BOOK BLAST GET YOUR FREE COPY OF JULIAN ROSADO-MACHAIN, GUARDIANS INC. THE CYPHER & WIN A $100 AMAZON GIFT CARD

GUARDIANS INC.: THE CYPHER

A chance reading of a newspaper ad will send 16 year old Thomas Byrne into the world within our world.

Following the ad he will find Guardians Incorporated. A seven thousand year old organization charged with protecting the balance between Magic and technology.

Through their guidance, technology has kept Magic at bay since the Renaissance, but the balance is shifting and soon all those creatures we've driven into myth and legend will come back with a vengeance.

To protect the present, Guardians Incorporated needs to know the future and to unlock the future

they need a Cypher.


Guardians Inc.: The Cypher is FREE 
on Kindle, Nook & iBooks

TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES - A PURE WOMAN, A DEVIL AND AN ANGEL

A scene from Tess of The D'Urbervilles (2008)

I've just finished rewatching BBC "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" (2008) to prepare the last  lesson of a series on this novel. I've been choosing the bits to show in my wrap up class to elicit discussion from my students after reading with them some pages and reflecting on the theme that has been our focus lately: the woman question in the Victorian Age. 

This is the reason why I played and have been rewatching this DVD tonight.
I started with the intention of looking for the right scenes to show and analyse and finished being absorbed again, touched and deeply emotional,

THE SHELLEYS - PASSION, BETRAYAL, MYSTERY & POETRY - A TREACHEROUS LIKENESS BY LYNN SHEPHERD

The Shelleys and their mystery 

If you are familiar with the adventurous lives of the Young Romantics and their circle, you’ll love Lynn Shepherd’s new literary mystery, A Treacherous Likeness. If you aren’t,  you may love it even more. 
You’ll find yourself glued to the pages of this mystery novel, based on an intriguing web of shocking discoveries which detective Charles Maddock unveils,  one after the other , while investigating on behalf of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s only surviving son. 
On his quest for missing documents  he gets involved in the mysterious case of Percy Bysshe's first wife's death; he meets Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont, once Byron's lover, and Mary's half - sister; he discovers his great-uncle once worked on that case and must know much about the secrets hidden in the Shelleys' past. If only he could speak to him, if only the old detective didn't live in a state of total  unconsciousness...

ASK JANE EYRE

"Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!--I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you"

If you are obscure, plain, poor and little,  life  may not be smooth and easy for you. Ask Jane Eyre. You may have to bite wicked older cousins who want to torture you,  defend yourself from a jealous aunt who wishes you were dead, you may have to survive long solitary hours locked in a scary red room, then to strive to keep yourself sane and alive in a bleak, heartless place like a school for poor girls,  you must accept to go on living without anybody caring for you or loving you ... but, in the end, you'll meet your hero, your Mr Rochester and have your own reward. He is not tender and handsome, maybe, but impetuous, fascinating, authoritative, mysterious, restless. Anyhow, he doesn't trample on you, he doesn't make you feel a nobody, he treats you as his equal and trusts you. Last but not least, he desires you passionately. What if you discover on your wedding day that he has a mad wife in the attic and can't marry you? No panic, hold on, you can make it. You'll have to endure the awesome shock, run away and give up your dreams for a while, live among strangers you'll  learn to love for about a year, but be sure,  at last,  you'll have your reward, you'll have your happy ending.

WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE? - FOR THE LOVE OF SWOON GIVEAWAY HOP: WIN THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS OR BEAUTIFUL CREATURES E-BOOKS

Happy Valentine's Day,

everyone.  Joy and love to all of you, who are in love with someone or in love with  the idea of love! With or without a boy/girl - friend, a passionate love affair, a loyal partner or a special one,  this is the right day to dream about romance and love. Regardless our age, gender, status. Ready to play with me? There are gifts for those who accept to take part in this game. Books to swoon over and heroes/heroines to dream about.

Choose your ideal Valentine and win an e-book 

To be one of the two winners, you'll have to choose your dream Valentine  and share your choice with us in the comments. Tell us who he/she is and why you'd ask (or have asked!) him/her to be your Valentine. You can choose a real person, someone you are a fan of, characters you love from movies or books. This post is part of  "For the Love of Swoon Hop" hosted by The Book Hookup & I Am a Reader Not A Writer. The prizes you'll find in this giveaway contest or visiting the other blogs in the list below are YA  books or gift cards to buy items of this genre. Take your chances in the rafflecopter form below and then hop to as many blogs as you can from the list.

BOOK BLAST - FOREVER MY GIRL + GIVEAWAY $50 AMAZON GIFT CARD

Forever My Girl

I was never supposed to be a rock star. I had my life all planned out for me. Play football in college. Go to the NFL. Marry my high school sweetheart and live happily ever after.

