Category: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Author Interview | Learning about Nellie Bly and the vision Kate Braithwaite had of her life as shared with us through her novel “The Girl Puzzle”

Posted Monday, 6 May, 2019 by jorielov , , 0 Comments

Conversations with the Bookish badge created by Jorie in Canva

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts,

When I originally signed on for this blog tour, I had confused it with another tour – I had a lot on my mind at the time and for whichever reason, I had two of the titles confused for each other. When the novel arrived by Post, I was quite surprised and then, a bit worried – could I handle reading the story or would it be a bit much for me? Over the past years I’ve been blogging my readerly life – there are some stories which I have had a bonefide interest in reading but had learnt the harder truth that some stories out there are just not my cuppa tea or they are a bit outside the scope of what I regularly read – to where something inside them has affected me.

When it came to sorting out how to read about Nellie Bly – my first instinct was to think this might be too much for me as when I read “Emmy Nation” I found myself having issues getting through some of the harder points within the story-line as much as I generally have noticed plots surrounding asylums are ones which are a bit much for me to handle as they tend to dig into areas I might not personally feel motivated to explore.

Despite having a bad week with my Spring allergies which led-in to a migraine as I had a side effect to the new allergy medicine I was taking – I did attempt to read “The Girl Puzzle” which is how this interview was inspired to be shared with my readers. I was hoping to get further along than where I had left off for the questions I pitched to the author in this conversation – however, my head has been crushing me and the allergies – unfortunately are quite severe at the moment to where I haven’t had the chance to give this story the attention it deserved. I wasn’t sure if I could finish the story as it were but I had wanted to progress a bit more into the story – as one thing I observed about how it was written is how well in-tune Ms Braithwaite was with Nellie and how she understand the people she surrounded herself with in life. I found Bly to be a complicated woman but one whom understood herself well and kept her circle of acquaintances to those of whom would understand her best. I believed Braithwaite might have actually tapped into a truer voice of whom Bly had been as she had lived her life similar to how Fowler gave us “Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald”.

I hope as you read through this interview, you’ll have a better scope of understanding this infamous woman from History but with the sensibility Braithwaite instilled into her story. She truly loves writing Historicals and breathing new life and awareness into the people she is exploring through her own vision of their lives.

Be sure to brew your favourite cuppa, sit in a comfy chair and enjoy where the conversation leads! If your a reader of Historical novels with a penchant for Biographical Historical Fiction (as much as I am) I hope this conversation might encourage you to pick up this novel.

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Author Interview | Learning about Nellie Bly and the vision Kate Braithwaite had of her life as shared with us through her novel “The Girl Puzzle”The Girl Puzzle Interview (Kate Braithwaite)
by Kate Braithwaite

Her published story is well known. But did she tell the whole truth about her ten days in the madhouse?

Down to her last dime and offered the chance of a job of a lifetime at The New York World, twenty-three-year old Elizabeth Cochrane agrees to get herself admitted to Blackwell’s Island Lunatic Asylum and report on conditions from the inside. But what happened to her poor friend, Tilly Mayard? Was there more to her high praise of Dr Frank Ingram than everyone knew?

Thirty years later, Elizabeth, known as Nellie Bly, is no longer a celebrated trailblazer and the toast of Newspaper Row. Instead, she lives in a suite in the Hotel McAlpin, writes a column for The New York Journal and runs an informal adoption agency for the city’s orphans.

Beatrice Alexander is her secretary, fascinated by Miss Bly and her causes and crusades. Asked to type up a manuscript revisiting her employer’s experiences in the asylum in 1887, Beatrice believes she’s been given the key to understanding one of the most innovative and daring figures of the age.

Genres: Historical Fiction, War Drama



Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9781798936382

Published by Crooked Cat Books

on 5th May, 2019

Published By: Crooked Cat Books (@crookedcatbooks)

Formats Available: Trade Paperback and Ebook

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

How did you approach digging into the truer history and legacy of Nellie Bly after so much has been disclosed on her behalf? How did you find a new voice to bring her life into our purview which would give us a better insight into who she was and what had motivated her personally as well as professionally?

Braithwaite responds: My starting point for getting to know Nellie Bly was with her own writing. I bought and a copy of Ten Days in a Madhouse and read it in one sitting. In some ways it was a let-down – I think I was expecting great drama, but Nellie was a newspaper reporter, tasked with setting out facts. She didn’t dwell on how the experience felt to her at all, but that was the aspect that really intrigued me. After all, she was only 23 years old in 1887. So I kept reading about her.

I read Brooke Kroeger’s excellent biography and Matthew Goodman’s wonderful book about Nellie and Elisabeth Bisland racing around the world. From Kroeger’s biography I was able to source articles from Nellie’s life after her great initial success and that gave me a whole new perspective on her story. Although there is a very public record of her work, she was very private and didn’t keep diaries or write volumes of deeply personal letters. For a novelist, that can be mean opportunity. It’s often the gaps in the record where you explore the most. That said, I kept rigidly to her biography, while trying to convey my idea of who she must have been as a person. Read More

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Posted Monday, 6 May, 2019 by jorielov in Author Interview, Blog Tour Host, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Blog Tour Spotlight | Celebrating the time bending realities within the creative tomes of Gwendolyn Womack (esp her latest release “The Time Collector”)

Posted Saturday, 4 May, 2019 by jorielov , , , , , 2 Comments

Stories in the Spotlight banner created by Jorie in Canva.

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Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess! HFVBTs is one of the very first touring companies I started working with as a 1st Year Book Blogger – uniting my love and passion with Historical Fiction and the lovely sub-genres inside which I love devouring. It has been a wicked fantastical journey into the heart of the historic past, wherein I’ve been blessed truly by discovering new timescapes, new living realities of the persons who once lived (ie. Biographical Historical Fiction) inasmuch as itched my healthy appetite for Cosy Historical Mysteries! If there is a #HistRom out there it is generally a beloved favourite and I love soaking into a wicked wonderful work of Historical Fiction where you feel the beauty of the historic world, the depth of the characters and the joyfulness in which the historical novelists brought everything to light in such a lovingly diverse palette of portraiture of the eras we become time travellers through their stories.

I received a complimentary copy of “The Time Collector” direct from the author Gwendolyn Womack in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

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On why this story appealled to me:

In truth, the trifecta of ‘time’ narratives (ie. time shift, time slip and time travel) are three of my favourite ways in which genre can become bent towards the will of a novelists pen. It never fails to ensnare a wicked curiosity about what I shall find if I were to dip into a narrative set in a duality of focus between the past and the present whilst what motivates me to seek out these stories is the fact I love being a time traveller of History. There is a benefit to reading Historical Fiction – as the writers who are curating their worlds for us to read are the ones who are re-illuminating the past in such strong strokes of colours and lives to give us a building of the past in our imaginations which befits the real persons who once lived.

It is through this exploration of the human condition, of humanity’s progress and the journeys we venture forth into embracing through this portal of interest where we seek out the most hope for the future because we have a better foundational understanding of whence we’ve previously have travelled.

Although, I previously shared this sentiment about The Girl from Oto, my feelings on the subject are unaltered. I have a penchant for time narratives – everything from Susan Meissner’s A Fall of Marigolds to the previous releases by Ms Womack to the forementioned The Girl from Oto – and all the lovelies I’ve felt ruminatively enchanted by over the years (a fuller list is mentioned on my review on behalf of Ms Womack’s debut novel) – what I love most is how we can see how time can become bent, manipulated at times and either provide forgiveness, redemption or a second chance – when of course, the ways in which time was altered did not have a more cautionary reason against why such measures ought to be weighed carefully against the risk. There is something wondrously interesting about how these stories play out – how the writers have chosen to craft their tales and how we, as readers are being led through a needling of time.

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Blog Tour Spotlight | Celebrating the time bending realities within the creative tomes of Gwendolyn Womack (esp her latest release “The Time Collector”)The Time Collector (Spotlight)
by Gwendolyn Womack
Source: Author via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

Travel through time with the touch of a hand.

