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. Whether I am reading selections from Indie Authors & publishers to Major Trade and either from mainstream or INSPY markets – I am finding myself happily residing in the Historical past each year I am a blogger.
What I have been thankful for all these years since 2013 is the beautiful blessing of discovering new areas of Historical History to explore through realistically compelling Historical narratives which put me on the front-lines of where History and human interest stories interconnect. It has also allowed me to dive deeper into the historic past and root out new decades, centuries and millenniums to explore. For this and the stories themselves which are part of the memories I cherish most as a book blogger I am grateful to be a part of the #HFVBTBlogTours blogger team.
I received a complimentary ARC copy of “The Romanov Heiress” by the author Jennifer Laam in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein. However, this was separate from my participation in this promotional tour for the novel of the same title — as I took it upon myself to feature a preview of a forthcoming review during the blitz instead of a standard highlight of the novel which is run during a traditional spotlighted post of this nature.
On my connection to Ms Laam:
I previously crossed paths with Ms Laam whilst hosting her blog tour for the novel “The Lost Season of Love and Snow” – which was also a tour hosted by HFVBTs. I also hosted a guest feature by Ms Laam as well for that particular tour and had intended to do so again but realised that that wasn’t in the cards this time around. I haven’t yet had the joy of reading the other novels by this author which I aim to gather at some point post-relocation, as most of my readers and visitors alike know by now that I am relocating at the end of March. Her novels: “Secret Daughter of the Tsar” and “The Tsarina’s Legacy” are the ones I’ll be gathering next to read.
Whilst reconnecting with the author ahead of her promotional tours – one through Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and one through Xpresso Book Tours, I asked the author if this latest release (ie. “The Romanov Heiress”) was going to be releasing into print or audio, as I had only seen it noted as being a Digital First release instead. This happens quite often enough nowadays and I understand the reasons behind it in the marketplace of publishing. However, as I’m a traditional reader of books in print and/or a listener of audiobooks – it was something I wanted to ask the author directly about ahead of promoting the book to my readers and visitors in case the same might be true for them as well.
During that conversation, I learnt there will be a print edition of the book but I didn’t have a confirmed timeline of when it would release. Whilst conversing with the author, she offered to send me an ARC copy of the novel in print and I gladly accepted that as I was quite eager to see how she treated the legacy of the Romanovs as well as funnelling her own vision of their story into her novel. She is one of the Historical Fiction authors I’ve read in the past of whom I regularly keep an eye on for a new release and welcomed the chance to read this story of hers this Spring (despite the timing of my relocation).
Thereby, I am sharing this as the ways in which I received the book was separate from the promotional tours and thereby were not directly connected to either Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours non Xpresso Book Tours as well.
On why this review is a more condensed version of a regular one I usually feature:
For those who follow my blog you will have denoted that the last time I posted an update about my life behind the blog was in mid-Feburary, when I shared my post about exiting stage left. In the weeks which followed, I lost interest to journal what was happening in regards to my relocation because of how hard it was to resolve and how exhausted I was trying to maintain my work schedules in and round sorting out where to relocate too. That was also complicated by wanting to visit with my father whose now residing in long-term care (which is also journalled extensively through my Sunday Posts of the last few months) and that was tricky in of itself as I had to balance those visits with both of my jobs. And, of course, with working comes added stress and with packing a flat comes extreme exhaustion. Ergo, this is the first time I’ve been able to sit down with a story after my readings of Caleb Wygal’s Cosy Mysteries! The latter of which I am going to be continuing with my reading of Death Washes Ashore.
If your curious – a new life update will be forthcoming this week during my next Sunday Post – however, for now, I wanted to address the shorter review attached to this promotional tour. I was hopeful I could get a bit further along into this novel ahead of my tour date, however, as it only arrived at the head of this week by post and as my life/work balance alongside my packing hours haven’t exactly been yielding a lot of ‘extra’ time for personal pursuits such as reading — you could say, I was just grateful I could read the first twenty-five pages and share those remarks with you instead for this lovely tour.
This abridged review is part of my #25PagePreview posts and at a future date I am hopeful I can share a more expanded rumination of my time spent within the author’s vision of the story.
