✧ Book in the Spotlight ✧ A Splendid Defiance by Stella Riley, audiobook performed by Alex Wyndham

A Splendid Defiance
By Stella Riley 
Audiobook performed by Alex Wyndham

Publication Date: December 6th, 2012

Publisher:  Stella Riley

Page Length: 371 

Genre:  Historical Fiction / Historical Romance

For two years England has been in the grip of Civil War.  In Banbury, Oxfordshire, the Cavaliers hold the Castle, the Roundheads want it back and the town is full of zealous Puritans.

Consequently, the gulf between Captain Justin Ambrose and Abigail Radford, the sister of a fanatically religious shopkeeper, ought to be unbridgeable.

The key to both the fate of the Castle and that of Justin and Abigail lies in defiance.  But will it be enough?

A Splendid Defiance is a dramatic and enchanting story of forbidden love, set against the turmoil and anguish of the English Civil War.

Excerpt

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

The cobbled depths of Pebble Lane stank of rotting vegetation and, from up ahead, came the sound of inebriated laughter punctuated by inane persuasion.  Justin quickened his pace.

‘Little dove … give Jackie a kiss.  No need to be frightened.  We’ll not hurt you.’

‘No – hic!  We like pretty doves.’

Justin recognised the voices and, though irritation was uppermost in his mind, reluctant amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth.

‘Potts!  Danvers!  What the devil do you think you’re doing?’

Two dishevelled and far from sober troopers sprang to unsteady attention while their quarry tried to hide in a corner.  Observing the white cap and plain linen collar that told him everything he needed to know, Justin’s gaze returned coldly to Messrs Potts and Danvers.

‘Well?’

Trooper Potts licked his lips uneasily.

‘We didn’t mean no harm, Captain.’

‘Save your excuses,’ came the stinging reply.  ‘I take it that you are off-duty?’

‘Aye.  Course we are.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

The trooper flushed. ‘Yes, Captain Ambrose. Sir.’

‘Thank you.  And you’ve been in the Reindeer.  Is that your only excuse?’

They agreed that it was.  Then Potts added, ‘But she were on her own, Captain – and she smiled at us.’

‘I don’t care if she was naked as Eve and enticing as the bloody serpent,’ retorted Justin.  ‘You have orders to leave the townswomen alone.  Now get back to the Castle.  I’ll see you in my quarters at eight o’clock – and if you present yourselves looking as slovenly as you do now, you’ll regret it.’

‘Yes, sir.’  They spoke in gloomy unison.

‘Well?  What are you waiting for?’  Justin suppressed his grin until they had set off back down the alley.  Only then, did he remember the girl.

She was huddled against the wall and scarlet with an embarrassment caused more by her rescuer’s words than the  troopers’ importunities.  She prayed he didn’t know who she was and would go away without speaking to her. 

He had been into the shop twice about cloth for the garrison and thereby caused her brother hours of soul-searching on the matter of principle versus profit.  She had expected principle to win for, with Jonas, it usually did.  But now, she wasn’t sure.  Captain Ambrose looked as though he could overcome anything.

He was a tall man and built with lean compactness.  Walnut hair fell in waves about his shoulders and framed a sculpted face too forbidding to be considered handsome. But it was his eyes, now resting on her with polite indifference, that produced an involuntary shiver. Fringed with heavy, sepia lashes, they were a remarkable, light grey … as clear as spring water and as cold.

‘Well, Mistress? Are you hurt?’

The crisp voice, edged with impatience, made her jump.  

‘N-no.’

‘Good.  Then please accept my apologies on behalf of the garrison.  We do our best to prevent such incidents, of course … but if you’ll take my advice, you won’t smile at soldiers even when they are sober.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘Smile.  I only said ‘Excuse me’ – so they’d let me pass.  But they d-didn’t.’

‘On any future occasion it might be better not to speak to them at all. That way, you’ll be saved from annoyance and I from the trouble of administering a reprimand.  I trust that makes the position clear?’

