Genre: Historical Fiction

Author Interview | Discussing MacBeth and the way this tale was re-spun through the vision DK Marley had for “A Fire in Winter”

Posted Friday, 16 August, 2019 by jorielov D.K. Marley, Macbeth, Shakespeare's Moon series, The Fire of Winter, White Rabbit Publishing, William Shakespeare 0 Comments

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

I have an exciting interview to share with you today, as the author and I myself are both passionately dedicated to reading Shakespeare! I have appreciated the Bard since I was quite young though it wasn’t until a freshman in high school where I started taking more of an earnest interest in discerning what I was interpreting out of his stories; thus taking on a new role in my life as a Shakespearean reader. From that year til this one, I’ve been dancing through the plays in different formats of exploration – from the plays themselves, of course, but also through adaptations in film, after canon novels and the re-tellings which are re-shaping how we think, feel and understand the original canon of Shakespeare.

What truly implored me towards reading “The Fire of Winter” is wanting to re-step through a lens of insight into both MacBeth and the origin story surrounding Lady MacBeth. It was a play that has been a curiosity for me since I was sixteen and I felt Marley just might be the author who would give me a version of this story which would resolve some of my own questions and curiosities therein whilst giving me a heap of fodder to chew over as a book blogger. I was not wrong on all counts.

This interview is a follow-up to the review I’ve previously disclosed – wherein, you’ll notice through my observations and my readerly takeaways why the writings Marley is giving us are not just wicked good fiction but they are accountable and authentic towards a better understanding of why Shakespeare wrote his stories. She pulls you back into the context of his vision but also, re-represents that vision in a way that you can re-visit the themes, the characters and the settings in a wholly original examinations of those founding stories. For me, it was a way of re-stepping into a door of literature I have loved and finding a refreshing new spin on what I remembered having read.

If you want to settle your reader into the heart of the scene rather immediately after she opens your novel, I think when it comes to opening paragraphs DK Marley takes the ultimate star award for dramatic entrances! Not only do you gather the emotional rooting of this scene – partially built against the purity of rage and anger; as clearly the woman whose allowing men to die by flame and fire isn’t concerned with their dangerous demise but rather, the freedom (or so it appears) their death shall yield to her as a result of their premature deaths. This doesn’t outright surprise me because raids, unexpected coups and power re-alignments were quite common during this particular century as those who wished for power didn’t go about it diplomatically; rather, they plundered it off the lands of others, stole it outright or found ways to circumvent the ethical divides between the ruling class and pirating your destiny out of a world rife with war.

Gruah is a woman caught in a circumstance not of her own choosing – if you follow that thread you’d find she was ready to embrace a life with a man she desired to be with rather than one she was forced to remain enchained. The interesting bit here though is how Marley handles the scene as she doesn’t let us see the remorse of her character (not that I felt she had any to yield) nor does she give her time to apologise for her impulsive actions (again, I didn’t feel that was plausible!) – no, instead, she presents her just as she were – her faults surfacing with malice whilst carrying a gleaming glow of self-satisfaction. This was a woman who knew what she wanted, how she would achieve it and dare anyone to tell her differently. She leaves her mark and her mark is by fire and sword.

As Gruah grows in her hatred towards her newly wed husband forced on her by her father – an exchange of alliance and power; nothing more – she begins to emerge as Lady MacBeth. The woman who would turn her heart to stone if it meant finding her own internal power to eradicate the ills done against her – as you find her plotting her revenges even as she takes her first steps into her new marriage. Of course, she is already “MacBeth” in both honour and declared love; married to Lord MacBeth in secret and yet, secreted from that truth due to the alignment of strife to overtake her father’s and the King’s wishes on her behalf. I was curious about what changed the woman’s right to choose her own spouse – as it was mentioned briefly that they used to be able to make those choices outside the purview of the men; where their own destiny was once their own and not owned by others who did as they willed whether or not it was consented or accepted. In that regard, there are a lot of contemporary issues for women’s rights penetrating through MacBeth’s struggle to find the right action to fuse with her words; as her wrath was always spoken but its the actions she needs to take which take longer to formulate.

Marley has written an historical novel rife with conflict and the secrets which never stay in the past but which re-rise in the future when they are meant to be known. Her Lady MacBeth is a woman who is attempting to right the wrongs against her by taking action as an adult when she couldn’t act as a child. It is a story of redemption but also, of self-sacrifice as in this version of MacBeth you understand better what anchoured her to the darker roots of her faith and how the Earthen Spirituality she shared with her Mum was the only grounding foundation she had to battle against the horrors of her youth.