Roan West was born with an extraordinary gift: he can perceive the past of any object he touches. A highly skilled pyschometrist, he uses his talents to find and sell valuable antiques, but his quiet life in New Orleans is about to change. Stuart, a fellow pyschometrist and Roan’s close friend, has used his own abilities to unearth several out-of-place-artifacts or “ooparts”—like a ring that once belonged to the seventeenth-century mathematician and philosopher René Descartes, but was found buried in prehistoric bedrock.

The relics challenge recorded history, but soon after the discovery, Stuart disappears, making him one of several psychometrists who have recently died or vanished without a trace. When Roan comes across a viral video of a young woman who has discovered a priceless pocket watch just by “sensing” it, he knows he has to warn her—but will Melicent Tilpin listen? And can Roan find Stuart before it’s too late?

The quest for answers will lead Roan and Melicent around the world—before it brings them closer to each other and a startling truth—in the latest romantic thriller from Gwendolyn Womack, the bestselling, PRISM Award-winning author of The Memory Painter and The Fortune Teller.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller Suspense, Time Slip and/or Time Shift



Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9781250169235

Also by this author: The Memory Painter, The Fortune Teller

on 16th April, 2019

Format: Trade Paperback

Pages: 368

Published By: Picador (@PicadorUSA) via St. Martin’s Press
imprints of St. Martin’s Publishing Group,
which is now a part of MacMillian Publishers

The stories through time by Ms Womack:

The Memory Painter by Gwendolyn WomackThe Fortune Teller by Gwendolyn WomackThe Time Collector by Gwendolyn Womack

The Memory Painter (debut novel) | see also review

The Fortune Teller (sophomore release) | see also review

The Time Collector (third novel)

I have become blessed by the beauty of watching Ms Womack grow her style of time narratives throughout each of these releases – she truly has a gift!

Converse via: ##TheTimeCollector + #HistFic or #HistNov
as well as #TimeShift and #HistoricalFiction

Available Formats: Trade Paperback, Audiobook and Ebook

About Gwendolyn Womack

Gwendolyn Womack Photo Credit: Copyright JennKL Photography

Originally from Houston, Texas, Gwendolyn Womack began writing theater plays in college at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She went on to receive an MFA from California Institute of the Arts in Directing Theatre, Video & Cinema.

Currently she resides in Los Angeles with her husband and son where she can be found at the keyboard working on her next novel. The Memory Painter is her first novel.

Photo Credit: Copyright JennKL Photography

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Posted Saturday, 4 May, 2019 by jorielov in Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Book Spotlight, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

#PubDay Author Interview | Discovering a new voice in war drama [Andrew Lam] and a lovely new #IndiePub in the process (Tiny Fox Press) – “Repentance” celebrates its #bookbirthday, today!

Posted Wednesday, 1 May, 2019 by jorielov , , 2 Comments

Conversations with the Bookish badge created by Jorie in Canva

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts,

As you know, I love reading a heap of Historical Fiction throughout the year – I’ve had to pull back from reading certain kinds of war dramas these past several years, ever since I read Citadel and found myself unable to ‘let go’ of the haunting story of what happened during that period of the war after I concluded my readings of it. It was a firm reminder that we all have limitations in our readerly lives and it also, encouraged me to seek out the writers who are writing human interest stories set during the war generation as much as the stories on the homefront or the after effects of war in the ensuing years following the end of WWII.

I have previously read a Historical drama set round the internment of the Japanese in America during WWII – it opened my eyes to what they went through but also, how I hadn’t learnt nearly enough in school to see a fuller picture of what was going on during the forties and how there are hidden pockets of information kept just out of reach until we find a writer who can bridge the past to the present – re-affirming a lost generation’s truth and instilling us with a memory of the past which bears reckoning to acknowledge in the present. This first story I read was called “How Much Do You Love Me?” by Paul Mark Tag – it is keenly insightful and I loved how he paced the revelations of what is disclosed. You truly feel jettisoned back to a time where Japanese were dealing with the impossible and where the mindset in America was not as it is today..

