* Relax, read, and be happy! *
We’re wishing all Friends of the Coffee Pot Book Club a Merry Christmas, Glad Yuletide, Joyful Holidays – and a very happy & healthy New Year!
* We are now on holiday until January 8th, 2024. *
Next year, we have big plans for promoting authors of historical fiction and non-fiction. Watch this space for news!
See you in the New Year...
Love & light,
Cathie, Mary Anne, Ellie, and Jen 💝
A broken promise. A bitter conflict.
And a woman’s elusive chance to love or die.
1458. Young Frenchwoman Estelle de Montavon sails to Cyprus imagining a bright future as tutor to a princess. Instead, she is betrayed by those she loves most—and forced into a dangerous new world of scheming courtiers, vicious power struggles, and the terrifying threat of war.
Determined to flee, Estelle enlists the help of an attractive and mysterious falconer. But on the eve of her escape, fortune’s wheel turns again. She gains entry to Queen Charlotta’s inner circle as a trusted scribe and interpreter, fighting her way to dizzying heights of influence.
Enemies old and new rise from the shadows as Estelle navigates a royal game of cat and mouse between the queen and her powerful half-brother, who wants the throne for himself.
When war comes to the island, Estelle faces a brutal reckoning for her loyalty to the queen. Will the impossible choice looming ahead be her doom—or her salvation?
With this richly-told story of courage, loyalty, and the sustaining power of love, Amy Maroney brings a mesmerizing and forgotten world to vivid life. The Queen’s Scribe is a stand-alone novel in the Sea and Stone Chronicles collection.
In 1877, twenty Irish coal miners hanged for a terrorist conspiracy that never occurred.
Anywhere But Schuylkill is the story of one who escaped, Mike Doyle, a teenager trying to keep his family alive during the worst depression the nation has ever faced. Banks and railroads are going under.
Children are dying of hunger. The Reading Railroad has slashed wages and hired Pinkerton spies to infiltrate the miners’ union. And there is a sectarian war between rival gangs.
But none of this compares with the threat at home.
Praise for Anywhere but Schuylkill:
"In the tradition of Upton Sinclair and Jack London, Michael Dunn gives us a gritty portrait of working-class life and activism during one of the most violent eras in U.S. labor history. Anywhere but Schuylkill is a social novel built out of passion and the textures of historical research. It is both a tale of 1870s labor unrest and a tale for the inequalities and injustices of the twenty-first century."
~ Russ Castronovo, author of Beautiful Democracy and Propaganda 1776.
"Michael Dunn has created the characters that bring the 19th Century's Mine Wars to life for today's readers. Anywhere but Schuylkill will remind readers of John Sayles and Tillie Olsen and the best in the long tradition of labor literature."
~ James Tracy, co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s-70s New Left Organizing
"The Banshees of Inisherin and 1917 are two of the best historical films I've seen in recent years, particularly the cinematography. Yet the visuals Michael Dunn creates in Anywhere But Schuylkill, are richer, more vivid, more imaginative, and more haunting and indelible than what I recall in those brilliant films. It's like the author transports himself to each scene and brings to life each physical detail, each expression, each emotion, and each word of dialogue with the care of a Renaissance painter."
~ David Aretha, award-winning author of Malala Yousafzai and the Girls of Pakistan, and Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1963 March on Washington.
Buy Link:
Michael Dunn
Author Links:
Captivating critics and readers, SIGNATURES IN STONE, was the OVERALL WINNER in the DAPHNE DU MAURIER AWARDS for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense Writing - best mystery of 2013
Rome, Italy - November 2023 - Pleasure Boat Studio is thrilled to announce the release of the second edition of Linda Lappin's celebrated novel, SIGNATURES IN STONE: A BOMARZO MYSTERY. This captivating suspense tale takes readers on a thrilling journey through the enigmatic Monster Park of Bomarzo, also known as the Sacred Wood, an extraordinary Baroque sculpture garden in Italy. With the 500th anniversary of the park's creation, this edition is accompanied by a magnificent new cover and a series of Tarot card illustrations by Santa Fe artist Carolyn Florek.
In SIGNATURES IN STONE, readers are transported to the atmospheric setting of the Monster Park of Bomarzo, a sixteenth-century garden adorned with mythical creatures believed to represent a terrifying journey into the realm of nightmares. Against this backdrop, four travelers find themselves intertwined in a fate-driven Italian holiday. Daphne, a British writer of occult mysteries, her down-on-his-luck aristocratic publisher Nigel, the aspiring artist and American gigolo Clive, and the art historian Professor Finestone, all converge in a dilapidated villa near the park. They are attended by rustic servants who harbor secrets of their own.
Professor Finestone has made a groundbreaking discovery, revealing that the garden was designed by one of Italy's greatest artists as a transformative experience that delves into the shadow side of life. Over the centuries, the park's meanders continue to influence the minds and destinies of those who venture within. As the group explores their heart's desires amidst the haunting sculptures, they become entangled in a web of intrigue and danger. When Daphne, renowned for writing cozy murder tales, becomes the prime suspect in a shocking homicide, she must confront her own darkness and rely on her sleuthing skills to uncover the terrifying truth.
Linda Lappin's gripping tale presents an intriguing exploration of gardens in Renaissance Italy, where they were regarded as tools for altering consciousness and changing destiny. The Monster Park of Bomarzo becomes the backdrop for a "Gothic-in-Wonderland" phantasmagoria, immersing readers in a suspenseful and thrilling journey.
New Edition of Linda Lappin's Award-Winning SIGNATURES IN STONE: A BOMARZO MYSTERY Commemorates the 500th Anniversary of the Monster Park.
Praise for Signatures in Stone:
"Layers of mystery are woven into Linda Lappin's beautifully written and atmospheric historical novel set in Bomarzo, Italy's enigmatic park of stone monsters."
~ Gigi Pandian, author of The Accidental Alchemist.
"Deftly mixing fascinating art history and murder with an exotic atmospheric setting (the Bomarzo garden actually exists), dramatic historical period (1928 fascist Italy), and fully fleshed characters, Lappin (The Etruscan) has written a hallucinatory gothic mystery in which no one is as they appear. Daphne is a most memorable, if a bit unreliable narrator. Readers looking for an intelligent summer mystery will find much to savor here."
~ Wilda Williams, Library Journal
Buy Link:
Giveaway on TripFiction!
https://www.tripfiction.com/giveaway-signatures-in-stone-bomarzo/
This link will be accessible from January 28th!
Linda Lappin
Author Links:
