Category: Gothic Literature

+Blog Tour+ To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis by Andra Wakins

Posted Tuesday, 1 April, 2014 by jorielov , , 7 Comments

Parajunkee Designs

To Live Forever by Andra Wakins

Published By: Word Hermit Press, 1 March, 2014
Official Author WebsitesSite | Twitter | Facebook | Pin(terest) Boards
Converse via: #ToLiveForeverTour | #ToLiveForeverBook
#MeriwetherLewis
| #NatchezTraceWalk444miles
Available Formats: Paperback & E-Book
Page Count: 305

Acquired By:  As soon as I saw this particular tour come through my Inbox from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, I elected to request to be a tour stop on the “To Live Forever” virtual book tour. The premise of the book was awe-inspiring and I could not pass up this opportunity to read a book which shattered conventional genre orientations! I was given two spots on the tour, a book review & an Author Interview of which I was grateful! I received a complimentary copy of the book direct from the author Andra Wakins in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Inspired to Read: 

Whilst reading the virtual tour information for “To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis” my initial reaction was thus: I love everything about this particular story, from the historical impact to the paranormal implications! There is suspense but there is also the human desire for legacy! A wicked chance to read a book that I cannot quite put my finger on which genre it belongs in! I love finding genre-benders and this one for sure has all the lovely ingredients of a historical novel interspersed with time slip, paranormal tendencies and psychological suspense! As a reader, who dances through genres and whose blood is stirred by the evoking narratives of inventive writers who dare to give a reader a new dimension of a reading experience — I will always champion the rebels with a cause, such as Ms. Wakins! Who boldly refuses to give up on their stories and forge their own path towards publication!


Book Synopsis:

Is remembrance immortality?

Nobody wants to be forgotten, least of all the famous.

Meriwether Lewis lived a memorable life. He and William Clark were the first white men to reach the Pacific in their failed attempt to discover a Northwest Passage. Much celebrated upon their return, Lewis was appointed governor of the vast Upper Louisiana Territory and began preparing his eagerly-anticipated journals for publication. But his re-entry into society proved as challenging as his journey. Battling financial and psychological demons and faced with mounting pressure from Washington, Lewis set out on a pivotal trip to the nation’s capital in September 1809. His mission: to publish his journals and salvage his political career. He never made it. He died in a roadside inn on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee from one gunshot to the head and another to the abdomen.

Was it suicide or murder? His mysterious death tainted his legacy and his fame quickly faded. Merry’s own memory of his death is fuzzy at best. All he knows is he’s fallen into Nowhere, where his only shot at redemption lies in the fate of rescuing another. An ill-suited “guardian angel,” Merry comes to in the same New Orleans bar after twelve straight failures. Now, with one drink and a two-dollar bill he is sent on his last assignment, his final shot at escape from the purgatory in which he’s been dwelling for almost 200 years. Merry still believes he can reverse his forgotten fortunes.

Nine-year-old Emmaline Cagney is the daughter of French Quarter madam and a Dixieland bass player. When her mother wins custody in a bitter divorce, Emmaline carves out her childhood among the ladies of Bourbon Street. Bounced between innocence and immorality, she struggles to find her safe haven, even while her mother makes her open her dress and serve tea to grown men.

It isn’t until Emmaline finds the strange cards hidden in her mother’s desk that she realizes why these men are visiting: her mother has offered to sell her to the highest bidder. To escape a life of prostitution, she slips away during a police raid on her mother’s bordello, desperate to find her father in Nashville.

Merry’s fateful two-dollar bill leads him to Emmaline as she is being chased by the winner of her mother’s sick card game: The Judge. A dangerous Nowhere Man convinced that Emmaline is the reincarnation of his long dead wife, Judge Wilkinson is determined to possess her, to tease out his wife’s spirit and marry her when she is ready. That Emmaline is now guarded by Meriwether Lewis, his bitter rival in life, further stokes his obsessive rage.

To elude the Judge, Em and Merry navigate the Mississippi River to Natchez. They set off on an adventure along the storied Natchez Trace, where they meet Cajun bird watchers, Elvis-crooning Siamese twins, War of 1812 re-enactors, Spanish wild boar hunters and ancient mound dwellers. Are these people their allies? Or pawns of the perverted, powerful Judge?

After a bloody confrontation with the Judge at Lewis’s grave, Merry and Em limp into Nashville and discover her father at the Parthenon. Just as Merry wrestles with the specter of success in his mission to deliver Em, The Judge intercedes with renewed determination to win Emmaline, waging a final battle for her soul. Merry vanquishes the Judge and earns his redemption. As his spirit fuses with the body of Em’s living father, Merry discovers that immortality lives within the salvation of another, not the remembrance of the multitude.


 {: Author Biography :}

Andra Wakins

Hey. I’m Andra Watkins. I’m a native of Tennessee, but I’m lucky to call Charleston, South Carolina, home for 23 years. I’m the author of ‘To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis’, coming March 1, 2014. It’s a mishmash of historical fiction, paranormal fiction and suspense that follows Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis & Clark fame) after his mysterious death on the Natchez Trace in 1809.

I like:

  • hiking
  • eating (A lot; Italian food is my favorite.)
  • traveling (I never met a destination I didn’t like.)
  • reading (My favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo.)
  • coffee (the caffeinated version) and COFFEE (sex)
  • performing (theater, singing, public speaking, playing piano)
  • time with my friends
  • Sirius XM Chill
  • yoga (No, I can’t stand on my head.)
  • writing in bed
  • candlelight

I don’t like:

  • getting up in the morning
  • cilantro (It is the devil weed.)
  • surprises (For me or for anyone else.)
  • house cleaning
  • cooking

Meriwether Lewis | Enters stage right just past the grave:

Watkins has a gift for eluding to the story as its foreshadowed to unfold by giving her readers a nib and a tasting of where her characters are going to lead both the writer and the unsuspecting reader who bemuseful of curiosity picks up the book to engage in the mystery. She cleverly allows the three main protagonists to make a causal, unfiltered entrance whilst giving the reader a nibbling of suspense about the purported dimensional expanse in which they live. One of the reasons I was attracted to reading this particular story is the level of interest in the unknown. For as many near-death experiences there are of those who return back to earth as they stepped out of the light to come back to their earthly lives; there are a multitude of examples of what ‘lies beyond the veil’.

The Meriwether who steps into the forefront of this particular story is a nearly-jaded (here I refer to ‘nearly’ as a piece of his spirit half-hinges himself to a hope he no longer feels possible) downtrodden Meriwether who has lost the will to see the point in his existence. After attempting task after task to sort out where he is and how to exit the in-between world he’s tethered too, you gain the sense he is walking the path between madness and fugue.

Unbeknownst to Meriwether, I do believe is his fatherly nature and tendencies towards children. I think he was plumb aghast at how well he fared whilst in the company of Miss Emmaline. A natural bourne role model for young people, giving them something to chew on by appreciating their worth at their age of youth. He treats her with respect and talks to her straight, allowing her to process what she needs to hear. He listens and he’s attentive and that is one of the best bits to seeing Meriwether in this way. Emmaline humbles his weathered and jaded heart.

My Review of To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis:

The opening bits of To Live Forever surely by George tug quite a heap at your heart-strings! Emmaline is a young girl, all of nine years when her mother strategically out favoured her father in the judge’s eyes for sole custody. The very words sole custody etch out a shuddering straight to the core of a little girl’s soul! Dragged away from the one parent who loved her beyond selfish desires and needs, Emmaline is forced to grasp a hold of the whisperments of her father’s memory until the day could arrive where she could change her stars and reunite with him permanently.

