Blog Tour: One More Hour of Daylight by C.M. Gray

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One More Hour of Daylight

by C.M. Gray

July 27th - 31st, 2026

Publication Date: June, 2026
Publisher: Constance Books
Pages: 417
Genre: Historical Fiction / WWII Thriller

Some debts survive captivity. Some brothers never stop looking.

France, 1943. SOE operative Derrick Sedgley is running for the Spanish border with Lotte Braun: a German woman, an unlikely ally, and a complication he never saw coming.

Behind them, closing fast, is her brother.

Ernst Braun is a Luftwaffe pilot who woke up in a British hospital bed and spent two years deciding who put him there. All he had asked for was one more hour of daylight. Now he wants his sister back. He wants Derrick dead. The SS officer travelling with him has a simpler agenda: he wants them all dead.

The Pyrenees are ahead. The border is possible. Not everyone will reach it.

One More Hour of Daylight is a taut, morally complex WWII thriller about promises made in good faith, debts that survive captivity, and what it costs to bring someone safely home.

For readers of Ken Follett and Robert Harris.

One more hour of daylight. That was all he asked for.

It was never going to be enough.

Praise for One More Hour of Daylight:

"A beautifully written book with a perfect pace that kept me reading
from start to finish."
~ Bookcollector, Amazon 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

"A confident, carefully crafted novel that handles its subject matter with restraint, earning the weight it carries."
~ Indie Library, Goodreads 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Buy Link:

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This novel is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

C.M. Gray

C.M. Gray's first book, The Flight of the Griffin, was longlisted in the 2015 Times Chicken House Writing Competition. Shadowland, the first book in the Pendragon Saga, has so far received over 900 five-star reviews on Amazon. These things still genuinely astonish him, and he is deeply grateful for every one of them.

Most of his previous work has been fantasy: either pure fantasy or historical fantasy, the kind of writing where druids turn up uninvited and one of your main characters develops an unsettling affinity with wolves before you have quite decided what sort of book you are writing. Shadowland began with every intention of staying grounded in historical reality, the story of Uther Pendragon. It did not. It has turned out to be a popular book, so he does not complain.

His years travelling through Asia, India, Africa and the Middle East have a habit of finding their way onto the page. He has seen and done some fairly strange things along the way and met some extraordinary people, and writing fantasy has always felt, to him, only a short step from writing fact.

New for 2026

One More Hour of Daylight, marks C.M. Gray's return to writing. It was published in June 2026, marking a departure: pure historical fiction, no druids, no wolves. It follows Derrick Sedgley, a seventeen-year-old from Essex who makes a single moral choice in a field one September morning in 1939 and spends the next four years living with the consequences. From the Essex countryside to occupied France, from the mountains of Burgundy to the Pyrenees, it is a story about promises, betrayal, courage and the cost of doing the right thing too late.

And for those who have been waiting patiently for the Pendragon Saga to continue: the third book, Shadow's Heir, the story of Arthur Pendragon, follows in September 2026. More on that very soon.

C.M. Gray was born in England and grew up in the Essex countryside near the Suffolk border, which is where Derrick Sedgley grows up, too. The flat fields, the big skies and the particular quality of Essex light found their way into the book, whether he intended them to or not.

C.M. Gray is now very happily settled just outside Barcelona with his wonderful wife and partner in life, Adriana.

Connect with C.M.:
Amazon Author Page • Goodreads

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Blog Tour: The Valet's Witness by Rohn Hein

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The Valet’s Witness

by Rohn Hein

July 20th - 24th, 2026

Publication Date: July 1st, 2026
Publisher: Historium Press
Pages: 307
Genre: Historical Fiction

In the summer of 1776, as the Declaration of Independence takes shape within the charged chambers of the Second Continental Congress, two lives unfold in quiet, irrevocable collision-one etched into the official record, the other deliberately erased from it.

Edward Rutledge, the youngest delegate from South Carolina, moves with calculated precision through a world of rhetoric and reputation. Brilliant, ambitious, and deeply entangled in the economic realities of his homeland, he walks a perilous line between liberty and self-preservation. He argues fiercely for independence while working just as diligently to shield the institution of slavery from scrutiny, determined that the new nation will rise without unsettling the foundation upon which his power-and his prosperity-rests.

At his side stands Pompey, his enslaved valet-unseen, unacknowledged, yet ever-present. Moving silently through corridors thick with ambition and contradiction, Pompey becomes a witness to history in its most unguarded moments. He listens where others speak freely, observes where others perform, and remembers what others choose, or need, to forget. To the men shaping a nation, he is invisible; to the truth, he is indispensable.

Among the servants and valets attending the southern delegates, a hidden network begins to take shape-men bound by circumstance yet united by awareness. In kitchens, in narrow stairwells, in the shadowed edges of candlelit rooms, they exchange fragments of overheard debates and whispered concessions. They piece together a parallel record of the nation's birth: one of uneasy compromises, moral evasions, and calculated silences. They hear the arguments over freedom and tyranny; they witness the careful removal of any language that might threaten the institution that binds them.

As Rutledge maneuvers behind closed doors-pressing to strike any condemnation of slavery from the final draft-Pompey gathers something far more fragile and far more dangerous than political victory: memory. Each conversation, each omission, each moment of hesitation becomes part of a story that has no place in the official narrative. It is a story carried not in ink, but in the minds of those denied the power to write it.

Yet history has a way of resurfacing through the voices it tried to silence.

The Valet's Witness is a sweeping, intimate reimagining of America's founding, illuminating the lives that moved just beyond the margins of recorded history. With lyrical depth and moral clarity, it reveals not only how independence was declared, but what-and who-was sacrificed to secure it. In the space between liberty and bondage, between principle and profit, a hidden truth emerges-one that challenges the very meaning of freedom in a nation built on both hope and contradiction.

Praise for The Valet’s Witness:

"The historical research underpinning the novel is extensive. The atmosphere surrounding the Second Continental Congress is recreated with confidence, and the political negotiations feel carefully grounded in the historical record. Readers familiar with the American Revolution will appreciate the author's evident knowledge of the period, while those approaching it for the first time will find themselves immersed in both the personalities and the events that shaped the emergence of a new nation."
~ Ellie Yarde, Yarde Book Promotions 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

"As someone who enjoys historical fiction that remains grounded in its period, I appreciated the care that had gone into recreating this pivotal moment in history."
~ Mary Anne Yarde, The Coffee Pot Book Club 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Buy Link:

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Rohn Hein

Rohn Hein is a first-time author with fifty years of involvement in non-partisan community activism. Starting as a VISTA volunteer in 1973, he worked for five different non-profit organizations working with welfare recipients, senior citizens, urban housing, racial justice, and environmental efforts in Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York and New Jersey. For the last 40 years Rohn was an investment adviser while volunteering with social justice activities in affordable housing, racial justice, and environmental issues. Rohn has written testimony presented in the Minnesota and New Jersey Legislature and appeared at numerous churches, city council, county, and regional government agencies.

He works with many New Jersey non-profit organizations on racial justice issues, such as The NJ Institute for Social Justice, Salvation and Social Justice, NJ NAACP, Fair Share Housing, and  UU Faith Action. He has worked on landmark affordable housing legislation and on the enactment of a racial justice impact statement on legislation in New Jersey.

Connect with Rohn:
Website • Instagram • LinkedIn
Historium Press Author Page

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Blog Tour: The Duty of Daughters – El Deber de las Hijas – by Wendy J. Dunn

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The Duty of Daughters

Falling Pomegranate Seeds, Book #1

by Wendy J. Dunn

Thursdays, July 23rd - August 13th, 2026

Publication Date: November 17th, 2019
Publisher: Poesy Quill
Pages: 310

Genre: Historical Fiction / Tudor Fiction

Spanish Version:
Publication Date: June 1st, 2026
Publisher: Libros de Seda S.L.
Pages: 320

Castile, 1490.

Doña Beatriz Galindo is an uneasy witness to the Holy War of Queen Isabel of Castile and her husband, Ferdinand, King of Aragon. A holy war pushing the Moors out of territories ruled by them for centuries.

Beatriz does not want a life like other women. She desires power over her own destiny. Even if this means walking a far harder road.

A passionate and respected scholar, Beatriz serves her friend Queen Isabel of Castile as her advisor. She also tutors the queen’s youngest child, Catalina of Aragon.

Dedicated to Queen Isabel and her children, Beatriz guides the young Catalina of Aragon to walk her own hard life road.

But can she prepare Catalina to be England’s queen?

Finalist in the 2020 CHAUCER Book Awards for pre-1750s Historical Fiction.

