Maggie's Wars Blog Tour: Review and Giveaway

Publication Date: November 6, 2013
American Book Incorporated
Formats: eBook, Paperback

Synopsis:

Combatting wars on two fronts – one of fame and the other love – Maggie Hogan never wavers as a rare woman reporter on the battlefields of World War II, the Nuremburg Trials and the beginnings of the cold war. But she makes the mistake of falling for an officer, complicating her ambitions.

Learn of what one woman feels she must do in order to make it in a man’s world, no matter what.

Maggie’s Wars is a story about the ultimate battle between love and prestige, and how you can’t win them both.

 

So What Did I Think About The Story?:

Oh Maggie, Maggie, Maggie...what am I to do with you?! Right from the start I wasn't much of a fan of Maggie Hogan, the determined young woman with a dream of making a name for herself in the fast and incredibly chauvinistic world of journalism in the closing years of WWII. While she's spunky, intelligent and determined she is also selfish and conniving, using her womanly good looks and charms that she seemingly hates the male journalists to focus on to actually seduce her way into a better career. Her ambitions know no bounds and she doesn't blink an eye at using other people to get what she wants.  Being this ruthless makes it hard to like Maggie or feel much for her fleeting and ever-changing feelings for the various men she finds in her bed. But one of those men, the young officer mentioned in the synopsis, fully steals the spotlight from Maggie.

While the title and synopsis led me to believe this is exclusively Maggie's story the novel is actually told in two alternating viewpoints: Maggie and Johnny Pero, the hit man turned secret military agent that Maggie has an on again off again love affair with. And thank God Johnny got to tell his story because he saved this book for me! An Italian-American born into a rough neighborhood, he's working for the mob when his special skills at killing lead him to be enlisted into the military for select dangerous operations in Europe at the end of WWII. Having fallen head over heals for Maggie, he jumps at the chance to go over seas in the hopes of getting closer to her once she goes to Europe to write about what she sees at the frontlines. Through Johnny's eyes the reader gets the chance to see some of the devastation and viciousness that only someone in his unique situation could see: bombed, shot and/or stabbed bodies, destroyed towns, piles of tortured and starved bodies on the death trains...my only complaint with the portions of the novel detailing Johnny's time during the war is that they were too short. These portions were descriptive and compelling and I felt like I could have read pages and pages more.

To be honest the great majority of the story felt rushed to me and, at only 229 pages, I think some more development of the situations discussed would have really elevated the whole story. For examples, both the liberation of Dachau and the Nuremberg trials were introduced as important turning points in the story and could have really brought the reader front and center for these spellbinding times in history but, instead, were only given a few pages each and then moved away from. I found this disappointing because I really wanted more!

In the end Maggie's Wars was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The parts I enjoyed, which were pretty much any part from Johnny's perspective, needed more development and more time to bring me into the story instead of just telling me something and moving on. The ending left a lot to be desired as well and left me wondering why the author chose to wrap it up the way he did. With all this being said there is a lot of potential here. It's a quick read that gives a unique perspective on WWII I haven't seen addressed before.  If the author were to write another book set during this same time with a bit more attention given to development I would be very excited to see where it went.

So What Did I Think About the Cover?:

 Meh. While the close-up of a typewriter perfectly fits into the story no part of it - the colors, the composition, the typeface - draws me in or makes me want to read the book.


Rating: 3.0/5.0

 

 

Thank you to Amy at Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for sending me a free copy of Maggie's Wars in exchange for an honest review! Make sure to continue below for more information about the author, the chance to win a copy of Maggie's Wars of your very own and information about the rest of the tour schedule!

 



About the Author

Phil Pisani grew up on the north side of the railroad tracks in an upstate New York blue-collar industrial town in a rough neighborhood filled with the most colorful characters in the world. Factory and tannery workers mingled with bar and restaurant owners, gamblers and gangsters, good people and bad people, brash rogues and weak loudmouths, all spawned by the early immigrant movement to America. Italians, Russians, Slovacks, Irish, and Germans formed a rough and tough section of town where few from the south side dared to venture. He learned to fight at a very young age, both in the ring and on the streets. Fights became badges of honor. He also was a voracious reader. His mother worked in the village’s library. After school, or fights or sandlot football games he would curl away into the adult reading section. Enjoying the polished blonde oak bookshelves, tables and chairs, he would choose a book from the stacks and delve into its smells and contents. Reading soothed him.

He studied history and humanities in Pisa, Italy, and Oswego State in New York and later earned a MA in Political Science from Binghamton University.

He worked as a labor investigator for NY and rose in the ranks through the years but never stopped writing or reading. He currently lives in Albany NY, with his wife Joanne.

For  more information please visit Phil Pisani’s website. You can also connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.

Maggie’s Wars Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, August 18

Review at JulzReads

Tuesday, August 19

Review & Interview at Oh, For the Hook of a Book
Interview at The Maiden’s Court

Wednesday, August 20
Review at Book Nerd
Review at Layered Pages
Spotlight at Flashlight Commentary

Thursday, August 21

Review at Man of la Book
Spotlight at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time

Friday, August 22

Review at Jorie Loves a Story
Review and Giveaway at Historical Tapestry
Interview at Closed the Cover

Giveaway Time!

Want a chance to win a copy of Maggie's Wars of your very own? Just leave a comment below telling me your all time favorite book set during WWII (I'm always looking for recommendations!). Be sure to leave your email address in your comment (no email, no entry!). For extra entries just share this giveaway and leave a separate comment with a link to where you shared. That's it!

I'll pick a winner on August 29th and the winner will have 2 days to answer my email notification with their mailing address before I have to pick another winner. Good luck everyone!