Caught up in the darkest of night behaviours, Emmaline is fated of having a mother whose only intentions towards her daughter are to earn  her keep out of her. I cringed reading the passages of where only Aunt Bertie could save Emmaline’s life from being snuffed out from love completely! A measure of a man’s humanity is oft laid bare by his actions towards his children. If Emmaline’s mother had to stand trial on grounds of character choices and humanity she would no sooner see the daylight again than a bat caught in the nettles of a sewer tunnel! Young Emmaline is gifted by a singular grace of affecting herself to the light within the days she has never quite been free to live within. Her inner spirit hugs her close to the truths of life and its her raw courage which solidifies her ability to reach out to Meriwether in a darkened alley.

Words ooze out of Wakin’s narrative as sweet as a honeycomb to a tending worker bee. She has a way of conveying imagery, both hauntingly dangerous and tragically poignant with the flick of her pen and a dribble of her ink. All of which fuses into a new tangible version of Southern Gothic intermixed with historical fiction purveying the notion that our past is entwined to our present as much as our future. Time is temporal and To Live Forever is a living thesis towards that end. The novel breathes and extends its own narrator around the interjections of the characters on its flattened stage. 

Emmaline and Meriwether’s sojourn trek into the wilds of the Natchez Trace held me reflective of their plight. Not merely to reach Nashville, in order to seek out Emmaline’s father but of the greater disadvantages against them. Of Meriwether never truly seeing himself for the man he was but rather the disillusioned sigh of a lost legacy. Emmaline was still young enough to grow and find in maturity a strong path towards individual freedom. Each of them were tied to a future bent against them by situations out of their control. Striving to forge a better path to walk, they found reassurance in each other knowing that any journey worth taking is sometimes lessened in adversity when shared.

The natural world is the backdrop of To Live Forever, fraught with an indecisive urge to complicate their expedition by presenting new challenges neither of them had yet experienced. For Meriwether he’s being given the chance at redemption, and towards living a half-life of what his life could have been had he lived past his time of death. In Emmaline, I see an urchin of an innocent girl stalwart and strong in her internal hope to carry her through the aching tides of her adolescence. Her courage runs deeper than her confidence due to a few kind souls who crossed her path for the good.

The story is interwoven as a refractive mirror of the Natchez Trace itself. The harder you believe any blight of adversity is in your life to conquer and overcome, the more your spirit will start to believe your too fragile to try anything. The Trace is a test of wills as much as it’s a test of inner fortitude to re-strengthen our shield against unwanted storms and periods of stress which arise out of nowhere. Life can ebb and flow, bobbing us along until we’re ready to see what our eyes blinded us towards revealing. All of our passageways lead us further towards where our feet are meant to land, but what if we hold ourselves back from the greatest revelations of all? Simply because we’re not willing to alight where we’re lead to go? The Trace is unique in that it withholds its past like a tightly woven tapestry. Each piece of its innate soul is stitched inside the weathered path where feet and souls mingled into the mist. There lessons linger and their spirits shudder to grieve.

There is an ever-knowing pool of truth and hope awaiting us around each bend and turn. The people we feel we are ‘randomly’ encountering are the kind of teachers and advisers we might never expect would be important to our growth. Listen with compassion. Be kind to strangers who might one day become a cherished friend. Grow through friendship and rise each day realising the beauty of the hour. Our lives are leading us through the light and back inside it.

 

On Illustrations | Reflective fragments of text:

A delight for someone who appreciates illustration, art, and design as much as I do will appreciate the cover-art splashing out an array of the internal illustrations peppered throughout the novel itself! They arrive rather unexpectedly as you travel through the chapters. A bit of a sketch here, and an elusive sketch over here, attempting to give you another fragmented piece of the whole. I like the old-school approach to the sketches themselves and if I had thought to ask ahead of time, I would have asked Ms. Wakins about their origins whilst I was still composing my Interview which posts on Thursday! The vivid detail in carbon textured visuals is a treat for me, as I always felt one place most novels lose a bit of creative edge is from withholding illustrators from illuminating their novels with art.

There is a geometric shift in book production where stock imagery has morphed away the originality of most cover designs to where its hard to distinguish at times who was the forerunner and who took up the lead from the one who followed next. I miss the uniqueness of book cover art as only a few Indie publishers still strive towards giving us a peek of a view of the internal world inside the stories whilst gracing their covers with conversational stirring projections! I am blessed to host blog tours with the few I am referencing in this paragraph!

Not all book covers yield to this opinion, but you have to admit, how oft do you wander around a bookshoppe and feel as though you’re staring into the sameness of what was already released!? As though if you were to stack a heap of books end to end with each other, they would look like twins rather than fraternal cousins four times removed!? The differences in design and the elements in which covers resonate with us boil down to typography, colour, elemental ornamentation, and a cheeky clever way of cluing the audience in on a ‘slice’ of what they will find revealed by the ending chapters fall close. And, this dear hearts is where Ms. Wakins outshines the lot!

I loved the clever surprise in who “Mister Jack’ was in reality! This nature-loving girl felt all giddy inside when she connected the dots, which nearly occurred half a step ahead of Emmaline!

A note of gratitude on behalf of the author, Ms. Wakins:

I classified this novel several different ways to Sunday under “topics, genres, and subjects” because it fits quite easily into quite a few distinctive areas of literature! For me, its occupying the ethereal space between psychological suspense intermingled with Southern Gothic, with a pinch of Horror-lite (I blame the Judge!)! Horror-lite for me implies that there are bits and bobbles of ‘horror’ thrown in for good measure but not overtly so as to be disturbing or distracting. Once your reading a novel by Ms. Wakins your lulling in the water of the Mississippi, fully aware of where you are but caught up in her stream of lucid dream-state story-telling where you barely notice the darker points around the fringes of the story because your caught up in the adventure of the central plot surrounding Meriwether Lewis!

I earmarked ‘vulgarity in literature’ as a way to reference the lovely gift Wakins wrote into her début novel; with one singular foul-mouthed character she championed every inch of what I have been lamenting about myself for quite a while now on Jorie Loves A Story! That there are far better ways to express yourself and that sometimes, even though you walk a line in life yourself, you cannot always help but encounter a few people who might push your buttons towards one extreme or the other. It’s how you find the balance and how you learn to embrace the ruts in the road which will define your characters in the long run.


Virtual Road Map for “To Live Forever Tour”

To Live Forever Blog Tour via HFVBT

Be sure to scope out upcoming tours I will be hosting with:

Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours - HFVBTon my Bookish Events page!


{: Natchez Trace Walk :}

Natchez Trace Map
Natchez Trace Map of the walking route Andra Walkins undertook to promote her début novel “To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis”. Map supplied by the author for the virtual blog tour.
The Natchez Trace is a 10,000-year-old road that runs from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. Thousands of years ago, animals used its natural ridge line as a migratory route from points in the Ohio River Valley to the salt licks in Mississippi. It was logical for the first Native Americans to settle along the Trace to follow part of their migrating food supply. When the Kaintucks settled west of the Appalachians, they had to sell their goods at ports in New Orleans or Natchez, but before steam power, they had to walk home. The Trace became one of the busiest roads in North America.

An extra special surprise for readers:

Whilst Ms. Wakins undertook the grueling 444 miles walk along the Natchez Trail, she brought a free-spirited funny-bone tickling sense of humour with her as a constant companion on the road! As evidenced through her cheekily humourous responses to “reader submitted author questions” whilst she walked! Filmed wherever she happened to be on the Trace, I implore you to sit back, pull up a comfy chair and a cuppa of your favourite brew! I’d personally go with hot cocoa or fresh brewed hot chai,…

 

[ To Live Forever | Natchez Trace 444 Mile Walk Start ] by Andra Wakins
Start with her video diary Question 1 & watch straight-through!
After you listen to several, come back & add your reflections in the comment threads!