Four sisters in hiding. A grand duchess in disguise. Dark family secrets revealed…an alternate future for the Romanov sisters from Jennifer Laam, author of The Secret Daughter of the Tsar and The Lost Season of Love and Snow.
With her parents and brother missing and presumed dead, Grand Duchess Olga Romanova must keep her younger sisters safe. The Bolsheviks are determined to eliminate any remaining holdovers from the tsarist regime, hunting down the last Romanovs and putting them to death. Now living in England, the Romanov sisters remain hidden to protect their identities, even as isolation strains their relationships.
But they can’t distance themselves from the world forever.
Olga learns that a peer of the realm has accused the late Empress Alexandra of betraying Russia and her allies during the Great War. Under the spell of the scheming Grigori Rasputin, Alexandra disclosed military secrets to the enemy and pursued a separate peace with Germany. If this rumor becomes history, it will destroy her legacy and her family’s future.
Converse via: #HistFic or #HistNov and #HistoricalFiction
+ #TheRomanovHeiress as well as #HFVBT
Available Formats: Digital First Release + Paperback Edition to follow
About Ms Jennifer Laam
An avid history nerd long fascinated with the Romanov sisters, Jennifer Laam’s next books, including THE ROMANOV HEIRESS (March 2023), will explore their stories with several “what-ifs.”
A proud native of Stockton, CA, Jennifer currently lives in Sacramento with a spoiled tabby cat named Jonesy. When not reading or writing, she enjoys planning cosplay for the next San Diego Comic-Con, experimenting with vegetarian recipes (to mixed results), and obsessing over House Targaryen or Baby Yoda.
Hallo, Hallo dear hearts and fellow book bloggers from the #LimitsOfLimelight tour!
You’ve might have noticed an absence of Self Published Fantasy on Jorie Loves A Story this September as well as a clear lack of Mythos & discussions surrounding The Odyssey. In truth, the hours clicked off the clock too fast this month and I lost a fortnight to severe allergies and clustering migraines which wrecked my chances of succeeding in my goals I originally had outlined for September. I had only a handful of blog tours this month as I had pared down hosting after Summer’s wrath of lightning storms and felt it was going to be a good month to seek out a personal footpath of stories to read and listen to via audiobook. Instead, I found myself battling through some difficult bouts of ill health and even, on the morning of this post needing to go live – I suffered through a disastrous allergy attack and had to take time offline to recoup.
However, I will table my plans to re-attempt those previously disclosed reads at another time – what I want to celebrate today is my personal love and affection for Old Hollywood and my wicked fascination with Classic films! Ever since I first tucked into watching Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in my mid to late twenties (as I’m now a forty-something appreciator!) as I was fully burnt on police procedurals and hard-boiled Suspense tv serials – Classic films provided a new opportunity to fall in love with the history of film and the progression of how film transitioned through those earlier years from the Silent Film era into the present. I loved getting a personal glimpse of the journey – both of the actors themselves and of the filmmakers – as I watched how Hitchcock found his wings first in the Silent films and then, how he grew in both execution and vision into the ‘talkies’ of what we’ve all found wicked spellbinding in his category of Thrillers and Psychological Suspense.
Yet it wasn’t just Hitch who intrigued me. No, it was all of the actors and actresses of those bygone eras as TCM had a way of highlighting different actors and actresses every month and I’d delight in joy in seeing full blocks of their collective works. Claudette Corbet, Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire, Harlow Jean, (adult) Shirley Temple, Spencer Tracy, Rosalind Russell, Barbara Stanwyck and this on top of already loving Jimmy Stuart, Bob Hope, Shirley Temple, Rock Hudson, Doris Day as well as William Powell and Morna Loy (ie. “The Thin Man” series) among many others. As this is a very short snapshot of whom I’ve loved discovering and of whom have kept me glued to the films in which they brought wonderfully to life!
