I’m delighted to share my review for The Players Act 1: All the World’s A Stage by Amy Sparkes #historicalfiction #bookreview
Here’s the blurb
How far would you go to save what you truly love?
England, 1715. When society doesn’t understand you, and your family is out of the picture, a strolling theatre company could be your perfect home…
Ambitious lead actor Thomas is determined to reach Drury Lane and prove to his father that he is not a failure.
Fierce Caroline has a traumatic past and is determined to protect the company which saved her.
Kind-hearted Annie just wants to look after her found family.
So, when their heartbroken manager Robert is injured and decides to fold the struggling company, the players are resolved to change his mind, whatever the cost. Unfortunately for them, the oddsare stacked against them. They’ve lost their stage, they still haven’t got a skull for Hamlet, and flamboyant ex-member Piero is hunting them down, with a spot of revenge on his mind…
Is it time for the final bow?
The Players Act 1: All The World’s A Stage gives voice to the forgotten strolling players of the 18th century in this fun, uplifting, and page-turning read.
The Players Act 1 follows our cast of strolling players from a hurried exit from their latest performance. Dejected and ejected, Thomas decides on a desperate course of action to save his dream of becoming an actor and treading the boards at Drury Lane. Still, he’s forgotten that not everyone in his family shares his dream.
And it’s not only Thomas. We’re treated to the thoughts and feelings of many of our cast, as they endeavour to make the seemingly impossible happen to reverse the strolling players’ bad fortune.
There’s much desperation for our characters, much hope and laughter, and even more disappointment as the storyline rumbles towards its conclusion. The reader, like the main characters, is desperately hoping for some stroke of fortune for our players. Will they earn it, or will this comedy end in tragedy? Read on to find out.
Meet the author
Amy was born in Eastbourne, England, where the sea and South Downs encouraged her love of the outdoors and nurtured her wildness. Her childhood was filled with folk music, caravans and imagination, and she was always dreaming up stories and characters – usually when she was meant to be doing something else.
She enjoys stories that explore both comedy and tragedy. She is a New York Times bestselling author and her work includes THE HOUSE AT THE EDGE OF MAGIC series, and the picture books for BBC’s THE REPAIR SHOP. THE PLAYERS is her debut novel for adults.
Amy now lives in Devon with her husband and six children. When she isn’t writing, Amy enjoys drinking tea, climbing trees and playing the piano, although disappointingly she is yet to master doing all three at once.
It’s cover reveal time for Shield of Mercia. Return to the world of young Icel. #covereveal #preorder #histfic #EasterEggs
Mercia is triumphant. Her king is safe. But Wessex was never Mercia’s only enemy.
Tamworth, AD836
Following a brutally cold winter, King Wiglaf of Mercia is in the ascendancy. Even Wessex’s Archbishop of Canterbury extraordinarily ventures to Mercia to broker a religious accord. But, can the hard-won peace prevail?
Viking raiders threaten Wessex. These blood-thirsty warriors are fast, skilful and have no reticence about killing those who stand in their way. Their aim isn’t to rule but to overwhelm, slaughter and take ill-gotten wealth.
King Wiglaf is no fool. As the Vikings push to overwhelm Wessex, Mercia’s lands look insecure. King Wiglaf needs the shields of Mercia’s warriors to prevent the overwhelming advancement of their deadliest enemy yet.
To save Mercia, Icel must first prevail over the two men who mean to end his life; King Ecgberht of Wessex and his son, Æthelwulf of Kent and only then the marauding Viking army for whom boundaries have no meaning.
I’m super excited to share the cover for The Secret Sauce, the third book in The Erdington Mysteries #histfic #historicalmystery
Here’s the blurb
Birmingham, England, November 1944.
Chief Inspector Mason of Erdington Police Station is summoned to a suspicious death at the BB Sauce factory in Aston on a wet Monday morning in late November 1944.
Greeted by his enthusiastic sergeant, O’Rourke, Sam Mason finds himself plunged into a challenging investigation to discover how Harry Armstrong met his death in a vat containing BB Sauce – a scene that threatens to put him off BB Sauce on his bacon sandwiches for the rest of his life.
Together with Sergeant O’Rourke, Mason follows a trail of seemingly unrelated events until something becomes very clear. The death of Harry Armstrong was certainly murder, and might well be connected to the tragedy unfolding at nearby RAF Fauld. While the uncertainty of war continues, Mason and O’Rourke find themselves seeking answers from the War Office and the Admiralty, as they track down the person who murdered their victim in such an unlikely way.
