So Different and Yet Alike! Guest Post and Sale

Two Soul Mate historicals are going on sale for 99¢!!  
Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel is on sale for 99¢  May 20-May 27! 
Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel tells a story of lives unfolding in different centuries, but linked and irrevocably altered by a series of murders in 1930.  Lake City, Florida, June, 1930: Al Capone checks in for an unusually long stay at the Blanche Hotel, a nice enough joint for an insignificant little whistle stop. The following night, young Jack Blevins witnesses a body being dumped heralding the summer of violence to come. One-by-one, people controlling county vice activities swing from KKK ropes. No moonshine distributor, gaming operator, or brothel madam, black or white, is safe from the Klan's self-righteous vigilantism. Jack's older sister Meg, a waitress at the Blanche, and her fiancé, a sheriff’s deputy, discover reasons to believe the lynchings are cover for a much larger ambition than simply ridding the county of vice. Someone, possibly backed by Capone, has secret plans for filling the voids created by the killings. But as the body count grows and crosses burn, they come to realize this knowledge may get all of them killed.  Gainesville, Florida, August, 2011: Liz Reams, an up and coming young academic specializing in the history of American crime, impulsively moves across the continent to follow a man who convinces her of his devotion yet refuses to say the three simple words I love you. Despite entreaties of friends and family, she is attracted to edginess and a certain type of glamour in her men, both living and historical. Her personal life is an emotional roller coaster, but her career options suddenly blossom beyond all expectation, creating a very different type of stress. To deal with it all, Liz loses herself in her professional passion, original research into the life and times of her favorite bad boy, Al Capone. What she discovers about 1930’s summer of violence, and herself in the process, leaves her reeling at first and then changed forever.
From Soul Mate Publishing:  Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel http://amzn.to/16qq3k5
Take a look at the real Blanche Hotel and other actual locations featured in Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel!  https://www.pinterest.com/lindabennettpen/al-capone-at-the-blanche-hotel/

Confederado do Norte, 2015 Honorable Mention in the RONE Awards, is on sale for 99¢ May 27- June 3!!
Confederado do Norte available from Amazon:  http://amzn.com/B00LMN5OMI
See scenes from Brazil and other locations featured in Confederado do Norte!  https://www.pinterest.com/lindabennettpen/confederado-do-norte/

So Different and Yet Alike
At first glance, my first two novels do not appear to share any similarities. They are set in different centuries, in different parts of the world, are written in very different formats – even the styles of language employed are different due to the eras in which the books are set. Al Capone at the Blanche Hotel takes place in north Florida with dual timelines of 1930 and the present day. Confederado do Norte is set primarily in Brazil in the mid to late 1800’s. The characters speak, live, and dress in the styles of their eras and locations, with Portuguese words embedded throughout much of Confederado and “Southernisms” sprinkled liberally throughout Al Capone. After reading both, however, I believe readers may see some common threads running through the novels, the most obvious being that my stories are either set in the American South or are about Southerners far from home.
Meg, from the 1930 chapters of Al Capone, and Mary Catherine, from Confederado, are Southern girls struggling with odds stacked against them in a world that sees women as second-class citizens at best or mere possessions of men at worst. Though their lives are difficult and even dangerous at times, neither young woman indulges in prolonged periods of self-pity. Instead, they face the realities of their situations head-on with grit and determination. Both Meg and Mary Catherine are based on the women in my family who worked their way through college when girls weren’t supposed to need or acquire educations, survived the Great Depression with their spirits and honor intact, helped win World War II from the home front, and then settled into careers while raising families. They were remarkable for their abilities to deal with and overcome adversity. These were the characteristics with which Meg and Mary Catherine were imbued. They are survivors!
In both novels, I attempt to address issues that represent the uglier side of human nature, and particularly, that are part of the American South’s history and heritage. As a child in the deep South, I never really accepted or understood the way in which some people were treated. It confused me as a child and later appalled me as an adult that we were taught to love our neighbors as ourselves on Sundays, but were then expected to deal with Blacks, Jews, and Catholics in varying degrees of viciousness the remainder of the week. Themes on the devastating effects of racism and of the importance of ignoring societal norms in order to do what is morally right run through both novels. 
I could go on at length with deeper details of similarity, but the one that is nearest my heart is that both novels feature children who are brave, determined, and see more clearly than the adults around them. Jack in Al Capone guards his younger friend Zeke with the zeal of a mother tiger. Mary Catherine protects her adoptive parents at great cost to herself. They are young, but they do what is required to protect those they love.
As you have probably gathered by now, neither of these books are traditional historical romances. They both do contain strong romantic elements, but they also have suspense and themes women generally find important. Finally, probably the greatest similarity is that Al Capone at the Blanche Hoteland Confederado do Norte have as their central theme the triumph of good over evil. Not exactly original, but in reality, this has always been and continues to be the most important issue of any era.
Also by Linda:

BIO:Linda shares this about herself: "I have been in love with the past for as long as I can remember. Anything with a history, whether shabby or majestic, recent or ancient, instantly draws me in. I suppose it comes from being part of a large extended family that spanned several generations. Long summer afternoons on my grandmother's porch or winter evenings gathered around her fireplace were filled with stories both entertaining and poignant. Of course being set in the American South, those stories were also peopled by some very interesting characters, some of whom have found their way into my work.As for my venture in writing, it has allowed me to reinvent myself. We humans are truly multifaceted creatures, but unfortunately we tend to sort and categorize each other into neat, easily understood packages that rarely reveal the whole person. Perhaps you, too, want to step out of the box in which you find yourself. I encourage you to look at the possibilities and imagine. Be filled with childlike wonder in your mental wanderings. Envision what might be, not simply what is. Let us never forget, all good fiction begins when someone says to her or himself, Let's pretend."Linda resides in the Houston area with one sweet husband and one adorable German Shorthaired Pointer who is quite certain she’s a little girl.http://www.lindapennell.com/ https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLindaBennettPennellTwitter: @LindaPennell