BRINGING THE PAST BACK TO LIFE - AUTHOR INTERVIEW: LARRY HEWITT, THE JUNO LETTERS SERIES

Welcome to my little corner of the blogosphere, Larry. It’s a pleasure and an honour to have you as my very special guest on FLY HIGH!

This is my first question for you. I know you love writing historical fiction, especially stories set during WWII.  Do you think we can learn the truth about our past and roots reading historical novels more than or as well as researching on documents?

Reading a story set in a historical context can help stimulate interest in historical events, and further our understanding of our own path through the present.  This places an unusual duty on the author.  The context within which your story takes places must be historically accurate - balanced against the need to simplify overly complex interactions and create a story people will read and enjoy.  I research my novels as if I were writing a “real” history.  I write the context as accurately as possible, and then insert my characters into lessor known pieces of that history to create a plausible story.  Good historical fiction is a challenge and a joy.

BOOK BLAST & GIVEAWAY: THE ORPHAN AND THE THIEF BY M.L. LE GETTE

 The Orphan and the Thief : An adventure that will keep you and your kids spellbound.

Toad thought it’d be easy to steal from Mr. Edward P. Owl. Unfortunately for Toad, he isn’t the best of thieves. Caught in the act, he’s in more trouble than ever before. Now to save his hide, Toad must track down five rare potion ingredients for Mr. Owl. Or else.All Melena Snead wants is her family back, but after the Miggens Street Fire, that isn’t very likely. Orphaned and miserable, forced to work in an apothecary, she’s determined to find Milo, her missing brother. No matter what. When Melena finds Toad ransacking her apothecary, Toad gets a nasty shock: apothecaries don’t carry Mr. Owl’s ingredients. Luckily, Melena’s willing to help, for a price. With Melena’s pet Spit-Fire dragon and Toad’s enchanted talking beer mug, they embark on a fantastical journey, traveling the country in search of the potion ingredients. But can they gather all of them in time, what with monsters, pirates, and axe-wielding thieves? And if they do, is there an even greater danger waiting for them at the end?

Amazon

MEET SIMON LEWIS, WRITER.

I’m very pleased to introduce my guest today: British novelist and screenwriter, Simon Lewis. I’m reading his novel GO these days and it is such a gripping thriller! My review of the book is coming soon, meanwhile, meet its brilliant author, please.

Simon Lewis was born in Wales in 1971 and GO is his first novel (1999), a travel thriller about backpackers, which he wrote  in a village in the Himalayas. It has been translated into German, Italian, Turkish and Swedish so far.

His second novel, BAD TRAFFIC (2008), is a crime thriller about people smugglers, featuring jaded Chinese cop, Inspector Jian. The book has been published in the UK and the US and translated into German, French, Swedish, Italian, Japanese and Turkish. In 2009 it was nominated for the LA Times Book of the Year Award and for the French SNCF prize for crime fiction.

His third travel thriller, BORDER RUN, was published in April 2012 in the US and the UK.

 As a screenwriter, Simon has worked for Potboiler Films, Cloud 8 and Channel 4 and has 3 movies with incredible International casts  in post-  or in production in 2014!  Read the interview, welcome Simon Lewis  at FLY HIGH and discover more about him and his work.

THE HEADMISTRESS OF ROSEMERE, INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR SARAH LADD

Life is unexpected. Each day holds new surprises — some exciting, others unwanted. What matters most is how we respond to those trying situations. Sarah E. Ladd reminds us the importance of clinging to God to get us through the mountains and valleys of life in The Headmistress of Rosemere .  

Ladd hopes The Headmistress of Rosemere, book two of The Whispers on the Moors series,will encourage readers to look for help in the right place. “I think a lot of people look within themselves to try to find answers to their problems,” explains Ladd. “But if we look to ourselves for solutions, we will be disappointed. Instead, we should take our problems, cares, and worries to God and lay them at His feet. Pray about them. Ask God to make His plans known. When we do this, amazing things can happen.”

Interview

Q: The Headmistress of Rosemere is the second book of a series — do you have a common theme or message throughout the Whispers on the Moors series?

