Tag Archives: Historical Fiction

Salvation Virtual Book Tour

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Historical Fiction / Biographical Fiction

 

Date Published: September 15, 2021

Publisher: TouchPoint Press

No one ever talks about what happened …

Summer 1971, Del Munro, a single mother of four, is struggling to make ends meet when Mother Franklin, a traveling evangelist, offers to take her daughters to the beach in Savannah.

For nine-year-old Willie June and seven-year-old Glory, restless at the end of a long, hot summer in Charlotte, it’s a dream come true. To their beleaguered mother, it’s a much-needed reprieve.

But what seemed like a blessing soon turns into a nightmare when the girls are pressed into service by the morbidly obese Mother Franklin whose needs are as outsized as her ambitions.

When the girls fail to return, Del, evasive about the details of her arrangement with Mother Franklin, panics. People begin to wonder if instead of sending her daughters on vacation, she sold them to the evangelist.

Salvation tablet

Excerpt 

 

Luther was Mother Franklin’s driver. At least that’s how he thought of himself. He spent a lot of time waiting around on her; her being so big and all meant she was a slow mover. He’d stand for what seemed like hours waiting for the old woman in one churchyard or another. This time of year, when the grass was brown and crackly and clover was the only thing showing green on the ground, he would kick at it with his shoe, grinding the clover until it disappeared in the red dirt.

That’s what that fat old woman was doing to him.Grinding him down.It wasn’t like she was really paying him.He was just part of her—what’d she call it?—retinue. My driver. A plate for my driver, she’d demand and the church ladies always did provide. It wasn’t begging. But it was charity. What he’d like was a little cash in his pocket. Even when they pulled into a filling station she’d get the bills out of her black square of a pocketbook and not let go of them ’til he was done pumping. Two dollars, she’d bawl in her wheezy old voice, and not a drop more!

Even though technically the station wagon wasn’t his, Luther watched over it like a jealous lover, noticing every little hint of trespass—fingerprints on the windows, mud on the floor, crumbs. He kept a little whisk broom under the driver’s seat and a red rag, worn soft, that he folded in half and then in thirds and tucked up under the visor. Every time they stopped for gas, he swept the floorboard on the driver side and wiped down the dash. When Mother Franklin was doing her business, he’d whisk her side of the car as well.

He was sure this dust-covered, paneled wagon would do better if they just filled it up to the top of the tank every once and again.He wasn’t anything more than a shade tree mechanic but he knew where to poke around under the hood and it was looking like there were going to be some serious problems soon enough.

About the Author

Avery Caswell

Avery Caswell is an award-winning writer whose debut novel, Salvation, will be published on September 15, 2021. Her previous work includes a collection of short stories, MOTHER LOAD, which Kirkus called “stunning” and LUCK: A COLLECTION OF FACTS, FICTION, POETRY & INCANTATIONS, which Lee Smith said was “a feast for the eyes, the intellect, and the imagination.” She studied at Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Duke Writers’ Workshop, and holds MFAs in Creative Writing and Design.

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Apricot Marmalade Blitz

 

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Historical Fiction, Humor

 

 

Published: July 2021

Publisher: ‎Page Publishing

A satirical romp through 1968 Thailand follows a team of US intelligence agents matching wits with enemy operatives.

It was 1968 and the war was not going well. The surprisingly-effective Tet Offensive in January had humbled and embarrassed the South Vietnamese and their American allies. It had sent a powerful message to the folks back home that this Vietnam thing wasn’t going to be over anytime soon. Americans in general were growing weary of its intrusion into their living rooms every evening on the six o’clock news.

Meanwhile in Bangkok, Thailand, just a stone’s throw from the battlefields, the special agents assigned to the 187th Military Intelligence Detachment, the US Army’s counterespionage arm, are dealing with the war and its implications for the rest of Southeast Asia in their own way. They dress in civilian clothes and carry credentials while performing counterintelligence investigations and surveillance of suspected enemy agents. As a group, they are an unruly and undisciplined lot whose often humorous attempts to carry out their assignments and stay out of trouble rarely succeed. The tone of this book has been compared to that of the classics “MASH” and “Catch 22.”

