especially love She Sees Ghosts. This historical novel features memorable characters and delivers bone-tingling, spine chilling goosebumps. It stands on its own and it is the next installment in the Adirondack Spirit Series by the award-winning author of Wanders Far―An Unlikely Hero’s Journey. David Fitz-Gerald delivers a historical novel with a bittersweet ending that you won’t see coming.
Would she save the spirits’ souls, or would they save her? Only time would tell.

Amazon





David Fitz-Gerald writes fiction that is grounded in history and soars with the spirits. Dave enjoys getting lost in the settings he imagines and spending time with the characters he creates. Writing historical fiction is like making paintings of the past. He loves to weave fact and fiction together, stirring in action, adventure, romance, and a heavy dose of the supernatural with the hope of transporting the reader to another time and place. He is an Adirondack 46-er, which means that he has hiked all of the highest peaks in New York State, so it should not be surprising when Dave attempts to glorify hikers as swashbuckling superheroes in his writing. She Sees Ghosts―A Story of a Woman Who Rescues Lost Souls is the next instalment in the Adirondack Spirit Series.

Connect with David:
Website • Twitter • Facebook • Instagram

Join author, Jennifer Macaire and find out what life was like in the last Ice-Age! There is also a chance to check out Jennifer's fabulous #NewRelease - A Remedy In Time #TimeTravel @jennifermacaire

Publication Date: 7th January 2021Publisher: Headline Accent Page Length: 192 PagesGenre: Time Travel / Historical

To save the future, she must turn to the past . . .

San Francisco, Year 3377. A deadly virus has taken the world by storm. Scientists are desperately working to develop a vaccine. And Robin Johnson - genius, high-functioning, and perhaps a little bit single-minded - is delighted. Because, to cure the disease, she's given the chance to travel back in time.

But when Robin arrives at the last Ice Age hoping to stop the virus at its source, she finds more there than she bargained for. And just as her own chilly exterior is beginning to thaw, she realises it's not only sabre-toothed tigers that are in danger of extinction . . .

'A fascinating glimpse into the Ancient World jam-packed with adventure and colour.' 

Jodi Taylor, author of the best-selling Chronicles of St Mary's series

History is a funny thing. Since writing was developed, we have a good idea (although not always an exact idea) of what happened in the past. We have bills of sale, letters, diaries, books, and poems to tell us how people lived, thought, and loved. But what about prehistoric times when there was no written record? Sure, there are paintings on the walls of caves and some carvings in ivory and stone, relics of jewelry, weapons, and even a few bones. But the truth is, we have very little idea of how people in prehistoric times really lived. All of the bones and teeth from these people that we have found can fit in the back of a pickup truck, which doesn't give us much to go on! We have more information on the animals of the time – mammoths, sabretooth tigers, and dire-wolves – but even for them our knowledge is incomplete.

Model at the Royal BC Museum - Wikipedia

When I decided to set my newest time travel book in the Paleolithic Era, it was like looking at a vast, blank canvas. My character from the future goes back to the past. And one of the characters is a caveman. The idea of a caveman as a savage is a hard one to shake, but when you look at the carvings and paintings from that time period, you see an amazing sensitivity to nature. Humans, even so far removed from us, were sophisticated artists. I didn't want my character to be two-dimensional, and looking at the artwork from the time gave me an intimate glimpse into their world, which was rich and full of imagination. They lived in such a vast world filled with dangers. I imagined they would have lived in tight family groups with strong emotional attachment in order to survive. However, we have no way of knowing how they lived unless we really do travel back in time to see!

Photography of Lascaux animal painting - Wikipedia

One of the rules of time-travel is not to change time, and for my heroine it was to avoid human contact at all cost. Not much was going on back in the Americas in the time period I chose. People were few and far between, and giant mammals roamed the continents. In Europe, Paleolithic tribes had formed settlements and had even started raising livestock and farming, they traded with each other, and the Iron Age was a whisper on the horizon. But in the Americas there were only a few nomadic groups of people, so a time traveler could go back in time and not risk making contact. Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned. The first thing she meets though, are the wild animals of the time. 

Paleo-Indians hunting a glyptodon, Heinrich Harder (1858–1935), c.1920. Wikipedia

The glyptodon, a sort of walking igloo, was one of the characters in my book. As I wrote it into the story I grew so fond of the creature I gave him a small role.  Of course, the real star of the show is the smilodon. With his huge canines and cat-like reflexes, he must have been a formidable predator. 
S. fatalis restored with spotted coat - Wikipedia.