Amazon

PickSpecial Tour Price: Ebook £1.95 / US $1.95 (and equivalent) for the duration of the tour

Stella Riley 

Winner of four gold medals for historical romance and sixteen Book Readers’ Appreciation Medallions, Stella Riley lives in the beautiful medieval town of Sandwich in Kent.

 

She is fascinated by the English Civil Wars and has written six books set in that period. These, like the 7 book Rockliffe series, the Brandon Brothers trilogy and, most recently The Shadow Earl, are all available in audio, performed by Alex Wyndham.

Stella enjoys travel, reading, theatre, Baroque music and playing the harpsichord.  She also has a fondness for men with long hair - hence her 17th and 18th century heroes.

Social Media Links:

Website  ✧ Twitter  ✧ Facebook  ✧ Instagram  ✧ Pinterest  ✧ BookBub  ✧ Amazon Author Page  ✧ Goodreads

Tour Schedule

✧ Book in the Spotlight ✧ The Falconer’s Apprentice by Malve von Hassell

 

The Falconer’s Apprentice

By Malve von Hassell

Publication Date: January 30, 2024 (second edition).

Publisher: Malve von Hassell. 

Pages: 214. 

Genre: Historical Fiction

THE FALCONER'S APPRENTICE is a story of adventure and intrigue set in the intense social and political unrest of the Holy Roman Empire in the thirteenth century.

“That bird should be destroyed!” 

Andreas stared at Ethelbert in shock. Blood from an angry-looking gash on the young lord’s cheek dripped onto his embroidered tunic. Andreas clutched the handles of the basket containing the young peregrine. Perhaps this was a dream—

Andreas, an apprentice falconer at Castle Kragenberg, cannot bear the thought of killing the young female falcon and smuggles her out of the castle. Soon he realizes that his own time there has come to an end, and he stows away, with the bird, in the cart of an itinerant trader, Richard of Brugge. 

So begins a series of adventures that lead him from an obscure castle in northern Germany to the farthest reaches of Frederick von Hohenstaufen’s Holy Roman Empire, following a path dictated by the wily trader’s mysterious mission. Andreas continues to improve his falconry skills, but he also learns to pay attention to what is happening around him as he travels through areas fraught with political unrest. 

Eventually, Richard confides in Andreas, and they conspire to free Enzio, the eldest of the emperor’s illegitimate sons, from imprisonment in Bologna. 

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Malve von Hassell 

Malve von Hassell is a freelance writer, researcher, and translator. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the New School for Social Research. Working as an independent scholar, she published The Struggle for Eden: Community Gardens in New York City (Bergin & Garvey 2002) and Homesteading in New York City 1978-1993: The Divided Heart of Loisaida (Bergin & Garvey 1996). She has also edited her grandfather Ulrich von Hassell's memoirs written in prison in 1944, Der Kreis schließt sich - Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft 1944 (Propylaen Verlag 1994). 

She has taught at Queens College, Baruch College, Pace University, and Suffolk County Community College, while continuing her work as a translator and writer. 

Malve has published two children’s picture books, Tooth Fairy (Amazon KDP 2012/2020), and Turtle Crossing (Amazon KDP 2023), and her translation and annotation of a German children’s classic by Tamara Ramsay, Rennefarre: Dott’s Wonderful Travels and Adventures (Two Harbors Press, 2012).

The Falconer’s Apprentice (2015/KDP 2024) was her first historical fiction novel for young adults. She has published Alina: A Song for the Telling (BHC Press, 2020), set in Jerusalem in the time of the crusades, and The Amber Crane (Odyssey Books, 2021), set in Germany in 1645 and 1945, as well as a biographical work about a woman coming of age in Nazi Germany, Tapestry of My Mother’s Life: Stories, Fragments, and Silences (Next Chapter Publishing, 2021), also available in German, Bildteppich Eines Lebens: Erzählungen Meiner Mutter, Fragmente Und Schweigen (Next Chapter Publishing, 2022), and is working on a historical fiction trilogy featuring Adela of Blois. 