Apricot Marmalade paperback


About The Author

Lon Orey

Lon Orey served in Military Intelligence in the late sixties. Much of that time was spent in Bangkok, Thailand, after studying the language for a year at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. While this is a work of fiction, the framework within which the story is told reflects his real-world observations of the country and the various intelligence services operating there, as enhanced by a fertile imagination. Those intelligence services included the CIA, the KGB, and Thailand’s own intelligence agency, AFSC. He had fun writing this book, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and he hopes you will have fun reading it.

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Bloodroot Virtual Book Tour

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Historical Fiction

 

 

Date Published: 08-01-1021

Publisher: BQB Publishing

England, 1609. Matthew did not trust his friend, Richard’s stories of Paradise in the Jamestown settlement, but nothing could have equipped him for the privation and terror that awaited him in this savage land.

Once ashore in the fledgling settlement, Matthew experiences the unimaginable beauty of this pristine land and learns the meaning of hope, but it all turns into a nightmare as gold mania infests the community and Indians become an increasing threat. The nightmare only gets worse as the harsh winter brings on “the starving time” and all the grizzly horrors of a desperate and dying community that come with it.

Driven to the depths of despair by the guilt of his sins against Richard and his lust for that man’s wife, Matthew seeks death, but instead finds hope in the most unexpected of places, with the Powatan Indians.

In this compelling and extensively researched historical novel, the reader is transported into a little-known time in early America where he is asked to explore the real meanings of loyalty, faith, and freedom.

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EXCERPT

Chapter 8,  MONOCANS

P 113

The night slowly yielded, as it always does, to happy daylight. Never was I so happy to see it come. The dark, strange shapes slowly became bushes, or the trunks of trees covered with vines, or they disappeared altogether—mere night shadows. All manner of birds awoke and greeted the day with their particular songs. The sun warmed and dried the ground which yielded a sweet, wild scent.

The Lieutenant himself came to fetch us from our post, saying to me that we were less than a day’s march from the land of the Saponi, and there we might expect to bargain for fresh victuals and peaceful relations. So, after breakfasting on more dried beef, we continued our march along King James River, going further into the interior of this strange land.

The men had begun to grumble about the value of our undertaking and openly doubting that any of us would return alive. Lieutenant Webster did his best to appease them but, as the day wore on, their complaints grew stronger. The Lieutenant ordered a halt. He reckoned that we were well out of the land of the Monacans, and ordered camp to be made on a height next to the river. There were many hours of daylight left, and he ordered our best marksmen, of which I was not one, to go into the woods and kill the fattest deer they could find..

The Lieutenant himself went in search for whatever fruits the land would provide. He soon returned with his hat and shirt full of berries which looked similar to English strawberries but with a sweeter, juicer taste. We heard a musket report not too far off and, in less than half an hour the marksmen returned, bearing a large male deer strung on a carrying pole.

Every man in the camp, including myself, was most happy over the prospect of fresh meat. We set about dressing the deer and constructing several roasting pits. In a short while we had the best cuts of the venison sizzling over glowing wood coals. The unusable parts of the animal we buried away from our campsite. To clean ourselves of the blood and animal fat, we bathed and frolicked, like schoolboys, in the running cool waters of the river.

When the meat was done, we sat around the fire, naked as Indians except for a loincloth which the Lieutenant demanded that we wear. We feasted on well cooked meat until we could not force another mouthful down. We then lay by the fires, gorged as the most gluttonous of Romans, and instantly fell asleep. I hardly gave a thought to whatever Indians might be lurking about.

About The Author

Daniel V. Meier, Jr.