 


To Live Forever is a humbling tale of adventure and the juxtaposition of immortality, death, and life as it evolves throughout our days on earth and what fore-falls us in the next. Atmospherically enriched by characters happily brought forward to meet as you journey with Emmaline and Meriwether. Do you feel you can relate to some of the life lessons and cardinal truths I hinted about in my review!? Have you noticed similar intuitive resonations in your own life which have led to either a renewal of hope or a resolution of an obstacle once on your path?! How did you react when you learnt the author walked the 444 mile Natchez Trace route!? Did you feel as I did that she not only undertook a trail to promote her book, but she re-traced a part of Meriwether Lewis’s life to where the past had a deep impact on the future? A cross-roads of one life intersecting with another? What do you like the best about reading stories like To Live Forever where the writer focuses you to think about ethereal dimensions just outside of our view!?

{SOURCES: Cover art of “To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis”, book synopsis, author photograph of Andra Wakins, author biography, the Natchez Trace map & Natchez Trace Walk Infomation and the tour host badge were all provided by Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and used with permission. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. The video by Andra Watkins had either URL share links or coding which made it possible to embed this media portal to this post, and I thank them for the opportunity to share more about this novel and the author who penned it.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

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Posted Tuesday, 1 April, 2014 by jorielov in Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Blog Tour Host, Bookish Discussions, Debut Novel, Geographically Specific, Ghosts & the Supernatural, Good vs. Evil, Gothic Literature, Haunting & Ethereal, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Horror-Lite, Indie Author, Indie Book Trade, Magical Realism, Meriwether Lewis, Natchez Trace, Naturalist Sketchings, New Orleans, Parapsychological Suspense, Southern Gothic, Time Slip, Vulgarity in Literature, Wildlife Artwork

+Blog Book Tour+ Citadel [Book 3: of Languedoc Trilogy] by Kate Mosse

Posted Thursday, 20 March, 2014 by jorielov , , , , 5 Comments

Parajunkee Designs

Citadel by Kate Mosse
Published By: William Morrow (@WmMorrowBks)
(an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers (), 18 March 2014
Official Author WebsitesSite | Twitter | Facebook
Converse via: #KateMosse, #LanguedocTrilogy, #Citadel, #FranceBookTours, & #HistFic
Available Formats: Hardcover and E-Book
Page Count: 704

Acquired By: I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Citadel” virtual book tour through France Book Tours. I received a complimentary ARC direct from the publisher William Morrow, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Encouraged to Read:

Mum has a foresight of knowledge of which books would whet my appetite for not only historical intrigue but deft story-telling, where the research slips past the reader’s eye, and allows one to insert one’s heart directly into the core of the narrative! I am always on the forefront of discovering ‘a genuine new voice in literature’ because I am always inspired and captivated by such an eclectically diverse sphere of writers! I like to seek out stories which not only challenge convention but the perceptional eclipse we might unintentionally tether ourselves too! I like to broach outside my comfort zones whenever possible, and sink into a portion of the historical past which is wholly unknown and unvisited previously! My literary adventures draw me one step closer to the world’s front door and a breath closer to empathy for the unsung heroes of a past fraught with drama, suspense, and intuitive souls who choose to lead rather extraordinary lives! In this intuited glimpse into my reader’s heart, Mum purchased Labyrinth for me whilst it was in paperback (as I recollect!?) release. I had oft meant to endow myself to the page, yet I never quite managed to broach into the novel. On the brink of a blog book tour in the bookish blogosphere, I find myself able to redeem my ill-wrought wanderings, bringing me full circle back into the realm of Kate Mosse! How fruitious it is that her name resonated with me whilst offered on tour!

Inspired to Share a Snippet of a Preview:

I originally intended to read the first two novels in the  series Labyrinth & Sepulchre ahead of my book review for Citadel via France Book Tours. However, as life can dictate and quite often predict, the plans we set in motion are occasionally derailed for circumstances which arise altering our reading adventures! Therefore, I am stepping into the world of Kate Mosse’s literary threshold without prior knowledge of her characters nor of the direction in which her style illumines the narrative for the avid reader of her works! I am quite eager to read the forementioned previous titles on the footheels of this installment, but for now, I am overjoyed I have the pleasure of ‘meeting’ a new author of whom has held my intrigue for the years between Labyrinth & Citadel releases!

Kate Mosse discusses “Citadel” & ‘Sisterhood’ via Orion Publishing

Book Synopsis:

From the internationally bestselling author of Labyrinth and Sepulchre comes a thrilling novel, set in the South of France during World War II, that interweaves history and legend, love and conflict, passion and adventure, bringing to life brave women of the French Resistance and a secret they must protect from the Nazis. In Carcassonne, a colorful historic village nestled deep in the Pyrenees, a group of courageous and determined operatives are engaged in a lethal battle. Like their ancestors who fought to protect their land from Northern invaders seven hundred years before, these women—codenamed Citadel —fight to liberate their home from the Germans.

But smuggling refugees over the mountains into neutral territory and sabotaging their Nazi occupiers is only part of their mission. These members of the resistance must also protect an ancient secret that, if discovered by the enemy, could change the course of history.

A superb blend of rugged action and haunting mystery based on real-life figures, Citadel is a vivid and richly atmospheric story of a group of heroic women who dared the odds to survive.

Author Biography:

Kate MosseKate Mosse is the multimillion selling author of four works of nonfiction, three plays, one volume of short stories and six novels, including the New York Times bestselling Labyrinth and Sepulchre. A popular presenter for BBC television and radio in the UK, she is also cofounder and chair of the prestigious Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) and a member of the board of the National Theatre of Great Britain. In 2013, she was named as one of the Top 100 most influential people in British publishing and also awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to literature. She divides her time between England and Carcassonne, France.


A Prelude to Citadel:

An absolute blessing of mine in receiving an ARC (advanced reading copy) to read of a novel, is the inclusion of both the Editor’s Note (generally found on the inside first page!) and/or a letter from the publisher which gives a bit of a history of how the novel was created or a bit about the author herself! For Citadel, I was twice-fold blessed! Not only was the Editor’s Note included but so was the publisher’s! I am fascinated truly by the marketing and promotional campaigns by publishers to alert the readership of an author’s work! Even for new readers of Mosse’s stories like me for instance, cannot help but become caught up in the excitement and the reverence of honour she is bestowed by her dedicated readership! IF a sequel to her last tome took four years, can you imagine how long we shall all be willing to wait for her next treasure of literature?!

The best of stories have to soak into their creators, they have to wholly absorb the characters, the setting, the era, and the entirety of the story’s essence in order to fully bring everything to illuminating light. I celebrate writers like Mosse who cherish the ‘process of writing’ and allow themselves the full measure of grace to produce heart-stopping narrative time and time again! At least this is my presumption prior to broaching the pages!

I’m entering this particular review a bit blind to the knowledge of Ms. Mosse, as when I read her championing spirit for bookish culture, writers, and wordsmiths I must confess my heart did a bit of skip and a jump! Especially on noting I had already planned to make an appearance on a Blog Talk Radio podcast the night prior to this review posting in which I would be drawing to light a topical bookish interest: volunteer public libraries set on trains running through New York City and London! A kindred spirit, most indeed!

Dear hearts, do you know what William Morrow included as a ‘extra special’ surprise for this particular book blogger!? OR, should I clarify, it wasn’t placed inside for ‘me’ in particular mind you, but rather those who received the ARC! A full-on brilliant interview by Ann Patchett & Kate Mosse! A most delectable treat I held off reading until ‘after I had read Citadel’!

