She’s a 1940s ghost whisperer… #HistoricalFantasy #Paranormal #Giveaway

Blurb

Burdened with her empathic gift, Elizabeth Reilly wants to be free of it and fit in with normal people. Nevertheless, when the spirit of an old man asks for her help, she travels across the country to help him return home.

He’s the son of a ghost.

Gio Clemente is still angry with his father who abandoned him as a child. To help the father pass on, Elizabeth must persuade Gio to let go of his anger. Though he resents her intrusion, they are both stunned to find themselves fighting a profound attraction.

Elizabeth can accept his headstrong brand of love, but can Gio accept her gift—and believe in her?

The Passenger, a 1940s ghost story set in the California wine country, tells a tale of family connections, life-changing choices, and love—lost and found.

Excerpt

Elizabeth sat bolt upright in bed. She gathered the hand-knit blanket up around her shoulders to fend off the cold hovering around her. “Is someone there?” she whispered. The hairs on her arms stood on end. “I-I know there is, but I can’t help you.”

A presence vibrated within the room as if the air contained a beating heart. While no sound met her ears, Elizabeth sensed one building, and she braced herself for a shriek.

She glanced around the room, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Nothing appeared and the room remained silent.

Throwing back the covers, she swung her feet to the floor. The softest touch brushed her shoulder, sending chills scoring up her spine. Elizabeth bit back her own cry. She stood up and fumbled at the foot of the bed until she found what she was looking for. She grabbed her soft, cotton robe and threw it over her shoulders.

“I can’t help you.” Her voice trembled.

This wasn’t Paolo. He didn’t terrify her. She’d known from the start he wouldn’t bring her harm. He was her friend. This apparition frightened her down to her core.

“I can’t help you,” she said again and edged toward the door. “So leave me in peace and don’t come to me again.”

The air grew arid, and electricity sizzled through her. Visits like these terrified her as a child. They weren’t all like Paolo.

About the Author

Award-winning Minnesota-based author Joie Lesin is a life-long fiction writer and poet. She is most recently the author of The Passenger (The Wild Rose Press, 2024) and her work is also featured in Scribeworth Magazine. She has long been fascinated by anything otherworldly including mermaids and ghosts. Joie writes character-driven, emotional, atmospheric tales about heartache and hope.

Social Media Links

Website: https://www.jlesin.com

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/joielesin.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorjoielesin

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoieLesin

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@joie.lesin

Goodreads BookPage: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214564853-the-passenger

 

 

Buy Links for The Passenger

The Wild Rose Press Book Page: https://wildrosepress.com/product/the-passenger/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6WBVJB9

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-passenger/id6504288982

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-passenger-joie-lesin/1008401528?ean=2940185717905

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-passenger-48

Joie Lesin will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What could she possibly say? #MFRWHooks #SteamPunk #AltVictorian

Welcome to this week’s MFRW Book Hooks blog hop! My snippet from The Journeyman’s Trial seemed pretty popular last week, so I thought I’d share another excerpt from later in the story, after Gillian and Rafe have become lovers. Enjoy!

Blurb

If she builds it, will they come?

Technically brilliant and thoroughly wanton, Gillian Smith has found her vocation: designing innovative erotic devices for the Toymakers Guild. Lust is a lubricant to creativity at Randerley Hall. But what happens when two Toymakers fall in love?

The Guild’s tribe of talented, uninhibited engineers has embraced Gillian as one of their own. Edward Thorne, the perverse genius who founded the Guild, undertakes to train her in the skills she’ll need as a journeyman, from practical mind-reading to transcendental orgasms.

As Gillian labours to impress the charismatic Master, her enigmatic fellow journeyman Rafe both entices and frustrates her. Their passion seems to go beyond mere appetite, but in Randerley’s promiscuous and permissive environment, does love make any sense?

When the Toymakers receive a commission to equip London’s most exclusive brothel with the latest sexual technology, Gillian has the chance to demonstrate her formidable abilities as well as to help Rafe exorcise the demons of his past. She doesn’t realize she’ll be forced to choose between Rafe and her future in the Guild.

If you like intelligent, lusty women and kinky steam punk sex toys, pick up a copy of The Journeyman’s Trial.

The Hook

“Why did you play with me for so long, making me believe the Master had enjoined our abstinence? I’ll agree, I’m not the most patient woman in the Empire, but what about you? I sometimes worried that you didn’t want me.”

“Self-discipline has intrinsic value.” His voice was unexpectedly solemn. “It’s a dark world, Jill, dark and cruel. To survive, you’ve got to rein in your passions and sharpen your intellect. I’m training myself for the future.”

“Surely you have a bright future as a member of the Guild.”

He ran his fingers through her auburn tangles, then planted a tender kiss on her lips, but she felt a distance grow between them. “That may not be my destiny.”

Gillian remembered the Master’s story about Rafe’s background. Losing his parents under such horrific circumstances could not help but burden his spirit. “Put the past behind you,” she murmured, holding him tighter. “You’re not responsible.”

“The past?” He extricated himself from her arms so he could search her face. “What are you talking about?”

“The Master – hmm – he told me about your mother – and your father...”

“My father was framed!” Pushing her away, he threw off the quilt and bolted upright on the bed. “My cursed uncle engineered the entire charade because my mother refused his advances!”

“What?” Gathering the bedcover around her shoulders, she sat up beside him. She huddled closer, offering him her warmth.

“My father’s brother – the devil himself – lusted after my mother for years. Derrick is a wealthy barrister, influential and outwardly respectable, but my mother chose his younger brother, a lowly chemist, instead. Derrick never forgave either of them, and never gave up pursuing the woman he wanted. Long after I was born, the bastard continued to hound her. I’ve seen some of his disgustingly lewd letters. They served as evidence during the trial.”

“Your father’s trial?”

Rafe nodded. “The official story was that master chemist Peter Wystock discovered his wife’s infidelity and concocted a cunning poison to punish her for her indiscretions. In fact, my uncle stole the poison from my father’s laboratory, making sure that the labelled bottle would be found after Mama’s death.”

Gillian struggled to make sense of the story. “Didn’t anyone suspect your uncle’s involvement? From the letters, I mean?”

“He used a pseudonym, obviously. Mama knew who sent them, though.”

“But modern graphology—”

“And wrote with his non-dominant hand. He clearly spent years planning the crime, even as he continued to work at seducing my mother. Mama discarded the offensive missives, but Derrick bribed one of the servants to retrieve the most recent ones from the rubbish and plant them in her bedroom after her death.”

“That’s horrible. But how do you know—?”

“The filthy wretch told me himself, after the hanging. Gloating, he was, positively jubilant at the success of his scheme. You see, I was only sixteen. He’d been appointed my guardian. He loved seeing me suffer – hammering more nails into my parents’ coffins.”

Gillian seized his hands. “Oh my God, Rafe!” His face twisted with pain; he seemed a stranger. She wanted to comfort him, but what could she possibly say? Her own sorrows, the loss of her parents and her aunt’s shabby treatment, seemed trivial by comparison to this tragedy – this vicious crime!

Find all the buy links at https://www.lisabetsarai.com/journeymanstrialbook.html

Be sure to visit the other authors participating in today’s Book Hooks!

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Review Tuesday: A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern -- #Memoir #Leadership #ReviewTuesday

A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern

Crown Publishing Group, 2025

On the day that thirty-seven-year-old Jacinda Ardern learned that she was going to be the fortieth Prime Minister of New Zealand, she also discovered she was pregnant.

During the formal opening of Parliament a few weeks later she was so ill with morning sickness that she barely made it through the ceremony without rushing to the bathroom. She met that challenge, though, just as she did the many others of her premiership—most notably the vicious 2019 terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques and the Covid pandemic. Through a combination of intelligence, stubbornness and compassion, along with a leader’s skill for recognizing and relying on the abilities of her team, she made significant progress in implementing her Labour Party’s liberal policies and unifying her country behind her.

In A Different Kind of Power, Ms. Ardern offers a very personal history, sharing her experiences, her doubts, her mistakes, her vision and her accomplishments with an honesty and humility that’s rare among public figures.