I even found myself wonderfully intrigued by the set designs and the costumes – which is how I became further in love with the work of Edith Head whilst I also found it keenly curious how large the productions were for Musicals. Being a lover of Broadway, seeing Classic Musicals and especially those which were both song/dance ensembles or a combination of those mixed with water scenes (as they used synchronised swimmers, too!) were absolutely fantastic! I also loved of course seeing actors/actresses stretch themselves into different genres – such as comedic men in dramas and vice versa. The only hard bit I found were good guys trying to play nefarious characters or characters without a soul which did not quite go off as well as I think they hoped. With one exception of course was Spencer Tracy in Jekyll/Hyde of whom you truly believed as as mad and batty as his character was portrayed! The depth he achieved is unreal!
The Limits of Limelight allows us to re-examine what we thought we knew about Old Hollywood and what we might have missed whilst chasing after our favourite Classic films as this is an exploration of the lives lived behind the films themselves. One of my top favourites duos of course outside of William Powell and Morna Loy or even Rock Hudson and Doris Day were the pairing of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. I had learnt about Astaire’s dedication and his work ethic as well as how much he rehearsed and how difficult it was for him to be matched with partners due to the bar of excellence he set for himself and others; yet you cannot deny the artistry he gave and maintained either. I had oft wondered about Ginger Rogers – both as a person behind the camera and as a woman who pursued her passion for acting and performance.
I was truly wicked happy when I learnt of this blog tour and even further enthused with the chance to converse with the author behind the story as it is one more book I’ve found which re-explores Old Hollywood in a way which is a delightful entrance back into the past in an era of interest which continues to inspire me in the present. I hope you’ll appreciate the topic and theme of discussion I’ve selected to examine on this lovely blog tour and find the author’s responses as keenly intriguing as I had myself.
And, without further adieu – enjoy where the conversation I had with Ms Porter took us!
Pretty Oklahoma teenager Helen Nichols accepts an invitation from her cousin, rising movie actress Ginger Rogers, and her Aunt Lela, to try her luck in motion pictures. Her relatives, convinced that her looks and personality will ensure success, provide her with a new name and help her land a contract with RKO. As Phyllis Fraser, she swiftly discovers that Depression-era Hollywood’s surface glamour and glitter obscure the ceaseless struggle of the hopeful starlet.
Lela Rogers, intensely devoted to her daughter and her niece, outwardly accepting of her stage mother label, is nonetheless determined to establish her reputation as screenwriter, stage director, and studio talent scout. For Phyllis, she’s an inspiring model of grit and persistence in an industry run by men.
While Ginger soars to the heights of stardom in musicals with Fred Astaire, Phyllis is tempted by a career more fulfilling than the one she was thrust into. Should she continue working in films, or devote herself to the profession she’s dreamed about since childhood? And which choice might lead her to the lasting love that seems so elusive?
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. Whether I am reading selections from Indie Authors & publishers to Major Trade and either from mainstream or INSPY markets – I am finding myself happily residing in the Historical past each year I am a blogger.
What I have been thankful for all these years since 2013 is the beautiful blessing of discovering new areas of Historical History to explore through realistically compelling Historical narratives which put me on the front-lines of where History and human interest stories interconnect. It has also allowed me to dive deeper into the historic past and root out new decades, centuries and millenniums to explore. For this and the stories themselves which are part of the memories I cherish most as a book blogger I am grateful to be a part of the #HFVBTBlogTours blogger team.
I received a complimentary copy of “Naked Truth: or Equality, the Forbidden Fruit” direct from the author Carrie Hayes in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I wanted to read “Naked Truth: or Equality, the Forbidden Fruit”:
Ever since I first started to uncover a hidden niche of Historical Fiction which I refer to as Feminist Historical Fiction – those stories which are redefining our knowledge about the Women’s Rights movement, the histories and lives of the Suffragettes and everything interconnected to Intersectional Feminism as well as the larger breadth of how fighting for Women’s Rights has been an ongoing battle for many generations – those are the stories which have been enriching my readerly life for four years now.
I read a re-telling of the life of Victoria Woodhull in August (Madame Presidentess by Nicole Evelina) which helped heal my heart about the portions of Woodhull’s life I felt so very difficult to read through in Flynn’s edition of the story.
