JUDITH STARKSTON, PRIESTESS OF ISHANA: THE QUEEN BEHIND THE CHARACTER

October 2-6 Priestess of Ishana, Book 1 of the Tesha Series is available 

FREE on Amazon 

Sorcery in Alpara, Book 2 of the Tesha Series launches October 14, 2019 

and is available now as preorder

THE CHRISTMAS EVE SECRET - BLOG TOUR & GIVEAWAY

Christmas Eve Secret: Time Travel Novel by Elyse Douglas 

 Publisher:  Broadback (September 16, 2019) 

Category: Time Travel, Historical Fiction, Romance, Christmas 

Tour Dates: October-November, 2019 

ISBN: TBD Available in Print and ebook, 440 pages

Description Christmas Eve Secret: Time Travel Novel by Elyse Douglas

A mysterious man from the past steals the time travel lantern. When Eve and Patrick find it, they destroy it. Eve’s life is shattered. She must return to the past, where secrets await. In the third novel of THE CHRISTMAS EVE series, Eve and Patrick Gantly are living a normal life in 2019 New York, preparing to celebrate the Christmas season.  Patrick is taking courses in forensic psychology and Eve continues to work as a nurse practitioner.  To their delight, she is three months pregnant. Despite their happiness, Eve is having premonitions that something dreadful is about to occur.  Concerned about the future and the safety of their child, she insists that they destroy the time travel lantern.  Patrick is more cautious. One afternoon when Patrick is out, a sinister man breaks into the apartment and forces Eve to give him the lantern.  In many ways, Eve is relieved the lantern is gone.  She hopes they can now live a more normal life. A day later, Patrick shadows a woman who has been staking out the Gantly’s brownstone apartment, and he confronts her.  To his and Eve’s utter shock, they learn that Lucy Rose is from 1924 and that she time-traveled with the man who took the lantern.  He returned to 1924, but she chose to stay behind.  She offers to sell the lantern back to Eve and Patrick, and they reluctantly agree, hoping to keep it out of unscrupulous hands. Convinced that the lantern is a threat to their future happiness, Eve and Patrick decide to destroy it. But the lantern has more power than they could have ever imagined.  Once the lantern is destroyed, Eve’s life is completely changed.  She must set off on an adventure, in a struggle that will return her to the past, where she will learn the secret of the lantern’s origin and delve into the farthest reaches of her heart.

BLOG TOUR - THINGS TOO BIG TO NAME BY MOLLY BEST TINSLEY. REVIEW & GIVEAWAY

Description Things Too Big To Name by Molly Best Tinsley

Margaret Torrens trades academia for early retirement and the solitude of a cabin in the Oregon mountains. Four months later, she is locked in a ward for the criminally insane undergoing assessment, and a charge of murder is in the air. Pried out of her by an impatient young psychologist, Margaret's story features Jane Farrow--a former student, who showed up at the cabin uninvited with an odd, mute child in tow--and Victor--Margaret's alleged victim, who put his claim on both. As Margaret works to control this narrative of the recent past, she is waylaid by secrets, borne by the ghost of her young husband, lost decades before.

Advance Praise Things Too Big To Name by Molly Best Tinsley

“The psychological drama of Things Too Big to Name plunges us into the mind of Professor Margaret Torrens as her plans for rural retirement unravel and she's forced to confront the life choices she’s made since the death of her musician husband years before. One of her first students, Jane Farrow, appears at her mountain cabin with a strange child and asks to be taken in.  Days later, disruption threatens to explode in violence when Victor Primo barges in looking for them. Molly Tinsley's distinctive braided narrative offers intense story-telling, studded with surprises, that keeps us on edge until the end.”- Merrill Leffler, poet, Mark the Music and publisher, Dryad Press 

BOOKS & MORE BOOKS: THE RED PEARL BY CHLOE HELTON

Hello, dear readers!

If you’re hoping to finish off your summer with a crackling, suspenseful read, take a peek at an excerpt of The Red Pearl. You’ll find a marriage on the rocks, a little bit of lost love, the trials of wartime, and the main event -- espionage.

During the American Revolution, a meek little innkeeper’s wife becomes privy to some explosive secrets. Read more below! And if you want the rest of the book, you can visit my website or find it on Amazon.

Chloe Helton

WHY SHOULD STUDENTS STUDY LITERATURE?

(by Melisa Marzett) 

One who reads a lot knows a lot, a Russian proverb says. Does it apply to books in English? Is it worth reading? Previously, literature and newspapers were almost the only sources of information. In the modern world, you can watch movies, videos, listen to podcasts to practice English, and receive new information. We offer to figure out why to read books in English.

1.Increasing vocabulary and improvement literacy skills

Everyone has their preferences in the literature. But, regardless of the genre of the book, you will run over the eyes of a hundred different words in the text. It is an incredibly effective way to enrich your vocabulary because the vocabulary is always used in context. Instead of mechanical searching and memorizing words from a dictionary, you can easily “absorb” them from a book. The more attractive the work, the more quickly you learn the new vocabulary.

2. Activation of passive vocabulary

You understand the meaning of many words and use them efficiently in speech. This vocabulary refers to the active vocabulary. But there are such words and grammatical structures that become passive. You can guess the meaning of the latter in the context, but do not use it in speech. Why? Because it is always easier to use a standard set of phrases, one that you know well. However, it is reading in English that helps activate passive vocabulary. Your speech becomes richer; you will not notice how you will begin to speak with the words of your favorite book characters.

GREG JOHNSTON, SWEET BITTER CANE - THE UNCERTAINTY OF MIGRANTS

Sweet Bitter Cane is a story of Italian migrants who travelled to Australia to work on the sugarcane fields of Far North Queensland.  The first arrived in Townsville in December 1891, the result of an Italian immigration agent with the venerable name Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire.  These immigrants came mainly from Italy’s north, from the Veneto but by the 1920s, a mass migration of Italian workers to the Queensland cane fields had begun. 

A FEW READING TIPS FROM THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY

If you like me love reading  books and period drama, you may have seen this film and you may also have read the book it is an adaptation of. If you haven't yet, you must! My suggestion is ... start from the book, of course!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a delightful epistolary novel and a beautiful costume movie. Starring Lily James and Michiel Huisman,  supported by a remarkable cast including Glen Powell, Jessica Brown Findley , Matthew Goode, Penelope Wilton and Tom Courtney, the 2018 movie is directed by Mike Newell. You can find it on Netflix or on DVD, if you’ve missed it when it was released in cinemas.