I almost never buy hard cover books. After encountering an interview with the author in my local newspaper, though, I knew I had to read this memoir, as soon as possible. Right now, I need hope. I think many of us do. A Different Kind of Power reminded me that human values matter and that a committed individual can make a real difference.

I’d admired the author when she was PM. I’m not ashamed to say that my political and philosophical views align quite closely with hers. However, I didn’t know anything about her background or her rather unexpected rise to prominence. She grew up in a rural community, in a close-knit family of devout Mormons. When she later left the Mormon church because she disagreed with its views about sexual orientation, her parents and siblings continued to support her. From a young age, she had passionate convictions about many social issues, but she didn’t choose politics. Rather, other people recognized her strengths and encouraged her to use them for the good of her country.

Some readers might find this book boring or trivial, with its accounts of the daily conflicts between the demands of her public role and the pressures of her private life. I found this remarkably ego-free presentation refreshing. So many of today’s leaders are narcissistic to the point of megalomania. The memoir’s title is very apt. While Jacinda Ardern clearly understood the need to present herself as strong, competent and in control, she never succumbed to the illusion that she was some sort of super-woman—even though the media sometimes presented her that way. She wielded her power in softer, more subtle, but perhaps more effective ways than the ranting, self-aggrandizing leaders who currently dominate the world stage.

When Ms. Ardern was in power, her government accomplished remarkable things, including the implementation of widely supported laws that banned assault weapons within ten days of the Christchurch attack. Although she has been castigated in some quarters over her strict Covid policies, the New Zealand fatality rate was one of the lowest in the world, well below 0.1 percent of the population, more than four times lower than the U.S. She increased the availability of education, reduced urban and rural poverty and introduced policies that cut suicides dramatically.

The day she was sworn in as PM, a veteran journalist asked her “What to you want to do?”

Her reply sums up the whole book for me: “I want this government to feel different. I want people to feel that it’s open, that it’s listening and that it’s going to bring kindness back.”

Naive and overly optimistic? Maybe, but she and her team largely accomplished this during their tenure, without a lot of posturing or fanfare.

For me, that’s an inspiration.

Welcome back to Trapper’s Cove... #BeachRomance #PTSD #ChocolateLab

Sadira Stone has a steamy new contemporary romance—with just a hint of Halloween magic—set in her atmospheric Pacific Northwest beach town, Trapper’s Cove. Grab your copy today!

Blurb

A ghostly encounter transforms a Halloween fling into a life-changing about-face.

Battle-scarred Army surgeon Addy Connor faces an agonizing choice. Will she continue her military career despite unrelenting PTSD, or return to her stifling hometown to care for her venomous mother—or dare to reinvent her life?

After surviving an oil rig disaster, Kieran Gallagher has finally found peace as Trappers Cove’s lighthouse keeper. But the nightmares are returning, triggered by his passion for a beautiful military doctor whose struggles are so like his own.

Together, they confront haunting memories and a legendary ghost. Can these two wounded birds learn to fly again, or is their fiery fling doomed to crash?

Come to Trappers Cove for a midlife romance with passion, mystery, second chances, and an adorable retired military K-9 named Snoot!

Buy Links

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1DW4B6F

Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/kierans-light/id6746349792

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/kierans-light-sadira-stone/1147462722?ean=2940184606828

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/kieran-s-light

Smashwords: https://books.apple.com/us/book/kierans-light/id6746349792

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=7WxfEQAAQBAJ&pli=1

UBL: https://books2read.com/kieranslight

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/kieran-s-light-a-midlife-beach-town-halloween-romance-trappers-cove-romance-book-6-by-sadira-stone

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/229115516-kieran-s-light

Excerpt

She sighed. “When I tell people what I do for a living, they tend to ask a lot of questions. Sometimes, it’s nice to be anonymous, you know?”

Was she some kind of spy or special ops assassin? Images of sexy, bad-ass movie heroines dazzled his imagination, but he tamped down his curiosity. “Sure, of course. Everyone’s entitled to a few secrets.”

And keeping his ugly secret from her was his only chance to enjoy her company a little longer. Once women found out about the disaster and its aftermath, they inevitably bailed.

“Thanks for understanding.” She crossed the narrow room and sat beside him on the squeaky cot. Sandwiched between them, the dog thumped the mattress with his tail and laid his head on her lap, eyeing Addy with heart-melting adoration. She absently stroked his fur and stared off into the distance.

“Most people wouldn’t thrive in this kind of isolation.” She nudged his shoulder with hers. “Do you?”

“Ah, who’s asking questions now?” he teased.

“Sorry, that was too personal, wasn’t it?” Her gaze dropped. “This is my week for asking hard questions, I guess. I find myself at a turning point, and there’s a lot I need to figure out pretty quickly.”

“Like whether you enjoy isolation?”

“Sort of. And whether I could thrive in a small town.”

“Small like Bumfuck, or like Trappers Cove?”

“Are they that different?”

“Very much so.” He slapped his thighs and pushed to his feet. “Well, Ms. Mystery, are you ready to go up topside?”

“Lead on, Lighthouse Keeper.”

At the top of the final staircase, Kieran opened the heavy metal door while Addy clipped the dog’s leash to his collar. “Heel, Snoot.”

Unlike many visitors, this beauty displayed not the least hesitation stepping onto the platform. And like the well-trained soldier he was, the dog glued himself to her side, calm despite the swooping seagulls overhead, and contented himself with sniffing the wind that lifted his mistress’s hair.

It was always interesting to see how people reacted to the view up here. Some plastered themselves to the sturdy wall, jaws tight, lips bloodless. Some giggled, made giddy by the height. Some winced at the wind’s power. But not secretive Addy. She rested her hands lightly on the railing and slowly scanned the horizon.

“Wow,” she said at last, “I was about to turn back when Snoot tugged me toward this place. It’s…” She sighed through a misty smile. “What an amazing view. Makes me feel like I’m above it all, you know? All the petty day-to-day bullshit, the complications, the…” She trailed off, spread her arms wide, and closed her eyes. “The wind blows it all away.”

Kieran stepped up beside her, awed by how perfectly she expressed the comfort he felt up here. “It’s an excellent place to have a think.”

She gifted him a brilliant smile. “You’re a lucky man, Kieran Gallagher.”

“I am today,” he agreed, drinking in the sight of her—jade eyes shining, dark hair whipping in the wind.

She tossed off a laugh. “Are you flirting with me, sir?”

“Just a wee bit, ma’am. Do you mind?”

Her gaze held a playful twinkle. “I suppose not. What happens at the beach stays at the beach, right?”

About the Author

 

Award-winning contemporary romance author Sadira Stone spins steamy, smoochy tales set in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Her stories highlight found family, friendship, and the sizzling chemistry that pulls unlikely partners together. When she emerges from her writing cave in Las Vegas, Nevada (which she seldom does), she can be found shaking her hips in dance class, playing her guitar (badly, but getting better), exploring the Western U.S. with her charming husband, cooking up a storm, and gobbling all the romance books. For a guaranteed HEA (and no cliffhangers!) visit Sadira at https://sadirastone.com

Visit Sadira on All the Socials!

https://linktr.ee/SadiraStone

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sadirastone/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18568049.Sadira_Stone

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/sadira-stone

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Sadira-Stone/e/B07KWK5FBX

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/sadira0641/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sadirastone/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sadirastone.bsky.social

Author newsletter: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/q7x4c6

Tiktok: https://tiktok.com/@sadirastone

Author website: https://www.sadirastone.com

Author page on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/SadiraStone3467

I can’t believe you’re pleading modesty! – #MRFWHooks #SteamPunk #AltVictorian

Happy Wednesday! I’ve had guests for the past two weeks, so I didn’t participate in MFRW Book Hooks. Did you miss me?
Today’s hook comes from Book 2 of my steam punk trilogy The Toymakers Guild. This series has elements of both erotica and romance. In particular, The Journeyman’s Trial focuses on the deepening relationship between my heroine Gillian Smith and her fellow journeyman in the Guild, Rafe Wystock.

Blurb

If she builds it, will they come?

Technically brilliant and thoroughly wanton, Gillian Smith has found her vocation: designing innovative erotic devices for the Toymakers Guild. Lust is a lubricant to creativity at Randerley Hall. But what happens when two Toymakers fall in love?