This is the second novel I’ve found highlighting this hidden history and I was thankful it also lead me to discovering a new #IndiePub at the same time! I am always overjoyed whenever I find a new publisher in the Indie side of publishing as I love championing Independent Press & Publishers who are publishing the stories which might have become overlooked by larger publishers of the same genre(s) of interest.

I wanted to have a healthy conversation to begin my journey into “Repentance” inasmuch as the fact, I was blessed with the ability to kick-off the blog tour! As you will soon read – Dr Lam and I openly discuss the key components of his novel alongside his writing process and what motivates him as a Historical novelist. It is a wonderful conversation which roots you into his passion for war dramas but also, highlights how the stories of the people are an illumination of hope and strength for all of us.

Be sure to brew your favourite cuppa, sit in a comfy chair and enjoy where the conversation leads! If your a reader of Historical novels & war dramas, I hope this conversation might encourage you to pick up this novel. Also, how lovely is it the tour begins on “Repentance”‘s #bookbirthday!?

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

#PubDay Author Interview | Discovering a new voice in war drama [Andrew Lam] and a lovely new #IndiePub in the process (Tiny Fox Press) – “Repentance” celebrates its #bookbirthday, today!Repentance Interview (Andrew Lam)
by Andrew Lam

France, October 1944. A Japanese American war hero has a secret.

A secret so awful he’d rather die than tell anyone–one so entwined with the brave act that made him a hero that he’s determined never to speak of the war. Ever.

Decades later his son, Daniel Tokunaga, a world-famous cardiac surgeon, is perplexed when the U.S. government comes calling, wanting to know about his father’s service with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during WWII. Something terrible happened while his father was fighting the Germans in France, and the Department of Defense won’t stop its investigation until it’s determined exactly who did what.

Wanting answers of his own, Daniel upends his life to find out what his father did on a small, obscure hilltop half a world away. As his quest for the truth unravels his family’s catastrophic past, the only thing for certain is that nothing–his life, career, and family–can ever be the same again.

Genres: Historical Fiction, War Drama



Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9781946501127

Also by this author: Repentance

Published by Tiny Fox Press

on 1st May, 2019

Published By: Tiny Fox Press (@TinyFoxPress)

Formats Available: Trade Paperback and Ebook

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

I have a particular interest in reading war dramas – however, I’ve shifted my focus into human interest stories from the war generations and/or stories of the homefront moreso than direct narratives set at war. What interested me most about your novel is how you’ve presented a curious question suspending through a narrative anchoured to WWII. What originally inspired the story behind “Repentance” and what did you hope readers who love reading war dramas would recognize as uniquely different about how you approached writing this story?

Lam responds: Great question. My inspiration for the novel was the amazing true story of WWII’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history. The 442nd was a segregated unit of Japanese American soldiers that fought with uncommon valor in Europe while many of them had families unjustly incarcerated in internment camps (like Manzanar) at home. They fought ferociously to prove they were just as loyal as other Americans.

But you’re right, I DID want to do something very different. Because there are already many books and even movies that pay homage to these heroes, I did not want my novel to simply glorify the soldiers and victimize the internees. My goal was to humanize the Japanese American WWII experience. So, instead of writing a novel about a “hero,” I wrote one about a coward. I’ve tried to show how combat can make ordinary men behave in surprising and unexpected ways, some good, some bad, and how the effects of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) can adversely affect veterans and their families for the rest of their lives. I’ve tried to humanize this history, which I hope makes the sacrifices of our WWII heroes even more poignant. Read More

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Posted Wednesday, 1 May, 2019 by jorielov in 20th Century, Author Interview, Blog Tour Host, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, The World Wars

Book Blitz w/ Notes during #HistoricalMondays | Celebrating “The Golden Hour” (The Lady Evelyn Mysteries, Book Four) by Malia Zaidi

Posted Monday, 8 April, 2019 by jorielov , , , , 0 Comments

Stories in the Spotlight banner created by Jorie in Canva.