Social Media Links:

Website ✧ Twitter ✧ Facebook ✧ Linkedin ✧ Instagram ✧ Bluesky ✧ Goodreads

Tour Schedule

✧ Book in the Spotlight ✧ Yellow Bird’s Song by Heather Miller

Yellow Bird’s Song

By Heather Miller 

Publication Date: March 19th, 2024. 

Publisher: Historium Press. 

Pages: 370 Pages. 

Genre: Historical Fiction

Rollin Ridge, a mercurial figure in this tribal tale, makes a fateful decision in 1850, leaving his family behind to escape the gallows after avenging his father and grandfather’s brutal assassinations. With sin and grief packed in his saddlebags, he and his brothers head west in pursuit of California gold, embarking on a journey marked by hardship and revelation. Through letters sent home, Rollin uncovers the unrelenting legacy of his father’s sins, an emotional odyssey that delves deep into his Cherokee history.

The narrative’s frame transports readers to the years 1827-1835, where Rollin’s parents, Cherokee John Ridge and his white wife, Sarah, stumble upon a web of illicit slave running, horse theft, and whiskey dealings across Cherokee territory. Driven by a desire to end these inhumane crimes and defy the powerful pressures of Georgia and President Andrew Jackson, John Ridge takes a bold step by running for the position of Principal Chief, challenging the incumbent, Chief John Ross. The Ridges face a heart-wrenching decision: to stand against discrimination, resist the forces of land greed, and remain on their people’s ancestral land, or to sign a treaty that would uproot an entire nation, along with their family.

Excerpt

John Rollin Ridge, Mount Shasta Gold Mines, California, 1851

In the many dawns that followed, I took great pains for numbness. Lit the candle mount on my hat with clay-stained hands. Followed my lantern underground, tracing lingering sulfur air singed from blasts of dynamite. I followed the stench willingly, hand braced against embedded veins of iron ore. Work too brutal for shale so brittle.

With pickaxe supine, I heaved the miner’s tool in relentless rhythm against ribs of bedrock. Amidst such brainless work, my memory sparked in flashes against the limestone and gneiss. 

Tragedy struck. 

I woke again that dawn, heard the banging of the door, the clank of the broken lock, the scuffle of men’s feet across the wooden floor. Overlapping cries, some in anger, some with fear. Papa’s “Wait.” Mama’s “No.” And in drops like the sweat down my back, the warriors steadily spit their threats. “Treaty,” they said. “Traitor,” they said. “Trail,” they said. “Tears.”

Man against nature, in tedious monotony, I rose, hands sliding to grip, overlapping, and thwack. Axe teetering at the fulcrum point then, the collapse. First, a chink, then, the fall of sharp severs that buried my boots. Rocks rang as I bellowed, “Let him go. Leave him be.” No one heard me then; no one heard me now. 

I threw my axe underfoot and grabbed the drill rod and hammer. Shadows and sunlight. Men against man, the war party carried him outside. Mama’s hands held me behind her. Mask and kerchief kept her from him. 

Beat and turn. Arms pound and burn. They stabbed. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. The arrowhead on the bowie knife. Twenty-nine. They stole his breath, walked single file across his body. Mama in blood-soaked white. Papa raised himself to speak. Air escaped. No words.

This man warred against his thoughts. My mind couldn’t separate Papa’s visage in life after seeing him pale with death. His blood oozed through a winding sheet and fell, drop by drop on the floor. By his side sat my mother, with hands clasped in speechless agony. Bending over him was his own afflicted mother, with her long, white hair flung loose over her shoulders and bosom, crying to the Great Spirit to sustain her.8 I lost time to such futility. With buckets in tow, I surfaced, tracing limestone serpentine toward the sun, sonless.

At the time, we scarcely knew our loss.9 The same day Papa died, Grandfather was ambushed, shot in the back. Uncle Elias’ head was beaten in by lying men.