It has led me down some interesting passageways – as I’ve been following in the stead of Victoria Woodhull in different incantations of her her life being told whilst I also found a remarkable trilogy about Genevieve and how her story could be re-told through a Feminist lens by Nicole Evelina (ie. the Genevieve Tales Trilogy archives).
I am encouraged by finding strong female characters that are illuminating the long history of Women’s Equality. This includes a historical mystery novel The Secret Life of Anna Blanc by Jennifer Kincheloe which approached the topic from a unique angle of discussion.
Through my readings I have felt more anchoured to the history of all the women who’ve lived before me, making our lives better for their sacrifice and dedication.
I was reading so many of these stories for quite a long while (over about two years) before they stopped coming through my Inbox in regards to blog tours. I had meant to seek more of these kinds of stories out myself by way of my local libraries or on Scribd (for audiobooks), however, as we all notice life has a way of taking us elsewhere at times when we’re thinking of following another path entirely. Thereby, I have let serendipity help me find new voices in this wonderful scope of Historical Fiction which parlays into Biographical Historical Fiction as well – as most of these stories are straight out of the living persons accounts about what was happening in the world and how women have been fighting for our Equality for far more years than anyone could imagine!
And, this is the latest I’ve found which picks up the threads of what I’ve previously read whilst encouraging all of us to carry onwards – to seek out more stories of our conjoined histories and to peer back into what has been fuelling the fight for our rights through decades and centuries of fierce women who have stood up, resisted and found their voice through protest to seek a better future for us all.
In a small way, I’ve been contributing to their legacy by amplifying voices on Twitter – by retweeting and sharing the content about the #WomensMarch and the continuing quest to have our rights secured in all facets of our lives. I might be an online activist right now but that doesn’t lessen my voice or my hope for a better tomorrow for all women once we no longer have to fight to be heard, respected and treated as equals. For me Feminism is Intersectional – it is about all of us together – including our transgender sisters – as we either all rise together or we all continue to fall.
It is better to understand History than to continuously repeat it and in this regard, it is best to understand the sacrifices of the past which have endevoured us to live as free as we do now in our modern world. Here is to the continuing fight to secure more rights and to finally have true Equality.
What first inspired you to research and eventually write about the History of Women’s Rights and the Suffragette movement?
Hayes responds: As a girl, my upbringing was somehow slipped into that space between privilege and feminine acquiescence…. by which I mean to say that my ignorance of the feminist movement (despite or maybe because of my mother’s personal friendship with Gloria Steinem) was absolute. I understood practically nothing about suffragism.
When Margaret Thatcher was first elected as Prime Minister I was a student at a girls’ school in Britain, but the only reference to feminism on the part of the teachers there was a look. They’d give you a look. No one ever said anything directly about the history of the women’s movement. My own mother was such a maverick, I couldn’t imagine ANYONE dictating to her or denying her ANYTHING… so I was completely oblivious to what women had actually gone through…. Now, when I read my answer, that sounds pretty unlikely, particularly as my mom had been a friend of Gloria’s in the sixties, but their friendship was complicated by my dad’s antipathy towards Gloria… so perhaps that made all things feminist sort of verboten…. In his defence, though, he was not a male chauvinist….So, many decades later, long after both of my parents had died, I came across Other Powers, which was Barbara Goldsmith’s biography of Victoria Woodhull and it just lit a flame inside of me.
And there is so, so, so much about this part of history that people simply know NOTHING about….. which is also really astonishing! For example- who knew that there was a vibrant, respected community of female columnists and publishers in the United States during the nineteenth century? I had no idea. Or that the highest paid syndicated columnist after the Civil War was a woman, who wrote under the name of Fannie Fern… and she was the person who coined the phrase ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.’ I think that’s fascinating.
I couldn’t agree more – how much History is left unknown and unsaid – whilst I was in school I was remarking about how there are these large gaps in information being shared – about Feminist topics, about the Suffragettes and Women’s Rights, about the Civil Rights era and also about African-American History – so much History was completely ignored and never taught. It wasn’t until I became a book blogger and ‘accidentally’ realised my favourite niche of literature is “historical fiction” did I finally get to soak into compellingly honest and authentically written stories straight out of the historic past which sought to not just educate us on the past through a lens of the person’s who once lived but to give us a proper bit of insight into what shaped their lives and why they choose to live the lives they had.