I have always loved the Regency period, and I think that a lot of readers (including myself) have a pre-conceived notion of what a Regency heroine should be like. So I really wanted to challenge that – I wanted to explore what would happen if a typically Regency lady went against traditional societal expectations.So when I approached the book in this series I asked myself, “What would a young woman in the Regency period not do?”And the series was born by answering that single question!

TRUDY BRASURE: JOHN THORNTON, A PASSIONATE HERO - GUEST POST AND GIVEAWAY

John Thornton: “One word more. You look as if you thought it tainted you to be loved by me. You cannot avoid it. Nay, I, if I would, cannot cleanse you from it. But I would not, if I could. I have never loved any woman before: my life has been too busy, my thoughts too much absorbed with other things. Now I love, and will love.But do not be afraid of too much expression on my part.” ― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

Maybe not the most romantic words you'd expect from a gentleman, but so passionate! Don't you agree?
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Both to those of you who still believe this is a very special day to live with very special ones and to those who sneer and smirk at the thought of chocolates and flowers, candles and flirting or alike. 

Leave it or take it, this is our Valentine's post and for us today it is an occasion more to celebrate romance and passion. Why should we skip the chance? 

Author Trudy Brasure is my very special guest with a blog post dedicated to our (mine and hers) favourite love story, North and South,  and its hero, our dream Valentine, Mr John Thornton. Read her piece and take your chances to win a paperback  or ebook copy of  her latest retelling, In Consequence. 

BOOKS ON SCREEN: 12 YEARS A SLAVE, THE RAILWAYMAN, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

From this autobiographical book, Steve McQueen's major new film starring Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Quvenzhane Wallis. A great, touching story nominated as Best Movie for 2014 Oscars. One of the latest movies I've seen. Good but not as much as I expected. What about reading the book now? I've got it in my to be read soon list, the ebook from amazon kindle store is just a bargain.

Solomon Northup is a free man, living in New York. Then he is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Drugged, beaten, given a new name and transported away from his wife and children to a Louisiana cotton plantation, Solomon will die if he reveals his true identity. This is the searing true story of his twelve years as a slave: the endless brutality, daily humiliations and constant fear, but also the small ways in which he and his fellow men try to survive. Twelve Years a Slave is a unique, unflinching record of slavery from the inside, and the incredible account of one man whose life was ripped from him - and who fought to get it back. "A moving, vital testament to one of slavery's "many thousands gone" who retained his humanity in the bowels of degradation". (Saturday Review). 

"I could not believe that I had never heard of this book. It felt as important as Anne Frank's diary, only published nearly a hundred years before". (Steve McQueen). 

WILLIAM & LUCY - INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR MICHAEL BROWN

Have you ever wondered whether the idealized, unreachable beloved of the great classic poets really existed? What they were like in their everyday life? If they were really extraordinary or were made such by the magic created through words by the men they were loved and admired by? Michael Brown transformed one of those ideal figures, William Wordsworth's Lucy, into a real blood and flesh character in his historical novel. In William & Lucy he has created a passionate love story between the great Romantic  poet, William Wordsworth,  and Lucy, the beautiful girl to whom he dedicated a few of his most famous poems. Read my interview with Michael Brown.

William & Lucy is a tale of mystery and love inspired to William Wordsworth’s  so called Lucy poems.  Who was the woman the poet dedicated his poems to?  Did she really exist?

All historical references to the Lucy of Wordsworth’s five LUCY poems are ambigious; there is no recorded history of such a young woman. Some scholars belive Lucy was the embodiement of William’s sister, Dorothy. There are other speculations but that is all they remain. I took the literary license to creat a fictionalized version of Lucy; hoping it might ring true to the story.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

 Beside the springs of Dove

A Maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love …

FEBRUARY KINDLE FIRE GIVEAWAY

Win a Kindle Fire HDX, Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash ($229 value)   This is a joint AUTHOR & BLOGGER GIVEAWAY EVENT! Bloggers & Authors have joined together and each chipped in a little money towards a Kindle Fire HDX 7".

All New Kindle Fire HDX 7" Giveaway

The winner will have the option of receiving a 7" Kindle Fire HDX (US Only - $229 Value)