Friday, February 2, 2024

Blog Tour: EXSILIUM by Alison Morton



Join The Coffee Pot Book Club on tour with…


EXSILIUM

A Roma Nova Foundation Novel

by Alison Morton




March 18th - 29th, 2024

Publication Date: February 27th, 2024
Publisher: Pulcheria Press
Pages: 364
Genre: Historical Fiction


Exile – Living death to a Roman

AD 395. In a Christian Roman Empire, the penalty for holding true to the traditional gods is execution. 

Maelia Mitela, her dead husband condemned as a pagan traitor, leaving her on the brink of ruin, grieves for her son lost to the Christians and is fearful of committing to another man.

Lucius Apulius, ex-military tribune, faithful to the old gods and fixed on his memories of his wife Julia’s homeland of Noricum, will risk everything to protect his children’s future.

Galla Apulia, loyal to her father and only too aware of not being the desired son, is desperate to escape Rome after the humiliation of betrayal by her feckless husband.

For all of them, the only way to survive is exile.



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Alison Morton


Alison Morton writes award-winning thrillers featuring tough but compassionate heroines. Her ten-book Roma Nova series is set in an imaginary European country where a remnant of the Roman Empire has survived into the 21st century and is ruled by women who face conspiracy, revolution and heartache but use a sharp line in dialogue. The latest, EXSILIUM, plunges us back to the late 4th century, to the very foundation of Roma Nova.

She blends her fascination for Ancient Rome with six years’ military service and a life of reading crime, historical and thriller fiction. On the way, she collected a BA in modern languages and an MA in history.  

Alison now lives in Poitou in France, the home of Mélisende, the heroine of her two contemporary thrillers, Double Identity and Double Pursuit. 

Author Links:





Tour Schedule

March 18th

 March 19th

March 20th

March 21st

March 22nd





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In the Shadow of the Pyrenees: The Freedom Trail to Spain by Kathryn Gauci #AwardWinning #HistoricalFiction #RecommendedReads


In the Shadow of the Pyrenees:
The Freedom Trail to Spain

by Kathryn Gauci




From USA Today Bestselling author Kathryn Gauci comes a thrilling and emotional story of bravery and self-sacrifice, heartbreak, and revenge, set in one of the most dangerous and difficult of WWII escape routes.


A compelling portrait of life, love, courage, and retribution.


“A beautiful dark-haired woman dressed in the latest Parisian fashion stepped onto the platform. She was holding a small boy in one arm and her small suitcase and false documents in the other. A girl, about six years old, stood by her side clinging to her mother’s skirt and clutching a doll with blonde curly hair. Justine felt a surge of pity. They didn’t look strong enough for the journey ahead of them.”


When France declares war on Germany, the villagers of the sleepy village of Mont-Saint-Jean have no idea how much their lives will be impacted. At first they find themselves helping a trickle of British soldiers and airmen heading into Spain, but within months, that trickle has turned into a never-ending flow. Desperate French and foreign Jews, together with ordinary men and women evading Vichy’s harsh laws in search of freedom, either attempt to flee and join de Gaulle’s Secret Army in North Africa, or hide and regroup in readiness for D-Day. Before they know it, they are drawn into the shadowy world of escape networks in one of France’s harshest and most dangerous mountainous terrains, where at every turn they face deportation or death if caught.


Rich in detail and based on true events in Occupied France, In the Shadow of the Pyrenees weaves together a powerful and vivid tableau of characters, a tortured love affair, and the heroism of countless helpers. It is a story that conjures up the voices of the past and will take you on a journey in which the ensuing upheavals continue to resonate in the villagers’ lives long after the war has ended.



