Tara Chevrestt's Blog, page 69

Emma: There's No Turning Back (Emma Le Goff #2) by Linda Mitchelmore

Once again, Ms. Mitchelmore writes in the style of Catherine Cookson, bringing us the second in a saga about Emma, a girl who has faced more hard times than many of us can imagine, from being orphaned to bullied to shunned to almost raped, this girl has been through a lot.
Only, she's no longer a girl. She's now a "married" woman, sorta.

I liked this book, but not as much as the first. In the first, Emma was just so spunky, never a doormat, always sticking up for herself. She was heroine after my own heart. In this one, she's lost something. I get that she's matured, but it's also almost as though being in love has taken some of the fight out of her and the fight in her is what I adored about her before. She still wants to run a business, she does tell Seth off sometimes, and she sure does care for those she loves. But...

I think the relationship with Seth put me off. I didn't like him in book one and didn't like him in this one either. His jealousy, his...well, his...surprise. I would have kicked him and it out of the house, not forgave and taken on the responsibility of the surprise. 

Matthew enters the story very, very late. His presence is only in form of letters and frankly, I don't see what the tizzy over them was about. Letters are harmless and it's not like Seth has always been an angel.

So I was disappointed in Emma this time, the way she handled the letters, the way she let Seth be...well, Seth. 

But the writing is solid and there's a lot going on. Sickness, crime, struggles with her business, problems with the town (AGAIN! Ugh, these people.) Some scenes really had me nodding my head, such as when Seth runs into the church for help and the folks don't really act very Christian. There are little, hidden things in the story that make you think about how we treat others.

I did not find it as exciting as book on and it did begin to drag for a while. I do have to say though that I appreciate the whole "married couple" romance here. I've often complained that there is not enough books that show you what happens after you walk down the aisle. Kudos to the author.

But I confess I wish Ms. Mitchelmore would write an alternative novel, a what if she'd ended up Matthew story. 

I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement

I have two good things to say about this story. 1. The author can write. This is not one of those fifth-grade level writers. She has a strong, literary voice. It was almost poetic in its telling at times. 2. It transports you to a place in a country with situation you most likely never imagined.

But. That being said, while I appreciated the author's voice and skill and imagine she's a very intelligent person, her characters are dumb and unlikable. I didn't like any of them, not even the heroine, who once she leaves her horrid, alcoholic, verbally-abusive mother, just does the stupidest stuff imaginable. I'm not going to say what as it all happens too late in the story. But I was sitting here going, "For real? Are you really that dumb?" Uneducated doesn't have to mean stupid.

There were also some things that really bugged me, sometimes like discrepancies, others just unanswered questions. The beginning of the book said they had to look like boys. Well, then, why are they wearing pink shorts and dresses at times? While walking to school or something, no less. And all the men are gone? What did they do, all sneak out at the same time and run away to America? ALL of them? And if it's a well-known fact all the men go to America and never come back, why let them go in the first place? I didn't buy this. At all. If this is based on a true story, I'd have to see it to believe it. I'd sooner believe in aliens, I think.

Lastly, why the heck do these women stay in H*ll? Why stay in a town in which you get sprayed with poison, in which your daughters are abducted (Another thing: Why aren't the women afraid of being abducted?) These women can take a bus to the next city and work for rich people, so why not just get apartments or something there?

I hate unanswered questions and this ruined a lot of the story for me. I began to get frustrated with these people.

And--oh!!! WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE THE QUOTATION MARKS? I know I received an ARC, but really? There are no quotation marks around dialogue at all. Very irritating.

The back of this book promises a "hauntingly beautiful story of love and survival in rural Mexico..."

Where's the love? It ain't coming from her mother who just sits there hating on men and drinking and saying insulting things. It ain't coming from the gardener whom Ladydi thinks she loves at first sight but abandons her at the first sign of trouble. It ain't coming from the drug-dealing "brother" or the men flying helicopters overhead dumping poison. Where's the love?

As for survival...you can call it that. At least they eventually decide to stop being victims and do something about their situation, though it took them so long to decide that that I didn't have much pity for them. I don't have a problem with victims, but I do have a problem with victims who just sit there and allow themselves to be victims. Don't just sit there and complain; do something. 

Very depressing and frustrating tale for me.

I received this via Amazon Vine.