Why I am spotlighting this during #Historical Mondays:

You might be curious why I hosting a book blitz rather than a book review during my feature for showcasing Historical narratives on Mondays? The keen reason for this today is the fact when I read the premise of this Cosy Historical Mystery series – I had a feeling I had stumbled across my next #mustread Cosy series and I wanted to take the chance to feature it during a #HistoricalMondays celebration ahead of being able to read it myself! A bit similar in a way to spotlighting and/or discussing books during #WaitingOnWednesday but this is strictly for the Historical narratives across genre which speak to my readerly heart and are the kinds of stories I am wicked thankful are being published for readers like me who can’t devour enough #HistFic!

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Book Blitz w/ Notes during #HistoricalMondays | Celebrating “The Golden Hour” (The  Lady Evelyn Mysteries, Book Four) by Malia ZaidiThe Golden Hour (Spotlight)
by Malia Zaidi

Lady Evelyn Carlisle has barely arrived in London when familial duty calls her away again. Her cousin Gemma is desperate for help with her ailing mother before her imminent wedding, which Evelyn knew nothing about! Aunt Agnes in tow, she journeys to Scotland, expecting to find Malmo Manor in turmoil. To her surprise, her Scottish family has been keeping far more secrets than the troubled state of their matriarch.

Adding to the tension in the house a neighbor has opened his home, Elderbrooke Park, as a retreat for artistic veterans of the Great War. This development does not sit well with everyone in the community. Is the suspicion towards the residents a catalyst for murder? A tragedy at Elderbrooke Park’s May Day celebration awakens Evelyn’s sleuthing instinct, which is strengthened when the story of another unsolved death emerges, connected to her own family.

What she uncovers on her quest to expose the truth will change several lives forever, including her own. With the shadow of history looming over her, Evelyn must trust in her instinct and ability to comb through the past to understand the present, before the murderer can stop her and tragedy strikes again.

Genres: Amateur Detective, Cosy Historical Mystery, Crime Fiction, Historical Fiction



Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 978-1543959499

Also by this author: The Quality of Mercy

Also in this series: The Quality of Mercy


Published by Self Published

on 26th March, 2019

This is a self-published series through BookBaby!

Lady Evelyn Mysteries series banner provided by HFVBTs

A Poisonous Journey (book one)

A Darker Shore (book two)

The Study of Silence (book three)

The Golden Hour (book four)

Converse via: #LadyEvelynMysteries + #HistoricalMysteries
as well as #CosyMysteries and #HistoricalFiction

Available Formats: Trade Paperback and Ebook

I was overjoyed seeing this is a self-published series through Book Baby as I used to participate in the Book Baby Twitter chats about self-publishing through their platform. It was one of the platforms I felt next to LuLu which worked well for authors and over the years, I’ve been blessed to read a few releases by Book Baby. I was first introduced to Book Baby though through my admiration and love of #CDBaby which is part of the parent company.

About Malia Zaidi

Malia Zaidi

Malia Zaidi is the author of The Lady Evelyn Mysteries. She studied at the University of Pittsburgh and at the University of Oxford. Having grown up in Germany, she currently lives in Washington DC, though through her love of reading, she resides vicariously (if temporarily) in countries around the world.

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Posted Monday, 8 April, 2019 by jorielov in #HistoricalMondays, 20th Century, Amateur Detective, Blog Tour Host, Cosy Historical Mystery, Crime Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Indie Author, Lady Detective Fiction, the Nineteen Hundreds, the Roaring Twenties

Author Interview | #JorieReads the Miramonde series and has the wickedly delightful joy in being able to converse with the novelist behind this epic #HistFic saga – Amy Maroney

Posted Wednesday, 20 March, 2019 by jorielov , , , 0 Comments

Conversations with the Bookish badge created by Jorie in Canva

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts,

I have a lovely conversation to share with you this afternoon which is wicked brilliant as it comes shortly after I had the pleasure of reading The Girl from Oto – the first installment of an EPIC saga of Historical Fiction from the imagination & heart of Amy Maroney! This is a story which not only intrigued me but it is so dearly lush in descriptive narrative with a keen emotionally driven plotting that you will find yourself unable to extract yourself from its grip until you’ve concluded reading its chapters! I postively loved my experience within this realm – where I was slipping through time between the past and the present, eagerly awaiting word from both centuries to check-in on the characters who became so very dear to me and feeling pinges of worriment over how their lives would resolve!