Marley also broaches the current topics of women’s rights, domestic violence against women and the suffering hours of being victims of sexual violence as children. She moves instinctively through the actions of the present and counters it with the recollected memories of the past to where you can overlay the past with the present and understand how everyone is on this collision course to where fate, life and death are interchanging their roles. It is a story that is fuelled by revenge but it is also a story of injustice and the purity of true love which seeks to rise through the ashes and lay claim to the purity of how love when it is freely given is a freedom of its own.

It is a hard novel to read in many regards because of how it descends and rises through the pacing of the play – including the fall of madness in Lord MacBeth. There is violence yes, as these are not people who opt for diplomacy to solve their problems, they’d rather take to the sword and see who is the better of combatants than to use talk to diffuse their differences. There are scenes which are hard to read just due to what they involve but at the heart of the novel is the life of MacBeth; both the husband and the wife. You get to re-examine what motivated them, what sparked the love between them and what ultimately drove them apart – you see those moments they shared together and how they perceived of their future by secret plotting.

The most powerful part of the story is the conclusion – where Lady MacBeth has a final say about what is meant to be remembered about herself. In that confession, you peer close to her soul and her heart; you see into her the truthfulness of her actions and the ways in which she felt she had to act in order to secure her own destiny. The difficulties of those choices however had consequences that do not wait to rest on a mind hardened by the actions of a woman who was aflame with murderous intentions to accomplish the deeds she first felt would define her and secure her future. You had to contemplate if she had the option to re-live it, what would she choose and what would she change; if anything? Or was it all pre-destined and her life lived out just as it was meant?

-quoted from my review of The Fire of Winter

As you embark on reading this conversation, be sure to have brewed your favourite cuppa and get ready to get your Shakespeare on as we discuss the components of this re-telling of MacBeth whilst also discussing why Marley has a firm passion for re-visiting other plays and how she is re-envisioning the canon of Shakespeare as a whole! I hope you enjoy where our convo led us and perhaps, you’ll find a renewal of interest in these stories as much as I have myself!

The Fire of Winter (Interview)
by D.K. Marley
Source: Publisher via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

She is known as Lady Macbeth.
What leads her down the path of murder?
What secrets fire her destiny?

Gruah, granddaughter of King Cìnéad III of the Royal Clan Alpin, marries two men in less than six months, one she loves and one she hates; one in secret, the other arranged by the High King of Scotland. At the age of eighteen, she lays her palm upon the ancient stone of Scone and sees her destiny as Queen of Scotland, and she vows to do whatever necessary to see her true love, Macbeth macFindlaech, beside her on the throne.

Amid the fiery times and heated onslaughts from Denmark and England, as the rule of Scotland hangs in the balance, Gruah seeks to win the throne and bring revenge upon the monsters of her childhood, no matter the cost or amount of blood tainting her own hands; yet, an unexpected meeting with the King called the Confessor causes her to question her bloody path and doubt her once blazing pagan faith. Will she find redemption or has the blood of her past fire-branded her soul?

The story weaves the play by William Shakespeare with the actual history of Macbeth and his Queen in 11th-century Scotland.

“…a woman’s story at a winter’s fire…”
(Macbeth, Act III, Scene IV)

Genres: After Canons, Classical Literature, Historical Fiction, Historical-Fantasy, Re-telling &/or Sequel

Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 978-1724914965

Also by this author: The Fire of Winter

Published by White Rabbit Publishing

on 1st June, 2019

Pages: 355

Published by: White Rabbit Publishing

Converse via: #HistoricalFiction, #HistFic or #HistNov
as well as #Shakespearean and #MacBeth

Available Formats: Hardcover, Trade paperback, Audiobook and Ebook

As “The Fire of Winter” goes into the heart of who Lord and Lady MacBeth were as their lives were being lived – what was your inspiration towards wanting to use the play and their story as a catalyst to explore the fuller background of this century through the drama of what their lives became?

Marley responds: I am a true Shakespeare-lover! Since the time I was eleven and my grandmother gave me her college textbook “The Complete Works of Shakespeare”, I was hooked. I am currently attempting to adapt all the plays into historical fiction novels, so Macbeth was the second on my list. My first adaptation is “Prince of Sorrows” which is Hamlet set in 9th-century Denmark. Read More

Posted Friday, 16 August, 2019 by jorielov in 11th Century, Action & Adventure Fiction, After the Canon, Anglo-Saxon History, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Blog Tour Host, Book for University Study, Bookish Discussions, Britian, Cosy Horror, Earthen Magic, Earthen Spirituality, England, Good vs. Evil, Heroic Bloodshed, Heroic Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Indie Author, Inspired By Author OR Book, Inspired by Stories, Literature for Boys, Men's Fiction, Military Fiction, Re-Told Tales, Realistic Fiction, Self-Published Author, Spin-Off Authors, Spirituality & Metaphysics, Superstitions & Old World Beliefs, Sword & Scorcery, Vulgarity in Literature, Warfare & Power Realignment

Author Interview | Notes from when Jorie spoke with Mr Harper IRL about “A Knife in the Fog”!