My Reading Radar 1/11/2014

I came across this title on Edelweiss. It's been made into a TV show, just as Call the Midwife came from a memoir. The TV show isn't playing here. I hope it does eventually. On my wishlist...

Murder on the Home Front by Molly Lefebure. It is 1941. While the "war of chaos" rages in the skies above London, an unending fight against violence, murder and the criminal underworld continues on the streets below.

One ordinary day, in an ordinary courtroom, forensic pathologist Dr. Keith Simpson asks a keen young journalist to be his secretary. Although the "horrors of secretarial work" don't appeal to Molly Lefebure, she's intrigued to know exactly what goes on behind a mortuary door.

Capable and curious, "Miss Molly" quickly becomes indispensible to Dr. Simpson as he meticulously pursues the truth. Accompanying him from somber morgues to London's most gruesome crime scenes, Molly observes and assists as he uncovers the dark secrets that all murder victims keep.

With a sharp sense of humor and a rebellious spirit, Molly tells her own remarkable true story here with warmth and wit, painting a vivid portrait of wartime London.


***
Spotted on LibraryThing, Near the Hope by Jennifer Davis Carey is on the wishlist as well.

Near the Hope tells the story of a young woman, Ruth Adele, called Dellie, and her emigration to Brooklyn in pursuit of a life freed from the strictures of class, sugar cane, and colony that set the parameters of life on the tiny Caribbean island that she loves. Barbados is emptying out. Young men are leaving to dig the Panama Canal or to work on one of the merchant vessels servicing His Majesty's Empire. Women are departing to find their way in the United States. Sugar plantations are breaking up as the market for cane crashes de-stabilizing the economy and daily life. Yet despite these changes the Great Houses of the sugar estates still rule every aspect of life. Brooklyn is filling up with a mosaic of people struggling to make their way. As Dellie works to craft a life she encounters a new set of choices, yet many of the same challenges now presented with a New York accent. Her tale reflects that of thousands of women who set foot on these shores-either running from or heading toward something. Or like her, doing a bit of both. Near the Hope blends historical fact, folk practice and beliefs with a vivid sense of place and time. It moves from the exotic and lush world of Barbados at the turn of the twentieth century to the hazy glow of New York in the gaslight era to probe questions of home, family, and what we choose to hold on to or to let go.

***
Another Edelweiss spotting and another book on the wishlist: Netherwood by Jane Sanderson. They had me at the DA reference.


Eve Williams is about to discover just how the other half really live, in this epic and absorbing "big house" drama perfect for "Downton Abbey" fans.

Above stairs, Lord Netherwood keeps his considerable fortune ticking over with the profits from his three coal mines in the vicinity. It's just as well the coal is of the highest quality, as the upkeep of Netherwood Hall, his splendid estate on the outskirts of town, does not come cheap. And that's not to mention the cost of keeping his wife and daughters in the latest fashions--and keeping the heir, the charming but feckless Tobias, out of trouble. Below stairs, Eve Williams is the wife of one of Lord Netherwood's most stalwart employees. When her ordered existence amid the terraced rows of the miners' houses is brought crashing down by the twin arrivals of tragedy and charity, Eve must look to her own self-sufficiency, and talent, to provide for her three young children. And it's then that "upstairs" and "downstairs" collide in truly dramatic fashion.

***
Another Edelweiss find, The Secret Life of Violet Grant by Beatriz Williams made the wishlist. *No cover for this one*

Manhattan, 1964. Vivian Schuyler, newly graduated from Bryn Mawr College, has recently defied the privilege of her storied old Fifth Avenue family to do the unthinkable for a budding Kennedy-era socialite: break into the Mad Men world of razor-stylish Metropolitan magazine. But when she receives a bulky overseas parcel in the mail, the unexpected contents draw her inexorably back into her family’s past, and the hushed-over crime passionnel of an aunt she never knew, whose existence has been wiped from the record of history.

Berlin, 1914. Violet Schuyler Grant endures her marriage to the philandering and decades-older scientist Dr. Walter Grant for one reason: for all his faults, he provides the necessary support to her liminal position as a young American female physicist in prewar Germany. The arrival of Dr. Grant’s magnetic former student at the beginning of Europe’s fateful summer interrupts this delicate détente. Lionel Richardson, a captain in the British Army, challenges Violet to escape her husband’s perverse hold, and as the world edges into war and Lionel’s shocking true motives become evident, Violet is tempted to take the ultimate step to set herself free and seek a life of her own conviction with a man whose cause is as audacious as her own.