If you'd like to buy the book you can do so at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

How I Came to Love Versailles: 10 tips on how you can love it too by Sandra Gulland (includes giveaway)

Today we are very pleased to welcome Sandra Gulland here to tell us about visiting Versailles. Made me remember my own visit to the splendid palace many years ago. One day I will visit again. One day.

~~~~~~~~~~~

When I began to write about the Court of the Sun King, I had to research Versailles, of course. I began with a shelf-full of books, but I resisted actually going there for some time. I feared that it would be overwhelming—and it was!

Here's how I came to love it:

1) Read books about Versailles, both fiction and non-fiction, before you go.

2) Take a car from the Paris airport directly to Versailles and spend the night there. Or two. Or three! (We enjoyed staying at the Trianon Palace, a short walk from Versailles.)

3) Visit Versailles in short stages. (When you are staying in the village, this is easier: you can tour, nap, eat, tour, nap, eat.)

4) It's best to visit Versailles early on week-day mornings, before the hoards arrive. (More than three million tourists visit Versailles every year.)

5) Plan to take only a few personal photos; there will often be people standing in the way of a good historical shot—and the official photos on postcards and in the guidebooks are excellent.

6) Sign up for an official tour (or two), especially for a first visit: these guides get you past the lines, had have lots of great information. I recommend Guidatours.

7) Get lost in the gardens. Dream of the events that were held there. 

8) Make sure you visit the bookstore, and have room in your luggage for all the books you will buy.

9) Ditto for gifts!

10) Go back to Versailles many times. Like the Louvre, one visit, or even two or three, will never be enough.

The Versailles of the period of my novels MISTRESS OF THE SUN and, newly out, THE SHADOW QUEEN, spanned the early days, when it was just a hunt lodge, to the beginnings of construction of the massive chateau that we know today.

I was most interested in imagining what Versailles might have been like under construction, as shown in this painting by Adam Frans van der Meulen: 

I walked from the chateau to the village, and then to where Clagny had been at one time, the chateau the Sun King built for Athénaïs, Madame de Montespan, his second official mistress.

It is no longer there, alas, but walking to where it had once stood gave me a sense of the distances, the views.

Everywhere I walked, my characters had walked before me.

Versailles is a place rich in history, layers upon layers of it. Enjoy it step by step, bit by tasty bit.

Links:

Trianon Palace
Guidatours

About the Tour

Tour Schedule: http://francebooktours.com/2014/01/06/sandra-gulland-on-tour-the-shadow-queen/
Sandra Gulland's website.
Sandra Gulland on Facebook
Sandra Gulland on Twitter.
Sandra Gulland on Goodreads


About the Book

From the author of the beloved Josephine B. Trilogy, comes a spellbinding novel inspired by the true story of a young woman who rises from poverty to become confidante to the most powerful, provocative and dangerous woman in the 17th century French court: the mistress of the charismatic Sun King.

1660, Paris

Claudette’s life is like an ever-revolving stage set. From an impoverished childhood wandering the French countryside with her family’s acting troupe, Claudette finally witnesses her mother's astonishing rise to stardom in Parisian theaters. Working with playwrights Corneille, Molière and Racine, Claudette’s life is culturally rich, but like all in the theatrical world at the time, she's socially scorned.

A series of chance encounters gradually pull Claudette into the alluring orbit of Athénaïs de Montespan, mistress to Louis XIV and reigning "Shadow Queen." Needing someone to safeguard her secrets, Athénaïs offers to hire Claudette as her personal attendant.

Enticed by the promise of riches and respectability, Claudette leaves the world of the theater only to find that court is very much like a stage, with outward shows of loyalty masking more devious intentions. This parallel is not lost on Athénaïs, who fears political enemies are plotting her ruin as young courtesans angle to take the coveted spot in the king's bed.

Indeed, Claudette's "reputable" new position is marked by spying, illicit trysts and titanic power struggles. As Athénaïs, becomes ever more desperate to hold onto the King's favor, innocent love charms move into the realm of deadly Black Magic, and Claudette is forced to consider a move that will put her own life—and the family she loves so dearly—at risk.

Set against the gilded opulence of a newly-constructed Versailles and the War of Theaters, THE SHADOW QUEEN is a seductive, gripping novel about the lure of wealth, the illusion of power, and the increasingly uneasy relationship between two strong-willed women whose actions could shape the future of France.

Giveaway details:

- to participate, leave a comment telling us what you would like to see if you were lucky enough to be able to visit Versailles or, if you have already been, a handy tip!  Don't forget to include your email address in your comment.

- there is one hardcover copy of the book to be given away
- open to US/Canada only
- closes 18th May midnight GMT 

The Debt of Tamar by Nicole Dweck Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to

 Elise-Maria 

who has won a copy of The Debt of Tamar by Nicole Dweck.

I hope you enjoy your book!

The Debt of Tamar by Nicole Dweck

Today Kelly and Marg are pleased to bring you a discussion review of The Debt of Tamar as part of the HFVBT blog tour! Hope you review the post, and if you like the sound of the book check out the giveaway at the bottom of the post!

Kelly's thoughts are in blue and Marg's in black.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Its been a while since we have done one of these Kelly!

I thought I would start this discussion by talking about the story and hopefully along the way we will be able to touch on how the book is structured and how that helps or hinders the plot.

The book opens in 16th century Spain. Dona Antonio Nissim is friend to royalty, well respected and wealthy but none of that will protect her when she upsets royalty by refusing a match for her beautiful young daughter. And there is especially no protection when it is found that you are actually Jewish, something which comes as something of a surprise to her daughter Reyna and her nephew that she has been raising to become the head of her family, Jose. Forced to flee, the family is accepted into Turkey under the auspices of the sultan Suleiman and the family settles into a new life which is complicated by the fact that Reyna and Jose fall in love.

The action then moves forward a few years as their daughter Tamar is given the great privilege of being educated within the walls of the sultan’s harem, where she meets and falls in love with the heir, Murat. But theirs is a love that crosses culture and faiths and it isn’t long before the young lovers are torn apart but not before he gives her a ruby ring that ends up being passed from generation to generation. Murat goes on to rule the realm, but he and his descendants are forever to be cursed, in effect the debt of Tamar that the title of the book refers to.

I have to admit, I think I was confused about the curse when it was first mentioned in Murat’s part of the book. I think it was only when the book shifted to the Present Day that I fully understood. I guess that’s because I thought if anyone should be cursed, it should be her father because it is him that sends her away.

What did you think of the curse?

I was a bit confused by the curse at first too, almost as though the injured party was cursed rather than the injurer (is that even a word?). It did work itself out by the end of the book though!