Posted Wednesday, 14 August, 2019 by jorielov A Knife in the Fog, Bradley Harper, Margaret Harkness and Arthur Conan Doyle series, Seventh Street Books, Sherlock Holmes 0 Comments

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

I personally feel as if Crime Fiction has a soft spot in my heart and mind; for as long as I can remember I’ve been claiming Mysteries, Suspense and Thrillers as being my most keenly interested section of television teleplays and dramas of interest. Counter to that pursuit, are the novels – spilt between the Cosies I personally adore and have a deep affection for devouring and the more intriguingly brilliant and layered Cosy Historical Mysteries which have passionately become a favourite pursuit of my readerly life since I became a book blogger.

Adjacent to those inclinations, I am also most intrigued with the Historical Suspense and/or Thriller – there are a few of my interests in these kinds of stories which are on the ‘outer edge’ of my tolerance levels for visuals and/or inclusive scenes which are relevant to the story/series itself. Those I happily refer and reference as “Hard Boiled” entries for a point of reference here on my blog as well as a marker of interest in my own pursuit of the stories themselves.

When it comes to chasing down television dramas in Crime Fiction as much as Fictional series of the same nature, I have a profound affection for those writers who give keen insight into Forensic Science, Forensic Pathology and Forensic Investigative Techniques or the Psychology of the Crime through Forensic applications on the psyche. What is interesting about studying Forensics through Fiction is how crafty writers have to become to keep us not only invested in their stories but for giving us a truism of realism within the boundaries of their stories. When they go to infer a step into their worlds – a world they are illuminating to become the mainstay of interest for a series in development for the new reader whose found their words – they are giving us a prime example of what is become expected of their collective works in future volumes.

This is why if a writer of Crime Fiction can capture me straight out of the gate – by their voice, their style or their world – over and beyond their lead character(s), supporting cast and the delivery of the suspenseful bits interwoven into the back-stories – they will have found a loyal reader in me for the life of their series*. (*) co-dependent on the fact they do not disappoint my palette of interest in future installments.

When it comes to Sherlock Holmes and the after canons of his stories – I have a very, short list of interest – at which you will find the Mary Russell stories at the very top as Laurie R. King was the first author I had discovered in 2009 who was writing a level of intuitive intention regarding Holmes which felt naturally intrinsic of the character I had remembered. Enola Holmes by Nancy Springer arrived a bit lateron but was a bit of a harder sell for me being that Enola’s story-lines were slightly a hit/miss for me but the character of Enola was intriguing enough to where I wanted to read more of her adventures. With Mary Russell – I was immediately smitten by her and Holmes at this junction in his life and thereby, wooed immediately into the world King had set out for us to discover.

I am quite critical about after canons, stories inspired by classical novelists and sequel authors – notwithstanding my interests in Conan Doyle, there are my inquisitive pursuits of chasing down stories of this nature within the embodiment of Jane Austen and the re-tellings of Jane Eyre.

What I am constantly seeking out is a certain layer of conveyance of presence, of loyalty to the authentic voice of the inspirational character in question and a purposeful dedication of not just honouring the past but of elevating the tone of the new incantation against the old. I love finding authors who have their own unique approach to re-writing a familiar character and giving us a newfound way of appreciating them through their new variant of interest in the here and now. Thus, what captured my attention with the Margaret Harkness and Arthur Conan Doyle Mysteries was simply this – how a pathologist was motivated to write these stories based on his own interest in Holmes and the writer behind Holmes (Conan Doyle) led him into a portal which granted us an immersive look at how Doyle himself might have approached investigative interests which re-lead us to appreciate how he created Holmes and Watson.

Overall, what I love most about Holmes and Watson in the traditional sense is the camaraderie of their relationship – their zest for intellectual dissection of the facts and their pursuit of uncovering the sociological implications of what is fuelling the crimes in which they investigate. They are uniquely timeless in how they inter-relate to one another but also how they approached their techniques – leaning on the intellect and the divisiveness of their research talents, they uncovered the criminology of their cases because of how they approached their ability to sleuth.

My love and appreciation for Holmes and Watson inspired me to take a chance on this new entry into a Holmesian niche of after canon story-lines. Not that this is a traditional after canon in the sense that there is an influence of Holmesian styling but it is not effectively a re-telling or a reincarnation of that canon per se but as you read or listen to A Knife in the Fog you’ll find Holmes and Watson have materalised anew in a different vehicle of interest altogether.