If you like intelligent, lusty women and kinky steam punk sex toys, pick up a copy of The Journeyman’s Trial.

Series Blurb

Defying the repressive morality of the Victorian era, the Toymakers Guild uses advanced technology to fabricate bespoke sexual artifacts for the discrete pleasure of select clients. Its members are not only brilliant engineers but also sexual renegades seeking freedom from the prudish society that surrounds them. These are their stories.

The Hook

The obviously deserted cottage scarcely looked waterproof. However, a stout padlock secured the warped plank door, which yielded to Rafe’s key. The hinges groaned as it opened, revealing not the damp, musty, vermin-infested interior she’d expected, but a snug, neat space with clear signs of human occupation. To the left stood two rush-bottomed chairs and a rough pine table, flanked by a set of shelves holding pots and bowls. On the right there was a wooden bedstead covered with a red wool blanket, a tin trunk at its foot. Rush matting covered the packed earth floor. The far wall boasted a stone hearth. Though cold now, it held charred remains that looked recent. And wonder of wonders, several split logs sat piled to one side, along with a basket of apparently dry twigs for tinder.

Gillian stumbled into the dim room, falling to her knees in front of the grate. Though her hands shook with cold, she managed to prop one of the logs up against the wrought iron and stuff some of the tinder underneath. She found a covered terracotta jar of matches tucked into a natural alcove on one side of the chimney. Her teeth chattered as she tried to get one to light. After a dozen failed attempts, she tore off her gloves and tossed them aside. Finally she succeeded in igniting the twigs. A tiny flame strained upward, licking the underside of the log.

Wearied by her efforts and still racked by shivering, she half-collapsed in front of the hearth, watching the flickering red-gold filaments twine, merge and grow.

“Oh, well done, Jill! A fire’s exactly what we need!” Chill, damp air swept into the cottage as Rafe pulled open the door, then subsided as he shut it behind him. “Are you all right, then?”

He knelt by her side. His garments were as soaked as her own, but somehow he seemed to radiate warmth.

“I – I’m – so cold...” She wanted to throw her arms around him, to clutch him to her chest and bask in his heat, but she didn’t have the energy.

“Better get these off.” Without ceremony or hesitation, he started unbuttoning her jacket.

His touch shocked her out of her lethargy. “Wa – wait! What are you doing?”

He swept his damp hair off his forehead and smiled. “You’re drenched. You’re shivering so hard you can hardly talk. If you don’t shed those wet clothes, you’ll catch a fever or worse.”

“I – we – we scarcely know each other...” She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself. The sodden wool of her sleeves almost froze her palms.

“Gillian – we’re both members of the Guild. I can’t believe you’re pleading modesty!”

Indeed, what was wrong with her? Since she’d come to Randerley, she’d been naked, or nearly, more times than she could count. Why was she acting so weak, so cowardly, so ordinary?

“I – I don’t know – I...” Tears shimmered on her eyelashes.

“Hey there!” He stroked the wet tangles covering her head with a hand so gentle it made her chest hurt. “Don’t cry, Jill. You’re a bricky tart, just exhausted, that’s all. Look – tell you what, I’ll go first.”

Rising to his feet, Rafe shrugged off his overcoat and top coat, letting them fall to the floor. His vest and shirt soon followed. Before she had time to figure out how she felt about the whole situation, he stood bare-chested before the fire, which now burned merrily.

His lean, subtly muscled torso narrowed from sturdy shoulders to a slender waist. Aside from a sparse dark fuzz between his brownish nipples and a more pronounced trail disappearing below his belt, he was nearly hairless. His pale skin gleamed in the firelight, seeming whiter than her own. A livid scar made a shocking contrast, stretching from his ribs on the right almost to his navel.

Gillian bolted upright. “My God, what happened to you?”

“The one sword I didn’t manage to avoid, back in Kandahar.” He gave a wry grin. “I was lucky to survive.”