A proper Introduction to the novel by the author:

There is an amazing breadth of history pulled out of World War II, where brave souls stood up in our conjoined living history of a time in our world where nothing made sense and everything was turnt upside down by the cruelty and evil of a world war. Mosse examines the inter-dimensional connections of the trilogy against the intricacies of research of the historical past. Her passion for the South of France and for this particular window she’s served as a portal for her audience to endear themselves to the women who stand strong allowing their courage to bolster us a bit in the present. These are stories on behalf of women who perhaps never saw themselves as heroes but to every life they positively affected they were! Mosse has such an effervescent passion for writing, and giving her readers such a full embodied story which can wash over you and give you a living experience.

Kate Mosse Over Citadel via bol.com {she speaks in English; Dutch subtitles}


 

An archaeological bent of historical intrigue:

From the time I was quite young, I was always caught up in the annuls of history, seeking out remnants of the past which could be brought into the present through the art of story-telling! My passion for history led me to consider bunkering into a life pursuit of archaeological digs, hidden ancestral passageways into the living past, and a life’s sole intent of preserving the artifacts I’d uncover. Ever since my eyes lit up with the pure joy of ‘digging in the dirt’ by theory not practice, I have had a keen attention placed on historical details in novels. Including ancient symbolism,  dead languages, and the turnt of phrase fashioned centuries within the past where Old English was the everyday vernacular! Part of my interests in seeing the sociological perspectives in stories and the dynamics of a character’s action verse personality is rooted in my appreciation for archaeology’s introverted sister: anthropology which focuses on the study of societies and how people lived.

To find an author who has transmorphed an intricate range of research into a dense tome of historical fiction whilst remaining true to each era she’s brimming to life inside her narrative is nothing short of literary brilliance! I oft wondered if I could find an author who could fully immerse the reader’s senses into what I felt I had shared within my spirit whilst previously considering an entirely different lifepath! In Mosse, I do believe I have at long last found the writer, the wordsmith, and the story-teller I have sought so hard to find! And, I have my Mum to thank for this lovely discovery as my gratitude is hers forevermore!

My previous readings of Illuminations and A Study in Murder allowed me to understand the monk’s (Arinius) traditions of matins, sext, and nones! There is an entire pace to living whilst your sliding into a moment in history where tradition and ritual intersect and spirituality endeavours to give a calming balm to one’s day.

My Review of Citadel:

Oh, my oh dear my, such a delightful author who includes not only a full-on brilliant map to orientate the reader into the realm of the historical past she’s about to embark on visiting, but she is given an acute alacrity of the principal cast and characters in a proper pronouncement ahead of the beginning of Chapter I! Oh, my dear hearts, this reader was over the moon entranced by these short few pages,… wretched and jolted out of my reverie of an unsuspecting opening which would bring the level of brutality witnessed by survivors and members of resistance forces during World War II came startling into view as soon as I broached the Prologue. The recollections of my joyous heart can wait, the narrative cannot! I not merely ‘sense’ the urgency, I sense it! I am breathing it in with each drip of words formulating the paragraphs. A dire race is afoot and I am on the brink of understanding the fullness of its scope! The novel births unto the page with each delicate turnt page, words extending themselves into the edge-most sections of its published space; a murmuring echo of its story eager for the eyes of the reader to grasp its heart!

Mosse has a clever eye for evoking peripheral psychological hauntings of a world set askew by war. She invites you into the mind of her characters whilst they brace and bolt to live through a day of hell. Fraught with human anxiety and fears of what happens to those who are captured, the imagery is not a brutal one in totality but rather, a stark remembrance of the reality of being on the ground, running and scavenging for safety. I was quite startled to be pulled out of Southern France during World War II to arrive at the doorstop of AD 342, and yet, that is precisely where my timeclock registered me on the first page of Part I! I murmured to myself this might be a time slip, generational in-depth and millennia in scope!

Meeting Arinius as he made his journey to free the Codex text he believed to be absolute truth ahead of dipping into Sandrine’s world in 1942; the year she was eighteen, two years past her mother’s death was quite the unique place to enter both of their lives. Each were on the footfalls of reaching a new pathway in their lives which would transform their futures. Sandrine was not unlike her age of peers, where she was standing on the tipping stone of adulthood, eager to greet the morrow and make her way in life. She was thirsty for experience and for the sweetness of freedom outside the stagnant pattern of her days. Sandrine comes from an ethereal section of France, where murmurings of spirits and of divine knowledge echo out across the land and encroach on the open hearts and minds of those willing to listen.

I appreciated the symbolism of Sandrine’s thoughts being interwoven and threaded as a knitter’s skein of fiber! The observation is at the closing end of Chapter 7, but it simply warmed this knitty girl’s heart to see one of the clever turnt phrases to be a reflection of an interest held most dear! I can oft relate to how she felt; muddle yet unclear of the placement of the events and memories. Uncertain if memory is the fault or if memory is the key to understanding what happened. We can become caught up in ourselves to where we second guess our instincts and the intuition that is a constant guide.

Sandrine was still an innocent as her hometown of Carcassonne was evolving into a deadly sufferage of wills between those who first would commit harm to gain secrets within the arms of the war and those who would rally to bolster the shield around the innocents who died. Her older sister Marianne sheltered her younger sister too well, in not giving her the ability to see past the illusion of memory. Her spirit stirred and soared standing in the warming sea of voices raised high for the liberation of France. She was starting to put the pieces of the picture together, forming her own opinion where her life was leading her and how where she was living was all but directing its course. She was thrust into the throes of war without the foreknowledge to understand its intricacies. Yet. I mused if perhaps this was almost a better approach? To not be as self-aware at first in order to have the courage in the long-term to act without a thought for yourself but to act to protect and free people you might never know?

History has a unique way of imparting important acknowledgements out of the past, by finding the ways in which the words can travel through vessels of time. Words handed and passed down through generations, from family to stranger seeking a confidence of protection is one of the most reliable methods of keeping knowledge secret from eyes who would take the same words and twist them into harmful deeds. It’s how we as a society react and root out resilience in the face of our foremost dire fears and shake away the rootings of evil. Resistance from oppression and the strife of a regime bent against the welfare of the people is true courage lit aflame.

Sandrine, Marianne, their close friends, and French Resistant fighter Raoul are being shadowed by a thrilling chase against time. By the time my mind realised the full perimeter of the story, I was all but rushing to find my voice to shout-out a decree of bravery I was slowly losing sight of as I watched how their individual plights grew more dim. The hardest time in life to latch onto Hope is when every effort you make to walk out of the adversity you have lived through starts to unfold and uncoil around you. You fight as hard as you dare, you believe as willingly as you dream, but in the end, without the additional help of others acting on your behalf; you can find yourself truly alone betwixt a choice for flight, freedom, or the valor of saving lives.

Sandrine is an intuitive woman who was set apart from others; she could see past the veils of our reality and into the next life just beyond our focus. She was tuned into mystical truths which gave her a bolster of strength in the nanoseconds where her own inner resolve faltered. Her life was writ to be in service of others, and in of giving all of her mind, body, and soul to fighting for the sanctity of life, liberty, and freedom. Citadel is epic in scale, emotionally convicting, and powerfully written to leave you quite still at its conclusion retrospectively museful, and enlightened. Your heart shatters and aches in an indescribable way when you read the four sentences on page 673. With eyes too blurry and a heart too gutted to carry-on into the Epilogue.