As the iridescent and fractured Vivian digs deeper into her aunt’s past and the mystery of her ultimate fate, Violet’s story of determination and desire unfolds, shedding light on the darkness of her years abroad . . . and teaching Vivian to reach forward with grace for the ambitious future and the love she wants most.
*** Barbados Bound, spotted on Netgalley, by Linda Collison, looks to be a good one too and is also on my wishlist.
Portsmouth, England,1760. Patricia Kelley, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Barbadian sugarcane planter, falls from her imagined place in the world when her absent father unexpectedly dies. Raised in a Wiltshire boarding school sixteen-year-old Patricia embarks on a desperate crossing on a merchantman bound for Barbados, where she was born, in a brash attempt to claim an unlikely inheritance. Aboard a merchantman under contract with the British Navy to deliver gunpowder to the West Indian forts, young Patricia finds herself pulled between two worlds -- and two identities -- as she charts her own course for survival in the war-torn 18th century.

Linda Mitchelmore on the late, great Catherine Cookson and Her Latest Release

Today I have Choc Lit's Linda Mitchelmore stopping by for a visit. Last year, I read and reviewed her first book in this series. Myself and a few others have compared this lady's writing to the late, great Catherine Cookson, so I had a relevant question for her.
Book Babe: Your novels have been compared to Catherine Cookson. I'd love to know if you've ever read a Cookson book and which one was your favorite. (I'm a Cookson fan.)

Linda: It came as a huge shock to me to find my writing compared to Catherine Cookson’s – I mean, who hasn’t heard of her? Such a massive compliment. So thank you to the book reviewer who penned that accolade to me. But I most certainly haven’t tried – or even thought about it – to pick up Catherine Cookson’s gauntlet by writing TO TURN FULL CIRCLE and now EMMA: There’s No Turning Back. I have only read one Catherine Cookson novel in my life – Tilly Trotter. It must have made an impression on me, though, because I instantly recalled the title when asked if I had ever read any of her work! I have, however, read many articles about her and her life and I can see that her own struggles informed her writing. Is that the same of me? My only struggle in life has been my deafness (through viral damage – I was born with hearing – when I was in my thirties) so it probably wouldn’t take a degree in psychology to work out that that struggle would surface in fiction some day. I remember that Catherine Cookson was awarded an OBE (in 1985) and was unable to be part of the group ceremony at Buckingham Palace, so Prince Charles gave her a private audience....that really rather touched me, how special she was. So to be considered to hold even the most weak of flickery-flamed candles to her is an honour.
Book Babe: For those who may not have heard of her, she is like the queen of English drama. Her books take you the past, to historical soap operas about women facing real-life issues. She wrote drama, suspense, and comedy. I have numerous titles by her on my shelf. Highly recommend Feathers in the Fire and The Mary Ann Novels. Find out more.
Is there going to be a book three? 
Linda: Yes, there is going to be a third book in Emma’s story. It is tentatively called, EMMA AND HER DAUGHTER.....but which daughter are we talking about? Hmm....there’s a carrot for you all....
***
It isn’t easy to look forward when the past is so close behind you.

Life hasn’t always been kind to Emma Le Goff. She has had her fair share of hardship and now finally, her life appears to be looking up. She and her childhood sweetheart, Seth Jago, are set to marry and both believe that an idyllic existence, free from heartache, awaits them.

However, when they discover that the past is more difficult to forget than they could have ever imagined, Emma continues to be haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding her family, and Seth is hounded by a jealous ex-lover set on revenge.

Seth plans for their escape to Canada, but when the charismatic Matthew Caunter returns to Devon, Emma finds herself uncertain of whether a move to Canada is really what she wants …

***

Linda has lived in Devon, England all her life where the wonderful scenery and history give her endless ideas for short stories and novels. She has worked in a bank and for a pharmaceutical company but gave up the latter to concentrate on her writing.

Married to Roger for over 40 years and is now a proud grandmother. Linda loves gardening, walking, cycling and riding pillion on her husband's vintage motorbikes.