I oft lament nowadays online – my blog and on #bookTwitter, Historical Fiction is what needs to replace required readings in History and Social Science classes because the writers who are researching these stories and are writing them with such a tenacity of voice to tell the truth of the past ought to be in the hands of today’s students. They’d learn far more through the pursuit of those stories which could offer a springboard into further readings and research than the general route they take in those classes without the stories. At least that is my two pence!
I can relate to what you’re talking about in a few regards – as I hadn’t realised I was raised to be an Intersectional Feminist nor did I realise I was a Feminist until again, I became a book blogger – as those terms re-surfaced and as I sought out their definitions and better understood Intersectional Feminism, I realised this is how I was raised and how I grew up as my Mum was equally dynamic and independent in her own right, too. I think when you come from a background of strong women (such as we have; for me it is generationally shifting back even into my great-great-great grandparents) – it self-motivates you through your own personal histories to become more self-aware of the world and of the history of women’s rights as well. I love fiercely strong women and I am walking the path of being one myself.
What sparked the interest to tell this particular story in this vein of lens?
Hayes responds: Well, the Claflin sisters are pretty irresistible as protagonists. Their legend gives everything about them a wiley, unreliable, and pretty saucy aspect. Some people absolutely loved them, and others were like, ‘Woah! Free love, sexual agency, what???’ And there’s also a part of them that is exactly like the Kardashians are today. Super media savvy, with one version of themselves that the public sees and another that is probably closer to the truth of who they really are – to wit, Kim reading law, etc…
Originally, I had Naked Truth starting when they were much, much younger, because there’s this wild sensationalism of their life with their parents, and Victoria’s time in California and Tennessee’s first marriage – all of it, very hard hitting Victorian melodrama, along with Canning’s alcoholism and drug addiction and various charges of prostitution and all that steamy stuff. But being a debut novelist, I was advised the book could only be so big. Then I couldn’t figure out how to gauge the plotting, so as to break it up into a trilogy and make it a more marketable, manageable product.
Eventually, I worked with a fabulous editor, Nicoke Bokat who really helped me get a handle on the story and the telling of it. Then, co-incidentally, I read The Age of Light, by Whitney Scharer (a novel about photographer Lee Miller), and the way she told the story in the present tense gave me a lot to think about….. Then it began to dawn on me that Tennessee and Victoria’s story is actually about the media and how it is delivered and how it is consumed. It is particularly about women and the media, and how caught up we, as women, are by image and perception- more than we are by fundamental truths…..so the whole thing played out as a sort of decoupage in my mind- or like in old movies where you see newspaper headlines spinning round…
I love when you have too much material rather than feeling as if you’ve short-changed your story by not writing enough! I have a feeling I’ll have this same issue once I start to publish my own stories as I tend to write in length rather than in the shortness of word counts and the structures of industry. (er, my blog is a testament to this!) I felt breaking your story into three installments was a smart choice – as I personally love seeing how a story can evolve and redefine itself through multiple installments of the same narrative. I have read several firsts as a book blogger in the past which I hope to continue reading one day as they were incredibly strong and well founded at their beginnings. Here’s to seeing your fully realised story eventually published and released as a trilogy!
As I have been travelling alongside Woodhull for awhile now, I know there is a dear amount of her history to ‘unpack’ and ruminate over – hers is not an easy story to tell nor is it an easy story to read due to the fixed marks of time and circumstance which affected her history. I’ve lost a lot of sleep over reading about her story and of processing certain moments of her life.
What are you hoping Historical Fiction readers will gain from the perspective you’ve provided?
Hayes responds: That there was so much more going on that we might imagine in the lives of those who now exist now only as footnotes or obscure curiosities. That and also that the female impulse to bury those women who don’t suit us (for whatever reason) is not a good one. That the issue of sexual equality, a woman’s right to privacy and to her own body, even within marriage, has remained controversial in the political discussion because the leaders of the suffragist movement shied away from taking it on, preferring only to deal with the vote – as opposed to actual sexual equality. There were some wonderful discussions around this just before the 19th Amendment’s centennial. Much of what’s plagued women during the fight for equal rights has been due, in large part, to those rights not being addressed in tandem with the right to vote.
