If your a regular reader or frequent visitor of Jorie Loves A Story, you know I’ve been smitten with the novelists who publish their relationship-based Romances with ChocLitUK for a good two years now! I love being on the cusp of learning about a ‘new release’ whilst I remain patient to see if the Digital First new ChocLit novel will make it to a print release further down the road of it’s lifetime. I don’t mind the gaps between the ebooks and the print editions – as it’s always given me the pleasure of balancing my ‘next ChocLit reads’ to include both Front List and Back List offerings. Thus, I am enjoying being a member of the Reveal Team at ChocLit whilst it gives me a chance to introduce my readers to a variety of sub-genres within Romance I appreciate picking up to read!
On my new position as a ChocLit Star member: Whilst I am part of the ChocLit Reviewers having brought reviews & guest author features to Jorie Loves A Story for the past two years, I have recently become a part of the Cover Reveal Team, as disclosed when I hosted the first Reveal on behalf of Sheryl Browne’s ‘Learning to Love’. This new team works with ChocLit providing honest feedback on ‘projects’ such as title & book cover design choices as well projects in development on behalf of the publisher. I accepted being a ChocLit Star as I felt my love of the stories would be a good fit to give in-depth responses to the projects pitched to the Stars. Therefore, when I blogged about the cover for “Revenge is Sweet” it was the first reveal where my input as a ChocLit Star helped the reveal become possible!
Celebrating the Paranormal Romances of Christina Courtenay
& her “Shadows of the Past” series
Read the author’s thoughts on writing Time Slips via her Guest Post
(which focuses on this series)
The Silent Touch of Shadows began the series
The Soft Whisper of Dreams is the sequel to The Secret Kiss of Darkness
& today’s cover reveal is about the fourth story next in sequence!
I’ve been wanting to soak back inside this series for the past two years – time & tide kept keeping me away from the story’s heart, I must admit! It’s partially why I was inspired to spend 2016 focusing on the serial fiction by ChocLit authors, as I knew I had two series by Ms Courtenay I wanted to be reading next in queue in-between my next review choices – her Kinross series & Shadows from the Past are far too tempting to let time continue to slip through my fingers!
The interesting bit to note is that it was ‘The Silent Touch of Shadows’ which first introduced me to the collective works of Ms Courtenay, and what a blessing it was to disappear inside this world she created for us to wander around – as it was both alluring as it was cautionary! I was on the pins of my nerves for most of the novel as you simply had no way of knowing how it would pan out in the end & if the ending was one you could live with finding as the resolution!
I knew from that moment forward I would want to travel through her bibliography – seeing how she would tempt me into the historical past but also, how your Young Adult novels might be ones I could appreciate as much as her PNR stories. I look forward to spending more hours inside her novels, but today, it’s simply a wicked sweet joy of mine to be helping to ring in the next novel in sequence for a series that simply charmed me at first meeting!
On my Connection to Ms. Courtenay:
Two years ago, on the 26th of April, 2014, I created #ChocLitSaturday a weekly Rom chat to celebrate the novelists of ChocLitUK but also, to expand to include book bloggers, readers and writers of Romance who have a penchant for the genre as a whole. Ms. Courtenay started to become a regular fixture, and her encouraging conversations & ability to inspire others to converse freely throughout the chats put me at ease in my new role as a ‘Hostess’. She always seemed to know how to either start a topic or how to best suggest something to break the ice! I was always so very grateful to her and I am thinking I might have forgotten to tell her directly how much gratitude I had for her in those earlier chats! Over the weeks that have followed, I have found myself attached to each of my ‘regular’ chatters during the hour, and I consider Ms. Courtenay a bookish like-minded soul, as we tend to appreciate the same types of stories!
I am disclosing this, to assure you that I can formulate an honest opinion, even though I have interacted with Courtenay through our respective love & passion of reading inside the twitterverse whilst I host #ChocLitSaturday the chat and having previously read her time slip novels. I treat each book as a ‘new experience’, whether I personally know the author OR whether I am reading a book by them for the first time or continuing to read their releases as they are available.
The Velvet Cloak of Moonlight Cover Reveal
“As the velvet cloak of moonlight settled over the ruined towers of Raglan Castle, the shadows beneath them stirred…”
When newly widowed Tess visits Raglan Castle, an extraordinary hallucination transports her to a past that existed long before her own – to seventeenth-century Wales and to a castle on the brink of a siege.
Even when Tess leaves Raglan to return to Merrick Court, her husband’s home, the strangeness continues as her life becomes increasingly intertwined with her dreams and visions. And when the new owner of the estate arrives - New Zealander Josh Owens - the parallels become even more obvious. It's time to confront the past head-on.