A Knife in the Fog (Interview)
Subtitle: A Mystery Featuring Margaret Harkness and Arthur Conan Doyle
by Bradley Harper
Narrator: Matthew Lloyd Davies

September 1888. A twenty-nine-year-old Arthur Conan Doyle practices medicine by day and writes at night. His first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, although gaining critical and popular success, has only netted him twenty-five pounds. Embittered by the experience, he vows never to write another "crime story." Then a messenger arrives with a mysterious summons from former Prime Minister William Gladstone, asking him to come to London immediately.

Once there, he is offered one month's employment to assist the Metropolitan Police as a "consultant" in their hunt for the serial killer soon to be known as Jack the Ripper. Doyle agrees on the stipulation his old professor of surgery, Professor Joseph Bell--Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes--agrees to work with him. Bell agrees, and soon the two are joined by Miss Margaret Harkness, an author residing in the East End who knows how to use a Derringer and serves as their guide and companion.

Pursuing leads through the dank alleys and courtyards of Whitechapel, they come upon the body of a savagely murdered fifth victim. Soon it becomes clear that the hunters have become the hunted when a knife-wielding figure approaches.

Genres: After Canons, Amateur Detective, Classic Detective, Cosy Historical Mystery, Crime Fiction, Historical Fiction, Suspense

Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9781633884861

ASIN: B07HKJ71X5

Also by this author: A Knife in the Fog, Queen's Gambit

Also in this series: A Knife in the Fog, Queen's Gambit

Setting: London, England, UK

Published by Seventh Street Books

on 2nd October, 2018

Format: Audiobook | mp3, Trade Paperback

Published By: Seventh Street Books (@SeventhStBooks)

As an aside, despite the fact Seventh Street Books has been bought out by Smart Publishing – all links to their website and social accounts have remained active and use the same urls. The new publisher has maintained all their sites and thereby, the transition was seamless for readers who wanted to keep in touch with the authors and the series they come to love by Seventh Street Books & Pyr!

Converse via: #AKnifeInTheFog, #HistNov and #HistFic OR #HistoricalMystery
Available Formats: Trade Paperback, Audiobook & Ebook

A Knife in the Fog was nominated for
an Edgar Award in 2019 for “Best First Novel”

Posted Wednesday, 14 August, 2019 by jorielov in 19th Century, After the Canon, Amateur Detective, Arthur Conan Doyle, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Bits & Bobbles of Jorie, Blog Tour Host, Book Review (non-blog tour), Crime Fiction, Detective Fiction, England, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller Suspense, Inspired By Author OR Book, Inspired by Stories, Margaret Harkness, Paste Creative, Realistic Fiction, the Victorian era

#HistoricalMondays Double Showcase | A Victorian Cosy Historical Mystery review feat. “No Stone Unturned” (The Lucy Lawrence Mysteries, Book One) and an insightful interview with the writer, Pam Lecky!

Posted Monday, 12 August, 2019 by jorielov No Stone Unturned, Pam Lecky, Self Published, The Lucy Lawrence Mysteries 2 Comments

I’ve launched a new weekly featured concentration of book reviews on Jorie Loves A Story which celebrates my love and passion for the historical past! For those of whom are regular readers and visitors to my blog, you’ll denote a dedicated passion for reading Historical Fiction (and all the lovely segues of thematic therein) – I am a time traveller of the historical past every chance I get to disappear into a new era and/or century of exploration. There isn’t a time period I haven’t enjoyed ruminating over since [2013] and there are a heap of lovely timescapes I’ve yet to encounter.

This feature was inspired by the stories I’ve read, the stories I’ve yet to experience and the beauty of feeling interconnected to History through the representation of the past through the narratives being writ by today’s Historical Fiction authors. It is to those authors I owe a debt of gratitude for enlightening my bookish mind and my readerly heart with realistic characters, illuminating portals of living history and a purposeful intent on giving each of us a strong representation of ‘life’ which should never become dismissed, forgotten or erased.

I am began this feature with the sequel to a beloved historical novel I first read in [2013] – it was one of the first ARCs I received and it was the first year I was a book blogger though it was through a connection outside my life as a blogger. I celebrated K.B. Laugheed’s literature to kick-off this feature and hopefully will inspire my followers to take this new weekly journey with me into the stories which are beckoning to read their narrative depths and find the words in which to express the thoughts I experienced as I read.

Acquired Book By:

I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess! HFVBTs is one of the very first touring companies I started working with as a 1st Year Book Blogger – uniting my love and passion with Historical Fiction and the lovely sub-genres inside which I love devouring.

It has been a wicked fantastical journey into the heart of the historic past, wherein I’ve been blessed truly by discovering new timescapes, new living realities of the persons who once lived (ie. Biographical Historical Fiction) inasmuch as itched my healthy appetite for Cosy Historical Mysteries! If there is a #HistRom out there it is generally a beloved favourite and I love soaking into a wicked wonderful work of Historical Fiction where you feel the beauty of the historic world, the depth of the characters and the joyfulness in which the historical novelists brought everything to light in such a lovingly diverse palette of portraiture of the eras we become time travellers through their stories.