After so many voiced condolences and unvoiced threats, Mother sent me away. And my life sped behind never-ending coach windows, taking me to my grandparents’ house, the Northrups in Massachusetts, to study Latin and Greek in Great Barrington’s classrooms. Years later, another coach returned me, much slower, to Arkansas, to Washbourne’s lawbooks, to Lizzie and her mountain lion. Canoe rides. Our wedding. Holding Alice. Erecting cabin walls. Planting corn, wheat. Killing Kell. Papa’s letter. Mama. I hacked through it all. But more rock lay ahead, despite all my efforts to touch the golden reprieve on the other side.

Inside my mind, their faces remained, not the books I’d read or the places I’d lived. Papa’s letter said he wished to live for his own sake, his wife and children’s sake, and for the sake of his race. He’d said the sacrifice of his life was the consequence of his choices; he had already put his life in danger and contingently given it up. Must I learn the same lesson, realize the same, and die searching for repose and refuge? My pan was still light, even after sifting endless piles of rock for specks shining under the muted earth. 

Amazon

Heather Miller 

As a veteran English teacher and college professor, Heather has spent nearly thirty years teaching her students the author’s craft. Now, with empty nest time on her hands, she’s writing herself, transcribing lost voices in American’s history.

Social Media Links:

Website ✧ Twitter ✧ Facebook ✧ TikTok ✧ Pinterest ✧ Amazon Author Page ✧ Goodreads 

Tour Schedule

✧ Book in the Spotlight ✧ The Viola Factor y Sheridan Brown

The Viola Factor 

By Sheridan Brown

Publication Date: 14th February 2024

Publisher: BookBaby

Pages: 231

Genre: Historical Fiction

"The Viola Factor" takes place at a time when the country faced division and growth after the American Civil War. Viola Knapp Ruffner (1812-1903) struggled with what was just and fair, becoming a little-known confidant for a young black scholar from Virginia. But Viola was much more than a teacher; she was a mother, wife, game-changer, and friend. With her mother's dying wish, a young woman alone, she left her New England roots. This is a story of trauma and love in the South while battling for justice and the rightful education of the enslaved and once enslaved. African American leader Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) called her his friend and model for life.

The Viola Factor is in many ways a journey of life done in baby steps, tentatively stumbling, until a galloping stride is achieved. Viola Knapp wears different shoes on different days. Heavy, mud-trekking boots to allow for aggressive steps, and daintier shoes for more rhythmic and assertive ones. She was a diligent daughter, an outspoken protector, and a progressive teacher.

Like many women in her situation, alone at seventeen, Viola must realize her own principles to fulfill her future goals. With every stride, Viola Knapp Ruffner marches around surprises, over potholes, and dodges folly after folly on her journey to be fulfilled. After ambling in one direction, plodding along in another, and wandering to find herself, a sudden halt pushes her forward until a factor of fate places her in the path of a newly freed slave with a desire to read and penchant to lead. After years of post-traumatic stress and mental uncoupling, she finds herself a woman who followed her mother's dying wish to fight for what is fair and just.

Amazon

Sheridan Brown

Sheridan Brown holds advanced degrees in school leadership and is a certified teacher, principal, and educational leader. The arts have always been a central force in her life, since performing in piano recitals, school band, plays, and singing in choirs her whole life. 

Ms. Brown was born in Tennessee and raised in small towns of southwest Virginia. She practiced her profession in Virginia, Massachusetts, and Florida. Upon retirement, she began volunteering, painting, writing, researching, and traveling with her husband, attorney John Crawford. She has one son, Tony Hume. She is GiGi to Aiden and Lucy. She has returned to the Blue Ridge to live and explore.