If you’ve missed my ruminative thoughts earlier in the week during my #HistoricalMondays showcase(s) here is an excerpt from my musings about what anchoured me into Ms Maroney’s vision for her series:

I became entranced as soon as I read the Prologue – to be caught inside Zari’s footsteps during an electrical storm is one surefire way to feel rooted inside the opening pages of The Girl from Oto! There is something quite disconcerting about how lightning storms pop and sizzle through the skies – if your out in the thick of them, I’d much prefer a car than boots in a rain sodden meadow, however, you can respectfully understand why Zari is here and why this is an important moment for her to be in an area where she can verify a mystery.

When it comes to the children who can’t stay amongst their families and the people they have become bourne was an interesting turning of the tides; especially to see Mira was carted off into an abbey if only to keep her safe whilst she grew far away from her biological relations. There was a hinting of a a reason towards this end – of how her twin brother would be the preferred choice to stay with their parents and how getting her out as quick as a horse can canter was the best course of action for her own life. It is here we first find Elena – of whom is focused on in the prequel novella The Promise. Elena has the difficult job of having to handle the curiously hard situation where a daughter has to be secreted away from her family – an act of bravery on her part, as it is hinted at how her life is not as readily secured anymore than the infant in her keep. It was only after she reached her destination that we realised just how perilous this act was for her to take-on and how much is looming at stake over the choice to separate Mira from her family. The details were not yet readily known but there is enough psychological suspense in the under-threads of the narrative to elude to the fact this was the only way in which to ensure Mira would be ‘kept safe’ and in a place where she could thrive.

Beatrice struck me as a quite remarkable woman – at first I couldn’t get a good read on her person, not until we learnt more about her father and how she came to be set-up at the abbey itself. It was here where we find a sister (as her two sisters were wed at very young ages) who had a chance at freedom in a manner of speaking that her own sisters would never know themselves. She was meant to live her life amongst the nuns and although their spiritual home (the abbey) was protected there was a part of her nature which was non-conforming and non-traditional. She did as she pleased for reasons which made logical sense – not just to her but to anyone looking in on her life.

As Maroney re-settled us into the life and heart of Mira’s mother, Marguerite – we find a woman whose strength and resolve goes back to her childhood when she was a young girl of nine years taken from her family and brought to the Oto stronghold. She was destined to wed and to have children but her life was not her own. In some ways, I had wondered if this is partially why she had sent Mira away – to give her a chance she hadn’t had herself and to try to reset parts of the past she wasn’t able to resolve until now. There is a passage which explains the seashell and the importance of this necklace – it is an inheritance of its own right and the significance of its presence in her life is a remarkable one of faith.

Marguerite isn’t a woman who backed down when bad things happened; if anything she was re-inspired to dig deeper and to find a way to step outside the adversity to live for tomorrow. Not everyone around her was this strong in spirit nor in mind; she had to be the one others could look up towards when the unthinkable started to alight at her door. The fortitude it would have taken to deal with that at hand and to keep her wits about her as well when you could tell she wanted to wilt under the pressure of what that moment would mean for her and how it would change her life.

In this series, we are anchoured in the present by Zari, in the past with Mira and Elena. The ability to seek out the story through the voices of their characters is quite delightful as you are immediately drawn to Zari due to how adventurous she is in seeking out the truth and the proof of what was once thriving in the past but in the present is only a fluttering of a memory. As you enter Elena’s life as a mountain woman who finds comfort in her healing practices and being a midwife, you also start to see the complications of being a woman in her generation. She has to walk a fine line between her independence and the life which is expected of her to give to a kingdom which is quite unforgiving round the edges. And, then, there is Mira who was an innocent babe in this story – a daughter who was not wanted, an heir of the wrong gender and a twin bourne in secret where only her brother was the celebrated birth.