But, after Murat’s time has come to an end, the book flashes to the present day. The Sultan’s reign has come to an end and now Selim Osman, the grandson of the last Sultan, is a successful business man. He is still living in the shadow of his ancestors. His father and brother are deceased and his mother left to go live with her aunt. He is essentially an orphan who finds himself diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. When he goes to New York to seek treatment, the stories of his ancestors and Tamar start to intertwine. Then, the time changes again, and we are in WWII-torn Paris, France.

In Paris we meet Davide. His parents were the victims of the Holocaust and he was raised by a kindly baker and his wife. Unfortunately, he can not live that idyllic life forever and his ancestors catch-up with him. He quickly changes his entire life to embrace his heritage and decides to leave Paris behind to visit the land of his ancestors. Then it is back to the future again for the stories to come together. I will leave it there for readers to get a taste of how things are going to come together.

What did you think of the characters? Did you have a favourite?

As we will discuss below, I find that the characters didn’t have a time in the book to really stand out. I thought that Reyna and Jose’s relationship was sweet, but it was so rushed there was no build up or drama. And, I really liked Reyna’s mother, but again, I didn’t really get a chance to get to know who she was. She was a strong and intriguing character that I would love to see an entire book about! Again, Murat and Tamar, sweet relationship, but for having lasting consequences through a curse it was again rushed. I didn’t get the tension because there was no time to get to feel it. Basically, though, the characters are all interesting. I just wish we had got to know them a bit better.

I am probably the same as you. I didn’t feel connected enough to any one story to say I had a favourite character.

The story jumps around a fair bit from 16th century Spain to modern day Turkey and America, and to Israel and France in the mid 20th century. How did you find these changes in time and characters? Did it flow smoothly for you?

As to the actual time changes themselves, I enjoyed the glimpses of different aspects of history, but just like the characters I wish we had a chance to experience things longer. I think that might be one of the shorter glimpses of the Holocaust, for example, I have ever experienced. And, I read this book because of the ‘different’ aspects of history and still didn’t feel like I learned enough. I suppose as a ‘learning’ experience I should read a non-fiction book and not look for it in fiction.
Had you read much about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain before? I had only read about about it a few months ago in another book so it was interesting to contrast how two authors handled the aspects of the story which were similar.

I have not, actually. I think that is why I was curious about this book. I have read a lot about the Jewish experience, but it was typically surrounding the Holocaust and those aspects of history. I will have to seek out some more books and read more about these times in history.

I thought that the changes in time and setting were handled well but I wanted more from each of the stories. We were just starting to learn about one character and then it would change to another story. I guess wanting more is better than being bored with a particular story and wishing that it would change to someone else though! I did find the story of Davide very interesting. That one thread alone would have made a really good subject for a book. A Jewish baby raised by a Catholic family, the drama when the truth came out, the divergent path of the two brothers. I wanted more!

That’s true. I wasn’t bored at all. I actually found that the book was a relatively fast read!

It was definitely a fast read, and one that it is easy to get invested in. It is actually one of those books that I probably wouldn’t have read if not for the enthusiastic reports from other bloggers. This meant that when we got the offer for the blog tour I was primed to accept it and to read the book. Did the book meet your expectations, were you surprised it was a debut novel and would you recommend it to others?

I have to admit I was just looking for something ‘different’. I wasn’t even aware that it was getting a lot of buzz. I should pay more attention, I guess! I agree with the buzz, though. My only complaint was that I wanted more. And, yes, for a debut, it was very well done. To be honest I didn’t know it was a debut and I think I probably only read it because of the tour. Now, the tour might have changed that when I saw the book around more!

What about you? What did you think of the ending?

I liked the ending. I liked how everything came together. I think that even though it was quick snippets, you find yourself waiting for the ending. I am not sure the book ended as I expected, but that was not a bad thing! I think the ending made me love the book where I was only sort of a fan before that.

I thought it was a good place to end the story. There is a glimpse of hope for the future but it wasn’t a sugar coated fairytale type ending. There was a good mix of history, a touch of romance of the doomed variety, and, for a debut novel, I thought it was a good read. I will definitely look out for Nicole Dweck’s next book.

Me too! Thanks for doing this buddy review with me!

Giveaway details:

- to participate, leave a comment. Don't forget to include your email address in your comment.

- there is one paperback copy of the book to be given away
- open to US only
- closes 9th March midnight GMT 

About the tour

Link to Tour Page: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/thedebtoftamartour
Tour Hashtag: #DebtofTamarVirtualTour
Nicole Dweck's website
Nicole Dweck on Twitter
Nicole Dweck on Facebook

About the book

Publication Date: February 4, 2013
Devon House Press
Paperback; 332p
ISBN-10: 061558361X

During the second half of the 16th century, a wealthy widow by the name of Doña Antonia Nissim is arrested and charged with being a secret Jew. The punishment? Death by burning. Enter Suleiman the Magnificent, an Ottoman “Schindler,” and the most celebrated sultan in all of Turkish history. With the help of the Sultan, the widow and her children manage their escape to Istanbul. Life is seemingly idyllic for the family in their new home, that is, until the Sultan’s son meets and falls in love with Tamar, Doña Antonia’s beautiful and free-spirited granddaughter. A quiet love affair ensues until one day, the girl vanishes.

Over four centuries later, thirty-two year old Selim Osman, a playboy prince with a thriving real estate empire, is suddenly diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. Abandoning the mother of his unborn child, he vanishes from Istanbul without an explanation. In a Manhattan hospital, he meets Hannah, a talented artist and the daughter of a French Holocaust survivor. As their story intertwines with that of their ancestors, readers are taken back to Nazi-occupied Paris, and to a sea-side village in the Holy Land where a world of secrets is illuminated.

Theirs is a love that has been dormant for centuries, spanning continents, generations, oceans, and religions. Bound by a debt that has lingered through time, they must right the wrongs of the past if they’re ever to break the shackles of their future.

Winners of The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick!

Congratulations to the winner's of the giveaway of two copies of Elizabeth Chadwick's latest release, The Summer Queen!

The winners are:

Amanda Barrett and Shoshanah!

An email will be with you shortly requesting your postal details.

I am just a little bit jealous that you get to read this book soon!

Guest post: Finding Eleanor of Aquitaine (includes international giveaway)

I am super excited to welcome Elizabeth Chadwick back to Historical Tapestry. She has long been one of our favourite authors and I, for one, am very excited that it is finally release day for The Summer Queen! If you can handle any more excitement, we are also giving away two copies of The Summer Queen, and the giveaway is open to everyone!  Details of the giveaway are included below.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple of years ago, I’d finished writing LADY OF THE ENGLISH for my UK publisher Sphere and that was the end of my contracted work for them. I had a dynamic new editor and the way was open for discussion on what I was going to tackle next. I had been considering writing about Eleanor of Aquitaine for some time. She kept crossing my path and I found myself becoming more and more intrigued by her. I had featured her in passing in a few of my novels, particularly the Marshal ones. The questions began to build up, as they always do when I become interested in a character from history. I wanted to remove the centuries’ deep layers of gilding, dust and detritus that had settled over her life story. I was curious to discover what she was really like, and perhaps in the process shed fresh light on the known (and often assumed history).

I was well aware that while I had been pondering, other authors had come along with their particular takes on Eleanor, but that didn’t bother me because I knew that our works were individual to us, and there was still plenty left to be said that hadn’t been. It probably also helped to an extent, that I had never seen Katherine Hepburn’s iconical portrait of Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter, so there was no chance of La Hepburn influencing the way I imagined my Eleanor.

My editor was very keen for me to write about Eleanor and we soon agreed a three book contract to cover the story of her life in fiction. We also agreed that she was to be called Alienor, which was the way her name was written in her own lifetime, and a nod of respect to her memory.

I already had an extensive library of books dealing with the 12th century, but I set out to purchase as many works about Eleanor, her life and times as I could. These included sources both primary and secondary and the inevitable slew of biographies, some of which I already had, some of which were new to my library.

As I began reading through the biographies, I began to realise how contradictory, and unsubstantiated, many views of Eleanor were. The authors often clothed her in their own opinions without any solid fact to back up their assumptions. Some seemed to be writing novels of their own, ascribing to Eleanor the emotions they felt she ought to have had, rather than sticking to what was known, and some, it has to be said, had a very shaky grasp on 12th century history, both the political and the social.

Her birth year was often reported as being in 1122, but most historians now believe that she was born in 1124. This was an important detail for me because it meant that Eleanor would have been married at the age of 13, not 15, which puts a very different slant on much of the history that comes afterwards. It might only be a difference of two years, but a significant one at that stage in a person’s life.

Two biographers and a historian gave Eleanor a half brother called Joscelin. But when I went to find out more about him in case I needed to write about him in the novel, I discovered that he was the half-brother of a different queen entirely. You can read about my detective work in this article I wrote for The History Girls. http://the-history-girls.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/eleanor-of-aquitaine-and-brother-who_24.html

There is no known description of Eleanor in the conventional historical record, but nevertheless her biographers have a good go at describing her. ‘Tall, with a superb figure that she kept into old age, lustrous eyes and fine features…it is likely that her hair was yellow and her eyes were blue.’ That’s Desmond Seward.

W.L. Warren in his biography of Henry II calls Eleanor a ‘black-eyed beauty.’

Frank McLynn in Lionheart and Lackland can almost barely contain his lust when he says of her ‘Eleanor of Aquitaine had a dark complexion, black eyes, black hair, and a curvaceous figure that never ran to fat even in old age.’

Meanwhile, others have cited a crowned auburn-haired figure on a mural at Chinon, as evidence for Eleanor being a red-head – and a green-eyed red-head at that. However, that figure is far more like to be her eldest surviving son Henry the Young King.

One prominent biographer has Eleanor buying in copious quantities of wine for her sister Petronella, but when primary sources are checked, Petronella turns out to have died several years before these pipe rolls were written.

The courts of love where Eleanor and her eldest daughter Marie are supposed to have presided over a court of ladies sitting in judgement of matters of the heart, has been proven never to have existed, although one biography dedicates numerous pages to the premise.

Then there is the whole idea beefed up by several biographers that Eleanor had an affair with her uncle while on the second crusade. You can read my views on that particular idea here: http://livingthehistoryelizabethchadwick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/eleanor-of-aquitaine-raymond-of.html


During my research, I constantly heard statements that she was a ‘feminist’ and ‘a woman ahead of her time’. I think people would like these to be true, but they aren’t. She was a strong and charismatic woman, I agree, but she was of her time and struggling to hold her own in a society where women’s power was being constricted. But she wasn’t a feminist and even if she speaks across the centuries, her voice is of the 12th century world in which she dwelt.

Regarding my own connection with Eleanor, I have tried to do her justice and tell a story that has integrity and that shines a different light through the facets of her life, while still retaining a final glimmering layer of mystery that preserves her enigma and still begs the question ‘Who was and is Eleanor of Aquitaine?’ Make up your own mind.


Giveaway details:

- to participate, leave a comment sharing what it is that you find most fascinating about Eleanor of Aquitaine! Don't forget to include your email address in your comment.

- there are two copies of the book to be given away
- open internationally
- closes 30th June midnight GMT

Winner of The Chalice giveaway

Congratulations to 

Judith

who has won our giveaway of The Chalice by Nancy Bilyeau.

Hope you enjoy it Judith!

Nancy Bilyeau on Why I Love Novels in the First Person (includes giveaway)

Today we are pleased to be hosting Nancy Bilyeau as part of the blog tour for her book, The Chalice, which I reviewed yesterday. We are also hosting a giveaway of the book, so make sure you check out all the details of how to enter below.

Take it away, Nancy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I did not begin my first novel, The Crown, with use of first-person point-of-view. In 2005, when I joined a fiction workshop to work on a thriller, I had a setting—Tudor England—but hadn’t settled on a main character. Once I decided to write about a young Dominican novice at the height (or depths, depending on how you look at it) of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, I plunged into research of late medieval nuns and wrote the first few chapters in the third person. Although the plot quickly took form, I wasn’t happy with my writing. The character’s voice wasn’t strong enough.

Until I switched to first person.

I went back and told the story over again, but this time from inside the perspective of Sister Joanna Stafford. A new confidence flowed onto the keyboard. I felt I “had” her now. I could write this book. Five years later, I sold The Crown to Touchstone/Simon&Schuster and nine foreign publishers. Then I wrote The Chalice, the next book in my series, which came out earlier this month.

I’ve since become something of an aficionado of First Person, particularly in historical fiction and thrillers but also in other sorts of novels. In this guest post I’d like to share my favorite books using this point of view and what I believe makes each case special.

I’ve read The Persian Boy four times because there is something mesmerizing about this story of the beautiful young Persian eunuch who becomes the prized lover of King Darius, followed by Alexander the Great. I think what astounds me most about Mary Renault’s skill is how closely I relate to Bagoas, the main character, even though we are separated by millennia, gender, sexual preference—everything you can think of. Bagoas is the son of a noble family and in the first chapter he is a child who sees his father murdered and his mother leap to her death when a political rival destroys the family. Bagoas is sold into slavery, made a eunuch through mutilation, and later raped by the age of 12.

Yet although he is rightly bitter about his fate throughout the novel, Bagoas does not tell his tale solely from the view of a victim and he is not always a good person. Bagoas is vain and manipulative—and, most of all, he is arrogant. In the first paragraph of The Persian Boy, Renault establishes that characteristic while making beautiful use of detail:

“Lest anyone should think I am a son of nobody, sold off by some peasant farmer in a drought year, I may say our line is an old one, though it ends with me. My father was Artembares son of Araxis, of the Pasargadai, Kyros’ old royal tribe. Three of our family fought for him, when he set the Persians over the Medes. We held our land eight generations, in the hills west above Susa. I was ten years old, and learning a warrior’s skills, when I was taken away.” 

Now I’d like to share with you the opening paragraph of another of my favorite historical novels, I, Claudius. Robert Graves created an unforgettable character in an accidental Roman emperor, a despised member of an imperial family ruling Rome at its height. What’s interesting about this conception of Claudius is although his family and even his friends look down on him, we the readers, from inside his perspective, become aware of his intelligence, compassion and his self-deprecation. Claudius is the most blue-blooded of all but a man of utter humility. Contrast Claudius’s perspective of himself with Bagoas’s in the first paragraph of the novel:

“I. Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as ‘Claudius the Idiot,’ or ‘That Claudius,’ or ‘Claudius the Stammerer,’ or ‘Clau-Clau-Claudius,’ or at best as ‘Poor Uncle Claudius,’ am now about to write this strange history of my life, starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the ‘golden predicament,’ from which I have never since become disentangled.” 

Interesting, isn’t it?

Nancy Bilyeau

What first person also enables an author to do is to build suspense and tension from inside the mind of the narrator. This, may I emphasize, is not easy to do. Writers in third-person can jump around and let the reader know that bad things are coming, that the main character is headed for trouble before the main character realizes it himself. The reader can get ahead of the protagonist. But that simply can’t happen in the first person.

Allow me to share with you a longer passage, not from the beginning but from nearly the end of the fantastic novel Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. In this passage the narrator, the young second wife of Maxim de Winter, has arrived after a long drive to London at the home of the unknown Dr. Baker. The body of first wife, Rebecca, was recently recovered in a boat sunk off the shore of Cornwall and suddenly an accidental death is not looking so accidental. There is an inquest, and following it information is revealed that Rebecca saw a Dr. Baker shortly before she died and told no one. What the de Winters, their adversary Favell, and the county official Colonel Julyan learn in their interview with Dr. Baker will decide the fate of the narrator’s husband, whom she desperately loves. He could either be freed from suspicion, or if this interview yields a motive for murder, swiftly arrested, on his way to the gallows.

Here they have just found the house of Dr. Baker and rung the bell:

“It tinkled somewhere in the back premises. There was a long pause. A very young maid opened the door to us. She looked startled at the sight of so many of us.

“Doctor Baker?” said Colonel Julyan.

“Yes, Sir, will you come in?

“She opened a door on the left of the hall as we went in. It would be the drawing-room, not much used in the summer. There was a portrait of a very plain dark woman on the wall. I wondered if it was Mrs. Baker. The chintz covers on the chairs and on the sofa were new and shiny. On the mantelpiece were photographs of two schoolboys with round, smiling faces. There was a very large wireless in the corner of the room by the window. Cords trailed from it, and bits of aerial. Favell examined the portrait on the wall. Colonel Julyan went and stood by the empty fireplace. Maxim and I looked out the window. I could see a deck-chair under a tree, and the back of a woman’s head. The tennis courts must be round the corner. I could hear the boys shouting to one another. A very old Scotch terrier was scratching himself in the middle of a path. We waited there for about five minutes. It was as thought I was living the life of some other person and had come to this house to call for a subscription to a charity. It was not like anything I had ever known. I had no feeling, no pain.”

What leaves me breathless about this passage is how du Maurier builds the scene with detail after detail, never a generic or predictable observation but very specific descriptions. You are in this room, unlike any other room. The main character is feeling unbearable tension and that rises slowly through the passage until the end when it suddenly leaps off the page and grabs you by the throat. This is a section not so much written as crafted, as if du Maurier were a composer.

And, finally, because I believe first person can also be most effective when it is simplest, the opening paragraph of Lee Child’s novel from the point of view of Jack Reacher, Killing Floor:

“I was arrested in Eno’s Diner. At twelve o’clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain. All the way from the highway to the edge of town.”

There are countless ways to enjoy first person in fiction—these are just a handful of my favorites but I hope you, too, are enthralled by these masters of the craft. Thank you for having me as a guest poster on Historical Tapestry.

Tour Details

Link to Tour Schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/thechalicevirtualtour/
Twitter Hashtag: #TheChaliceVirtualTour
Nancy Bilyeau's website.
Nancy Bilyeau on Facebook
Nancy Bilyeau on Twitter

Giveaway Details

We have one copy of the book to giveaway

- to participate, just leave a comment, maybe about whether you like or don't like books told in the first person. Don't forget to include your email address in your comment.
- one entry per household
- open to US only
- closes 7 April midnight GMT

The Lincoln Conspiracy winner

Congratulations to 

Lara

who won our giveaway of The Lincoln Conspiracy.

We will be in contact shortly to obtain your address details and get your prize on its way to you!

Giveaway: The Lincoln Conspiracy by Timothy O'Brien

Today we are pleased to announce a giveaway of The Lincoln Conspiracy by Timothy O'Brien to Historical Tapestry as part of his blog tour!

About the Book

Publication Date: September 18, 2012 | Ballantine Books | 368p

DESCRIPTION: A nation shattered by its president’s murder. Two diaries that reveal the true scope of an American conspiracy. A detective determined to bring the truth to light, no matter what it costs him

From award-winning journalist Timothy L. O’Brien comes a gripping historical thriller that poses a provocative question: What if the plot to assassinate President Lincoln was wider and more sinister than we ever imagined?

In late spring of 1865, as America mourns the death of its leader, Washington, D.C., police detective Temple McFadden makes a startling discovery. Strapped to the body of a dead man at the B&O Railroad station are two diaries, two documents that together reveal the true depth of the Lincoln conspiracy. Securing the diaries will put Temple’s life in jeopardy—and will endanger the fragile peace of a nation still torn by war.

Temple’s quest to bring the conspirators to justice takes him on a perilous journey through the gaslit streets of the Civil War–era capital, into bawdy houses and back alleys where ruthless enemies await him in every shadowed corner. Aided by an underground network of friends—and by his wife, Fiona, a nurse who possesses a formidable arsenal of medicinal potions—Temple must stay one step ahead of Lafayette Baker, head of the Union Army’s spy service. Along the way, he’ll run from or rely on Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s fearsome secretary of war; the legendary Scottish spymaster Allan Pinkerton; abolitionist Sojourner Truth; the photographer Alexander Gardner; and many others.

Bristling with twists and building to a climax that will leave readers gasping, The Lincoln Conspiracy offers a riveting new account of what truly motivated the assassination of one of America’s most beloved presidents—and who participated in the plot to derail the train of liberty that Lincoln set in motion.


About the Author


Timothy L. O’Brien is the Executive Editor of The Huffington Post, where he edited the 2012 Pulitzer Prize–winning series about wounded war veterans, “Beyond the Battlefield.” Previously, he was an editor and reporter at The New York Times. There, he helped to lead a team of Times reporters that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Public Service in 2009 for coverage of the financial crisis. O’Brien, a graduate of Georgetown University, holds three master's degrees -- in US History,Business and Journalism -- all from Columbia University. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and two children.

www.timothylobrien.com

About the Giveaway

We have one copy of the book to giveaway

- to participate, just leave a comment. Don't forget to include your email address in your comment.
- one entry per household
- open to US only
- closes 30 November midnight GMT

Winner of Floats the Dark Shadow by Yves Fey

The winner of Floats the Dark Shadow by Yves Fey is...

Jennifer Hartling

Congratulations!

Thanks to everyone who participated in this giveaway and to Yves Fey's generosity.

Lots of winners!

Congratulations to the following winners of the various giveaways that we have run here at Historical Tapestry recently

Denise from So Many Books, So Little Time who won The Mirrored World by Debra Dean

Trish from Travel, Treasure and Tiaras who won A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick

Kay G from Georgia Girl With An English Heart won the SIGNED Copy!

Nae Priest won one of the e-copies.
Kimberly from Dabbling in Digital Media won the other one.

Elizabeth Chadwick on Finding Her Hero (includes giveaway)

Today, in honour of the US release of A Place Beyond Courage, we are pleased to welcome back Elizabeth Chadwick to Historical Tapestry to talk about how she chose to write about John Marshal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few years ago I wrote two novels that changed my life, not just by boosting me up the career ladder, but also by introducing me to the Marshal family. The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion were about one of England's greatest mediaeval heroes, a knight called William Marshal who rose from the ranks of the minor nobility and through a few useful family connections but mostly via his own prowess, charm and intelligence, became immensely wealthy and eventually the Regent and some say saviour of England after King John's death. He has mostly been forgotten by the country at large, but he has a strong global niche following, and when I wrote the novels about his life, they took off in a big way.

The novels completed, I looked around for my next subject to tackle, preferably with a Marshal connection. There was the father of William Marshal's wife, one Richard de Clare, soldier and adventurer, but his career was curtailed when he died from a leg wound relatively young. There was also the option of telling the story of William Marshal's children, and I may still investigate that particular one. However, since all five of his sons died untimely, working in the lighter moments would be difficult. However, there was another option waiting his moment in the wings…

While writing The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion I become interested in the father of William Marshal, John FitzGilbert. Some of you will know that William Marshal almost died in childhood. He was taken hostage by the King for his father's word of honour, and when his father broke that word, William faced being hanged. Obviously he wasn't, but the detail led me to wonder what kind of man would forfeit his son? When faced with seeing his six year old son killed, why would he say he did not care and that he had the anvils and hammers to beget better children than this one? On the surface, it didn't look promising. Even so I was curious; I wanted to know more.

Readers who follow my writing life, know that I use the psychic as one of several tools to find out about the past. For those who think it's all rubbish, I say just take it as another useful strand of imagination. When looking at a new project, I usually ask psychic consultant Alison King for taster sessions on different characters to see if they are the sort of person I want to write a novel about. We had taken a look Richard de Clare before I eventually decided not to choose him because of his early death. However, Alison accessed a vibrant red haired man with a powerful personality and a real delight in his baby daughter Isabelle.

When I asked her then to go to John Marshal, this was her initial reading.

I’m there and looking at something oval shaped with watery light on it. It might be an ornamental pool. It’s night time and the moon’s shining on it. I can see pincers and something like a modern rolling pin with handles and a roller in the middle. Now I am seeing something like a diagonal cross of a metal colour but a fabric texture on a metal background. Something to do with horses – it’s a piece of horse equipment. (The pincers were a symbol of the royal marshal, as was the horse equipment. We suspect the rolling pin thing is something to do with a pipe roll).

I can feel the character of John Marshal but I can’t see him. What I can feel is calculation. He’s not emotional. He’s strong, constant, he doesn’t veer off things once he’s fastened on them. He’s still youthful and not yet tempered by experience. He thinks well of himself and that he’s entitled to more than he has. He sees himself as ready for promotion.

I can see him now. He’s tall, well made, good looking, and straight like his attitude. Taut muscles, strong cheeks – of the kind that have lines down them. Strong mouth, straight across. His eyes are very interesting. They’re blue and tell a different story about his emotions. His eyes are powerful. They have an intense look, but it’s not an intensity of emotion although it might look like that externally. In reality it’s because he’s trying to work things out, to understand and calculate. People misunderstand it and take it for emotional intensity. It’s like when you get a pop star posing about these days and impressionable people think ‘Wow!’ but it’s a projection of their feelings onto the popstar and his look isn’t caused by what he’s really thinking at the photoshoot.

John Marshal is quite a dashing sort of man. I’ve got a feeling he wears his hair differently to the norm. It’s very short at the back, but there’s more of it on top, almost like a quiff. It’s light brown with lighter streaks in it. Hmmmm…very dashing, He works with his intellect more than his emotions and he is ambitious. Oh, must mention he has absolutely lovely skin – immaculate pores. So small you can’t see them.


Immediately I could visualise him through Alison's words, but even so he was still only one on the shortlist. The final choice came as I was heading out to do the weekly grocery shop with my husband and we stopped, appropriately enough at some traffic lights at a crossroads. Suddenly and very strongly I knew that I had to write about John Marshal. All the indecision fell away and by the time we returned home with the shopping, I was eager to get started.

Undertaking conventional research via primary and secondary historical sources, I began to come across a complex, intelligent man who not only knew how to fight his way out of a corner, but also how to play an astute game of politics. He was ice-cold under fire, and once he gave his word, he kept it, even if he had to face his own death, or sacrifice his son, who by his blood was an extension of himself. This may seem a contradiction when I mentioned earlier on that John Marshal broke his promise to the king, but it was one given under duress and to a man he did not serve, and the binding one was to John’s lady The Empress Matilda, and to her son, the future Henry II.

When A PLACE BEYOND COURAGE was published in the UK the first time around, it mostly featured a woman on the cover with John relegated to a corner of the picture. As a ‘nice dress’ cover it had a certain impact, but I never felt it did the subject matter justice. Now it has been reissued by Sphere in the UK with John in his rightful place, and is new out for the USA, published by Sourcebooks with a truly magnificent treatment. I’m an author. Of course I’m pleased for myself, but more than that, I am pleased for John FitzGilbert the Marshal. He deserves to emerge from the shadows and stand in his full light.

From L to R: US cover, new UK cover and original UK cover

Giveaway details:

- to participate, just leave a comment responding to the post or  maybe on which cover you like best. Don't forget to include your email address in your comment. Elizabeth Chadwick will pick the winner from the comments
- one entry per household
- open  to US and Canada only
- closes 9th September midnight GMT 

The Mirrored World by Debra Dean (includes international giveaway)

Synopsis

The critically acclaimed author of The Madonnas of Leningrad ("Elegant and poetic, the rare kind of book that you want to keep but you have to share" --Isabel Allende), Debra Dean returns with The Mirrored World, a breathtaking novel of love and madness set in 18th century Russia. Transporting readers to St. Petersburg during the reign of Catherine the Great, Dean brilliantly reconstructs and reimagines the life of St. Xenia, one of Russia's most revered and mysterious holy figures, in a richly told and thought-provoking work of historical fiction that recounts the unlikely transformation of a young girl, a child of privilege, into a saint beloved by the poor.

I often find myself fascinated by novels set in Russia. Whether it be the terrible siege of Leningrad or the final days of the Romanov family, I find it so interesting. I remember thinking a few years ago that it was kind of surprising that there is so little set in the world of Catherine the Great. Over the last 12 months or so, I have read a couple of books with that setting which goes some way towards rectifying that oversight, but I suspect that just like the country itself, Russian history is so vast that it would be difficult to read something about all the different eras!

This book starts in the upper classes of the Russian aristocracy in the latter days of the reign of Empress Elizabeth in the mid 1700's and through the reign of Catherine the Great. Whilst the reader is exposed to some of the key historical events and culture of that time, really the story is much narrower than you might otherwise expect. While other authors might be tempted to fill the pages with what are undoubtedly fascinating details about the glamourous life of the upper classes, Dean is careful to provide the reader with just enough to colour the book, but not so much that the reader loses track of exactly what it is that this book is about.

The book opens with three young women who are about to make their debut into society. Nadya, Xenia and Dasha are on the lookout for husbands. For Nadya, there is marriage to a much older man, Dasha is left for all intent and purpose on the shelf, and for Xenia there is an all consuming love match with Colonel Andrei Feodorovich Petrov. We see Xenia fall in love and then deal with the disappointments and tragedy that life brings her way through the eyes of her cousin and companion Dasha.

It is those tragedies which push Xenia out of what is perceived to be normal for a lady of her class and time and that prompts her to begin the acts of charity that she in the end was known for, and which in due course lead to her canonisation as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Whilst I did enjoy this book by the end, there is a pacing issue in my opinion. The book started really slowly especially as the author matches Nadya and Xenia off with their respective spouses, leaving Dasha to find her match much later in life. We are given small glimpses into the gift of foresight that Xenia displays but even then it was really only once she took the definitive steps towards becoming the religious fool after the tragedies of her life that I felt as though I was thoroughly engaged in the story. Given that the book is actually quite short the fact that at least the first half of it is quite slow means that there isn't enough time and space for this reader to recover from that slow beginning.

While I do understand why it would have been quite difficult to have Xenia as our narrator through the 'fool' section, I do wonder if the book would have worked better if we had of had more insight into Xenia as the main character rather than viewing her through the eyes of a third party, in this case her cousin Nadya. There were also sections in the book where the focus shifted from Xenia to Nadya's own relationships which was an interesting choice on the part of the author.

I have no doubt that when the author comes out with her next book (hopefully still set in Russia) I will still be interested in reading it because Dean is a good writer. She has a lovely voice and turn of phrase. This book just didn't meet my admittedly high expectations.

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for my copy of this book.

Rating 3.5/5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tour Details:

Tour Schedule
Debra Dean on Facebook

Also, be sure to check back in a couple of days when we will have a guest post from Debra Dean.

I am very pleased to be able to offer a giveaway copy of this book and it is and international giveaway!

Giveaway details:

- to participate, just leave a comment responding to the review. Don't forget to include your email address in your comment.
- one entry per household
- open internationally
- closes 9th September midnight GMT

Winner of Train Station Bride by Holly Bush

And the Winner Is....

Elizabeth at Silver's Reviews.

Expect an email soon, Elizabeth!

Winner of Georgette Heyer prize pack

Congratulations to 

Meg @ A Bookish Affair 

who has won the Georgette Heyer prize pack giveaway courtesy of Sourcebooks.

Look out for an email from us soon Meg!

Winner of The Brief History of Montmaray

Congratulations to 

Na

who has won the giveaway of The Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper. We will be in touch shortly.

Happy Birthday Georgette Heyer! (includes giveaway)

Here at Historical Tapestry we are big fans of Georgette Heyer, so much so that we held our first month long season in her honour!

August 15 would have been Heyer's 110th birthday and Sourcebooks is celebrating in style! Sourcebooks have now rereleased all 52 of her novels plus a couple of books about Heyer herself. Here are just some of the ways they are celebrating:

• All Available Georgette Heyer eBooks on sale for $2.99 from Tuesday August 14th – Monday August 20th! http://www.sourcebooks.com/readers/browse-our-lists/ebook-specials/1776-happy-birthday-ms-heyer-ebooks-for-299.html