A retired Aviation Safety Inspector for the FAA, Daniel V. Meier, Jr. has always had a passion for writing. During his college years, he studied History at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW) and American Literature at The University of Maryland Graduate School. In 1980 he published an action/thriller with Leisure Books under the pen name of Vince Daniels.

He also worked briefly for the Washington Business Journal as a journalist and has been a contributing writer/editor for several aviation magazines. In addition to, Bloodroot, he is the author of the award-winning historical novel, The Dung Beetles of Liberia that was released in September 2019 and the highly acclaimed literary novel, No Birds Sing Here in April 2021.

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Salvation Blitz

 

Salvation cover

 

Historical Fiction / Biographical Fiction

 

Date Published: September 15, 2021

Publisher: TouchPoint Press

No one ever talks about what happened …

Summer 1971, Del Munro, a single mother of four, is struggling to make ends meet when Mother Franklin, a traveling evangelist, offers to take her daughters to the beach in Savannah.

For nine-year-old Willie June and seven-year-old Glory, restless at the end of a long, hot summer in Charlotte, it’s a dream come true. To their beleaguered mother, it’s a much-needed reprieve.

But what seemed like a blessing soon turns into a nightmare when the girls are pressed into service by the morbidly obese Mother Franklin whose needs are as outsized as her ambitions.

When the girls fail to return, Del, evasive about the details of her arrangement with Mother Franklin, panics. People begin to wonder if instead of sending her daughters on vacation, she sold them to the evangelist.

About the Author

Avery Caswell

Avery Caswell is an award-winning writer whose debut novel, Salvation, will be published on September 15, 2021. Her previous work includes a collection of short stories, MOTHER LOAD, which Kirkus called “stunning” and LUCK: A COLLECTION OF FACTS, FICTION, POETRY & INCANTATIONS, which Lee Smith said was “a feast for the eyes, the intellect, and the imagination.” She studied at Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Duke Writers’ Workshop, and holds MFAs in Creative Writing and Design.

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Daughter of the Yellow Dragon Blitz

 

Daughter of the Yellow Dragon cover

 

A Mongolian Epic

 

Fractured Empire Saga, Book 1

Historical Fantasy, Historical Fiction

 

Release Date: September 13, 2021

Publisher: Pangea Books

Genghis Khan united a nation and created a vast empire for his heirs. But after 200 years of civil war, his empire has fallen into the dark ages.

Mandukhai dreams of being a fierce warrior woman, but her dreams are shattered when she is forced to become the second wife to the Great Khan.

Unebolod spent his life in the Great Khan’s shadow, preparing for a day when he can seize control of the empire. But when he forms a dangerous alliance with Mandukhai, it swiftly transforms into a passion that could destroy them both.

Just as the two are certain their fate will one day bring them together and make Unebolod the next Great Khan, a young prince surfaces to steal the Great Khan’s attention and the hearts of the nation.

Daughter of the Yellow Dragon is the first book in a gripping, gritty historical fiction series based on the epic life of one of the most underrated women in history. The series draws you into a world of brutal Mongol steppe life, deadly political games, and supernatural beliefs.

 

Please be advised: This book contains adult situations, graphic violence, assault, and personal loss.

Other Books in the Fractured Empire Saga:

Lords of the Black Banner

Book 2

Coming December 13, 2021

Mother of the Blue Wolf

Book 3

Coming April 11, 2022

Empress of the Jade Realm

Book 4

Coming Aug 22, 2022

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Daughter of the Yellow Dragon tablet

 

 

About The Author

STARR Z. DAVIES

STARR Z. DAVIES is a Midwesterner at heart. While pursuing a degree at the University of Wisconsin, Starr gained a reputation as the “Character Assassin” because she had a habit of utterly destroying her characters emotionally and physically — a habit she steadfastly maintains. Starr’s new Mongolian Epic is based on the life of Queen Mandukhai — a powerful woman history seems to have forgotten.

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