 

Fly in the Ointment:

In this instance, it is more of a forewarning for a sensitive heart reading the book, as although I was quite thrilled to see Mosse tempering the harsh realities of war and giving us a proper sense of the danger, the blight, and the misery without fuller details which would make even a strong man gag; there are passages where naturally the narrative has to take a sharper intact of detail. Where the horrors of the war during World War II under the Nazi regime are represented for what they were and how they were elicited out through the ranks. Before I reached Chapter 14, I languished in the beauty of the words which felt like soft pebbles rather than hardened spikes of a war drama. I am not sure why, but Chapter 14 re-presented the reality for me, where Antoine is being tortured into submission. Except to say, Mosse holds back, she gives you the ease to breathe and to realise although your being led into one of the darkest corners of the past, inside history’s dark hours, you are going with a guide who respects what you can handle and the elements of which you cannot. And, how she maintains this balance between the evil darkness and the light is a credit to her as a story-teller.

The most sickening part though lies in the truth inside the torture for information: that there are certain people who feel that inflicting unimaginable pain is justified in the end if it yields a response they are searching to hear. Mosse gives you a lot to muddle over and ruminate about as this is a novel whose layers are half-hidden and seen throughout the action of where the story evolves into being. There is a greater message than a recollection of war-time horror, survival, and courage. We are never quite as alone as we fear we have been cast out from our protective spheres of love’s embrace. Always guided over and protected by the Ones we cannot see but sometimes can hear as our heart listens for the cues our eyes have forgotten to see.



Virtual Road Map for “Citadel” Blog Tour:

Citadel by Kate MosseBe sure to scope out upcoming tours I will be hosting with:

France Book Tourson my

Bookish Events badge created by Jorie in Canva


A parting glimpse behind the esoteric elements of the Languedoc Trilogy: 

Kate Mosse discusses Citadel, myths and fantasy via Orion Publishing

I must confess, I am always quite curious about how each of us selects which book we want to engage in. With Mosse, I feel as though I was always meant to be a reader of hers, but the timing hadn’t quite aligned for me to broach her writings until ‘this moment’ whilst I am participating on a blog book tour with France Book Tours! Do you ever find there is a particular time for you to soak into a narrative or an author? What do you think prompts the discovery to be a bit delayed from our initial moment of curiosity!? Also, have you read each of the Languedoc trilogy books as they released, or did you discover them out-of-order!? I’d be keen to hear your recollections and ruminations on behalf of either Citadel, Kate Mosse, or the trilogy! I do know, it will not be long from now before I am reading the first ‘two’ installments to have the richness of the tapestry expanded inside my mind!

{SOURCES: Cover art of “Citadel”, book synopsis, author photograph of Ms. Mosse, author biography, and the tour host badge were all provided by France Book Tours and used with permission. The book trailer by Orion Publishing had either URL share links or coding which made it possible to embed this media portal to this post, and I thank them for the opportunity to share more about this novel and the author who penned it. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Tweets were able to be embedded by the codes provided by Twitter. Bookish Events badge created by Jorie in Canva.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

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Posted Thursday, 20 March, 2014 by jorielov in 20th Century, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Blog Tour Host, Bookish Films, Clever Turns of Phrase, Death, Sorrow, and Loss, Fantasy Fiction, Feminine Heroism, Fly in the Ointment, France, France Book Tours, French Literature, French Resistance, Geographically Specific, Haunting & Ethereal, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller Suspense, Interviews Related to Content of Novel, The World Wars, Wordsmiths & Palettes of Sage

+Blog Book Tour+ Reclamation by Jackie Gamber {Book No. 3 of the Leland Dragons series} Dragon Fiction at its best!

Posted Saturday, 8 March, 2014 by jorielov , , , , 0 Comments

Parajunkee Designs

Reclaimation | Book 3 Leland Dragons by Jackie Gamber
Artwork Credit: Matthew Perry

Published By: Seventh Star Press, 19 December 2013
Official Author Websites: Twitter Site
Author Page: @ Seventh Star Press
Leland Dragons Official Website
Artist Page: Matthew Perry @ Seventh Star Press; Portfolio

Available Formats: Softcover and E-Book
Page Count: 270

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Acquired Book By: I was simply overjoyed with happiness when I first learnt “Reclamation” was going to release and have its own blog tour! I wasn’t a book blogger when “Redheart” and “Sela” made their rounds through the bookish blogosphere, but I was thankful I could become introduced to “Redheart” and this lovely dragon series all the same in Autumn 2013! I was selected to be a tour stop through Tomorrow Comes Media.  I received a complimentary copy of this book direct from the publisher Seventh Star Press, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Anxious to Read the Exciting Conclusion:

After emerging from the ending of Sela, where all of Dragonkind was on the verge of war, my heart was warm from the realisation that Sela had the ability to transcend the harbinations of ill-thoughts towards both dragons and humans simply by being true to herself. She was of both species and she could live in harmony inside her skin knowing of her heritage. The journey she took was just as important as the revelation revealed inside of Jastin Artmitage, and its their combined path towards freedom from primal fear and desolation that endeavoured to believe the concluding arm of this trilogy of dragon fiction would leave me ruminative and pensive for quite a long while yet to come! My mind is always flickering with afterthoughts from reading the Leland Dragon series, mostly as the characters who are entrenched in the drama encourage your mind to ponder the greater picture of what is happening to them. The whole of the arc rather than merely seeing the individual struggles.

My heart still flutters back to the very beginning, when I first became invested into the lives of Kallon and Riza, as it was the singular moment I had realised that there is truly a niche inside dragon fiction which has captured my heart! I was struck by the breadth of the world-building as much as the genuine dialogue of how dragons live, work, and interact with not only their kind but with the humans who live on the fringes of their societies. Not everything was always roses, mind you, but it was a bit like gathering an insider’s glimpse into a world you never expected to have such an intimate portrait of! As I walked further into their realm, I started to see the similarities and the differences between their culture and the humans they were always afeared to become close too.

And, even though I had resolved this is a trilogy without the hope of a story to be revealed down the road inside this world I’ve hinged my heart too, its with trepidation that I picked up Reclamation! Worried I was not yet ready to let go!

Life gives us trials that we do not even realise we can overcome, much less face until they are presented. Is this why you entitled it “Reclamation”? You reclaimed your gift as your characters reclaimed their home? observation from Jackie Gamber’s Reclamation tour interview by Jorie of Jorie Loves A Story

About the Author | Jackie Gamber

Jackie Gamber

As an award winning author, Jackie writes stories ranging from ultra-short to novel-length, varieties of which have appeared in anthologies such as Tales of Fantasy and Dragons Composed, as well as numerous periodical publications, including Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, The Binnacle, Mindflights Magazine, Necrotic Tissue, and Shroud. She is the author of the fantasy novel Redheart and Sela, and writing an alternate history time travel novel. She blogs professionally for English Tea Store.com, where she reviews classic science fiction and fantasy novels and pairs them with the ideal tea-sipping companion.

Jackie is a member of the professional organizations Science Fiction Writers of America and Horror Writers Association. She was named honorable mention in L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Award, and received a 2008 Darrell Award for best short story by a Mid-South author. She is the winner of the 2009 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction for her story The Freak Museum, a post-apocalyptic tale that looks closely at perceptions and outward appearances and how they affect the way we see ourselves. Jackie Gamber was co-founder and Executive Editor of Meadowhawk Press, a speculative fiction publisher based in Memphis. One of their novels, Terminal Mind by David Walton, won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award in 2009. Jackie also edited the award winning benefit anthology, Touched By Wonder. She has been a guest lecturer at Memphis Options High Schools, and is a speaker at writers’ conferences from Michigan to Florida. Jackie is also the visionary behind the MidSouthCon Writers’ Conference, helping writers connect since 2008.

 

 

Book Synopsis:

The exciting conclusion of the Leland Dragon Series!

Leland Province remains in danger. The sinister Fordon Blackclaw has returned from the shadows to strike at the heart of neighboring Esra, killing its Venur and making clear his intentions to retake what was once his: Mount Gore, seat of the Leland Dragon Council.