I received a complimentary of “No Stone Unturned” direct from the author Pam Lecky, exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

A conversation with Pam Lecky : Part One :

Victorian Cosy Mysteries are a lively mix of eclectic serial explorations of the era – how did you take us into the heart of Lucy Lawrence and make her stand out from the crowd? What were some of your favourite attributes of her character and personality?

Lecky responds: Firstly, thanks so much for hosting me today, Jorie, and asking such insightful questions.

From the outset of the story, it was important that the reader felt sympathy for Lucy and what made her tick. It was vital, therefore, to give a little bit of background to her situation: a troubled marriage, unexplained miscarriages and being ostracised by her neighbours because of her elopement. This all helped to build the picture of a woman ripe for change (and adventure!). For Lucy to stand out, I told the entire story through her eyes and as a woman of her time, not our modern idea of a heroine. She admits to being poorly educated (the heir was her parents’ focus) but she is of high intellect and yearns to learn about the world around her. As a youngster she was a bit of a rebel (hence the elopement) and that spirit was never entirely quenched when she married. But convention ruled, and Lucy played the part of the typical Victorian wife. It is only when her husband’s sudden death releases her that Lucy realises how much she sacrificed upon her marriage.

What I admire most in Lucy is her resilience and the fact she is a dare-devil at heart. She takes on situations I would have run away from! I guess I can live through her to some extent. Lucy’s ability to remain positive and to even see the humour in her circumstances when her world is falling apart, is probably what makes her so attractive to Phineas Stone, the male protagonist, and my readers.

If you had to select a quirk of a minor character, which one would you pick and why?

Lecky responds: One of the most interesting characters for me to write was Sibylla, Lucy’s sister-in-law. She is a terrible snob and resents Lucy coming back into the family like a prodigal daughter. Sibylla has a chip on her shoulder because she is the daughter of an industrialist and she has married well above her class. She brings with her a moralizing nature which is entirely hypocritical (she has an affair only a few years into her marriage!) The dialogue between her and Lucy and the rest of the family was a joy to write.

Do you remember the first time you read a Historical Mystery (it can be Victorian or another era) and how it made you feel to be immersed into that setting and timescape? What inspired you to develop your own Historical Mysteries and what did you hope to bring with you as you wrote them based on those initial early wanderings?

Lecky responds: Growing up I read a lot of historical fiction and classics but the majority of them would have been romances. Victorian writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins wrote such wonderful characters in settings I found fascinating. Then I discovered the wonderful Georgette Heyer who is probably the biggest influence on my writing style. She was a master of character and setting creation; and all done with a sprinkling of subtle humour. But what Ms Heyer achieved isn’t easy at all. On the one hand, you need to explore practically everything in your era from idioms used, to mourning protocols. Then you must try to get the balance right between creating authentic settings, characters and believable plots, while not boring your reader with the minutiae. It can be challenging but I love delving into the past to build my worlds.

Added to all of this I had fallen in love with historical dramas on tv at a young age. I loved everything about them – the characters, the architecture and the way people behaved. But my imagination was really set on fire when I started to read crime. The first mysteries/crime novels I fell in love with would have been Dorothy L Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey series and PD James. What wonderfully twisty minds those ladies had! My debut novel, The Bowes Inheritance, was romantic suspense and I enjoyed writing it, but I wanted to write something a little darker this time.

So, with my love of the late Victorian era and wanting to explore writing more complex plots (I’m not a great fan of pure romance – I like a little more bite to stories with several threads running through them), it was inevitable I would end up writing historical mystery/crime. I deliberately set out to write a series, as the idea of developing the characters over time really appealed to me. It’s a wonderful opportunity to take my readers on a journey through the Victorian world. The second book is set in Egypt and I intend to visit Italy, Scotland and perhaps India, in other books in the series.

Cat and mouse stories are amongst my favourites – the timing of them is a bit on the trickier side as you have to have a thread of believability that the ‘cat’ and the ‘mouse’ are equal opponents. How did you temper the chase and yet still give the illusion of suspense between the characters?

Lecky responds: You are right! It is incredibly tricky to achieve. I used two devices in No Stone Unturned. Firstly, by writing it entirely from Lucy’s point of view, I was able to build up her anxiety and fear as the layers of the mystery began to unfold. To have used several points of view might have diluted that. Secondly, I deliberately told the reader very little about the antagonist, Marsh – he features so little he is almost a cameo. This, I felt, gave him a more menacing aspect.

What is the hardest part of developing a mystery? Is it the pacing, the sequencing of the revelations or bridging us (the reader) through this world where you know the outcome but you don’t want us (as readers) to ‘catch on’ too quickly and spoil the final reveal?