Buy Links

Kinky Literature – https://www.kinkyliterature.com/book/618-the-journeymans-trial-the-toymakers-guild-book-2/

Amazon US – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MQV4Y86

Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09MQV4Y86

Smashwords – https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1118032

Barnes and Noble - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-journeymans-trial-lisabet-sarai/1140567579?ean=2940165096259

Kobo – https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-journeyman-s-trial-the-toymakers-guild-book-2

Add on Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59740783-the-journeyman-s-trial

Audio Book (narrated by Mala Zhelanyiye)

Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Journeymans-Trial-Toymakers-Guild-Book/dp/B0BT8KBJV9/

Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Journeymans-Trial-Audiobook/B0BT8KKK5Y

Also available on iTunes

Be sure to visit the other authors participating in today’s Book Hooks!

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Fusing the ancient and the modern together – #AlternativeHistory #GuestBlogger #Giveaway @HawardTom

By Tom Haward (Guest Blogger)

Lisabet: Welcome to Beyond Romance! The Path of Redemption sounds very intriguing. So, why Rome? I've read quite a lot of alternative history, but it usually involves periods with which people are more familiar. Ancient Rome already has a mythic quality.

Tom: I think the mythic quality is what drew me to writing novels based on Rome. I wanted to break that mythic quality apart and explore the very human and fragile underbelly of Rome. The Path of Redemption gets really stuck into Rome’s fragility and vulnerabilities. This book is the third in my trilogy of novels exploring the rule of Rome in the near future and therefore highlights Rome’s weaknesses whilst trying to use all its propaganda to convey unrelenting power. And that’s what empires do: manipulate optics so the masses stay compliant.

I really liked that tension of power over people and trying to keep people ignorant to the fact that power is, a lot of the time, simply a perception which has no real substance. I always think about bullies at school who were perceived to be powerful and scary but flaked when their power was questioned. Empires are the same. One small rebellion can be like a butterfly effect and topple a Caesar.

The Path of Redemption explores that fragility and how a lot of power is more about ego and Rome is a massive projection of ego!

And that lack of familiarity was appealing to me too, because it meant I could show a little more flair with the history of Rome. I was able to mess with timelines and famous people’s places in history to make it appear ‘normal.’ Those who know their Roman history would, hopefully, nod to the shifts in the timeline and those who don’t know their history would still find it fascinating without being bogged down by it.

I think, ultimately though, writing novels based on Rome was about a romantic desire to fuse the ancient and modern together. I loved writing about ancient Roman traditions and shoehorning modern sensibilities into them.

I also loved thinking about how Roman would have responded to geniuses of humanity and what that would have potentially looked like. My particular favourite from The Path of Redemption is the history of Nikola Tesla and how his life affects America. It feels very relevant right now!

Blurb

With Grand Protector Faust missing and Caesar dead, Senator Frigus is trying to hold the fraying threads of the Empire together by keeping this information secret. The Empire is already fragile, and if the truth spills onto the streets of Rome and beyond, the Empire could crumble.

Faust is prisoner of the giant Bjorn Askå and his cellmate is the rebel leader, Boatman King. Abducted by Askå, they’re now part of his grand plan to rule the entire world, with the Empire his next target. Can Faust and Boatman forge an alliance or are their own ambitions stronger than any desire for a truce?

A continent away, Bella, Maverick and the other rebels have escaped to the RIA where they lick their wounds from the disaster of Faust and Askå’s attack on their underground headquarters. They believe they have covered their tracks and hope the 35, leaders of the RIA, will equip them to take the fight to Rome again, this time with the advantage of surprise.

Olivia King, though, is tired of the fight. Traumatised from being tortured at the hands of Maximus Nero and conflicted about her husband’s relentless desire to crush Rome, she is unsure whether she has the energy to keep fighting those who have caused her so much pain.

With the world and its people in turmoil, one thing is for certain: chaos remains in a world needing redemption.

Excerpt

Southwark London 2030

Marcus flipped his eyepiece up and walked away from the vantage point he’d found for spying on what Maximus was doing. There were other crosses lining London Bridge, but in the cold January night, the bodies nailed to those crosses were quiet. If any were still alive, they were conserving energy, swapping between trying to breathe and trying to push themselves up on their nailed feet so their lungs were able to intake some life-saving oxygen. The orange glow of street lights showed the odd misty puff of breath feebly forming and then dispersing, like death swatting away the attempt at clinging on to life.

