Monday, August 31, 2015

Review: The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919: Perspectives from the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas by Mar Porras-Gallo and Ryan A Davis (editors)

Review copy from publisher via NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

This is a very scientific, political, and academic look at the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919. The first chapter in particular is very medical and difficult for a lay person to grasp. The writing is dry and scholarly. It is very informative, but I was hoping for a more cultural and personal look at the pandemic's influence.

Each chapter is an essay by a different author assessing a different aspect or perspective of the pandemic. Over all, it is very focused on Portugal, Spain and Latin America, which was also a little disappointing. Although it's called the Spanish Flu, it impacted most of the world, but this book only covers certain areas. And while the subtitle does specify "Perspectives from the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas", I was assuming North America was included in that, which it wasn't.

So while it has merit, it was not entirely what I was expecting. It would probably be best suited to academics rather than mainstream readers.



Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Ebook Deals

Click the cover to view and buy the book in the Kindle store. While I only post links to the Kindle store, often times you can find the same titles on sale at other stores.

Disclaimer: Ebook prices are subject to change anytime. I can only promise they are under a certain price at the time I post them.

US Kindle Deals, fiction under $4, non-fiction under $6:

               



UK Kindle Deals, fiction under £3, non-fiction under £4:

                 

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Book Blast: Enchantress of Paris by Marci Jefferson

Enchantress of Paris: A Novel of the Sun King's Court by Marci Jefferson
Publication Date: August 4, 2015
Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press
Hardcover & eBook; 336 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

READ AN EXCERPT.

Add to GR Button

Fraught with conspiracy and passion, the Sun King's opulent court is brought to vivid life in this captivating tale about a woman whose love was more powerful than magic.

The alignment of the stars at Marie Mancini's birth warned that although she would be gifted at divination, she was destined to disgrace her family. Ignoring the dark warnings of his sister and astrologers, Cardinal Mazarin brings his niece to the French court, where the forbidden occult arts thrive in secret. In France, Marie learns her uncle has become the power behind the throne by using her sister Olympia to hold the Sun King, Louis XIV, in thrall.

Desperate to avoid her mother's dying wish that she spend her life in a convent, Marie burns her grimoire, trading Italian superstitions for polite sophistication. But as her star rises, King Louis becomes enchanted by Marie's charm. Sensing a chance to grasp even greater glory, Cardinal Mazarin pits the sisters against each other, showering Marie with diamonds and silks in exchange for bending King Louis to his will.

Disgusted by Mazarin's ruthlessness, Marie rebels. She sacrifices everything, but exposing Mazarin's deepest secret threatens to tear France apart. When even King Louis's love fails to protect Marie, she must summon her forbidden powers of divination to shield her family, protect France, and help the Sun King fulfill his destiny.

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOKS-A-MILLION | INDIEBOUND | MACMILLAN



ADVANCE PRAISE
“Told with vivid historical detail and packed with court intrigue, this is sure to please fans of royal fiction.” — Library Journal
03_Marci Jefferson
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Years after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University, immersing herself in a Quality Assurance nursing career, and then having children, Marci realized she’d neglected her passion for history and writing. She began traveling, writing along the way, delving into various bits of history that caught her fancy. The plot for GIRL ON THE GOLDEN COIN evolved slowly after a trip to London, where she first learned about the Stuart royals. Marci is a member of the Historical Novel Society. She resides in the Midwest with her husband, making hair-bows for their daughter, trying not to step on their son’s Legos, and teaching a tiny Pacific Parrotlet to talk.

For more information visit Marci Jefferson’s website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Goodreads.

BOOK BLAST SCHEDULE
Tuesday, August 4
Unabridged Chick

Wednesday, August 5
Unshelfish
Beth's Book Nook Blog
Curling up by the Fire

Thursday, August 6
Book Lovers Paradise
History From a Woman's Perspective

Friday, August 7
100 Pages a Day
Oh, for the Hook of a Book!

Saturday, August 8
Historical Readings & Reviews

Sunday, August 9
Book Nerd

Monday, August 10
Genre Queen

Tuesday, August 11
A Chick Who Reads
To Read, Or Not to Read

Wednesday, August 12
A Literary Vacation
So Many Books, So Little Time

Thursday, August 13
Broken Teepee
CelticLady's Reviews

Friday, August 14
A Book Geek
The Lit Bitch

Saturday, August 15
The Maiden's Court

Sunday, August 16
Ageless Pages Reviews

Monday, August 17
Luxury Reading
Boom Baby Reviews

Tuesday, August 18
A Bookish Affair

GIVEAWAY
To enter to win a signed copy of Enchantress of Paris: A Novel of the Sun King's Court, please enter via the GLEAM form below.