Lecky responds: It’s probably the latter. There is no final reveal as such in this story, more a continuous unravelling of several mysteries. I like to keep my readers guessing but not to torment them! I want people to engage in the process – the story arc – to become immersed in the protagonists’ lives and to root for them. If a reader is just waiting and trying to anticipate a big twist at the end, I think they miss some of the finer detail. This is what suited this story best; however, in the sequel, Footprints in the Sand, there is a twist at the end, but again, there are smaller revelations along the way.

AFTER YOU ENJOY READING MY RUMINATIONS ON BEHALF OF “NO STONE UNTURNED” – YOU’LL HAPPILY FIND THE CONCLUSION OF OUR CONVERSATION! BE SURE TO HAVE YOUR FAVOURITE CUPPA ON HAND TO ENJOY THE REST OF THIS POST!

No Stone Unturned
Subtitle: The Lucy Lawrence Mysteries, Book One
by Pam Lecky
Source: Author via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

A suspicious death, stolen gems, and an unclaimed reward: who will be the victor in a deadly game of cat and mouse?

London October 1886: Trapped in a troubled marriage, Lucy Lawrence is ripe for an adventure. But when she meets the enigmatic Phineas Stone, over the body of her husband in the mortuary, her world begins to fall apart.

When her late husband’s secrets spill from the grave, and her life is threatened by the leader of London’s most notorious gang, Lucy must find the strength to rise to the challenge. But who can she trust and how is she to stay out of the murderous clutches of London’s most dangerous criminal?

Genres: Cosy Historical Mystery, Historical Fiction

Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 978-1074280741

Published by Self Published

on 29th June, 2019

Format: POD | Print On Demand Paperback

Pages: 330

This is a Self-Published novel

Converse via: #HistoricalFiction, #HistFic or #HistNov
as well as #Victorian #CosyMystery and #HFVBTBlogTours

Available Formats: Trade paperback and Ebook

About Pam Lecky

Pam is an Irish writer of historical fiction with a particular love of the late Victorian era and early 20th century. She is fascinated by all things 19th century, from food and clothes to architecture and social history. She is patiently awaiting the invention of time travel, but in the meantime, indulges her love of the past by writing about it.

Her debut novel, The Bowes Inheritance, was awarded the BRAG Medallion in 2017. It was shortlisted for the Carousel Aware Prize 2016; made ‘Editor’s Choice’ by the Historical Novel Society; long-listed for the Historical Novel Society 2016 Indie Award; and chosen as a Discovered Diamond in February 2017.

In April 2018, Pam published an anthology of some previously published short reads, along with some new work. Her collection of short stories is entitled, Past Imperfect, and features stories set in such diverse settings as WW1 Dublin, the sinking of the Lusitania and a lonely haunted lighthouse.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | LibraryThing

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Posted Monday, 12 August, 2019 by jorielov in 19th Century, Amateur Detective, Blog Tour Host, Cosy Historical Mystery, Crime Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Reader Submitted Author Interview, the Victorian era

#SaturdaysAreBookish Book Review | “The Fire of Winter” by D.K. Marley a unique spin re-delving into the canon of “MacBeth”!

Posted Saturday, 10 August, 2019 by jorielov D.K. Marley, Macbeth, Shakespeare's Moon series, The Fire of Winter, White Rabbit Publishing, William Shakespeare 0 Comments

After launching this lovely new feature of mine during [Autumn, 2018] it is a pleasure of joy to continue to bring #SaturdaysAreBookish as a compliment focus of my Twitter chat @SatBookChat. If you see the chat icon at the top of my blog (header bar) you can click over to visit with us. The complimentary showcases on my blog will reflect the diversity of stories, authors and publishers I would be featuring on the chat itself. As at the root and heart of the chat are the stories I am reading which compliment the conversations.

#SaturdaysAreBookish throughout [2019] will be featuring the Romance & Women’s Fiction authors I am discovering to read across genre and point of interest. Every Saturday will feature a different author who writes either Romance or Women’s Fiction – the stories I am reading might simply inspire the topics in the forthcoming chats or they might be directly connected to the current guest author.

I am excited about where new guests and new stories will lay down the foundation of inspiring the topics, the conversations and the bookish recommendations towards promoting Romance & Women’s Fiction. Here’s a lovely New Year full of new authors and their stories to celebrate!