All around, the land grows weaker and weaker. Leland, once thought saved by Kallon Redheart, is without purpose, and within its borders, Murk Forest, a place of mystery and danger, has driven its inhabitants to seek aid. Esra is in flames, and the Rage Desert grows. Dragon and human alike struggle to find their way, and the wizard Orman can sense that there may be more at stake than the affairs of dragons.

Hope remains, yet it is not without obstacles. In Esra, Sela, the daughter of Kallon and Riza, found the well, a source of life, and made herself whole again. But her homecoming is not what she had imagined.

Old wounds buried deep must reopen if life is to continue. Dragons, humans, wizards, and shape shifters are all at risk as the peace between dragon and human has finally been broken.

War is here.

The stakes?

Perhaps the whole world.

 

On the footsteps of war:

Reclamation by Jackie Gamber | Illustration
Leesa & Jastin attempting escape into Murk Forest
Artwork Credit: Matthew Perry

As I mentioned in my review of Sela, Gamber has this keen sensibility of bringing the reader full circle through her Leland Dragon series, to where each ending of one installment of the trilogy is a transition into the next! I was not disappointed whilst picking up Reclamation in finding only a few days had passed since the exit of the characters fleeing Riddess Castle! War is bursting onto the page, lit aflame by the re-surging presence of Fordan Blackclaw the villainous dragon of Redheart whose strength to overturn order in exchange for pure chaos is in part due to his comrade in arms Fane Whitetail! Of whom I have rarely mentioned because his motivations are even more vile than his leader; of whom he’d prefer to overtake if given the chance! A mutiny within an insurrection to ensure his own desires for Esra Province and Dragonkind is playing out through the war which has been brought on by ill choices of those who were too blind to see what was encroaching into their lives by those who only acted to deceive!

Keenly written into the opening chapters is the apathy of disinterest amongst the Dragon Counsel to even consider taking action at the first murmurings of war. I appreciated this angle because I think for a lot of wars which erupt out of the shadows of peace, there are those who will always feel indifferent towards change. Towards standing up for what is right no matter the cost of the discourse to follow verse turning the other cheek and hoping for their problems to dematerialise as easily as they were formed.

The theory of time’s fragile fabric knitted together with the internal clockwork of their known world’s pulsebeat was refreshing as it insinuates that all action has its consequences on a higher plane. A bit how in our own realm of living within the sphere of Earth is jolted and disintegrated by industrialism and shifting powers. There is an internal balance to how a living sphere of a world can function and thrive. The more outside influences which disrupt the habitat and makeup of that sphere’s natural origins, the more precarious the situation can grow! We are meant to be caretakers and caregivers of the land bestowed to us, rather than the bullied force of brutality and harshness the land and environs flinch and shirk away from once our presence is known.

My Review of Reclamation:

Reclamation by Jackie Gamber | Ilustration
Jastin Armitage & Kallon Redheart
Artwork Credit: Matthew Perry

Reclamation by definition is the act of reclaiming what was once considered lost yet in its origins of Latin, it’s an exclamation of force against what has been done against you. The two main provinces in the Leland Dragons series are Esra & Leland, yet there is another lesser known area called Murk Forest, which is as elusive to the reader as the Rage Desert; as previously revealed in Sela. As I started to entrench myself into the action of the heated scenes of flight for both Jastin & Leesa, my mind wondered how far the Redheart clan and those who stood with them would have to go to find resolution and peace?!

Fane Whitetail meets his match in Ela Greenscale, who is a defector from Leland Province to aide Blackclaw’s pursuit of ill-willed control over the provinces. In Ela, Whitetail’s equal on levels he never considered, he starts to see that he is not alone in wanting to pursue a path few would understand and the majority would balk against. Whitetail’s true nature and how he identifies his perception of self is explored whilst giving the reader more pause about his principles. Sela is caught in-between the past and the present whilst resolving the future she hopes everyone will be courageous enough to embrace. Her key role is truly the unlocking of the New Age of a new Kind of existence. I tip-toed around this revelation in my review of Sela, as I wanted the element of surprise to be a kiss of joy to the reader. However, without disclosing how Sela is uniquely different from her Kind, I can say, the strength she has within her I believe truly surprises herself at times. She’s a quiet girl with extraordinary gifts who doesn’t always believe in herself the way in which she should. Her heart guides her but at times, it’s the mistrust of her instincts which lead her on a path towards embracing self-confidence.

Drell on the other hand is starting to pull the pieces of his ancestry together whilst embracing the fact his future truly lies in where he finds himself the most at home. He was raised in the Rage Desert yet bourne of Leland ancestry, where he has only just become familiar of. His only connection to Blackclaw is by appearance and blood relation, as where his father’s heart is blackened, Drell’s is empathic.

The morale fiber of dragon culture and the dignity of the humans who live near them is underscored by the inability to see each other as equals rather than as nemesis’s. Each species has always attempted to live without the other interfering into their lives but the true measure of their growth is if they can transcend their fears and walk into an era of contractual peace. Working together rather than against each other, with full acceptance and support.

I loved the exploration of Murkens within Murk Forest, because Gamber has such a gentle hand in giving you reason to draw a breath of pause whilst drinking in the more fantastical elements of her narrative! The Murkens by definition are shapeshifters, but it’s how they are presented that delighted me the most! They are as akin to the natural world as the dragons, living in a quandary of a balance that even they do not fully understand. There is always a hidden depth to the story, which I appreciate more than I may even let on! My mind is always rampant to explore the wholeness of the trilogy whilst caught up in one of the installments!

Gamber forces you to look internally and introspectively as you read her stories, especially in regards to prejudicial inclinations which can do the most harm if they are not seen for what they are. Jastin Armitage’s character goes through the most catalytic changes over the score of the saga. He is the classic hero whose soul was entrapped by rage and prejudice without the foundation of understanding what prompted his innermost hatred. She explores the depth of his character’s ability to emerge out of the darkness and back into a path towards the Light. For me, this is one of the quintessential elements she stitched into the fabric of the Leland Dragons series. To not only present war but to take the harder road as a writer to endeavour to uncover what provoked it from all sides, angles, and hearts. War doesn’t begin on the battlefield afterall, nor does war end in battle.

Peace is always obtainable through forgiveness and love, but it’s how we get to the bridge of acceptance that truly tests the measure of what we can evolve to embrace.

An appreciator of ‘dragon fiction’:

Ever since I was a young child who couldn’t rent a copy of “Pete’s Dragon” enough times to satisfy her need to visit the world in which a kind-hearted dragon resided, I am a girl who always appreciated the connection between humans and dragons. There is a unique bond that sparks inside us when we are innocent and young, towards the animals and creatures who are just out of focus from our view such as dragons, unicorns, fairies, and wood nymphs. The enchanted realms which are coaxed out of our imaginative hearts and the spirit of the unknown being just outside grasp of our reach is what endears us the most to fantasy and the literature which alights their stories into our memories. I always wanted to seek out dragon fiction stories, but part of me was always on the fence knowing if I would find the kind of dragon I could warm up too, like I had whilst watching “Pete’s Dragon”. Redheart & the Leland Dragons series proved that this was not only plausible but possible!

I started an open discussion on my review of “Redheart”, seeking to inspire an on-going conversation about dragons and the literary worlds in which writers have left them behind for us to seek out and find. One day I hope the discussion can get started, but until then, I am seeking dragons as a solo project. I’m looking specifically for writers like Gamber who infuse their narratives with more than mere warfare and darkness, but the transitional arc of true growth, understanding, and enlightenment to where whether you are dragon bourne or humantiscially tethered, you can find a story which ignites the magic and the passion for dragons!