• Get 30% off any Heyer print book during the whole month of August at the Sourcebooks store by using the coupon code HEYER at checkout! http://www.sourcebooks.com/store/fiction/georgette-heyer/
• Also, check out our Georgette Heyer Facebook page where we will be having discussions, parties and giveaways! http://www.facebook.com/thecompletegeorgetteheyer

We are thrilled to be participating in the celebrations by hosting a giveaway of a Georgette Heyer prize pack of 3 novels. Each pack will include one of Heyer's mysteries, a romance and a historical fiction novel.

In order to enter, we want to know how did you discover Georgette Heyer? Did you read your mum's copies, or did a friend recommend her? What's your favourite Heyer novel? Or if you haven't read her yet, why would you like to try reading her novels.

To get things started, I thought I would share my Heyer story.

I was originally introduced to Heyer when I went to my local romance bookstore and was browsing the shelves. The assistant was talking to me about what I like to read (historical romance being one of those things) and then she asked me if I had read Heyer. When I said no, she was rather insistent that I really, really needed to do so! I therefore bought a copy of Venetia. It is no reflection on her sales skills that I haven't actually read Venetia yet. Then Sourcebooks started to rerelease her books and so I started reading them. I really liked An Infamous Army, and books like Cotillion and since then I have gone on to read a mystery or two plus more and even went to a launch of Jennifer Kloester's biography of Heyer.

There are still plenty of Heyer books for me to read, but if I had to pick an absolute favourite of what I have read so far, it would be Devil's Cub.

Now it's your turn!

Giveaway details:

- to participate, just leave a comment telling us how you discovered Georgette Heyer. Don't forget to include your email address in your comment.
- one entry per household
- open to US and Canada only
- closes 26th August midnight GMT

Michelle Cooper on Why I Love Reading and Writing About 1930s England (includes international giveaway)

Imagine a global financial crisis, with the vast gap between rich and poor sparking off protest marches and sit-ins. Imagine the world is in political turmoil, with Western democracies struggling to deal with foreign totalitarian states that may (or may not) be a threat to world security, but are certainly trampling on the human rights of their own citizens. Imagine a time when rapid technological advances are transforming communication, travel, health and entertainment.

Okay, we don’t have to imagine any of this, because we’re living through these events – but so did people in the 1930s, and that’s why I love reading (and writing) about them. It’s impossible not to notice the modern-day parallels when reading about unemployed miners occupying the London Ritz in 1938, or about the League of Nations dithering over sanctions in 1935, following Abyssinia’s invasion by Fascist Italy. Then, as now, each week seemed to bring some fresh political crisis, as Hitler rose to power in Germany, Stalin tightened his deadly grasp on the Soviet Union, and Spain descended into a barbaric civil war. England wasn’t immune to ideological conflict, either, with violent clashes between Oswald Mosley’s Fascist Blackshirts and their Communist enemies. Those in England who longed for peace were relieved, though, when their Prime Minister finally returned from those tense Munich negotiations in September, 1938. Everything was going to be fine, Mr Chamberlain announced, because Hitler had promised peace. Peace for our time! Peace with honour!

Well, we all know how that promise turned out, but that makes the period even more appealing to historical novelists like me. There’s so much to write about if you set a book in 1930s England – particularly if your characters happen to be minor European royalty on a mission to save their tiny kingdom. In my Montmaray Journals trilogy, the royal FitzOsbornes clash with Nazis who are searching for the Holy Grail, help Basque refugee children escaping the bloodshed in Spain, argue with Oswald Mosley at a dinner party, fend off the attentions of the Kennedy boys (yes, those Kennedys) at the American Embassy in London, unwittingly antagonise the British royal family, have tea with Winston Churchill, and address the Council of the League of Nations. Plus, they do it all while wearing fabulous 1930s fashions!Because although political intrigue and thrilling adventures are a significant part of the Montmaray books, I also enjoyed writing about some of the more frivolous aspects of 1930s English Society. The young FitzOsborne cousins begin the series in genteel poverty, confined to an isolated and crumbling castle, but they are eventually taken under the wing of a wealthy and ambitious aunt. This allowed me to explore the final years of pre-war aristocratic glory in England, which were described so beautifully in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate.

The second Montmaray book, The FitzOsbornes in Exile, features grand country estates, complete with stables and tennis courts and artificial lakes (with an army of servants to take care of everything). There’s also a mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens, from which the FitzOsborne girls are launched into the Season. They experience debutante teas, fork luncheons, dinner parties, coming-out balls and a nerve-wracking presentation at Court. And, of course, they get to wear those wonderful 1930s clothes – evening gowns of chiffon and taffeta and tulle, glittering tiaras and strings of pearls, silk afternoon tea dresses and exquisite little hats (with sensible tweed suits and well-polished brogues when visiting the country). There are also, unfortunately for the animals involved, coats and stoles of mink, sable and fox (as Anne de Courcy points out in 1939: The Last Season, there were “no scruples in that pre-war climate about the right of the original owner to retain its fur coat”). Some values and beliefs have changed markedly since those glamorous, brutal, exciting years between the Great Depression and the start of the Second World War, but in other ways, that decade feels very familiar. And, as we all know, exploring our past helps us make sense of the present – and sometimes even allows us to predict our future.

**********

Michelle Cooper is the author of four novels, including The Montmaray Journals trilogy. The first Montmaray novel, A Brief History of Montmaray, won the 2009 Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature and was listed in the American Library Association's 2010 Best Books for Young Adults. It has just been re-released in Australia as part of the Vintage Classics collection. Its sequel, The FitzOsbornes in Exile, was shortlisted for several literary awards and was listed in Kirkus Best Teen Books of 2011 and the American Library Association's 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults. The final book in the trilogy, The FitzOsbornes at War, has just been released in Australia, and will be published in North America in October. Michelle lives in Sydney, Australia and is currently working on her next book. Visit www.michellecooper-writer.com for more information about Michelle and her books.

Giveaway details:

- to participate, just leave a comment including your email address. You could also add a comment telling us something you find interesting about the 1930s but you don't have to in order to enter.
- one entry per household
- open worldwide
- closes 19th August midnight GMT

The Secret Keeper Giveaway Winner

And as promised here are the winners of The Secret Keeper by Sandra Byrd. The winner of the US copy is:

missy

And the winner of the international giveaway is:

rosia_lady

Thank you to everyone who entered!! To the winners please send us an email at historical.tapestry at gmail.com with your address details