Social Media Links:

Facebook ✧ YouTube ✧ LinkedIn ✧ Instagram ✧ Amazon Author Page  ✧ Goodreads ✧ Tiktok ✧ Threads

Tour Schedule

✧ Book in the Spotlight ✧ Covered in Flour by Charles Presti

Covered in Flour
By Charles Presti

Publication Date: 10th October 2023

Publisher: Charles Presti

Page Length: 220 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

It's 1968 in Whisper Haven, and 8-year-old Carl Pozzi’s world is about to change.

 

For eight-year-old Carl Pozzi, 1968 begins like any other year—playing kickball with friends and enjoying the comforting aroma of Mom's pasta dinners in their predominantly white suburban Whisper Haven home. But when Carl's teacher introduces lessons about racial prejudice and injustice, his worldview cracks wide open.

How far can innocence stretch before it snaps?

As Carl flips through the pages of his 3-ring binder, each lesson serves as a gateway to a journey of self-discovery and understanding. It's an expedition that not only changes him but reshapes his whole concept of family and justice—especially as he watches his father put on a police uniform during one of the most fraught periods in American history.

"Covered in Flour" is not just a heartfelt stroll down memory lane. It's a captivating coming-of-age saga that digs deep beneath the surface of suburban tranquility. It beckons you to reconsider long-held family values and confront the societal norms you've taken for granted. 

Written with genuine love, humor, and a tinge of sorrow, this story blends the nostalgia of tradition with the inevitability of change, offering a stirring mix that leaves you pondering long after the last page is turned. This book isn't just a delightful read; it's a catalyst for introspection, freshly baked and served for your soul.

✧ Review ✧

Where do I even begin? From the very first sentence, this novel had me captivated, and I know it sounds clichéd, but it was absolutely brilliant. Written from the perspective of eight-year-old Carl Pozzi, the novel reads like a biography. Carl is a normal eight-year-old, from a normal family. Nevertheless, this academic year broadens Carl's perspective on social matters. Concepts like prejudice and racism, which he has never considered, cause him to pause and reflect.

The illustration of Miss Veezi, Carl's teacher, was masterfully done. She has a significant positive impact on Carl's life, although her ideas frequently conflict with Carl's dad, Nick.

Nick is an unapologetic racist with strong opinions. He is known for his fiery temper, which instils fear rather than respect in his children. Carl feels like he consistently disappoints his dad's high standards, particularly in athletics, but he still has a strong love for his father. I believe Nick's depiction perfectly mirrored the time period. 

In my opinion, this book offered valuable insights for its era. Despite my limited knowledge of 1960s America, the author skillfully transports the reader to that time. I thought the writing was very clear and concise and the story was very easy to follow. I'm excited to read about what happens next in Carl's life, so I hope the author writes the next part soon. 

Purchase Link 
Amazon

Charles Presti, emerging from the sun-drenched shores of Pensacola, Florida, crafts narratives that echo with the richness of his varied life. His journey from a USF College of Medicine graduate to a storyteller is as unconventional as it is inspiring. Drawing from his days as a physician and informatics specialist, Charles infuses his writing with a rare blend of scientific precision and heartfelt emotion. His debut novel, "Covered in Flour," is a vivid tapestry of his Italian-American heritage, his experiences in the whirlwind era of the 1960s, and his personal journey as a gay man. These elements converge to create stories that not only entertain but resonate deeply with themes of family, discovery, and the delicate dance of life's everyday moments.

Charles's passion for storytelling is paralleled only by his commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion. Alongside his husband, Mike Bruce, and their beloved Wheaton Terrier, Zoey, he is a vibrant force and founder of "Sunday's Child," a local charity dedicated to nurturing inclusion and empowering LGBTQ+ and  other marginalized communities through grants to local charities. A pillar in the Emerald Coast Writers group, he continually explores the nuances of identity, heritage, and a sense of belonging. Discover more about Charles's captivating world and "Covered in Flour" at www.coveredinflour.com, where each story is a window into a life lived fully and authentically.

Connect with Charles:
Website ✧ Facebook ✧ LinkedIn ✧ Instagram ✧ BookBub ✧ Amazon Author Page ✧ Goodreads