Praise:

"A remarkable and moving story of true courage."
~ JJ Toner, author of The Black Orchestra


"A historical fiction novel that will captivate your heart and earn a cherished place on your bookshelf."
~ Mary Anne Yarde, The Coffee Pot Book Club







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Thursday, February 1, 2024

Book of the Month: Dance A Fearful Jig by Alison Huntingford #HistoricalFiction #RegencyFiction #BookOfTheMonth


* Book of the Month *


Dance A Fearful Jig

by Alison Huntingford




Publication Date: January 9th, 2024
Publisher: Lupin Publications
Pages: 215
Genre: Historical Fiction


What would you sacrifice for love?

Peterborough 1807

Rachel Alderman is a lonely, middle-aged housekeeper to a local vicar. Blighted by crippling shyness, illness and the needs of others, her life is going nowhere. That is, until a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger determines otherwise. 

Charles Le Boucher is a French soldier captured in the ongoing Napoleonic war, currently residing in the nearby POW camp, Norman Cross. Whilst out on parole, attempting to sell his delicately carved model ships in the marketplace, he meets and befriends Rachel. 

With their two countries on opposing sides in a bitter war, should they even be talking to one another? Despite family disapproval, can their innocent friendship blossom into love, and if it does, what will become of them?


Praise for Dance a Fearful Jig:

"I really enjoyed this story and the characters."
~ Chelsie S., Amazon Vine Voice




This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.




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Have a sneak peek between the covers of S.P. Somtow's exquisite novel — Imperatrix #HistoricalFiction #AncientRome #BlogTour @somtow @cathiedunn

 

Imperatrix: The Empress who was once a Slave

Nero and Sporus Trilogy, Book 2

by S.P. Somtow




Captured by pirates and sold to a Roman aristocrat as a sex slave, Sporus attracted the attention of no less a personage than the Emperor Nero, ruler of the known world. Would-be poet, patron of the arts, aesthete, and brutal autocrat, the Divine Nero saw in the boy a startling resemblance to the Empress Poppaea - and made him an empress as well. 

Suetonius, Tacitus, and other Roman historians have given tantalizing glimpses into the incredible life story of the boy who became twice an empress to two emperors, and was condemned to die in the arena by a third. In this meticulously researched trilogy, World Fantasy Award winning author lays bare the darkest secrets of Imperial Rome - its triumphs and its nadirs, its beauty and its cruelty. 

Through this chaos, a contorted mirror of our contemporary world, this figure of Sporus moves, all too knowing yet all too innocent, providing a worm's eye view of one of the wildest periods in ancient history.

Imperatrix, the second volume of the tale, takes us into the heart of the Imperial palace with all its intrigue, depravity, and splendor.




III

I had got up from my dining couch and was circulating among other triclinia laid out in the garden, and I heard those exact sentiments from an old drunk man; I recognized him as Pontius Pilatus, and I recognized the stories, too — the orgiastic love-feast cults, the baby-eating and what not — from the last banquet I’d seen the old general at.  But the way he told the stories was more … I would say, more mechanical, like a schoolboy reciting Homer, trying to get through the lines while avoiding the tutor’s quirt.

“Ah,” he said, greeting me, “Poppaea.  Or are you Poppaea’s evil twin?  You’ve lost your baby belly.”

“Still telling the same tall tales, General,” I said.  “But the telling isn’t the same; this time, your tales are literally lighting up the banquet.”

“It’s a good thing they’re using the display crosses,” said Pilatus, “so we can get the light without the smell.”

A woman sitting next to him said, “And without the guilt, Pontius.”

“I daresay if they were marinated in garlic and garum instead of being coated with pitch, the smell would be quite pleasant,” another guest piped up.

“The guilt,” the woman said again, grimly lifting a honeyed mouse by the tail and popping it her mouth, then spitting out the tiny bones.

“My wife, the Lady Procula,” said Pilatus.  “She used to have nightmares about it.  Now, I have the nightmares.”

“Because, my dear,” said the Lady Procula, “you know they don’t actually have baby-eating orgies.”

“Blood rites, dear.  They do have blood rites.”