The story starts in the far future, where Robin works as a researcher for a department in Tempus U, which is also known as the Time Travel Institute. Her work is mostly about ancient pathogens, which is why she's asked to go back in time to collect samples from the smilodon when a virulent form of typhus breaks out. Robin and another scientist go back in time, intending to stay for a week, get the samples they need, and return. But nothing goes as planned, and the scientist accompanying Robin dies  just as they arrive. Stranded, she uses the emergency beam and awaits rescue, but while she's waiting, she makes a terrible discovery. The other scientist wasn't supposed to die – she was. And if she doesn't survive, millions of people back in her own time will perish. 

*“Since the dawn of time, several billion human (or humanlike) beings have lived, each contributing a little genetic variability to the total human stock. Out of this vast number, the whole of our understanding of human prehistory is based on the remains, often exceedingly fragmentary, of perhaps five thousand individuals. You could fit it all into the back of a pickup truck if you didn't mind how much you jumbled everything up, Ian Tattersall, the bearded and friendly curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, replied when I asked him the size of the total world archive of hominid and early human bones.” 

Quote from “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson  

When I next opened my eyes, sunlight slanted into the cave. Motes of dust danced and sparkled in the air. An acrid, bittersweet odor filled my nostrils, and smoke made lazy spirals in the breeze. I heard a crackling sound, but it was just the fire dying into embers. My bed, if you can call a pile of furs a bed, faced the cave entrance with the fire between me and the opening. The cave was little more than an indentation in the rock, and not deep at all. It hadn’t been lived in long. The fire had hardly any ash. There were no other signs of human presence except the bed of furs and the fire. I would have expected a more structured space, perhaps some baskets, articles of clothing, weapons even.

I started to feel better and sat up, being careful not to jog my arm. Bracing myself on the stone wall, I stood. My knees wobbled, but I was up. I checked, and saw my comlink was still around my wrist. I called up my vid cam. It flew into the cave like a demented bat, and I winced. It must have spent the night outside and gotten hung up in a tree. A small branch was stuck to it.

I plucked the branch off it and sent it out to scout, and then I opened a floating screen. I didn’t want to walk into danger. If I had to, I’d stay here until the rescue team came and have my vid cam lead them to me. The screen showed the river. And it also showed the cave I was in. It wasn’t the cave I’d seen from the river - no, that one had been high on the cliff. This one was nearly flush with the river and must flood after too much rain. No wonder it wasn’t used as a dwelling. The caveman must have dragged me here from the river and lit the fire for me. And he’d gotten furs for me. His intentions had been good. He’d gone out of his way to help me. Another thought occurred. I hadn’t been wearing my modern clothes. There wasn’t too much about me that screamed “Woman From the Future!”. My comlink was one I’d chosen because it looked so natural - the band looked like leather with three large copper beads on it: one for my floating screen, one for my vid cam, and one for my computer.

Amazon

Jennifer Macaire lives with her husband, three children, & various dogs & horses. She loves cooking, eating chocolate, growing herbs and flowering plants on her balcony, and playing golf. She grew up in upstate New York, Samoa, and the Virgin Islands. She graduated from St. Peter and Paul high school in St. Thomas and moved to NYC where she modelled for five years for Elite. She met her husband at the polo club. All that is true. But she mostly likes to make up stories.

Connect with Jennifer:

Website • Facebook • Twitter

Welcome to Day #4 of the blog tour for Donna Scott's fabulous book - The London Monster #HistoricalFiction @D_ScottWriter @LisaReadsBooks

 

 

DECEMBER 16TH – FEBRUARY 17TH 2021AMAZON US • AMAZON UK

Publication Date: 21st November 2020

Publisher: Atlantic Publishing

Page Length: 322 pages

Genre: Historical Fiction/Historical Mystery

In 1788, exactly one hundred years before Jack the Ripper terrorizes the people of London, a sexual miscreant known as the London Monster roams the streets in search of his next victim…

Thomas Hayes, having lost his mother in a vicious street assault, becomes an underground pugilist on a mission to rid the streets of violent criminals. But his vigilante actions lead to him being mistaken for the most terrifying criminal of all.

Assistance arrives in the form of Sophie Carlisle, a young journalist with dreams of covering a big story, though she is forced to masquerade as a man to do it. Trapped in an engagement to a man she doesn’t love, Sophie yearns to break free to tell stories that matter about London’s darker side—gaming, prostitution, violence—and realizes Tom could be the one to help. Together, they come up with a plan.

Straddling the line between his need for vengeance and the need to hide his true identity as a politician's son becomes increasingly difficult as Tom is pressured to win more fights. The more he wins, the more notoriety he receives, and the greater the chance his identity may be exposed—a revelation that could jeopardize his father’s political aspirations and destroy his family’s reputation.

Sophie is also in danger as hysteria spreads and the attacks increase in severity and frequency. No one knows who to trust, and no one is safe—Tom included, yet he refuses to end the hunt.

Little does he realize, the monster is also hunting him.

Head on over to Madwoman In The Attic to find a review of this fabulous book!
Click HERE!
Check out Oh look, another book! for a book spotlight!
Click HERE!

Welcome to Day #8 of the blog tour for Discovery (The Orphan Train Saga, Book 1) by Sherry A. Burton #HistoricalFiction #BlogTour @SherryABurton @BritonandDane

 

DISCOVERY THE ORPHAN TRAIN SAGA, BOOK 1 BY SHERRY A. BURTON

NOVEMBER 18TH – JANUARY 20TH 2021
AMAZON UK • AMAZON US • BARNES & NOBLE

Book Title: Discovery

Series: The Orphan Train Saga, Book 1

Author: Sherry A. Burton

Publication Date: December 25, 2018

Publisher: Dorry Press

Print Length: 229 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

While most use their summer breaks for pleasure, third grade teacher Cindy Moore is using her summer vacation to tie up some loose ends concerning her grandmother’s estate. When Cindy enters the storage unit that holds her grandmother’s belongings, she is merely looking for items she can sell to recoup some of the rental fees she’s spent paying for the unit.

Instead, what she finds are secrets her grandmother has taken to the grave with her. The more Cindy uncovers, the more she wants to know. Why was her grandmother abandoned by her own mother? Why hadn’t she told Cindy she’d lived in an orphanage? And how come her grandmother never mentioned she’d made history as one of the children who rode the Orphan Trains?

Join Cindy as she uncovers her grandmother’s hidden past and discovers the life that stole her grandmother’s love.
Check out Let Your Words Shine... for a sneak-peek between the covers of this fabulous book!
Click HERE!

Welcome to Day #3 of the blog tour for Beneath Black Clouds and White by Virginia Crow #HistoricalFiction #FrenchRevolution #CoffeePotBookClub @DaysDyingGlory @JudithArnopp

 

4th January – 15th January 2021

Amazon UK • Amazon US • Smashwords • Kobo •  Barnes and Noble 

Publication Date: 11th April 2019Publisher: CrowvusPrint Length: 637 PagesGenre: Historical Fiction/Military Fiction/Family Saga
Despite adoring his family and enjoying frequenting gaming tables, Captain Josiah Tenterchilt’s true love is the British Army and he is committed to his duty. As such, he does not hesitate to answer the army’s call when King Louis XVI of France is executed.
Accompanied by his wife to Flanders, Josiah finds his path crosses with a man who could not be more different from him: an apprentice surgeon named Henry Fotherby. As these two men pursue their own actions, fate and the careful connivance of a mysterious individual will push them together for the rest of their lives.
But it is a tumultuous time, and the French revolutionaries are not the only ones who pose a threat. The two gentlemen must find their place in a world where the constraints of social class are inescapable, and ‘slavery or abolition’ are the words on everyone’s lips.
Beneath Black Clouds and White is the prequel to Day's Dying Glory, which was published by Crowvus in April 2017.
Check out Judith Arnopp's Official Blog for a sneak-peek between the covers of this fabulous book!
Click HERE!