Rules

– Giveaway ends at 11:59pm EST on August 18th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
– Giveaway is open internationally.
– Only one entry per household.
– All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspect of fraud is decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion
– Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

Enchantress of Paris
04_Enchantress of Paris_Book Blast Banner_FINAL

Monday, August 3, 2015

Upcoming Releases in Historical Fiction

A Free State: A Novel by Tom Piazza
Release Date: September 15, 2015


The year is 1855. Blackface minstrelsy is the most popular form of entertainment in a nation about to be torn apart by the battle over slavery. Henry Sims, a fugitive slave and a brilliant musician, has escaped to Philadelphia, where he earns money living by his wits and performing on the street. He is befriended by James Douglass, leader of a popular minstrel troupe struggling to compete with dozens of similar ensembles, who imagines that Henry’s skill and magnetism might restore his troupe’s sagging fortunes.

The problem is that black and white performers are not allowed to appear together onstage. Together, the two concoct a masquerade to protect Henry’s identity, and Henry creates a sensation in his first appearances with the troupe. Yet even as their plan begins to reverse the troupe’s decline, a brutal slave hunter named Tull Burton has been employed by Henry’s former master to track down the runaway and retrieve him, by any means necessary.



Twain's End by Lynn Cullen
Release Date: October 13, 2015


In March of 1909, Mark Twain cheerfully blessed the wedding of his private secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager, Ralph Ashcroft. One month later, he fired both. He proceeded to write a ferocious 429-page rant about the pair, calling Isabel “a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded and salacious slut pining for seduction.” Twain and his daughter, Clara Clemens, then slandered Isabel in the newspapers, erasing her nearly seven years of devoted service to their family. How did Lyon go from being the beloved secretary who ran Twain’s life to a woman he was determined to destroy?



The Rifleman by Oliver North
Release Date: May 3, 2016


The man who has “been there, done that” in other wars immerses you in a ripping saga of courage, tenacity, and intrigue torn from the pages of a Revolutionary War soldier’s journal. Nathaniel Newman is a volunteer with Morgan’s Riflemen, an elite infantry unit of Virginia sharpshooters who fought with the cutting-edge military technology of the day: long rifles. As North turns the pages of Nathaniel’s captivating diary, he reveals how the struggle to forge a new, independent nation was nearly lost by traitors, cowards, and the faint of heart. Brother against brother, friend against friend, neighbor against neighbor, this sweeping and meticulously researched novel of our nation’s fight for liberty explores the bravery and perseverance of those who fought and won the bloody battles—and how treachery and betrayal threatened victory in a brutal test of arms.



Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings: A Novel by Stephen O'Connor
Release Date: April 5, 2016


In his vivid, original, and heartrending account of the thirty-seven-year relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one which began in Paris in 1789 and ended with Jefferson's death in 1826, Stephen O'Connor manages to be unsparing in his rendition of the hypocrisy of the slaveholder who wrote "all men are created equal," and yet to allow both of his protagonists their tender, beautiful, and deeply human moments. This is a novel in which nothing is what it seems, in which innocence shares the heart with evil. O'Connor's tale alternates among lush realism, rendered with a historian's eye for detail, a first person confession penned by Hemings after Jefferson has passed away, and fabulistic interludes in which Jefferson watches a movie about his life. Hemings fabricates an "invention" that becomes the whole world, and they run into each other "after an unimaginable length of time" on the New York City subway. Fundamentally, Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings is a story about yearning—for love, for justice, for an ideal world—and about the survival of hope, even in the midst of catastrophe.



Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise by Oscar Hijuelos
Release Date: November 3, 2015


Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos, is a luminous work of fiction inspired by the real-life, 37-year friendship between two towering figures of the late nineteenth century, famed writer and humorist Mark Twain and legendary explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley.

From their early days as journalists in the American West, to their admiration and support of each other's writing, their mutual hatred of slavery, their social life together in the dazzling literary circles of the period, and even a mysterious journey to Cuba to search for Stanley's adoptive father, Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise superbly channels two vibrant but very different figures. It is also a study of Twain's complex bond with Mrs. Stanley, the bohemian portrait artist Dorothy Tennant, who introduces Twain and his wife to the world of séances and mediums after the tragic death of their daughter.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...