“Metaphorical, husband!  They are a completely harmless cult.  The Jews don’t worship the Emperor either, and they’re not lighting up his dinner parties.”

“They will be soon,” said another voice.  Tigellinus, also making the rounds.  “I hear they are revolting again.”



This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.




S.P. Somtow


Once referred to by the International Herald Tribune as 'the most well-known expatriate Thai in the world,' Somtow Sucharitkul is no longer an expatriate, since he has returned to Thailand after five decades of wandering the world. He is best known as an award-winning novelist and a composer of operas.

Born in Bangkok, Somtow grew up in Europe and was educated at Eton and Cambridge. His first career was in music and in the 1970s, his first return to Asia, he acquired a reputation as a revolutionary composer, the first to combine Thai and Western instruments in radical new sonorities. Conditions in the arts in the region at the time proved so traumatic for the young composer that he suffered a major burnout, emigrated to the United States, and reinvented himself as a novelist.

His earliest novels were in the science fiction field and he soon won the John W. Campbell for Best New Writer as well as being nominated for and winning numerous other awards in the field. But science fiction was not able to contain him and he began to cross into other genres. In his 1984 novel Vampire Junction, he injected a new literary inventiveness into the horror genre, in the words of Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, 'skillfully combining the styles of Stephen King, William Burroughs, and the author of the Revelation to John.' Vampire Junction was voted one of the forty all-time greatest horror books by the Horror Writers' Association.

In the 1990s Somtow became increasingly identified as a uniquely Asian writer with novels such as the semi-autobiographical Jasmine Nights and a series of stories noted for a peculiarly Asian brand of magic realism, such as Dragon's Fin Soup, which is currently being made into a film directed by Takashi Miike. He recently won the World Fantasy Award, the highest accolade given in the world of fantastic literature, for his novella The Bird Catcher. 

Returning to Thailand in 2001, he became artistic director of Opera Siam and has had more than a dozen operas produced around the world including The Snow Dragon and The Silent Prince, premiered in the United States, Helena Citronova, an opera set during the Holocaust, and the ten-part DasJati: Ten Lives of the Buddha.

In the last few years he has made a return to writing novels with the Nero and Sporus trilogy and the young adult series, Club X.

In 2021 the film he produced and wrote, The Maestro: Symphony of Terror received over forty awards at international festivals and in 2023 the Thai government officially elevated him to the status of National Artist.

Connect with S.P. Somtow:

Website • Twitter • Facebook • Instagram •
Amazon Author Page • BookBub • Goodreads




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Campbell's Boy by Mary Kendall #AwardWinning #HistoricalFiction #RecommendedReads


Campbell’s Boy

by Mary Kendall



California plains in the 1850s. After losing his mother to cholera on the wagon train out west, Emmet Campbell mostly fends for himself in the boom town of Colusa, California where he and his busy and ambitious father settle. Coming of age for Emmet means hiding in the corners of his father's new saloon, scrounging for food in the local brothels and finding refuge in tunnels underneath Colusa's Chinatown.

While fighting off town bullies, an evil Irish stepmother, and his own learning disabilities, Emmet struggles to find his footing but never loses his curiosity about the world around him and the people in it. When forced into a court case to establish his identity and rightful inheritance after the untimely death of his father, Emmet must find family and identity in places he might not have reckoned for. But can he?

With equal measures of the dark and the light, Campbell's Boy is a tender tale about a boy whose fractured beginnings lead him on a journey through life that reveals what it can mean to be human.


Praise:

"With a deft hand, author Mary Kendall brings to life the heartbreaking story of Emmett Campbell and the gritty world in which he lived."
~ Jean M. Roberts, author of The Angel of Goliad


"Tender, charming and emotional. This inspiring story of Emmet Campbell, Campbell's Boy, tugs the heartstrings and immerses you in the sounds and smells, hardships and adventures of California in the 1850s."
~ Kate Braithwaite, author of The Girl Puzzle: A Story of Nellie Bly






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