I concur with this – in our pursuit to secure the right to vote, we did not secure the right for other ‘civil rights and liberties’ which should have been inherently given at the same time and yet were withheld. Our ongoing pursuit of those freedoms and rights is still playing out today and are still undecided in regards to being a secured right and being merely a temporary one which is constantly besieged of being overturn. By re-tracing the histories of what we’ve been fighting for and what we have accomplished we can better understand the stakes of today.
Whilst at the same time what was more challenging – aligning your story into the timeline of History and/or threading a story of your own vision into History as it unfolded?
Hayes responds: For me, the life of the Claflin sisters was a gift. Their real life adventure moved beautifully apace with the timeline of history. They were products of that time and their story flowed accordingly. Simplifying their narrative was an enormous challenge, because they knew everyone and went everywhere. Choosing how to rein it in was the tricky bit. The running joke in my family was that it was “The Story Too Big To Be Told!”
You gave me a jolly good laugh about the ‘story too big to be told’!! I love how you’ve found characters to write about who were so vividly alive during their lifetimes that their stories simply knitted together as if you were merely writing down their actual histories rather than having to pierce together a history that you hadn’t previously known. Some characters and/or lives we’re created come together in such a way as to give us pause about how we write and how writing fuses us into a creative space where there is something else going on besides the artfulness of telling tales and touching souls with our words.
What was your favourite section of the novel to write?
Hayes responds: I love, love, the big scenes, with crowds of people and tons of food. What one reads now are mere snippets of the original set ups. The dinner party where Victoria decides she will have her own newspaper was a favorite and the scene in Washington after Victoria’s speech at Lincoln Hall. I enjoyed those very much. I also love to write scenes where we think it’s going to go one way and then something happens, so that it goes in a different direction. I do find those great fun.
I loved how you’ve responded to the question and to all the questions I asked of you – it felt like a very organic conversation and one we might have had over tea or lattes. It shows how much you love your topic and subjects of interest whilst also painting the portrait of a writer whose in love with creating the story she was meant to write and cast out into the world. It is a pleasure of joy to be able to share this with my readers and the visitors who are following the blog tour!
From Washington Heights to Washington D.C. comes a true American Herstory. Filled with intrigue, lust, and betrayal, this is the fight for sexual equality.
1868, on the eve of the Gilded Age: Spiritualist TENNESSEE CLAFLIN is smart, sexy, and sometimes clairvoyant. But it’s her sister, VICTORIA WOODHULL, who is going to make history as the first woman to run for President of the United States.
It starts with the seduction of the richest man in America. Next, they’ll take New York City and the suffragist movement by storm, because together, Tennessee and Victoria are a force of nature. Boldly ambitious, they stop at nothing, brushing shoulders with Harriet Beecher Stowe and Susan B. Anthony, using enough chutzpah to make a lady blush.
That is, until their backstabbing family takes them to court, and their carefully spun lives unravel, out in public and in the press.
Converse via: #HistFic or #HistNov as well as #HistoricalFiction and #Equality
+ #NakedTruth, #WomensRights and #HFVBTBlogTours
Available Formats: Trade paperback and Ebook
About Carrie Hayes
Over the years, Carrie has tried a lot of things. She’s sold vacuum cleaners, annuities and sofas. She’s lived at the beach and lived in Europe. She’s taught school and worked in film. For a while, she was an aspiring librarian, but she fell in love and threw her life away instead. Back in the States, she started over, then met an architect who said, “Why don’t you become a kitchen designer?” So, she did. Eventually she designed interiors, too. And all that time, she was reading. What mattered was having something to read. Slowly, she realized her craving for books sprang from her need to know how things would turn out. Because in real life, you don’t know how things will turn out. But if you write it, you do. Naked Truth or Equality the Forbidden Fruit is her first book.
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. Whether I am reading selections from Indie Authors & publishers to Major Trade and either from mainstream or INSPY markets – I am finding myself happily residing in the Historical past each year I am a blogger.