Linda's novels include: To Turn Full Circle and Emma - There's No Turning Back (Jan 2014) plus ebook novellas on Kindle - Hope for Hannah and Grand Designs.

Where to find Linda Mitchelmore online:

Website: http://www.choc-lit.com/html/linda_mitchelmore.html

Twitter: @lindamitchelmor

Facebook: Facebook profile

Blog: http://blog.choc-lit.co.uk/

To Turn Full Circle is only 99 cents right now. (Amazon)
Emma is now available.

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Cara Tanner

Book: Winter's Child
Author: S.L. Jesberger
Heroine: Cara Tanner

When I began to write “Winter’s Child” I knew I wanted a heroine who was going to be very different from Aislin, the protagonist in my first book. Even though they are half-sisters, Cara Tanner has been raised with the love of both parents. She’s been given the best of everything, whereas Aislin has been kicked around a bit.

Still, I wanted Cara to be spunky and strong, with a healthy sense of propriety. She is devastated when she discovers that her beloved farm Sweetwood and its people have been deeded over to Rafe Samuelson, a mercenary owed a favor by Boru, King of Morrigan. She resists the change at first then realizes that Sweetwood’s new owner has no clue how to manage the farm. She knows that she has to walk a fine line, positioning herself between the belligerent Rafe and the well-being of her workers to keep the farm running smoothly.

Though he scares her to death, Cara manages to put Rafe in his place several times with common sense and a sharp tongue. Still, she is acutely aware of her precarious situation and its limitations. This, I feel, is her real forté. She acquiesces when she realizes she can’t win and takes him on fearlessly when she knows she can.

She reflects on her strengths later in the story. She muses over the fact that she could have fought him, could have run away, and it would have just made things worse. She recognizes that putting her feelings aside and working with him for the good of the farm and its people was perhaps the bravest thing she could have done.
Blurb:
When her lands and her people are given to mercenary Rafael Samuelson for “services rendered” to Boru, the King of Morrigan, Cara Tanner has two choices: she can resist him, or she can find a way to work with him.

But Rafe Samuelson is a warrior, not a farmer. Already resenting being forced to take ownership of lands he doesn’t want, he arrives at Sweetwood angry and spoiling for a fight.

Cara and Rafe quickly collide in an uncompromising battle of wills. It doesn't take long for Rafe to realize that he's met his match in the fiery, amber-eyed Cara.

Their audience with King Boru reveals a shocking secret and rekindles long-held vendettas, but it’s Cara’s resemblance to another woman that will soon put them both in the greatest danger.

The Girl in the Yellow Vest by Loretta Hill

I really enjoyed this novel. It contains two remarkable women--I preferred one in particular--and a hero who just wowed me with his sarcastic wit. Mark Crawford...a man after my very own heart. LOL

First of all, we meet Emily. She's in a situation many women have found themselves in. Remember the motto, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free"? She's been living with Trent for five years, waiting eagerly for the diamond ring...only it doesn't come. He wishes to sow his oats instead. Is she going to stand for that?

No. She starts a new life on a construction site, where she trades dates for toilets and discovers she rather likes her best friend Will...as more than a friend, but does he return the feelings?

I liked Emily, especially when she takes work site issues into her own hands, but Charlotte and Mark's story stole the show for me. It was not so predictable and was laced with so much humor, mainly in the form of Mark's comments.

"A word, a second," he mused. "People always under estimate how much time of mine they intend to waste."

Charlotte is an amazing heroine. She's sacrificed so much for others. But it's time she learned to take for herself. Mark is dealing with a lot of grief and tends to have a very gruff manner.

I was really entertained by this book. I laughed out loud a number of times. I would have preferred more details about their engineering project, or perhaps what was said could have been made easier to understand. I had a hard time picturing things at moments. But I did learn a few things, such as spark testing. And to me, that stuff is interesting. I'd also like to add it's well written; no complaints from me there. Good amount of description to story, more showing than telling, etc. Also enjoyed the side stories about grieving the death of a spouse, moving on, having a child from rape. All important issues that make this so much more than a romance.

And while this story ends in a way you expect it to, I would never call this "cookie cutter". I appreciate what this author is doing, placing independent, career-minded young women in male-dominated work forces in which they can make it on their own, but can also find love in the process. And once again, I REALLY APPRECIATE THE HUMOR. I love a book that makes me laugh.