I broke both our hearts that day when I told her I was leaving. I was young. I made the right decision for me, but the wrong decision for us. I’ve poured my soul into my music, but I’ve never forgotten her. Her smell, her smile.

And now I’m going back.

After ten years.

I hope I can explain that after all this time.

I still want her to be my forever girl

USA Today Best Selling Novel

"Seeing both sides of the story helped connect me to both main characters and given the complicated situation they were in, it was really well done."

~Aestas Book Blog

CHARLES DICKENS IN ITALY - CAELUM NON ANIMUM MUTANT QUI TRANS MARE CURRUNT

Today is Charles Dickens's birthday. He was born on 7 February 1812. I'm posting this article to celebrate the incredibly talented story-teller on a very special date and to let you know the man behind the books a little more.

Would you believe such a successful, rich and widely appreciated man suffered from unhappiness? That he pined  for romantic, passionate love all his life long? Apparently he did. He tried to escape his dissatisfaction and unhappiness travelling and, especially, writing.

This piece by Claudio Taccucci, was originally published on Tiscali online paper in Italian. I asked Mr Taccucci permission to translate his article and post it here at FLY HIGH! to share it with all of you who, like me,  are interested in the great English novelist. He gladly and generously accepted, so here it is for you to enjoy. 

Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt . Those who go to sea may change their horizon,  not their soul. Charles Dickens had a tormented soul and when he was haunted by his own predicaments  or unhappiness, he escaped. If he was in his London house, he went out at night and roamed the city for hours,  going back only in the morning. Nobody will ever know what he actually did in those hours,  which he justified as a quest for inspiration for his novels. When, to avoid melancholy, his walks were not enough, he left on trips. He travelled all over England with a friend, stayed for long periods in Paris or sailed for the States on self – promotion tours.

KINDLE FIRE HD GIVEAWAY - FEBRUARY 2013

Kindle Fire HD Giveaway!

The winner will have the option of receiving a Kindle Fire HD (US Only)

ROMANCING MISS BRONTE BY JULIET GAEL - BOOK REVIEW

If you love Jane Eyre and Charlotte Brontë, this novel is unmissable. If you are interested in the lives of the Brontë family, so full of sorrow and talent, you'll love it.
I've just finished reading it and, by chance, I'm also working on the Brontës and their novels with my students at the moment. So Romancing Miss Brontë has come out a great source of anecdotes in order to bring  Charlotte, Emily and Anne to life for my pupils, with the aim to make today's teenagers see them as unique human beings as well as great writers. 
Practical advantages apart, reading this novel was a real treat and a great pleasure. I came to discover it after meeting  the author Juliet Gael in Rome not long ago (see my post) and I'm really happy I did it. 

Impossible not to be fascinated by the story of the three sisters who managed to get to fame thanks to their strength, talent and ... stubborness. Yes, stubborness. Because,  if we have Jane Eyre, Villette and Shirley,  Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,  we owe that especially to Charlotte's stubborness. She fought to make it and made it at last. This is the prevailing trait of  her personality revealed in Juliet Gael's portrait: a certain tenacity,  we might even recognize as stubborness.

The romance  suggested in the title is a constant element in the story. Charlotte spent most of her life trying to forget Monsier Heger, the married professor she fell in love with, unrequited, when she was studying in Brussels. She tried to recognize his stern stare and his strong personality in any man she met, and when she couldn't find them anywhere around her, she depicted those traits on paper, attributing them to her own iconic hero, Mr Rochester.

HIGHLAND SURRENDER BLOG TOUR - AUTHOR GUEST POST BY TRACY BROGAN: WHY HISTORICAL?

HIGHLAND SURRENDER

Defiant Highland beauty Fiona Sinclair is shocked by her brothers’ treachery. To seal a fragile truce, they have traded her hand in marriage to their sworn enemy, a man she has never met, a man she was raised to despise. With no choice but to wed, Fiona makes her own private vow: though she may surrender her freedom, she will never surrender her heart.

Commanded by his king, Myles Campbell is no more willing than his reluctant bride. Still, she is a rare beauty, passionate enough to warm even the coldest marriage bed. Buy Myles quickly realizes Fiona Sinclair is no common wench. She has a warrior’s spirit and a fierce pride that only a fool would try to tame. And Myles Campbell is no fool. Their marriage was meant to unite warring clans. They never imagined it would ignite a once-in-a-lifetime love…

AUTHOR GUEST POST - WHY HISTORICAL? 

People often ask why I write in two different genres – contemporary and historical. One reason may be that I have dual personalities. My family is quick to point out I have both Princess and Ogre-like tendencies – but just because Mommy has mood swings, that doesn’t quite answer the question. Truthfully, I never expected to write a contemporary, but while I toiled away on multiple historical novels, a funny, little, modern-day romance popped into my head. So I wrote it, and voila! Dual genres.