There is a lot riding the coattails of their lives – especially if you bring into the fray Beatrice who is a nun at an abbey which needs to find a way to financially stablise itself and the arrival of Mira was a welcoming grace as she brought with her a dowry they could not have hoped to have received otherwise. Elena I felt was the most changed by Mira’s birth and Zari is someone we are getting to know in smaller periods of revelation in the opening chapters of the story – to where, Mira’s young life is the central focus to help us align ourselves into their lives and better understand their motivations.

It isn’t often you find a story which stands out from others – by the way it was written, how it was assembled if it were a series and also, what makes it uniquely original. For me, as I read The Girl from Oto – I found a wonderfully Feminist driven plot, strong female leads and an atmosphere of introspective intuitiveness from the past. I found her style not just sophisticated in its scope but multi-layered as she tucked you close to the footsteps of her characters. You didn’t just re-live their lives as they are being depicted but you took a very emotionally connective journey with them.

-quoted from my review of The Girl from Oto

As you can see, there is a lot of layering to her style of Historical Fiction – she writes a fiercely passionate story with wicked brilliant Feminist Historical Fiction insight into the past whilst she encourages you to take this journey with Mira, Elena, Beatrice and Zari – for me, the story had five fierecely strong women inside it if you include Marguerite (Mira’s Mum) who in their own individual ways are leaving pieces of themselves imprinted on your memory.

I was thrilled to bits I could ask Ms Maroney questions about this story and the series as it is evolving whilst tucking close to the heart of her writing life and the process in which the stories alight in her heart to be written.

As your reading our convo I hope it will spark a keen interest in seeking out this series and if you’ve perchanced already started reading either the novella “The Promise” and/or have read “The Girl from Oto” – I would love to hear your reactions, thoughts and comments in the threads below this conversation! Let me know what drew you to this saga and why you love Historical Fiction series like this one – as it is champion to find fellow readers who are attracted to similar story-lines! Remember – brew your favourite cuppa before you begin!

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Author Interview | #JorieReads the Miramonde series and has the wickedly delightful joy in being able to converse with the novelist behind this epic #HistFic saga – Amy MaroneyThe Girl From Oto
by Amy Maroney

A Renaissance-era woman artist and an American scholar. Linked by a 500-year-old mystery…

The secrets of the past are irresistible—and dangerous.

1500: Born during a time wracked by war and plague, Renaissance-era artist Mira grows up in a Pyrenees convent believing she is an orphan. When tragedy strikes, Mira learns the devastating truth about her own origins. But does she have the strength to face those who would destroy her?

2015: Centuries later, art scholar Zari unearths traces of a mysterious young woman named Mira in two 16th-century portraits. Obsessed, Zari tracks Mira through the great cities of Europe to the pilgrim’s route of Camino de Santiago—and is stunned by what she finds. Will her discovery be enough to bring Mira’s story to life?

Genres: Feminist Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction



Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9780997521306

Also by this author: The Girl From Oto (Spotlight), The Girl From Oto

Published by Artelan Press

on 20th September, 2016

Published by: Artelan Press

The Miramode Series:

The Promise by Amy MaroneyThe Girl from Oto by Amy MaroneyMira's Way by Amy Maroney

The Promise (prequel) novella – about Elena (mountain healer, midwife)

The Girl from Oto (book one) } see also review
– where we are introduced to Zari, Elena & Mira

Mira’s Way (book two)

Ideally, I would have preferred to rad “The Promise” ahead of the first installment as I love reading series in order of sequence. Except it is not yet released into print and/or audio
– I loved Elena instantly in “book one”.

Converse via: ##TheGirlfromOto + #HistFic or #HistNov
as well as #TimeShift and #HistoricalFiction

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Posted Wednesday, 20 March, 2019 by jorielov in 16th Century, 21st Century, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Debut Author, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Indie Author, Modern Day, Post-911 (11th September 2001)