Indeed, the early morning, just before the arrival of dawn, was quiet. Quiet didn’t mean calm and he was feeling the pulse of adrenaline rushing through him. All the soldiers around him were because if they were guarding the son of Caesar then there was a good chance rebels would be appearing. It wasn’t guaranteed, but Maximus wanted to make a show of crucifying someone and he believed twenty-five soldiers as his protection was a necessary element to that.

When Marcus and his comrades were called up to be ready to go immediately, a few soldiers pulled out their phones and texted their loved ones saying they were going on a dangerous shift and to be prepared. Marcus scoffed at their fear and told them so. The response was that Marcus was new to this city and he should prepare himself for encountering Boatman King or The Beast, because that encounter would likely be his last on this earth.

About the Author

Tom was born in Essex and at 4 months old he and his identical twin were adopted into an oyster farming family. Tom now runs the business as generation eight of Haward oyster farmers. He has a fiancée, a baby daughter and a cockapoo.

Tom has an MA in Creative Writing and has loved telling stories since he was a child, whether verbally or through prose.

The Path of Chaos was his debut novel. He is also working on a six episode comedy screenplay and tweets passionately about his family’s industry and the challenges it faces.

Website: https://tomhaward.co.uk/

Twitter: https://x.com/HawardTom

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tomhawardauthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hawardtom

Buy Link

https://www.amazon.com/Path-Redemption-Tom-Haward/dp/1962308375/ref=sr_1_1

Tom Haward will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Unravelling a fifty-year old mystery – #Thriller #FirstNations #Giveaway #Review

Blurb

Hallee Landry is a promising young Tsawwassen First Nations attorney and litigator with an enviable résumé and a bright future. At only twenty-seven years old, she is not a residential school survivor. Or is she? Everything she has understood to be true about her origins is challenged when she is kidnapped while in Kamloops to attend the annual Pow Wow. Now somebody wants her dead. But why? The perpetrators seem to be a confounding mix of low-level criminals and a sophisticated cadre of malefactors backed by someone high up at the Vatican. 

Hallee is bewildered to learn that her only allies are an elderly nun, a venerable old Catholic priest, and an Indigenous midwife. This motley crew of improbables faces long odds in unravelling a 50-year-old mystery before the opposing menacing forces erase history for good. 

Lurking in the shadows is a long-standing conspiracy of extortion, child abuse, kidnapping, and murder. The only clues on offer are an old drawing, a scratchy cassette tape, and a majestic totem pole. First-time novelist Ray Anthony Morris beckons us into the classroom and dares us to slip behind the curtain of an Indian residential school. Much like the backdrop of the mighty Fraser River, serpentining through the Canadian Rockies, this heroic story lifts our spirits on the wings of heart-choking tales of uncommon valour and then plunges us straight into the rollicking, white-water rush-ride of a sensational suspense thriller.

Excerpt

I think my panic would have been more acute without the hypnotic rhythmic motion of tires thrumming the highway. I was dead sure my eyes were open and yet, I could not see. Terrified even to ask myself in silence, I asked nonetheless: Was I blind or just emerging from some dark, propulsive nightmare?

My nose itched and I could have used a good scratch, but my hands wouldn’t do what I asked them to—they couldn’t move. I was pretty sure I had been asleep. If I’m honest, as I became more fully awake, more alert, the original dozy bewilderment of my earliest consciousness was caving from the onslaught of adrenaline, of fear.

I was fighting hard for basic comprehension. It occurred to me that my nose was itching because something, some cloth or hat, was covering my face. I struggled to draw a breath, and, speaking of that, I could smell my breath and was not impressed. The cloth was also rubbing against my ears. OMG! I was hooded!

That encroaching fear I referred to earlier had become full-on incandescent fright. I tried unsuccessfully to work my hands loose. I didn’t waste my energy on that exercise for long because I recognized the cold, hard plastic feel of zip ties digging into my wrists. Although my area of expertise was civil rights, not criminal law, I knew it was not in my favour that I was bound by zip ties versus rope or rags, or whatever had come…well, to hand—pun unavoidable.