I am an appreciator of dragon fiction who cannot wait to get her hands on the next novel and author who betwitches her fever for devouring more stories! Join with me on Twitter using the hashtag I accidentally created which is featured below! Let us converse, discuss, and discover together!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Join the celebration as you amble through the tour!

{ converse via: #LelandDragons, #7thStar & #dragonfiction }

Virtual Road Map for “Reclamation” Blog Tour:

Reclamation Tour by Tomorrow Comes Media

Be sure to visit of Jackie Gamber’s posts showcased on JLAS:

Previously, Jorie reviewed “Redheart” (Book 1 of Leland Dragons)
interviewed Ms. Gamber soon thereafter. Before featuring a Character Post from Reclamation’s tour, and a second interview with Ms. Gamber specifically geared towards the Leland Dragons series. She also reviewed “Sela” (Book 2 of Leland Dragons) ahead of posting “Reclamation”.

Be sure to scope out upcoming tours I will be hosting with:

Tomorrow Comes Media Tour Hoston my Bookish Events page!

Cross-listed on: Sci-Fi & Fantasy Fridays via On Starships & Dragonwings

{SOURCES: Cover art of “Reclamation” by Matthew Perry, book synopsis, author photograph of Ms. Gamber, author biography, and the tour host badge were all provided by Tomorrow Comes Media and used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • Go Indie
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Posted Saturday, 8 March, 2014 by jorielov in Blog Tour Host, Dragon Fiction, Earthen Magic, Earthen Spirituality, Environmental Conscience, Environmental Science, Equality In Literature, Fantasy Fiction, Folklore and Mythology, Good vs. Evil, High Fantasy, Indie Author, Tomorrow Comes Media, Warfare & Power Realignment, YA Fantasy

+Book Review+ Sela by Jackie Gamber {Book No. 2 of the Leland Dragon series} A dragon series etched on my heart.

Posted Friday, 7 March, 2014 by jorielov , , , , 0 Comments

Parajunkee Designs

Sela | Book 2 Leland Dragons by Jackie Gamber
Artwork Credit: Matthew Perry

Published By: Seventh Star Press, 27 March, 2012
Official Author Websites: Twitter Site
Author Page: @ Seventh Star Press
Leland Dragons Official Website
Artist Page: Matthew Perry
@ Seventh Star Press; Portfolio

Available Formats: Softcover and E-Book
Page Count: 308

Genre(s): Fiction | Young Adult Fantasy |

| Dragon Fiction | High Fantasy |

{ converse via: #LelandDragons, #7thStar & #dragonfiction }

 Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Acquired Book By: Whilst signing up to participate in the much-anticipated blog tour for “Reclamation” the third book in the Leland Dragon series, through Tomorrow Comes Media;  I requested receiving “Sela” in order to read the series in sequence.  I received a complimentary copy of this book direct from the publisher Seventh Star Press, without obligation to post a review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Inspired to Read: Ever since I left the world of Redheart, I have ached to return to the Leland Province and resume the story where I had left off at the conclusion of the first installment of a trilogy still in the making. It’s the type of story whose world-building scope pulls you into its heart and allows time to dissolve behind you and away from you. You long to know more about the characters, both good and bad you’ve become acquainted with due to the journey you’ve taken with them throughout Redheart‘s debut! I knew it would be possible to read Reclamation without Sela, but a part of me felt it was crucial not to break the continuity of this particular dragon fiction series as it might in effect change my perception and interaction with the characters within the bookend conclusion! I am thankful that I was given a chance to resume through Sela before arriving at the series finale and conclusion!

I had hoped to re-read Redheart, prior to reading both Sela & Reclamation, however, a severe cold and pollen allergy compounded my misery to where I could not pick up any books nor read even one chapter of these dear books until the very week I had re-scheduled my review for the Reclamation Tour! Therefore, in order to help my mind and heart re-adjust back into the rhythm Gamber created, I backtracked to Chapter Forty-Nine in Redheart before proceeding!

About the Author | Jackie Gamber

Jackie Gamber

As an award winning author, Jackie writes stories ranging from ultra-short to novel-length, varieties of which have appeared in anthologies such as Tales of Fantasy and Dragons Composed, as well as numerous periodical publications, including Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, The Binnacle, Mindflights Magazine, Necrotic Tissue, and Shroud. She is the author of the fantasy novel Redheart and Sela, and writing an alternate history time travel novel. She blogs professionally for English Tea Store.com, where she reviews classic science fiction and fantasy novels and pairs them with the ideal tea-sipping companion.

Jackie is a member of the professional organizations Science Fiction Writers of America and Horror Writers Association. She was named honorable mention in L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Award, and received a 2008 Darrell Award for best short story by a Mid-South author. She is the winner of the 2009 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction for her story The Freak Museum, a post-apocalyptic tale that looks closely at perceptions and outward appearances and how they affect the way we see ourselves. Jackie Gamber was co-founder and Executive Editor of Meadowhawk Press, a speculative fiction publisher based in Memphis. One of their novels, Terminal Mind by David Walton, won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award in 2009. Jackie also edited the award-winning benefit anthology, Touched By Wonder. She has been a guest lecturer at Memphis Options High Schools, and is a speaker at writers’ conferences from Michigan to Florida. Jackie is also the visionary behind the MidSouthCon Writers’ Conference, helping writers connect since 2008.

Book Synopsis:

Peace was fleeting. Vorham Riddess, Venur of Esra Province, covets the crystal ore buried deep in Leland’s mountains. His latest device to obtain it: land by marriage to a Leland maiden. But that’s not all.

Among Dragonkind, old threats haunt Mount Gore, and shadows loom in the thoughts of the Red who restored life to land and love. A dragon hunter, scarred from countless battles, discovers he can yet suffer more wounds.

In the midst of it all, Sela Redheart is lost, driven from her home with only her old uncle to watch over her. As the dragon-born child of Kallon, the leader of Leland’s Dragon Council, she is trapped in human form with no understanding of how she transformed, or how to turn back.

Wanderers seek a home, schemes begin to unfurl, and all is at risk as magic and murder, marriage and mystery strangle the heart of Esra. A struggle for power far older and deeper than anyone realizes will leave no human or dragon unaffected.

In a world where magic is born of feeling, where the love between a girl and a dragon was once transformative, what power dwells in the heart of young Sela?

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Sela: Dragon or Human?
Reclamation | Book 3 Leland Dragons by Jackie Gamber
Sela being lifted by her father Kallon Redheart; whilst Drell hides below in the forest hidden from view
Artwork Credit: Matthew Perry

I must confess the cover-art for Sela did originally have me questioning the merits of Riza and Kallon’s daughter being either dragon OR human as the image eludes to a possible paradox between the two versions. As I entered this chapter of the Leland Dragons series, I was happily confronted with a character that had me twitching with excitement, as Sela is as much as a spitfire as her mother as she is a determined spirit like her father! She is the perfect blend of her parents passions and abilities. Seeing Orman Thistleby step in as her guardian Uncle was a pure delight as well! Sela’s struggle for understanding her identity and the manner in which her body changed brought me back to her mother’s journey, where nothing was quite as it seemed but everything was aligning in the way it was meant to be. The hardest struggles in anyone’s life is the acceptance of the circumstances that we cannot readily understand or see how those moments can help define who we are meant to become.

Each time I read a passage where Sela was attempting to sort out her ‘humanness’ reminded me fondly of other fantastical stories where a character wanted either to be more human or less, depending on their point of view of human behaviour and action. Seeing her sketched out as an artist felt fitting because it would make sense that the daughter Redheart would see the world through artistic eyes. She would be given the gift of seeing the beauty in everything rather than being caught in the fear of living in the moment of uncertainty.

