Zoe Brooks's Blog, page 9
March 11, 2013
Blog Tour Continued
I have just finished my first blog tour. For those of you who don't know about such things blog tours are when you write posts and interviews on other people's blogs. They are a wonderful way to meet new readers and interesting people. I was lucky to have the excellent Goddess Fish Tours organising the tour for me.
You can read
Five Things You Didn't Know About Pharsis on Night Owl ReviewsA post about what inspired Love of Shadows on Muse UnleashedAn interview and a well-thought through review on Maggie's MeanderingsPlus a lovely review on Journey of a BooksellerPiece on the background to Love of Shadows on Carly Fall
Piece about magic realism on Writers and Authors
Interviews on Rogue's Angels, It's Raining Books, Long and Short Reviews, and Storm Goddess Book Reviews
You will have noticed that my last post was a visit from another author on a blog tour. Fellow authors wishing to visit my blog as part of a tour or as a one-off visit, please answer the interview questions on the interviews page (above), for other guest posts check out the policies page.
You can read
Five Things You Didn't Know About Pharsis on Night Owl ReviewsA post about what inspired Love of Shadows on Muse UnleashedAn interview and a well-thought through review on Maggie's MeanderingsPlus a lovely review on Journey of a BooksellerPiece on the background to Love of Shadows on Carly Fall
Piece about magic realism on Writers and Authors
Interviews on Rogue's Angels, It's Raining Books, Long and Short Reviews, and Storm Goddess Book Reviews
You will have noticed that my last post was a visit from another author on a blog tour. Fellow authors wishing to visit my blog as part of a tour or as a one-off visit, please answer the interview questions on the interviews page (above), for other guest posts check out the policies page.
March 1, 2013
Sacrifice Book Tour - "I want to return to your arms"
Today I am delighted to be host to Coral Russell who is currently touring book blogs with her seventh novel - Sacrifice. You can find out more about the book and its author below, but first we start a piece about a special piece of music.
Chavela Vargas is considered one of the greatest folk singers (cantadora) of Mexico. In this video she is singing a famous song called Volver, volver. She sang for Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera. It is a traditional song everyone knows the lyrics to in Mexico and other Latin American countries. When I was in a bar in Monterrey, Mexico a singer with a guitar started singing this song and everyone joined in at the refrain if not the whole song. Which is why it isn't unusual for the other two singers in the video to join at the end. The song talks about passion and how you would die to return to the arms of the one you love. So why do so many know the words to a Spanish love song? As a ranchera (traditional or folk song) it is also used to represent the longing to return to your country, your home, or the way you remember it to be. What do you long to return to?
About the book
When Mexican drug cartels fight for control along the border, Juarez becomes the murder capital of the world. In El Paso, Texas it's drug business as usual: a grifter sets out to buy her freedom, a car salesman runs drugs to make his fortune, a gang leader battles to rise among the ranks of the cartel, and a detective and his wife are ripped apart by a family secret. Everyone's fate lies in the hands of an old woman. Will she let the past die with her or take revenge the only way she knows how?
Sacrifice is a fast-paced, gritty story that'll keep you guessing, gasping, and gripping your eBook.
You can buy the book on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
About the author Coral Russell runs the blog http://alchemyscrawl.com where she reviews Indie books/authors. "By the end of 2013, I will have read close to 300 Indie titles. I can vouch that the quality and diversity of Indie authors is worth investing in." On the blog you can find links to her on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Google+ and email.
The Indie Exchange is a group of authors, readers, and book bloggers who post reviews, articles, and giveaways. Listen in Fridays to our radio show at http://blogtalkradio.com/alchemyofscrawl
Ms. Russell won the 2003 McCaleb Peace Initiative which produced the non-fiction articles Peace on the Peninsula. All profit from the sale of that eBook goes to rebuilding Joplin, MO.
Titles available: Amador Lockdown, Playing with Fire (Devil of a Ghost Tour and Key to a Haunting), Peace on the Peninsula, The DIY Guide to Social Media Marketing and eBook Publishing, and Twelve Worlds (profit goes to Reading is Fundamental).
This is just one stop on the Sacrifice Book Tour - you can find about the other blogs taking part here a Rafflecopter giveaway
Zoe Brooks Books and Things is NOT responsible for distributing the prizes. All prizes will be distributed by Coral Russell at alchemyofscrawl@yahoo.com
Chavela Vargas is considered one of the greatest folk singers (cantadora) of Mexico. In this video she is singing a famous song called Volver, volver. She sang for Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera. It is a traditional song everyone knows the lyrics to in Mexico and other Latin American countries. When I was in a bar in Monterrey, Mexico a singer with a guitar started singing this song and everyone joined in at the refrain if not the whole song. Which is why it isn't unusual for the other two singers in the video to join at the end. The song talks about passion and how you would die to return to the arms of the one you love. So why do so many know the words to a Spanish love song? As a ranchera (traditional or folk song) it is also used to represent the longing to return to your country, your home, or the way you remember it to be. What do you long to return to?