Join Mason and O’Rourke for the third book in the quirky, historical mystery series, as they once more attempt to solve the impossible in 1940s Erdington.
I’m delighted to welcome Jann Alexander and her new book, Unspoken, to the blog #Unspoken #HistoricalFiction #DustBowl #WomensFiction #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub
I’m delighted to welcome Jann Alexander and her new book, Unspoken, The Dust Series, to the blog with The History Behind Unspoken.
The History Behind Unspoken
When the Biggest, Baddest, Blackest Dust Storm of Them All Struck the Texas Panhandle on April 14, 1935, It Set the Stage for the Opening of Unspoken (A Dust Novel).
That Sunday, April 14, 1935, would forever be known as Black Sunday. But it began quite differently, as the main character, Ruby Lee Becker, recalls at the outset of Unspoken:
“That Sunday in April 1935 in the Panhandle was an uncommon bright day which didn’t reflect our family’s desperation. What little breeze there was blew gentle, unlike the stinging winds we were accustomed to. The spring air was so clean you could almost inhale it deep without coughing up dirt. The sun was golden and hopeful. Our families who’d been farming this desert during the five long years of the drouth were well acquainted with hope, though it was a currency our town’s shuttered bank no longer accepted.”
The black blizzard on Sunday, April 14, 1935 was the most notable of hundreds over the decade that had already prompted mass migration from the Plains states. It became known as Black Sunday — because it was a rolling mass of tumbling black soil, over 1000 feet high, that blackened the sun, suffocated entire towns, and struck elders and children alike with the “brown plague”— the deadly dust pneumonia.
The spot where Unspoken is set, a mythical town called Hartless in the Texas Panhandle, was then considered the epicenter of the Dust Bowl. The sudden drama of that bright clear day in 1935 inspired my story of scattered family, their lost mother, and the abandoned daughter who’ll stop at nothing to remake family and rebuild home.
We know those years now as The Dust Bowl era, caused by a land rush on overgrazed ranch land sold cheaply to unsuspecting farmers and speculators, abandoned when prices fell in the midst of drought. By 1935, the Southern Plains states had already experienced more than five years of drought and high winds.
The upshot? Over that decade known as the “Dirty Thirties,” over 2.5 million Americans migrated away from the Great Plains states, with more than half a million people left homeless. There were approximately 7,000 deaths from dust pneumonia and suffocation.
In 1935, that one Sunday in April was enough to show the rest of the country what the land made barren had cost its inhabitants. The Dust Bowl states deserved federal intervention. Within two weeks, Congress passed the Soil Conservation Act, which created a permanent agency to guide restoration in the hard-hit Plains states and maintain natural resources everywhere.
The agency familiarly known then to farmers and bankers as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) has become the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) today. Its mission is the same: to work with land owners and users in all 50 states — to reduce soil erosion, improve forest and field land, improve farm yields with less-thirsty crops, and develop and protect natural resources.
But back in 1935, in Unspoken, Ruby Lee Becker can’t breathe. The Becker family has clung to its Texas Panhandle farm through years of drought, dying crops, and dust storms. The Black Sunday storm threatens ten-year-old Ruby with deadly dust pneumonia and requires a drastic choice—one her mother, Willa Mae, will forever regret.
“This brown plague was different,” Ruby thinks. “Nobody knew how you could fix air that wasn’t fit to breathe.”
To survive, Ruby’s must leave the only place she’s ever known. Far from home in Waco, and worried her mother’s abandoned her, she’s determined to get back. As she matures, wanting the one thing she cannot have—the family and home left behind—Ruby Lee becomes even more resolute.
Even after twelve years, Willa Mae still clings to memories of her daughter. Unable to reunite with Ruby, she’s broken by their separation and haunted by losses she couldn’t prevent.
Ruby Lee has lost everything—except pure grit. Through rollicking adventures and harrowing setbacks, the tenacious Ruby Lee embarks on her perilous quest for home—and faces her one unspoken fear.
Book Trailer
Here’s the Blurb
A farm devastated. A dream destroyed. A family scattered.
And one Texas girl determined to salvage the wreckage.