My Review of Sela:
Reclamation | Book 3 Leland Dragons by Jackie Gamber
Sela flees the raging storm of the Rage Desert; having been brought there to perish for a crime she didn’t commit
Artwork Credit: Matthew Perry

Time has passed a bit quicker than I had hoped in the Leland Province, as Sela the daughter of Kallon & Riza Redheart is already well on her way to being an independent and spirited young lady. Her struggles with understanding the human side of her ancestry is fitting, as part of what endeared me to Redheart was the ability of seeing Gamber’s empathy for exploring the inner crisis of who we are verse our perception of who we are. The undercurrents of which I enjoyed in the first part of this trilogy because it gave a layer of depth to both Kallon and Riza. In the opening chapters, we are not only entranced with young Sela’s plight as a human, but are on the fringes of understanding the full scope of young Brownwing’s daughter’s son (Drell), who in this installment has been cast to the Desert Dragons rather than having taken residence amongst his peers in the Leland mountains.

I appreciate the slow etching of the story to fill in the density of hours as I drink in the gaps between my last visit and now. So much has changed for the dragons and the humans, but a lot has remained the same. There is still a definitive disconnect between the two species, as much as there is an insurrection for containment and control of power. The words which are infused to bring us back into the natural raw beauty of the Leland mountains made me hungry for walking amongst my own natural environs. The longer one takes away from the bond they share with the natural world, the more one’s spirit needs rejuvenation! In this way, I could understand fully the aching Sela felt each time she was pulled quite forcibly to exit the mountains of her home.

Gladdis is first introduced whilst Sela is escorted to the castle for the sorting for the Venur’s marriage ceremony. I like her spunky personality as she rolls with the punches life hands her. Gladdis is the type of instantaneous friend you hope to find whilst caught up in a sea of intrigue! She is the perfect companion for Sela, due to the fact she too has a rebel streak inside her and doesn’t yet know of her true destiny. The fact she hails from the same village as Sela’s mother is kismet. Her inability to understand the plight of dragons and their fight for freedom from being hunted tests the merits of how strong their friendship can truly bond.

Jastin Armitage makes his appearance in this story as a begruffled and aging dragon hunter, jaded beyond repair with a chip on his shoulder whilst caught up in his brother-in-law’s schemes. The fact his heart can still be stirred by memories of Riza is quite encouraging because by all other accounts it would appear he has preferred to be a hermit and recluse, keeping away from society and icing over his heart. His character was the most intriguing to me because he was always torn between conventional standards and the will of his own soul.

Sela | Book 2 Leland Dragons by Jackie Gamber
Orman Thistleby seeking an advantage of truth within the crystal as he makes his way to Riddess Castle
Artwork Credit: Matthew Perry

Destiny isn’t always an easy thing to reconcile. Following your heart and listening to both reason and instinctive murmurings inside your own soul is tempered by the lives of others who are drawn onto your path. What once would appear quite clear to pursue as far as yielding to your own desires, might grow complicated once others are entreated alongside you. Such is the case with Sela, finding her world wrapped around the delicacies of insurrection by proxy default of a man bent on revenge intermixed with greed. The Venur’s only motivation towards marrying a Leland woman is to reclaim the territory of both Esra and Leland Province to fill his own selfish desire for ultimate power and wealth. Yet she is drawn into his sinister plan by the misguided magical interference of a wizard who loses her confidence as soon as Orman Thistleby is within a whisper of a breath from her. Layce is the kind of wizard you feel pity for rather than spite.

Adversaries of the past have a funny way of coming back into your life when you’d rather continue to move forward and away from past transgressions. Blackclaw was one of the most vile and villainous characters I have come across in recent years, and aptly plays the part of a coal-hearted dragon whose scales of pitch black match his inside conscience. Blackclaw is a stealthy calculating adversary of whom Kallon Redheart had every right to fear.  The joy of reading the Leland Dragons series is being a step ahead and behind where the center heart of the story is leading you. Just as you’ve thought you’ve sorted out how everything will start to unfold and ebb back into its natural rhythm you’re thrown for an unexpected revelation you didn’t quite see coming, yet felt somehow could be plausible. When Sela first met Bannon, I felt a hitching inside of me. I could not quite put my finger on what made myself twitch with anticipation but as the chapters shifted forward a beautiful surprise was awaiting me! Drell’s own history and place in Dragonkind kept me glued to the page, as I wanted to see exactly how he differed from his father by the influence of his mother.

In order to examine the heart of your adversary you  have to first question the motives of your own. For Jastin Armitage his inner demons overshadowed the truth he was unwilling to see until it was nearly too late to forgive. Blindness through ignorance is one of the greatest strife’s of all, because it is only through willingness to see what we have blocked out of view of our inner spirit that can give us the freedom from what binds us. True redemption can only be achieved through the purity of one’s remorse.

The best stories are the ones in which the writer endeavours us to draw pensive at the conclusion of the story, and allow the embers of the text re-ignite inside our minds. Turnt over and over until the light of their hidden truths and etchings of character frailties wash over us with a renewed sense of understanding. I love the depth of the Leland Dragon series for it gives such a hearty rendering of the choices we make, not only as citizens of a country or province, but the choices our leaders make which have a direct effect on those who live in their kingdoms. This is a universal story which is not tethered nor limited to dragons. The only limitations are those of the reader who might not want to see what is left behind in the annuls of the dragon’s histories presented in the trilogy.

A compliment on continuity:

Gamber does a wonderful job at fusing together the continuity of the story from the ending chapters of Redheart to the beginnings of Sela! Whilst reading about how the library of the dragon scrolls came into being through the graceful design of Riza, gave me the impression that everything that had been left unresolved in the first book, would re-emerge and transform before my eyes in the second! I love when writers give such a hearty second installment as though we had never actually left the world in which the story resides! We simply pick up where we left off, re-attach ourselves into the fabric of the timescape, and slowly hope for the best resolutions for the characters who are already beloved, as much as the newer characters we are just forming an acquaintance!

I love the architecture of the settings as well, as Gamber uses old techniques of aged wood and carvings to paint the setting in which everything takes place with an ancient feeling of familiarity. Even in Esra Province whilst trapped inside the Venur’s castle compound, there is a rich history lit aflame inside the cavernous walls and passageways. I loved the insertion of both hidden from view entryways and the sunken from sight secret passages. It was always a dream of mine to have a bevy of secret passages inside of a home, so this always plays into the dream of my own yearnings!

And, the way in whichGamber chooses to have the forest and smells of the woods resonate on the tips of your nose, makes you want to abandon the book for a short spell whilst digging your toes into the earth right outside your own window!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com
Previously, Jorie reviewed “Redheart” (Book 1 of Leland Dragons) and
interviewed Ms. Gamber soon thereafter. Before featuring a Character Post from Reclamation’s tour, and a second interview with Ms. Gamber specifically geared towards the Leland Dragons series.

Be sure to scope out upcoming tours I will be hosting:
Seventh Star Presson my Bookish Events page!

Cross-listed on: Sci-Fi & Fantasy Fridays via On Starships & Dragonwings

{SOURCES: Cover art of “Sela” and illustrations by Matthew Perry, book synopsis, author photograph of Ms. Gamber, author biography, and the tour host badge were all provided by Tomorrow Comes Media and used with permission.  Book Review badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

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Posted Friday, 7 March, 2014 by jorielov in Blog Tour Host, Book Review (non-blog tour), Dragon Fiction, Equality In Literature, Fantasy Fiction, Folklore and Mythology, Good vs. Evil, High Fantasy, Seventh Star Press, Supernatural Fiction, YA Fantasy