My mind raced with unwelcomed images, whether from my time spent in a courtroom or from watching Law and Order reruns, I couldn’t be sure. Four hundred and twenty pound tensile strength nylon. Some of the manufacturer’s features included but were not limited to the following: double-tooth-in-lock for extra strength, pre-set for instant submission and, of course, they met the standards for law enforcement and military apprehension applications. It was not encouraging.

Review by Lisabet Sarai

When Hallee Landry is kidnapped, cuffed, gagged and tossed into the back of a van, she has no clue why. She reasons that she may have made enemies due to her occupation as a lawyer, but the taunts of her captors suggest that the abduction is somehow connected with her First Nations ethnicity. Fortunately, the thugs are as stupid as they are vicious and she manages to escape with the help of a pair of local men who turn out to also be members of indigenous communities.

She is welcomed into a circle of remarkable individuals. Father Danny and Sister Valerie had the misfortune to be assigned to a notorious residential school during the nineteen sixties. Ethan survived the school but saw his friends and loved ones abused and murdered. Hallee learns that she too has a historical connection to South Thompson Indian Residential School. She joins Sister Valerie, Father Danny and their comrades in a plan to shine the light of truth on the long-buried crimes of the school officials. Meanwhile their enemies – the shadowy figures responsible for Hallee’s abduction – plot to undermine the community of Native American bands about to unite at a grand Pow Wow ceremony.

Kill Pocahontas offers a brutal and uncompromising account of the horrors of the residential school system. Unmarked child graves discovered at school sites throughout Canada over the past decades have revealed the genocidal scope of this shameful collaboration between government and religion. This novel, though, makes history personal by describing in unflinching detail the cruelty, bullying, violence and sexual abuse directed at children whose only fault was to be born to a First Nations family. The story revolves around the fate of Hallee’s grandmother, raped and impregnated at age eleven by a priest, then murdered to keep his secret safe. Hallee’s new comrades are determined to uncover the evidence needed to bring down that wicked cleric, now risen high in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

This novel pulls no punches. One reason I signed up for Ray Anthony Morris’s tour is that I felt it was important to educate more people about the terrible injustices of the residential school system and the damage they caused to Native American society and culture, damage that persists even today. Kill Pocahontas succeeds in bringing these injustices to painful life. I will never forget Mr. Morris’s portrayal of the bullying nun who terrifies her charges until they lose control of their bladders, then forces them to sleep in their fouled beds, or the priest smirking as he prays over the grave of the girl he violated then had killed.

Using these historical incidents as a backdrop for a suspense plot was an audacious notion. I did not feel that this aspect of the book completely succeeded, however. While readers will applaud at the protagonists’ efforts to exact well-earned revenge on Hallee’s corrupt and mendacious grandfather, the plot becomes increasingly implausible as the novel progresses. The final resolution is pretty unbelievable.

The novel also has a tendency to divide the world and the characters into black and white. Hallee and her comrades are portrayed as warm, generous, clever, compassionate and courageous. The people working against them are arrogant, irredeemably wicked and in the case of lower-level minions, painfully dumb. While this dialectic enhances the tension between right and wrong, it is obviously an oversimplification.

In a similar vein, Mr. Morris depicts modern day law enforcement as helpful and supportive of indigenous rights. I had to wonder about this, given the complicity of provincial and national governments in the establishment and maintenance of the residential school system. I strongly suspect that the racism that fueled these abuses still exists in some quarters.

In fact, as an American, I knew very little about the background of this chapter in Canadian history. (I gather that many Canadians are similarly unaware.) Despite the novel’s literary weaknesses, it has succeeded in arousing my curiosity and encouraging me to do my own research.

I hope that anyone who reads Kill Pocahontas will have the same reaction. We cannot hope to prevent future wrongs until we understand those of the past.

About the Author

Anthony Morris was raised in the small town of Oromocto, New Brunswick. He was not raised to look the other way, not take a side, or not get involved. His friends know him as champion of fair play and an advocate for social justice and racial equality. He currently lives alone in Alberta, Canada.

This novel is a work of fiction but based on a true story that the author was simply compelled to tell.

Website: https://rayanthonymorris.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/55008628.Ray_Anthony_Morris

https://amazon.com/dp/1779622139

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