About the book
When Mexican drug cartels fight for control along the border, Juarez becomes the murder capital of the world. In El Paso, Texas it's drug business as usual: a grifter sets out to buy her freedom, a car salesman runs drugs to make his fortune, a gang leader battles to rise among the ranks of the cartel, and a detective and his wife are ripped apart by a family secret. Everyone's fate lies in the hands of an old woman. Will she let the past die with her or take revenge the only way she knows how?
Sacrifice is a fast-paced, gritty story that'll keep you guessing, gasping, and gripping your eBook.
You can buy the book on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
About the author Coral Russell runs the blog http://alchemyscrawl.com where she reviews Indie books/authors. "By the end of 2013, I will have read close to 300 Indie titles. I can vouch that the quality and diversity of Indie authors is worth investing in." On the blog you can find links to her on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Google+ and email.
The Indie Exchange is a group of authors, readers, and book bloggers who post reviews, articles, and giveaways. Listen in Fridays to our radio show at http://blogtalkradio.com/alchemyofscrawl
Ms. Russell won the 2003 McCaleb Peace Initiative which produced the non-fiction articles Peace on the Peninsula. All profit from the sale of that eBook goes to rebuilding Joplin, MO.
Titles available: Amador Lockdown, Playing with Fire (Devil of a Ghost Tour and Key to a Haunting), Peace on the Peninsula, The DIY Guide to Social Media Marketing and eBook Publishing, and Twelve Worlds (profit goes to Reading is Fundamental).
This is just one stop on the Sacrifice Book Tour - you can find about the other blogs taking part here a Rafflecopter giveaway
Zoe Brooks Books and Things is NOT responsible for distributing the prizes. All prizes will be distributed by Coral Russell at alchemyofscrawl@yahoo.com
February 25, 2013
Blog Tour
If you are wondering what I am up to and why I have been so remiss in posting to this blog, my apologies but I am in the Czech Republic writing the final book in The Healer's Shadow trilogy. I could say that my access to the internet is unreliable (which is true), but more importantly when I am in the heat of writing I tend to forget to do anything else - house-cleaning, shopping, blogging, even eating at times, can go by the board.
However whilst I am away from this site, I can also be read on various blogs around the interweb. I have been writing various posts and answering interview questions as part of a Book Tour organised by the ladies at Goddess Fish. Some of the most interesting posts can be found here:
A lovely review on Journey of a Bookseller
Piece on the background to Love of Shadows on Carly Fall
Piece about magic realism on Writers and Authors
Interviews on Rogue's Angels, It's Raining Books, Long and Short Reviews, and Storm Goddess Book Reviews
Do visit these wonderful book bloggers.
However whilst I am away from this site, I can also be read on various blogs around the interweb. I have been writing various posts and answering interview questions as part of a Book Tour organised by the ladies at Goddess Fish. Some of the most interesting posts can be found here:
A lovely review on Journey of a Bookseller
Piece on the background to Love of Shadows on Carly Fall
Piece about magic realism on Writers and Authors
Interviews on Rogue's Angels, It's Raining Books, Long and Short Reviews, and Storm Goddess Book Reviews
Do visit these wonderful book bloggers.
February 15, 2013
Photo Inspiration - Perfume Alembic
I have just written the description of my heroine's new perfume workshop, so I thought I'd share this photo with you. We saw this copper alembic or still for making perfume in a shop window in Bristol. It is similar to one that would have been used by my heroine Judith in all three books of The Healer's Shadow trilogy.
Alembics such as this have been used by alchemists, perfume-makers and healers for approximately two thousand years. It was said to have been invented by a Jewish alchemist called Mary. Its function in alchemical terms is to separate the spirit of the plant (the essential oils and scenter parts) from the body.
The raw plant materials are placed either in the body of the alembic with water and on oocasion packed into the "onion" above it. The pot is placed on a source of heat and the steam rises into the tube called the "bird's beak" or "swan's neck" which links the pot to the condensor. Inside it flows through a copper coil known as surrounded with cold water, there the steam condenses to form flower water on top of which you will find small amounts of essential oils. Both can be used in perfume-making and traditional medicine.