I received this via Netgalley.

Men and Manolos: Love and Relationships In The Heels Of A Hopeless Romantic: A Guest Post from Alyssa Velazquez

From stock.xchngI still don’t refer to myself a writer. 
I know that’s silly, but I always thought of Men and Manolos as more of a monologue in a larger cultural dialogue than a book.

I’ll explain.
My training comes from various backgrounds, but I graduated with a degree in Anthropology and History. Anthropology as a social science has a slight variation in definition and purpose for everyone. For me, anthropologists are cultural playwrights. They study, research, interact, and inscribe a culture. They don’t necessarily want to be initiated into any particular sect of people or lifestyle but they want the rest of the world to gain a sense of acceptance for the foreign and unfamiliar elements of their surrounding environments through the anthropologist’s in-field ethnographic encounters.
From stock.xchngMen and Manolos is a personal ethnography of a hopeless romantic experiencing love and relationships in the twenty-first century. Yet how to transcend that idea cross-culturally and amongst a wide age bracket?

I had just finished a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet. The director was hosting a birthday party for one of our cast mates. Even though it was a house party it had been a while since I had seen this particular group of people so I went searching through my closet for something nice to wear. Amongst my collection of footwear was a pair of black gladiator heels and remembering the last time I had worn them I wondered if they would once again bring me to a close encounter with the opposite sex.

I wrote the first essay for Men and Manolos because of that night, and it was the inspiration for its most constant character: shoes. If you couldn’t immediately relate to my personal experiences I wanted the physical vehicle of a shoe to be able to connect readers to the abstract romanticism of love and relationships. It is my hope that this memoir evokes the reader’s personal memories and lovers. That Men and Manolos causes you to never look at your closet of relationships the same way again.

Blurb: No one walks into a relationship without the proper footing…

In a collection of original essays drawn from her open ended and inquisitive relationship column “Sex and the Chester,” Alyssa Velazquez explores a twenty-first century world dominated by proverbial singles, foreign and domestic affairs, and emotional recall relationships. In her intensely personal memoir of unscripted cute meets, dates that should have never happened, and affairs to forget Velazquez searches through her past for wisdom, perspective, and advice on the survival of a hopeless romantic. Following familiar scenarios through her never ending, often time predictable search for love in flats, sneakers, rain boots, and even a pair of Manolos her electric honesty makes us contemplate if maybe the key to the “mating ritual” is all in our shoes.


About the Author: Living in New Jersey, Alyssa Velazquez currently works as a barista while daydreaming of mastering latte art. The product of liberal arts education, she has worked in D.C., Maryland, and Philadelphia as a conservation apprentice, production design intern, living history actor, and most recently a free-lance writer for The Women’s History Magazine and the Secretaries of Juliet Newsletter: Il Giornal de’Juilette.velazquezalyssa@gmail.com
Twitter: @AlyssaManolo
Website: http://www.alyssavelazquez.net.tf

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My Reading Radar 1/4/2014

Because I never get tired of reading about women pilots, especially the WASP program, this one made the wishlist:

A Place in the Sky by Tobin Atkinson.

At the height of World War II, the US Army is frantic to find trained pilots to test refurbished planes, tow anti-aircraft targets, ferry planes from factories, and train other pilots. Congress begrudgingly allows the creation of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) where 1,074 women are trained at Avenger Field, Texas and go on to fill roles normally reserved for male pilots. 

“Now, you, Laura, you’re like a firework. You climb in those planes, rocket right up there, and BOOM! Brilliance. Hell, you’re even happy when you get your butt shot off.”

A PLACE IN THE SKY tells the story of the little-known WASP program. During its short-lived existence, WASP flew 60 million miles in every known U.S. military aircraft. Thirty-eight pilots died while serving as WASP. And even though WASP weren’t granted full military status for their service until 1977 (thirty-four years after the last WASP class graduated), their courage and contribution to America’s greatness remain an inspiration.