Ruby Lee Becker can’t breathe. It’s 1935 in the heart of the Dust Bowl, and the Becker family has clung to its Texas Panhandle farm through six years of drought, dying crops, and dust storms. On Black Sunday, the biggest blackest storm of them all threatens ten-year-old Ruby with deadly dust pneumonia and requires a drastic choice —one her mother, Willa Mae, will forever regret.
To survive, Ruby is forced to leave the only place she’s ever known. Far from home in Waco, and worried her mother has abandoned her, she’s determined to get back.
Even after twelve years, Willa Mae still clings to memories of her daughter. Unable to reunite with Ruby, she’s broken by their separation.
Through rollicking adventures and harrowing setbacks, the tenacious Ruby Lee embarks on her perilous quest for home —and faces her one unspoken fear.
Heart-wrenching and inspiring, the tale of Ruby Lee’s dogged perseverance and Willa Mae’s endless love for her daughter shines a light on women driven apart by disaster who bravely lean on one another, find comfort in remade families, and redefine what home means.
Jann Alexander writes characters who face down their fears. Her novels are as close-to-true as fiction can get.
Jann is the author of the historical novel, UNSPOKEN, set in the Texas Panhandle during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression eras, and her first book in The Dust Series.
Jann writes on all things creative in her weekly blog, Pairings. She’s a 20-year resident of central Texas and creator of the Vanishing Austin photography series. As a former art director for ad agencies and magazines in the D.C. area, and a painter, photographer, and art gallery owner, creativity is her practice and passion.
Jann’s lifelong storytelling habit and her more recent zeal for Texas history merged to become the historical Dust Series. When she is not reading, writing, or creating, she bikes, hikes, skis, and kayaks. She lives in central Texas with her own personal Texan (and biggest fan), Karl, and their Texas mutt, Ruby.
I’m delighted to welcome Julia Ibbotson and her new book, A Shape on the Air, to the blog #Medieval #HistoricalFiction #AngloSaxon #TimeTravel #TimeSlip #Mystery #Romance #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub
I’m delighted to welcome Julia Ibbotson and her new book, A Shape on the Air, Dr DuLac Series, Book 1, to the blog.
Here’s the Blurb
Can echoes of the past threaten the present? They are 1500 years apart, but can they reach out to each other across the centuries? One woman faces a traumatic truth in the present day. The other is forced to marry the man she hates as the ‘dark ages’ unfold.
How can Dr Viv DuLac, medievalist and academic, unlock the secrets of the past?
Traumatised by betrayal, she slips into 499 AD and into the body of Lady Vivianne, who is also battling treachery. Viv must uncover the mystery of the key that she unwittingly brings back with her to the present day, as echoes of the past resonate through time. But little does Viv realise just how much both their lives across the centuries will become so intertwined. And in the end, how can they help each other across the ages without changing the course of history?
For fans of Barbara Erskine, Pamela Hartshorne, Susanna Kearsley, Christina Courtenay.
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited
Meet the Author
Julia Ibbotson is fascinated by the medieval world and the concept of time. She is the author of historical mysteries with a frisson of romance. Her books are evocative of time and place, well-researched and uplifting page-turners. Her current series focuses on early medieval time-slip/dual-time mysteries.
Julia read English at Keele University, England, specialising in medieval language / literature / history, and has a PhD in socio-linguistics. After a turbulent time in Ghana, West Africa, she became a school teacher, then a university academic and researcher. Her break as an author came soon after she joined the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme in 2015, with a three-book deal from Lume Books for a trilogy (Drumbeats) set in Ghana in the 1960s.
She has published five other books, including A Shape on the Air, an Anglo-Saxon timeslip mystery, and its two sequels The Dragon Tree and The Rune Stone. Her latest novel is the first of a new series of Anglo-Saxon dual-time mysteries, Daughter of Mercia, where echoes of the past resonate across the centuries.
Her books will appeal to fans of Barbara Erskine, Pamela Hartshorne, Susanna Kearsley, and Christina Courtenay. Her readers say: ‘Julia’s books captured my imagination’, ‘beautiful story-telling’, ‘evocative and well-paced storylines’, ‘brilliant and fascinating’ and ‘I just couldn’t put it down’.