Related articles
Traditional Perfumes and Medicines
February 8, 2013
Friday Poem - Ultrasound
Ultrasound(To my unborn son) Refracted by waterlike a silver fish,not pausing beneath sounds,turning which way.Through darkness,through warm waters,and the constant beat of my heart,you flash fast. "We've a wriggler here,"she said,seeking you outlike a shoal of cod. The suddenly you are stilland stand clearupon the screen - a small childwith head and flickering heart. We measure the circumferenceof your skull,your femur and spine. It is not time yetto draw you in,into this cold airbound world.
January 31, 2013
Inspiration for Mother of Wolves
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In the Mosaic Museum in Zeugma in Turkey there is this famous Roman mosaic. It is called the gypsy girl, but it is more likely to be a mosaic of the earth goddess Gaia. There is something remarkable about the look the gypsy girl gives us, so direct, so bold, so realistic, it reaches across the centuries. It could indeed be a young Lupa.
In the Mosaic Museum in Zeugma in Turkey there is this famous Roman mosaic. It is called the gypsy girl, but it is more likely to be a mosaic of the earth goddess Gaia. There is something remarkable about the look the gypsy girl gives us, so direct, so bold, so realistic, it reaches across the centuries. It could indeed be a young Lupa.
January 28, 2013
Extract from Mother of Wolves
Mother of Wolves goes free on Amazon 29th - 31st January. Here is an extract to whet your appetite. If you like it, why not pop over to Amazon and download a free copy from http://www.amazon.com/Mother-of-Wolves-ebook/dp/B0082BT6G8 and http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mother-of-Wolves-ebook/dp/B0082BT6G8
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A day later Lupa walked up the old road to the crossroads. The ancient signpost survived even though the travellers no longer had need of it, not since the new road had opened. The former gallows which had also stood at the spot had been torn down, nevertheless the place still had a sinister air. Lupa shivered in the bright summer sunshine as she strode towards the cross. The damned were said to be buried there and she could believe it. But she shivered more at what she might find, holding herself so tight inside that she shook. She forced herself on.
She found nothing. There was nothing to be seen. Just the grass and the sign with its white hands pointing – “Five miles to Newharbour, eighty miles to…” The sign was broken here. She sat with her back to the post and breathed deeply. In the midday sun the scent of the heather was almost overpowering. Her head swam. She did not know what to think. She had so expected the worst. What was she to do now? Walk the five miles to Newharbour, a destination of last resort? Go back to the safety of the cave? Without an answer, that would be torture. Perhaps she had indeed been foolish: the meeting a success and Toro was now on his way home, expecting to find his wife waiting for him. What would he think of her? Her mind went blank and she closed her eyes.
She opened them once more and very deliberately looked around. There was nothing there, nothing. But that was of itself wrong. If there had been a meeting, there should have been some marks in the grass. She scanned the ground closely now, walking bent double, dropping at times to her knees to examine the turf, looking for crushed leaves or the imprint of a boot. She stood upright again. Her father had taught her how to detect the slightest sign of man or beast. Thirteen men with a horse-drawn wagon could not have been here. Something had happened, but not here.
The old signpost had a third finger, which pointed up into the hills. The heath rose steadily, a haze of purple heather, and through it the road Toro and his men should have taken. Lupa walked briskly up the track. Rabbits scattered from her path into their warrens under the twisted gorse bushes, linnets sang on the branches above, large bees bumbled drunkenly in the flowers, all around were the contented sounds of high summer. She walked steadily for three hours, always climbing, towards the High Tor, a dark grey shape against the intense blue sky.
She emptied her mind, as her father had taught her, so she would not miss the signs when they came. She walked, like an animal, with senses heightened. Her ears pricked to the cries of ravens, her nose caught the stench of carrion on the breeze and she followed the sound and scent up the hill. Still she kept her mind empty: an angry mind and a heart full of sorrow were no good to her now. They would come soon enough, now she must be the hunter and read the trail of death.
It was the horse she came to first. Still between the shafts, it lay in a small quarry, the typical tribal cart smashed by the fall. The wheel marks told the tale of an animal spooked and dashing away from danger to its death.
A little further on the body of a man lay head down, half on the track and half in the bushes. He wore the bright clothes of the tribe. She waved the flies away from the corpse, and they rose in an angry buzzing crowd to reveal a bloody hole in his back. He had been shot as he fled. He had not even drawn his knife. She walked on, mind and heart empty.