***
There is no cover yet, but Belinda Alexndra's Sapphire Skies is pre-ordered on my Kindle. How can I pass this up?

2000: The wreckage of a downed WWII fighter plane is discovered in the forests near Russia's Ukrainian border. The aircraft belonged to Natalya Azarova, ace pilot and pin-up girl for Soviet propaganda, but the question of her fate remains unanswered. Was she a German spy who faked her own death, as the Kremlin claims? Her lover, Valentin Orlov, now a highly-decorated general, refuses to believe it. Lily, a young Australian woman, has moved to Moscow to escape from tragedy. She becomes fascinated by the story of Natalya, and when she meets an elderly woman who claims to know the truth behind the rumours, Lily is drawn deeper into the mystery. From the pomp and purges of Stalin's Russia through the horrors of war and beyond - secrets and lies, enduring love and terrible betrayal, sacrifice and redemption all combine in this sweeping saga from Belinda Alexandra.


***
This one hit the wishlist. I spotted it on Amazon's freebie. It's a first three chapters thing. No, I didn't download them. I loathe being teased and the book doesn't release until June so it's on my wishlist. I notice the author, judging by her previous releases, appears to be a feminist with a sense of humor, so I'm quite looking forward to trying this title: The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman.

In 1913, little Malka Treynovsky flees Russia with her family. Bedazzled by tales of gold and movie stardom, she tricks them into buying tickets for America. Yet no sooner do they land on the squalid Lower East Side of Manhattan, than Malka is crippled and abandoned in the street.

Taken in by a tough-loving Italian ices peddler, she manages to survive through cunning and inventiveness. As she learns the secrets of his trade, she begins to shape her own destiny. She falls in love with a gorgeous, illiterate radical named Albert, and they set off across America in an ice cream truck. Slowly, she transforms herself into Lillian Dunkle, "The Ice Cream Queen" -- doyenne of an empire of ice cream franchises and a celebrated television personality.

Lillian's rise to fame and fortune spans seventy years and is inextricably linked to the course of American history itself, from Prohibition to the disco days of Studio 54. Yet Lillian Dunkle is nothing like the whimsical motherly persona she crafts for herself in the media. Conniving, profane, and irreverent, she is a supremely complex woman who prefers a good stiff drink to an ice cream cone. And when her past begins to catch up with her, everything she has spent her life building is at stake.

***
Spotted on LibraryThing and cannot find a release date, this one is on the wishlist too: By Grace Elliot, The Ringmaster's Daughter.


The ringmaster’s daughter, Henrietta Hart, was born and raised around the stables of Foxhall Gardens, but now her father is gravely ill and their livelihood in danger. The Harts only hope is to convince Foxhall’s manager, Mr Wolfson, to let Hetty wield the ringmaster’s whip. Hetty finds herself drawn to the arrogant Wolfson but, despite their mutual attraction, he gives her an ultimatum: entertain as never before – or leave Foxhall.

When the winsome Miss Hart defies society and performs in breeches Wolfson’s stony heart is in danger. Loathed as he is to admit it, Miss Hart has a way with horses…and men. Her audacity and determination wake emotions long since suppressed. But Miss Hart’s success could threaten his career when the ringmaster attracts the eye of the lascivious Lord Fordyce. The duke is determined, by fair means or foul, to make Miss Hart his mistress – and as Wolfson’s feelings for Henrietta grow, disaster looms.

Beneath the Crinoline: Suffering to be Beautiful, With Carol Hedges

We’ve all heard the expression: ‘You have to suffer to be beautiful’. I didn’t realise how true this was until I started researching for my new book Diamonds & Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery and came across that essential part of every Victorian woman’s underwear: the corset.


For Victorian fashionistas, corsets were the must-have item. The corset created the teeny-tiny waist that was accentuated by the wide hooped crinoline skirt and was so attractive to men. Interestingly the corset was originally seen as a medical necessity - women were very fragile creatures and needed something to hold them up!

However by 1860, the corset had become part of the fashion scene and no well-brought up young woman would leave the house without one. Indeed, the wearing of a corset took on a moral aspect in that it showed to the world that you were a virtuous and modest person.

The corset was a vital part of everyday women’s wear, preferably tightly laced. In the book, Isabella Thorpe, the spoilt rich heiress laments the fact that her Mama won’t let her ‘’lace to 13 inches’’ any more (32 cm). This story is apocryphal .... most young women laced to 18 -20 inches (45 - 50 cm ) which, if you come to think about it, was actually pretty tiny.