Praise for The Duty of Daughters:

"This is a captivating read, written with heart, significance and sensibility. Dunn is a careful writer. She doesn't exploit her characters; rather, she explores them and brings us along for the journey. This is a novel researched with integrity, and Dunn reaches out and lands beautifully in the winner's circle."
~ Historical Novel Reviews

"This profoundly moving story helps us appreciate today's more enlightened world. The Duty of Daughters is historical fiction at its best!"
~ Readers’ Favorite ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Buy Links:

Universal Buy Link – English Version

Universal Buy Link – Spanish Version

Wendy J. Dunn

Award-winning Australian author of Tudor historical fiction, specialising in Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon novels.

Wendy J. Dunn is an award-winning Australian author, playwright and poet fascinated by Tudor history – so much so she was not surprised to discover a family connection to the Tudors, not long after the publication of her first Anne Boleyn novel narrating the Anne Boleyn story through the eyes of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the elder. Her family tree reveals the intriguing fact that one of her ancestral families – possibly over three generations – had purchased land from both the Boleyn and Wyatt families to build up their own holdings. It seems likely Wendy’s ancestors knew the Wyatts and Boleyns personally.

Her second novel, The Light in the Labyrinth, set during final days of Anne Boleyn's life, revisits the Anne Boleyn story through the eyes of her niece Catherine Carey. The Duty of Daughters and All Manner of Things tells the story of Katherine of Aragon. Shades of Yellow tells the story of a woman writing a novel about Amy Robsart.

All Dunn's award-winning works weave together the lyricism of poetry with the pulse of history, creating stories of love, loss, and the endurance of the human spirit.

Connect with Wendy:

Website • Facebook • Instagram • Bluesky • Threads

Newsletter •  LinkedIn • BookBub

Amazon Author Page • TikTok • Goodreads

 

Have a sneak peek between the pages of Mrs. R. Pacheco – a compelling biographical novel by Rose Ann Woolpert #HistoricalFiction #WomenInHistory #RecommendedReading

Mrs. R. Pacheco:

The Untold Story of Playwright
and California First Lady Mary McIntyre

by Rose Ann Woolpert

Mrs. R. Pacheco is a sweeping story of love, ambition, and colliding cultures in the American West, inspired by the actual life of playwright, novelist, and California first lady Mary McIntyre Pacheco.

~~~

It is 1859, and the glittering promise of the California Gold Rush has faded into dust, leaving behind a land suspended between ambition and uncertainty.

Into this shifting world steps Mary Catherine "Molly" McIntyre, a young woman newly unmoored by loss, carrying both the weight of family duty and the quiet, persistent call of her own dreams.

Based on the remarkable life of Mary McIntyre Pacheco, Mrs. R. Pacheco unfolds as an intimate portrait of a woman caught between cultures, expectations, and the fragile hope of self-determination. When Molly marries Romualdo Pacheco, a Californio statesman destined to become California's first Hispanic governor, her life is swept into a world both foreign and exhilarating, where love must contend with tradition, and identity is shaped by forces beyond her control.

As Molly navigates the complexities of marriage, society, and a rapidly changing California, she discovers within herself a fierce creative spirit that refuses to be silenced. Her journey from grieving daughter to pioneering novelist and playwright becomes a testament to resilience, illuminating the quiet strength required to carve a voice in a world not yet ready to hear it.

Rich in historical detail and alive with emotional depth, this novel evokes the textures of nineteenth-century California, from its sunlit landscapes to its deeply rooted cultural divides. Through Molly's eyes, readers are drawn into a story of longing, reinvention, and the delicate balance between belonging and becoming.

Both sweeping and deeply personal, Mrs. R. Pacheco is a story of love shaped by circumstance, ambition tempered by sacrifice, and the enduring courage it takes to stand between worlds and claim a life as one's own.

Praise for Mrs. R. Pacheco:

"Based on a real story in the mid 1850’s during the California Gold Rush. Well researched and very enjoyable to read. Highly recommend."
~ Amazon Review, 5*

"The detail of the descriptions of all makes the reader part of the story: fellow travelers, the boats and trains, the food, the clothing, the housing. And then Mary meets Romualdo Pacheco and the story takes off again, drawing the reader into Romualdo's courting of Mary. the wedding, birth of their children and premature passing of one while Romualdo takes on offices from State Senator, State Treasurer, Lt. Governor, Governor and member of congress. All the while, from the beginning, we see Mary's nascent desire to write being nurtured by many people in many ways. This book catches the readers interest and keeps it. Highly recommended."
~ Amazon Review, 5*

Not everyone reached California by prairie schooner. Molly and her family traveled by steamship and crossed the soggy jungles of the Isthmus of Panama by train.

The Carolina steamed across the Caribbean toward Central America and eventually reached the Panamanian coastline. There, the crewmen dropped anchor at Aspinwall, a tiny, waterlogged settlement at the eastern terminus of the Panama Pacific Railroad

Molly stepped out onto the flat, soggy island at the mouth of the Chagres River, and her heart sank. Before her lay a cluster of sorry buildings perched on rotted wood pilings.

“What in the world?” She lifted a hand to cover her nose, but the oppressive heat and humidity made it impossible to escape the stench of mud and decay. “It smells terrible here.”

“Oh, my goodness, what a miserable place,” Lizzie said.

“This heat is unbearable,” Joanna said. “And can you believe all the insects?”

The air was alive, and the bugs were after blood. Molly tried shooing away the clouds of sand flies and mosquitoes but met with little success. Thankfully, she’d draped her face and neck with gauze netting so that her long cotton skirt, sunbonnet, gloves, shoes, and thick cotton stockings covered every inch of skin.

“That must be our train.” Mother was pointing toward a small engine at rest on a set of narrow iron rails. “Let’s hope we board soon.”

Rusty tracks led to a tin-roofed depot building next to an expanse of wet, marshy mudflats. A few workers were covered with sweat, hard at work transferring heavy bundles of mail. Others loaded baggage from the steamship onto the waiting locomotive. Some of the westbound passengers were growing impatient.

“When will we board our train?” asked a rotund, red-faced fellow. Sweat dripped off his face, his clothes were soaked with perspiration, and he looked highly uncomfortable. “We deserve better than this, considering the cost of our tickets.”

“We all want to be away from this place,” said an older man with a thin, graying beard and droopy mustache. “It appears there’s a shortage of labor. Unless you wish to pitch in and help load the freight, there is nothing to be done for it but to sit and wait.”

Another traveler pulled a damp linen kerchief from his pocket and began wiping away the water beading on his forehead and dripping from his nose.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “He’s absolutely right. Complaining won’t help a bit. Besides, you should be grateful for the train. I reckon you never heard ’bout all it took to cross this isthmus before it was finished.”

“Charlie and me, we crossed here in fifty-one,” said a man who was using a ragged canvas hat to swat at a swarm of flies. “It was risky business back then. All we could think of was getting to the gold, and the only way upriver was to paddle yerself and yer gear in a dugout canoe. Ain’t that so, Charlie?”

His companion squinted and spit a mouthful of tobacco juice into a muddy puddle next to his nearly worn-out boots. “Yep, then ’twas over the mountains on the back of a mule. Had to fight off bandits, didn’t we? Barely escaped with our skins.”

“’Sides them robbers, poisonous water snakes and hungry gators wanted nothin’ more than havin’ us for dinner.”

Charlie nodded and scratched at his scraggly, juice-stained yellow beard. “Glad we’re goin’ through the jungle by daylight this time. Too many ghosts in there. Hundreds, maybe thousands, died puttin’ in them rails. Swore I’d never cross through there again. But this train ain’t so bad. It’ll get us to Panama City lickety-split. Be there in just a few hours.”

He gave a toothless grin and spit again.

Molly turned and went to stand with Mother. She wasn’t sure if she believed in ghosts, but the place felt eerie enough to be full of them. Mossy vines draped the mangrove trees like weird, shadowy veils, and the air itself seemed haunted. Seasickness or not, she looked forward to reaching the Pacific Ocean as soon as possible.

Mother was also growing impatient. She decided to go inside the depot to ask when they might expect to board. A few minutes later, she emerged from the building with one of the railroad officials.

“Girls,” she said, “we’re ready to depart. This gentleman promises to find us a place where we can sit together.” 

They boarded the train, the conductor showed them their seats, and they settled in as best they could.

Lizzie was growing peevish. “This metal bench is not at all comfortable,” she said.

“Upholstery would rot in this humidity,” Molly snapped irritably. “Be glad you have somewhere to sit.” She considered reminding Lizzie of their good fortune. They could be following a Conestoga wagon across the prairies, blistering the soles of their feet on the Oregon Trail.

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Rose Ann Woolpert

Rose Ann Woolpert is drawn to questions history leaves unanswered. As an author whose work is grounded in fact and shaped by imagination, she writes stories that explore how individuals navigate change, loss, ambition, and identity.

Her writing is often inspired by California history, particularly the lives of women whose stories risk being lost to memory. Family recollections, historical records, and careful research inform her work, while fiction allows space to imagine motives, choices, and inner lives beyond the historical record.

Connect with Rose Ann:
Website • Facebook • Substack
Amazon Author Page • Historium Press Author Page • Goodreads