[image error]
A day later Lupa walked up the old road to the crossroads. The ancient signpost survived even though the travellers no longer had need of it, not since the new road had opened. The former gallows which had also stood at the spot had been torn down, nevertheless the place still had a sinister air. Lupa shivered in the bright summer sunshine as she strode towards the cross. The damned were said to be buried there and she could believe it. But she shivered more at what she might find, holding herself so tight inside that she shook. She forced herself on.
She found nothing. There was nothing to be seen. Just the grass and the sign with its white hands pointing – “Five miles to Newharbour, eighty miles to…” The sign was broken here. She sat with her back to the post and breathed deeply. In the midday sun the scent of the heather was almost overpowering. Her head swam. She did not know what to think. She had so expected the worst. What was she to do now? Walk the five miles to Newharbour, a destination of last resort? Go back to the safety of the cave? Without an answer, that would be torture. Perhaps she had indeed been foolish: the meeting a success and Toro was now on his way home, expecting to find his wife waiting for him. What would he think of her? Her mind went blank and she closed her eyes.
She opened them once more and very deliberately looked around. There was nothing there, nothing. But that was of itself wrong. If there had been a meeting, there should have been some marks in the grass. She scanned the ground closely now, walking bent double, dropping at times to her knees to examine the turf, looking for crushed leaves or the imprint of a boot. She stood upright again. Her father had taught her how to detect the slightest sign of man or beast. Thirteen men with a horse-drawn wagon could not have been here. Something had happened, but not here.
The old signpost had a third finger, which pointed up into the hills. The heath rose steadily, a haze of purple heather, and through it the road Toro and his men should have taken. Lupa walked briskly up the track. Rabbits scattered from her path into their warrens under the twisted gorse bushes, linnets sang on the branches above, large bees bumbled drunkenly in the flowers, all around were the contented sounds of high summer. She walked steadily for three hours, always climbing, towards the High Tor, a dark grey shape against the intense blue sky.
She emptied her mind, as her father had taught her, so she would not miss the signs when they came. She walked, like an animal, with senses heightened. Her ears pricked to the cries of ravens, her nose caught the stench of carrion on the breeze and she followed the sound and scent up the hill. Still she kept her mind empty: an angry mind and a heart full of sorrow were no good to her now. They would come soon enough, now she must be the hunter and read the trail of death.
It was the horse she came to first. Still between the shafts, it lay in a small quarry, the typical tribal cart smashed by the fall. The wheel marks told the tale of an animal spooked and dashing away from danger to its death.
A little further on the body of a man lay head down, half on the track and half in the bushes. He wore the bright clothes of the tribe. She waved the flies away from the corpse, and they rose in an angry buzzing crowd to reveal a bloody hole in his back. He had been shot as he fled. He had not even drawn his knife. She walked on, mind and heart empty.
January 26, 2013
Mother of Wolves Goes free
My fantasy adventure book will be going free from 29th - 31st January. You will be able to download it at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0082BT6G8 and http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0082BT6G8 .
Here's the blurb:
When the King of the Roads is betrayed by his uncle to his murderers, his wife Lupa finds herself alone in a man's world of tribal politics and war.
Everyone underestimates Lupa, if they consider her at all. They are making a mistake. Lupa has made a promise to her husband to avenge his death and Lupa is a woman of her word. Her quest takes her away from the tents of her travelling people to the town of the Others, where her husband's eyeless head watches as she takes her first revenge.
Now on the run, through the marshes and rich farmland of the great river, Lupa hunts and is hunted by her husband’s murderers. On the estuary islands her sons and their protector are just one step ahead of the killers. But revenge is not simple and Lupa must face a choice, one which will have great consequences for her people. For this is more than a revenge story, it is the tale of the rise of a woman leader and the price she pays for that rise. It is the story of a travelling people, persecuted by settlers and their armies, and the woman who leads them at the time of their greatest peril.
If you're interested in the inspiration behind the book, do visit the Mother of Wolves board on pinterest on http://pinterest.com/zoebrooks/gypsies-mother-of-wolves/
January 24, 2013
Poem - Punch II
Punch & Judy with Baby (Photo credit: giveawayboy)Punch II
Punch sat at the windowwatching the street below.In the hot September nighthe heard the soundof windows breakingand the crash of stones on riot shields.A bottle landed beside him,empty,a waste if ever he saw one.He decided to join the funand took up his long stick."If you can't join 'em, beat 'em"said Punch.Related articles
Friday Poem - Punch I
January 16, 2013
Love of Shadows is Free 16th - 19th Jan
Currently free on Amazon for four days.
Here are the links
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PCG602http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602
![[image error]](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Gypsy_Girl_Mosaic_of_Zeugma_1250575.png){kind=link}