What I have been thankful for all these years since 2013 is the beautiful blessing of discovering new areas of Historical History to explore through realistically compelling Historical narratives which put me on the front-lines of where History and human interest stories interconnect. It has also allowed me to dive deeper into the historic past and root out new decades, centuries and millenniums to explore. For this and the stories themselves which are part of the memories I cherish most as a book blogger I am grateful to be a part of the #HFVBTBlogTours blogger team.
I received a complimentary of “Metropolis” direct from the author Ellie Midwood in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I wanted to read “Metropolis”:
I recognised the film title this novel is based on immediately after receiving the blog tour invite and I must admit, that is what inspired my interest in reading the novel! I have a propensity for seeking out Biographical Historical Fiction inasmuch as I love stories set round important time periods of History or are based on actual living persons or events; including the production of this infamous Classic film! Now, when it comes to Classic Hollywood – I have been an appreciator of early 20th Century film-making for most of my life!
As you might have gathered when I read the first Renee Patrick Cosy Historical Mystery wherein Edith Head plays a strong role in sleuthing out the details of this crafty & clever series! I had such a wonderful pleasure of being caught up inside Old Hollywood and the culture of motion pictures as only Renee Patrick can tell the story as their a husband & wife team of writers who have such a wicked passion for Classic Films!
Thus, I thought ‘Metropolis’ might be a fitting #nextread as I thought it might be an interesting chapter on not just film history but about a part of the past I don’t oft get to read as this dances round the impact of war and how people were striving to restart their lives after such great losses.
Unemployed actors, profiteers, cabaret girls, and impoverished aristocracy – out of this wild set of characters populating Weimar Berlin, Margarete Gräfin von Steinhoff belongs to the latter category. Having lost everything due to hyper-inflation, she considers jumping into the freezing waters of the Spree rather than facing the humiliating existence shared by millions of her fellow Germans. However, a chance meeting makes her change her mind at the last moment and offers her a chance to rely on the help of the metropolis itself, where anything can be sold and bought for money and where connections are everything. The bustling nightlife of cosmopolitan Berlin, with its casinos and dance halls, brings good income for the ones who don’t burden themselves too heavily with morals.
After a New Year’s Eve party, Margot finally meets her ever-absent and mysterious neighbor, Paul Schneider, who makes a living by producing a certain type of film for his rich clientele. Under his guidance, Margot discovers a new passion of hers – photography and soon, her talents are noticed by the prominent newspaper, Berliner Tageblatt itself. But being an official photographer of the most celebrated events of the La Scala and most famous Berlin theaters no longer satisfies Margot’s ambitions. As soon as the chance presents itself for her to get involved with the cinematography on the set of “Metropolis” – the film with the highest budget ever produced by the UFA – Margot jumps at it, without thinking twice. At the same time, Paul becomes involved with a rival project, “The Holy Mountain,” which stars an as yet unknown actress and an emerging director in, Leni Riefenstahl. As the two women meet, professional rivalry soon turns into a true friendship, fueled by their passion for cinematography. However, due to the economic woes facing Germany, both projects soon run out of money and now, both film crews must go to extreme lengths to save their respective productions.
Set against the backdrop of a decadent, vibrant, and fascinatingly liberal Weimar Berlin, “Metropolis” is a novel of survival, self-discovery, and self-sacrifice, in the name of art, love, and friendship.
Converse via: #HistFic or #HistNov
+ #Metropolis and #HFVBTBlogTours
Available Formats: Trade paperback and Ebook
About Ellie Midwood
Ellie Midwood is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning historical fiction author. She owes her interest in the history of the Second World War to her grandfather, Junior Sergeant in the 2nd Guards Tank Army of the First Belorussian Front, who began telling her about his experiences on the frontline when she was a young girl. Growing up, her interest in history only deepened and transformed from reading about the war to writing about it. After obtaining her BA in Linguistics, Ellie decided to make writing her full-time career and began working on her first full-length historical novel, “The Girl from Berlin.” Ellie is continuously enriching her library with new research material and feeds her passion for WWII and Holocaust history by collecting rare memorabilia and documents.