Welcome to Day #3 of the blog tour for A Rooster for Asklepios (A Slave's Story Trilogy, Book 1) By Christopher D. Stanley #HistoricalFiction #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub @aslavesstory @linneatanner

 
January 4th – January 15th 2021
Amazon UK • Amazon US • Amazon CA • Amazon AU 

Publication Date:  May 23rd 2020
Publisher: Amelia Books
Page Length: 522 pages Genre: Historical Fiction
Marcus, a slave in the household of Lucius Coelius Felix, enjoys a better life than most slaves (and many free citizens) as the secretary and accountant of a wealthy aristocrat.  His master is rising in the civic life of the Roman colony of Antioch-near-Pisidia (central Turkey), and his responsibilities and income are growing as well. If this continues, he could soon earn enough to buy his freedom, set up a small business, and even marry.  
Then misfortune strikes, and his master falls into a deep depression that is exacerbated by a nagging illness that his physician is unable to cure.  The future looks bleak until the physician receives a dream from the healing god Asklepios calling Lucius to travel hundreds of miles across western Asia Minor to his sanctuary at Pergamon for treatment and, he hopes, a cure. Accompanied by Marcus and his new wife Selena, Lucius embarks on a long and eventful journey in which both master and slave encounter people and ideas that challenge long-held beliefs about themselves, their society, and the world around them.  Values are questioned, loyalties tested, and identities transformed in a story that brings to life a corner of the Roman empire that has been neglected by previous storytellers.
Head on over to Linnea Tanner's Official Blog to find excerpts from Christopher D. Stanley's fabulous books, as well as a book review!
Click HERE!

Welcome to Day #3 of the blog tour for A Painter in Penang (Penang Series, Book 3) By Clare Flynn #HistoricalFiction #APainterinPenang #CoffeePotBookClub @clarefly @tonyriches

 

January 4th – January 15th 2021

Amazon

Publication Date: 6th October 2020

Publisher: Cranbrook Press

Page Length: 362 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

Sixteen-year-old Jasmine Barrington hates everything about living in Kenya and longs to return to the island of Penang in British colonial Malaya where she was born. Expulsion from her Nairobi convent school offers a welcome escape – the chance to stay with her parents’ friends, Mary and Reggie Hyde-Underwood on their Penang rubber estate.

But this is 1948 and communist insurgents are embarking on a reign of terror in what becomes the Malayan Emergency. Jasmine goes through testing experiences – confronting heartache, a shocking past secret and danger. Throughout it all, the one constant in her life is her passion for painting.

From the international best-selling and award-winning author of The Pearl of Penang, this is a dramatic coming of age story, set against the backdrop of a tropical paradise torn apart by civil war.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Clare Flynn is the author of twelve historical novels and a collection of short stories. A former International Marketing Director and strategic management consultant, she is now a full-time writer. 

Having lived and worked in London, Paris, Brussels, Milan and Sydney, home is now on the coast, in Sussex, England, where she can watch the sea from her windows. An avid traveller, her books are often set in exotic locations.

Clare is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a member of The Society of Authors, Novelists Inc (NINC), ALLi, the Historical Novel Society and the Romantic Novelists Association, where she serves on the committee as the Member Services Officer. When not writing, she loves to read, quilt, paint and play the piano. She continues to travel as widely and as far as possible all over the world.

Today we are over on The Writing Desk for a book review!
Click HERE!

Welcome to Day #5 of the blog tour for Janet Lee Berg's fabulous book - Restitution #BlogTour #HistoricalFiction #CoffeePotBookClub @janetleeberg1 @cathiedunn

 

December 8th - February 9th 2021

Publication Date: 30th September 2020
Publisher: Koehler
Page Length: 262 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction 
Amazon UK • Amazon US • Barnes and Noble • BooksAMillion

“Restitution” is the riveting, multigenerational story of Sylvie Rosenberg, a Holocaust survivor traumatized by the memory of her art dealer father forced to trade paintings with the Nazis in an attempt to save their large extended family.  Sylvie’s adult life in 1970s New York is plagued by survivors’ guilt and bitterness.  But when her self-destructive ways threaten to upend the life of her Vietnam-vet son, Sylvie finally needs to face her demons.  She returns to Holland to confront her past and fight the Dutch judicial system for the return of the masterpieces, but the battle proves far more difficult than Sylvie imagined...
Weaving in tragic true events from her own family history, Berg offers a sensitive story of history, romance, and humor along with detail from the extensive research of Lynn H. Nicholas, the world’s leading expert on art pilfered during WWII. Over 80 years later, the real family still awaits justice and the return of artwork that continues to hang on museum walls, without noting their tragic history…  

Check out Ruins & Reading to find a spotlight and an excerpt of this fabulous book!
Click HERE!