Acquired Book By:

I received a complimentary of “The Fire of Winter” direct from the author D.K. Marley, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

On why this story appealled to me & how I arrived inside the chapters:

I have a short history involving MacBeth – as it was the play of choice for seniors who took a year to study Shakespeare whilst I was in high school whilst it was also the subject of an after canon re-telling audiobook I previously reviewed. I didn’t get to study the Bard in school but I did get to help the seniors pass their exams as a sophomore who only read one full page layout of the play and intuited enough from that layout to take them through their exams. The conversation that led afterwards with their teacher is one of my fondest memories as she couldn’t quite sort out how they all came to the same conclusions and yet didn’t have an entry point in their defended statements of how they arrived at those answers. Smiles. Sometimes school can surprise you and beat the droll-drums.

Similarly, to my readings of “Sign of the White Foal” – I had plans to do a sequencing of reading ahead of diving into “The Fire of Winter”: I had planned to read two Non-Fiction releases – Wisdom of the Middle Ages & Wisdom of the Renaissance – whilst I wanted to dig back into “The Lost Queen” as well – to have this lovely immersion experience in cross-relating stories and subjects of interest. *However!* – instead my week was wrecked by plumbers, a migraine & more life woes than a girl can shake a stick at in apt frustration! Be as it were – I had to reschedule my review & the interview I am hosting with this author in order to give myself a bit of time to rest & cover the energies I needed to properly read the novel.

When you haven’t a way of reaching your books & your blog, you just have to hope and pray the hours you have after the chaos recedes allows you enough serenity to ‘catch up’ and find the blissitude you had before the chaos overtook your readerly hours! At least, this is how I re-directed my heart and mind as I read “The Fire of Winter” in the early morning hours of Saturday as a chase-up to posting my review before lunch was ready to serve.

The Fire of Winter
by D.K. Marley
Source: Publisher via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

She is known as Lady Macbeth.
What leads her down the path of murder?
What secrets fire her destiny?

Gruah, granddaughter of King Cìnéad III of the Royal Clan Alpin, marries two men in less than six months, one she loves and one she hates; one in secret, the other arranged by the High King of Scotland. At the age of eighteen, she lays her palm upon the ancient stone of Scone and sees her destiny as Queen of Scotland, and she vows to do whatever necessary to see her true love, Macbeth macFindlaech, beside her on the throne.

Amid the fiery times and heated onslaughts from Denmark and England, as the rule of Scotland hangs in the balance, Gruah seeks to win the throne and bring revenge upon the monsters of her childhood, no matter the cost or amount of blood tainting her own hands; yet, an unexpected meeting with the King called the Confessor causes her to question her bloody path and doubt her once blazing pagan faith. Will she find redemption or has the blood of her past fire-branded her soul?

The story weaves the play by William Shakespeare with the actual history of Macbeth and his Queen in 11th-century Scotland.

“…a woman’s story at a winter’s fire…”
(Macbeth, Act III, Scene IV)

Genres: After Canons, Classical Literature, Historical Fiction, Historical-Fantasy, Re-telling &/or Sequel

Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 978-1724914965

Also by this author: The Fire of Winter (Interview)

Published by White Rabbit Publishing

on 1st June, 2019

Format: POD | Print On Demand Paperback

Pages: 355

Published by: White Rabbit Publishing

Converse via: #HistoricalFiction, #HistFic or #HistNov
as well as #Shakespearean and #MacBeth

Available Formats: Hardcover, Trade paperback, Audiobook and Ebook

About D.K. Marley

D. K. Marley is a historical fiction writer specializing in Shakespearean themes. Her grandmother, an English Literature teacher, gave her a volume of Shakespeare’s plays when she was eleven, inspiring DK to delve further into the rich Elizabethan language.

Eleven years ago she began the research leading to the publication of her first novel “Blood and Ink,” an epic tale of lost dreams, spurned love, jealousy and deception in Tudor England as the two men, William Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe, fight for one name and the famous works now known as the Shakespeare Folio.

She is an avid Shakespearean / Marlowan, a member of the Marlowe Society, the Shakespeare Fellowship and a signer of the Declaration of Intent for the Shakespeare Authorship Debate. She has traveled to England three times for intensive research and debate workshops and is a graduate of the intense training workshop “The Writer’s Retreat Workshop” founded by Gary Provost and hosted by Jason Sitzes. She lives in Georgia with her husband and a Scottish Terriers named Maggie and Buster.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Posted Saturday, 10 August, 2019 by jorielov in #SaturdaysAreBookish, 11th Century, Action & Adventure Fiction, After the Canon, Anglo-Saxon History, Biographical Fiction & Non-Fiction, Blog Tour Host, Book for University Study, Bookish Discussions, Britian, Cosy Horror, Earthen Magic, Earthen Spirituality, England, Good vs. Evil, Heroic Bloodshed, Heroic Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Indie Author, Inspired By Author OR Book, Inspired by Stories, Jorie Loves A Story Features, Literature for Boys, Men's Fiction, Military Fiction, Re-Told Tales, Realistic Fiction, Self-Published Author, Spin-Off Authors, Spirituality & Metaphysics, Superstitions & Old World Beliefs, Sword & Scorcery, Vulgarity in Literature, Warfare & Power Realignment