I’m delighted to welcome a returning Helen Golden to the blog with her new book, Murder Most Wilde. #bookreview #cosymystery #blogtour #avidreader
Here’s the blurb
In the world of amateur theatre, the drama isn’t all onstage…
Tragedy Strikes the Windstanton Players
Popular local actor, Noel Ashworth, who collapsed during the rehearsal of Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest, was pronounced dead at the scene. As shock ripples through Windstanton’s tight-knit amateur theatre group, the Fenshire Police are looking at them as suspects.
I can’t let Perry’s acting debut end in disaster! With the cast spooked and the local police under-resourced, Bea—along with Perry, Rich, Simon, and her trusty Westie, Daisy must shift through the cast’s petty jealousies and diva behaviour to unmask the killer before they strike again.
When the show must go on…will everyone make it to opening night?
Murder Most Wilde is the latest installment in Helen Golden’s Right Royal Investigation mystery series. I’ve read all the books in the series so far, including all the short stories. Lady Bea and Perry, our amateur detectives, are both fab characters, even if, these days, they do have a large collection of professionals on hand to help out.
This time, we return to Windstanton, after our brief holiday in Portugal. We’ve been hearing about Perry’s debut on the stage for a few books now, and he’s so excited to be cast in The Importance of Being Earnest. But of course, not everything goes to plan, and he and Bea find themselves once more investigating a suspicious death.
New readers will not be disappointed if they dip their toe into this series. It’s always reliably good (that might sound boring, but it’s a compliment). The mysteries are enjoyable to unravel, and it’s always a race to see if I’ll solve it before the characters do (not very often).
Check out my reviews for the other books in this fabulous series.
Helen Golden spins mysteries that are charmingly British, delightfully deadly, and served with a twist of humour.
With quirky characters, clever red herrings, and plots that keep the pages turning, she’s the author of the much-loved A Right Royal Cozy Investigation series, following Lady Beatrice and her friends—including one clever little dog—as they uncover secrets hidden in country houses and royal palaces. Her new historical mystery series, The Duchess of Stortford Mysteries, is set in Victorian England and introduces an equally curious sleuth from Lady Beatrice’s own family tree—where murders are solved over cups of tea, whispered gossip, and overheard conversations in drawing rooms and grand estates.
Helen lives in a quintessential English village in Lincolnshire with her husband, stepdaughter, and a menagerie of pets—including a dog, several cats, a tortoise, and far too many fish.
If you love clever puzzles, charming settings, and sleuths with spark, her books are waiting for you.
Paris, 1928: Agatha Christie and fellow writer Dorothy L Sayers board the Orient Express, bound for Constantinople. Christie in particular is looking forward to a break from recent dispiriting events in both her work and private life – the finalisation of her divorce from her philanderous husband Archie, and the miserly reception of her latest book.
But before the duo can settle in to enjoy the luxuries of their first-class journey, their journey is derailed when a fellow guest drops dead during the dinner service. And as the last person to speak to the victim, Dorothy finds herself a prime suspect in his murder.
As the train hurtles East, Sayers’ resourceful assistant Eliza and her friend Theo must navigate a maze of suspects. But with each passing mile, the stakes rise, and when another body is discovered, their search to find the killer before they reach their destination becomes increasingly complicated.
Can Eliza and Theo stay one step ahead, crack the mystery and clear Dorothy’s name? Or will this be one journey too far for the amateur sleuths?
The Case of the Body on the Orient Express is a fun murder mystery, reuniting us with outspoken and headstrong Eliza, and her fellow sleuth, Theo, who, in true ‘tormented writer’ guise, has spent the last two years in France, roughing it in an attempt to escape the object of his torment, Eliza. What could be better than throwing them together on the Orient Express, with a host of mystery writers on their way to a writers convention?
As their journey gets underway, Eliza is aware of undercurrents from Dorothy, her employer, and she’s alert to the other passengers as well. She’s not about to accept that Ivan died of a heart attack. And so begins her sleuthing, with the aid, sometimes unwillingly given, of Theo. And the case becomes curioser and curioser as the train finally reaches Istanbul/Constantinople.
Another fab addition to Kelly Oliver’s sleuthing mysteries. I do love the little connections between this series and the Fiona Figg books. But, of course, you don’t need to have read them. I also enjoy the addition of the real-life mystery writers. Fans of the genre will thoroughly enjoy Eliza and Theo’s new escapade.