In her free time, Ellie is a health-obsessed yoga enthusiast, neat freak, adventurer, Nazi Germany history expert, polyglot, philosopher, a proud Jew, and a doggie mama. Ellie lives in New York with her fiancé and their Chihuahua named Shark Bait.
For more information on Ellie and her novels, please visit her online.
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. Whether I am reading selections from Indie Authors & publishers to Major Trade and either from mainstream or INSPY markets – I am finding myself happily residing in the Historical past each year I am a blogger.
What I have been thankful for all these years since 2013 is the beautiful blessing of discovering new areas of Historical History to explore through realistically compelling Historical narratives which put me on the front-lines of where History and human interest stories interconnect. It has also allowed me to dive deeper into the historic past and root out new decades, centuries and millenniums to explore. For this and the stories themselves which are part of the memories I cherish most as a book blogger I am grateful to be a part of the #HFVBTBlogTours blogger team.
I received a complimentary of “Salt the Snow” direct from the author Carrie Callaghan in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
Why I wanted to read “Salt the Snow”:
Rather uniquely, I cannot readily remember the EXACT moment & reason I wanted to read this novel; except to say, it felt like the kind of Historical narrative I was seeking for the New Year. The first to kick-off my new pursuit of Feminist Historical Fiction and the first entry towards securing more Biographical Historical Fiction into my everyday pursuit of the historic past; in essence, I was DRAWN towards “Salt the Snow” – reading it felt like the natural endgame for me after being smitten by the premise!
There is a curious quotation by Milly Bennett ahead of Chapter One which I felt implored a few notations about: as it struck to ask you, if you had your druthers would you OR would you not have been tempted to arrive inside your life a century prior to your actual birth!? The plausibilities of a response are all-encompassing depending on your own perspective of the theory it produces – however for me, it would be a better question to ask “if you could travel within the scope of known history & the time it which we have lived in those years – would you travel outside your own lifetime?”
And, that leads me into my pursuit of Historical Fiction as a genre interest & as a pursuit of literature devouted to the past & to the explorations of those who not only lived *but!* could have lived if they are completely fictional & byproduct of the author’s imagination. For those stories give us a cursory window into life as it could have been & the trajectory of where life is still progressing towards becoming. All of life is an experiment in learning – of growth through experience and the compassionate ways in which we interconnect with not just our own humanity but the collective conscience which threads our humanity. If we read the past, we are better insulated for the future but all of history cannot always prepare of us for the present.
This particular novel simply stood out to me to be read and I found that it was the first novel of 2020 I could lay my thoughts inside after a jarring beginning to a New Year whose first few weeks were rather crushing to the spirits of a girl who tries to focus on the positives & now feel weighed down by the negatives. My soul still is remorse & in grief for the Australian bush wildlife & the people who were in jeopardy of losing their own lives – either by the fires or the humbled attempts to save the wildlife who called those areas their home.
My gratitude to Ms Callaghan for giving me a hearty story to chew on & find myself entreating into her novel with a renewal of joy for finding her story.
American journalist Milly Bennett has covered murders in San Francisco, fires in Hawaii, and a civil war in China, but 1930s Moscow presents her greatest challenge yet. When her young Russian husband is suddenly arrested by the secret police, Milly tries to get him released. But his arrest reveals both painful secrets about her marriage and hard truths about the Soviet state she has been working to serve. Disillusioned and pulled toward the front lines of a captivating new conflict, Milly must find a way to do the right thing for her husband, her conscience, and her heart. Salt the Snow is a vivid and impeccably researched tale of a woman ahead of her time, searching for her true calling in life and love.
Converse via: #HistFic or #HistNov
+ #SaltTheSnow and #HFVBTBlogTours
Available Formats: Trade paperback and Ebook
About Carrie Callaghan
Carrie Callaghan is a writer living in Maryland with her spouse, two young children, and two ridiculous cats. Her short fiction has appeared in Weave Magazine, The MacGuffin, Silk Road, Floodwall, and elsewhere. Carrie is also an editor and contributor with the Washington Independent Review of Books. She has a Master’s of Arts in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Romanov Heiress
The Limits of Limelight
Naked Truth or Equality: The Forbidden Fruit
Metropolis
Salt the Snow