But perhaps the voices from the past aren’t just trying to tell their own story, maybe they’re also giving a warning…
Places to find the book:
Published by: ChocLitUK (@ChocLitUK)
RELEASE DATE: 7th October, 2016 – PRINT EDITION! (jumping for joy!)
Formats Available: wicked happy to showcase an upcoming print book release!
Converse via: #ChocLit & #ChristinaCourtenay
This series had me properly at ‘hallo’ when I realised it was focusing on a few things I love discovering in literature: a Gothic setting, a suspenseful tale full of ghosts and a historical edge towards how it’s illuminating through it’s core of narrative intrigue! I don’t know about you – but how they managed to create the illusion of the ghost taking her proper place at that bench is quite wicked clever! I love how you do not initially realise she’s even present as my eyes drifted skyward – to where the ruins of the castle (or so they seem) took my eyes first before I re-adjusted to gather the fuller scope of what was being hidden within the cover itself!
The second thing I noticed was how the title was alluding to so much simply with the wordage that was used to create the illusions of what might be present within the story. I truly love titles that act as springboards – drawing your imagination to have a pleasurable bout of curious notions to chew on until you honestly have a book in hand to read! Those are the titles that get you to stay up at night to ponder the most! Laughs.
Anyone who can sort out a method of time travel that completely takes their characters off-guard and re-situates them inside a hidden corridor of history will always have a keen interest of mine to be read!
Here is how I spoke best about the styling of a Courtenay novel when I first read the debut of this series:
I can assure you dear hearts, you get so attached to the 15th Century, between walking the vast estate and being caught up in the particulars of that century’s sociopolitical drama that by the time you ‘pull yourself’ forward back into the Manor to see how the research Melissa is doing into the ancestral records for her family & Jake’s family lineage, you nearly do not know which era you’d prefer to stay in a bit longer! I especially loved one scene where Melissa is being given the access to an ancient copy of the original will penned on behalf of Sibell; as she starts to read the words in Latin, her mind takes her physically back to Sibell’s time. She can sense and feel everything happening to Sibell at the time the will is being written. The visceral imagery and sensory connectedness was conveyed in such a convincing way that you could ascertain exactly what was happening in that ‘one single second’ of Sibell’s young life.
You become so wholly in-step with Courtenay’s characters, you simply disappear from this world for the time it takes you to sort through her character’s journey! The discoveries along the way are alarmingly plausible and she writes with such a heart of depth for the historical past counter-bending back against the modern setting – you can barely remember your reading a ‘time slip’ as she has seamlessly created a way to ‘slip through time but not to forget the time spent in either direction of it’s passage’.
I dearly look forward to resuming where I left off with the Shadows of the Past series, whilst fully dissolving inside it’s breadth as it now has four lovely stories to devour all at once! This reminds me of why I am overjoyed in reading the Lady Darby Mysteries this month – as sometimes despite the hiccups in soaking inside the stories your itching to read, you arrive inside the stories at a time that is right for you to be with them!
I simply cannot get enough of
‘atmospherically Gothic Rom Suspense’!
This Cover Reveal is courtesy of: ChocLitUK
My recent ChocLit readings:
You Think You Know Me | No. 1 of the London & Cambridge Mysteries | by Claire Chase (review)
The Golden Chain | No. 2 of Charton Minster series (see No.1) | by Margaret James (review)
Some Veil Did Fall | No.1 of the Rossetti Mysteries | by Kirsty Ferry
Similar to blog tours where I feature book reviews, as I choose to highlight an author via a Guest Post, Q&A, Interview, etc., I do not receive compensation for featuring supplemental content on my blog. I provide the questions for interviews and topics for the guest posts; wherein I receive the responses back from publicists and authors directly. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them; I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers.
Reader Interactive Question:
Why do you love a wicked good ghost or paranormal romance to soak inside!?
{SOURCES: Book covers for “The Silent Touch of Shadows” and “The Secret Kiss of Darkness” were provided by the author Christina Courtenay and used with permission. The book synopsis for “The Velvet Cloak of Moonlight”, the book covers for “The Velvet Cloak of Moonlight” and “The Soft Whispers of Dreams”, author photograph of Christina Courtenay, author biography and Choc Lit Star Badge were provided by ChocLitUK and used with permission. Post dividers and My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded due to codes provided by Twitter.
Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Stories Sailing into View banner and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2016.
Comments via Twitter:
.@ChocLituk *waves back!* :) I caught this a bit late but appreciate the #HappyFourth cheers all the same! :) @PiaCCourtenay @AngelaBritnell
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) July 5, 2016
.@ChocLituk It's a proper countdown now! Only a few short hours are left til the *BIG!* reveal *cough* (smirks) #sohappy for @PiaCCourtenay
— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) July 5, 2016
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