Corsets may have given women the desired shape, but they were incredibly bad for their health. They caused fainting and asphyxia, and the constant compression of the internal organs could render the wearer sterile, or result in constant miscarriage. However, that wasn’t going to put anybody off. The solution was horrifically simple: in an early and drastic form of ‘plastic surgery’ if you wanted to gad around without fainting or being unable to draw breath, you simply had a rib removed.

Corsets were stiffened with whalebone and in the UK alone, 15 thousand whales were killed each year to support fashion-conscious Victorian ladies. So next time you squeeze into some support underwear, or suck in your stomach and complain, be grateful you didn’t live 153 years ago. Compared to our Victorian sisters, we have it so very much easier.

Diamonds & Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery is set in London in 1860. It tells the stories of three feisty young woman. Orphaned 18 year old Josephine King, rescued from a dreadful boarding school by her uncle Herbert King - and then re-orphaned once more when he is brutally murdered. Spoilt clever Isabella Thorpe, whose domineering Mama plans to marry her off to a totally unsuitable man and Lilith Marks, high-society prostitute and Herbert King’s mistress. Their various lives and adventures play out against the background of the great capital city, with its gas-lit streets and dark dangerous alleyways.


Carol Hedges is the successful UK author of 11 books for teenagers and young adults and one ebook. Her novels have been shortlisted for various prizes and her YA novel Jigsaw was long-listed for the Carnegie Medal. Diamonds & Dust is her first adult novel and is published by Crooked Cat Books.

It is available as book and ebook on Amazon at
or to order in bookshops.

Find Carol on Twitter: @carolJhedges

Read her blog: http://carolhedges.blogspot.co.uk

Blurb: 
When a horrific murder takes place on a dark night in 1860's London, it changes two women for ever. New light is cast upon past lives they thought they knew so well, and suddenly their futures become intertwined.

The death of her uncle will leave eighteen-year-old Josephine King an orphan, an heiress and the owner of a priceless diamond, The Eye of the Khan. For Lilith Marks, a chance finally arises to end her life as a highly paid prostitute and to prove herself as a serious businesswoman.

Set against the backdrop of the great gas-lit city, the two women are drawn together in their quest to discover just who killed the man they both loved.

Diamonds & Dust is a page-whizzing narrative, with an intricate and absorbing plot that entices you through the teeming streets of Victorian London. If Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle all washed up on a desert island, they might have come up with something like this.

Strong is Sexy Heroine of the Week: Angel Taylor

Book: The Quest
Author: Susan Kearney
Heroine: Angel Taylor

THE QUEST is the fourth book in my series of strong heroines--and don't worry, you needn't read the other 3 first. Book four starts right at the beginning of Kirek and Angel's story. You see, he stows away on a hunk of salvage that Angels going to claim--a sneaky way of meeting one of Earth's best space salvage captains. Angel grew up with a sick mother and learned to take care of herself. She won her ship in a card game and she's willing to fight for herself and her crew. But when she meets Kirek, he pushes all the right buttons and she learns that falling in love takes the most courage of all.

Why does it take courage to fall in love? Well, first the heroine has to open herself up to the idea of having feelings. And that's tough, because you can be rejected. You can be hurt. Or you can be swindled. The Universe is a tough place and to survive it's a battle of the fittest. So letting down her guard is difficult for Angel. And yet, Kirek has a way of sneaking under her skin, of seeing things in her she didn't know were there. And when he asks the very private Angel to share her mind, she's staggered by the idea of opening up both her heart, her thoughts and her soul.

In addition Kirek suspects Angel has secret powers, ones she must learn to accept--for herself, for him and because the future of the galaxy is at stake!!

The linked books in this series are The Challenge, The Dare, The Ultimatum and The Quest.

If you are interested in the Rystani Warrior series, you can read more about them at www.susankearney.com


Blurb:

A warrior on a mission

Kirek of Rystan's objective is to destroy the Federation's deadliest enemy, but he needs help. When assistance comes in the form of a sexy and irresistible space pilot , he takes on a second goal--to win her heart.

A woman with a plan

Captain Angel Taylor's going after the biggest salvage haul in her career. Fiercely independent, she can't imagine a life with Kirek, a traditional Rystani warrior with extraordinary psi powers -- but he has seductive skills she can't resist.

The Quest

Teaming up, Angel and Kirek risk their lives to fight the evil Zin empire -- but Kirek's biggest battle of all is to win Angel's love.