Author Interview | Discussing the “behind-the-book” secrets of “The Undertaker’s Assistant” by Amanda Skenandore

Posted Friday, 9 August, 2019 by jorielov Amanda Skenandore, Kensington Books, Kensington Publishing Corp., The Undertaker's Assistant 0 Comments

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

As you might have seen recently, one of the stories I was looking forward to reading was entitled “The Undertaker’s Assistant” which deals with the realities of working in the mortuary arts in the 19th Century. Except for whichever reason I had trouble connecting into the story despite finding a lot of lovely compliments to give the author as she truly brought Reconstruction America to life alongside the hidden histories of mortuary sciences.

Here is an excerpt from what I shared earlier on the blog tour:

Initially, when I first started reading the story, I felt hooked inside it – as it had such a clever rhythm and delivery; settling you immediately into Effie’s shoes and giving you a firm understanding of the surroundings she was about to embrace as the newest embalmer to work in New Orleans. Even her back-story was quite remarkable as she was taken in by a soldier and taught a trade she could use in the field as much as she could lateron in life as a profession. She was unique amongst her peers and she had a skill many would flinch to even study much less master.

Sometimes the hardest person to convince of your confidence is yourself – yet, Effie didn’t let people sway her that easily from her confident demeanor. Even if the words they spoke towards her were questioning and unkind, she refuted their sting by merely stating facts and keeping herself on the other side of their snark by not reacting to it directly. Effie is an unusual sort of woman – at the time of the Restoration (the years shortly after the Civil War) wherein most freedwomen might seek for work in industries without a taboo attached to them, Effie found she has a passionate calling to the mortuary arts. She’s an embalmer and bent on convincing her new employer that she not only has the brains for the job but she has the passion to do the job right.

I will say, Skenandore doesn’t gloss over the grittier bits of New Orleans during the Restoration – considering the conditions of the streets, the living quarters and how there was a disparaging difference in how people lived on different streets throughout the city’s different quarters and neighbourhoods – paints a strong picture towards what you could expect to find if you walked these streets yourself during this period of time. She also took us closer inside Effie’s own life – rather than expanding too far afield into New Orleans or even the timescape of when this book is set. There are background passages and the overlays of the political scene concurrent to the toils of how Effie must find her own sense of purpose as an embalmer in a world not yet prepared to treat her as an equal.

It was this focus on the mortuary arts which inspired me to direct the conversation I had with her about her lead character Effie & the research she put into the novel itself. I found her responses wicked fascinating and I truly loved delving ‘behind-the-book’ to see how it was written & what inspired her choices in bringing this particular story to life.

I might not have connected with Effie in the way I had hoped but I was intrigued by the mortuary focus of the novel and how this in turn, brought representation to Historical Fiction about a part of everyday life that is not oft featured. I am hoping my readers & the visitors on the blog tour will find this as much of an intriguing subject to discuss as we did ourselves.

Be sure to brew your favourite cuppa & enjoy the conversation!

The Undertaker's Assistant
by Amanda Skenandore

Set during Reconstruction-era New Orleans, and with an extraordinary and unforgettable heroine at its heart, The Undertaker’s Assistant is a powerful story of human resilience–and of the unlikely bonds that hold fast even in our darkest moments.

“The dead can’t hurt you. Only the living can.”Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies–and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer’s shortcomings.

Tall and serious, Effie keeps her distance from the other girls in her boarding house, holding tight to the satisfaction she finds in her work. But despite her reticence, two encounters–with a charismatic state legislator named Samson Greene, and a beautiful young Creole, Adeline–introduce her to new worlds of protests and activism, of soirees and social ambition. Effie decides to seek out the past she has blocked from her memory and try to trace her kin. As her hopes are tested by betrayal, and New Orleans grapples with violence and growing racial turmoil, Effie faces loss and heartache, but also a chance to finally find her place.

Genres: Feminist Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction

Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9781496713681

Also by this author: The Undertaker's Assistant

Published by Kensington Books

on 30th July, 2019

Published by: Kensington Books (@KensingtonBooks)

Converse via: #HistoricalFiction, #HistFic or #HistNov
as well as #TheUndertakersAssistant and #HFVBTBlogTours

Available Formats: Trade paperback and Ebook

Posted Friday, 9 August, 2019 by jorielov in Blog Tour Host, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours, Reader Submitted Q&A

Genre: Historical Fiction

A Knife in the Fog was nominated for an Edgar Award in 2019 for “Best First Novel”

About Pam Lecky

About D.K. Marley

A Knife in the Fog was nominated for
an Edgar Award in 2019 for “Best First Novel”