Kelly Oliver is the award-winning, bestselling author of three mysteries series: The Jessica James Mysteries, The Pet Detective Mysteries, and the historical cozies The Fiona Figg Mysteries, set in WW1. She is also the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and lives in Nashville, Tennessee
It’s happy release day to Warriors of Iron, the second book in the Dark Age Chronicles Trilogy. I’m sharing some photos from my visit to Sutton Hoo #newrelease #MenOfIron #WarriorsOfIron #histfic
Sutton Hoo
As part of my research for the trilogy, I visited Sutton Hoo in July 2024. While it was a fascinating place to visit (see the images below of the surviving grave mounds), it was actually something else my Canadian guide told me that resonated with me for the series. It was that while this area gets a lot of interest, a further gravesite has also been found under where the car park for the visitor centre is now. This gravesite contained thirty-six graves (I think I’ve got the figures correct), twenty-nine of which were burials while the rest were cremations. The car park burials are believed to date to between 510 and c.600, and so before the Sutton Hoo burial of such fame. Fourteen of the graves were warrior graves, buried with shield and spear.
You might wonder why that intrigued me so much, and you’d be correct to do so. But, of course, I wanted to write the series before the advent of what we know as Saxon England, and this was therefore where I needed to be researching. The ‘shiny’ helmet and sword (reconstructions, I know), have a strange allure for us as we live in a time where we don’t need such things (hopefully), but did the earlier warriors have the same? This trip to Sutton Hoo certainly influenced the way I wrote about Wærmund and his fellow warriors. And the trip to the Norfolk Broads reminded me of how pesky bugs can be, and how much they like to nibble me. I came straight home and added that to the storyline. It always pays to remember the little elements that make characters feel very real to readers.
Board showing the burial mounds at Sutton Hoo
View of one of the burial mounds
View of one of the burial mounds from a distance
One of the other burials
View from the viewing platform
Another view from the viewing platform
The viewing platform over the Sutton Hoo Burial Mounds
Research photo dump with the Sutton Hoo Helmet and image of the burial mounds
Curious about the trilogy? Check out my blog for more details below
A princess with a scandalous secret. A duke desperate for a wealthy bride. A debutante torn between duty and passion.
Newly widowed Princess Adelheid Kinsky thought she was free—until she learns of her abusive late husband’s final betrayal. The son she believed dead, the illegitimate child of a forbidden love, still lives. To secure his future, she must marry within a month—without revealing the truth. Her best prospect? The Duke of Hartland, a notorious rake drowning in debt.
Meanwhile, Hartland sets his sights on Olivia Fontenoy, an heiress whose fortune could solve all his problems. But innocent Olivia dreams of music, not marriage, and seizes the chance to perform in disguise at the King’s Theatre—unwittingly ensnaring everyone she knows in scandal.
As deception and desire collide, Olivia finds herself drawn to Hartland’s closest friend, the quiet yet passionate Marquess of Lewiston—a man who offers her something far more profound than mere security. And for Adelheid, an unexpected alliance may hold the key to her dreams.
With a surprising ending worthy of grand opera, The Soprano’s Daring Duke is a sweeping Regency tale of love, risk, and the courage to defy expectations.
The Soprano’s Daring Duke is a Regency romance with a difference. It starts with a bang as we’re introduced to Adelheid at her husband’s deathbed, where she reacts, not with grief, but rather delight, until the terms of his will reveal her dilemma.
Olivia is our second female lead, who, awkward and too tall, and not at all the Regency ideal wife, longs for something other than marriage, but is being pushed into the marriage market by her mother. The scene is set, and all the reader need do is wait for our male lead to appear with his own Regency problems and dilemmas.
This is the second of Susanna Dunlap’s Regency novels I’ve read and it will delight fans of the genre while placing our main players in situations a little different to those we might expect, and all with a delightful ring of authenticity and dilemma.
Susanne Dunlap is the award-winning author of over a dozen historical novels, as well as an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach in fiction, nonfiction, and memoir. Her love of history began in academia with a PhD in music history from Yale. Her novel THE PORTRAITIST won first prize in its category in the 2022 Eric Hoffer Book Awards, and was a finalist in the CIBA Goethe Awards and the Foreword Indies Awards. THE ADORED ONE: A NOVEL OF LILLIAN LORRAINE AND FLORENZ ZIEGFELD, won first place in its category in the 2023 CIBA Goethe Awards for Late Historical Fiction. Today, she lives, coaches, and writes in beautiful Biddeford, Maine.
MJ Porter 