Giveaway ~ The Bone Tree by Greg Iles

Available now from Harper Collins

Greg Iles continues the electrifying story begun in his smash New York Times bestseller Natchez Burning in this highly anticipated second installment of an epic trilogy of blood and race, family and justice, featuring Southern lawyer Penn Cage.

Former prosecutor Penn Cage and his fiancée, reporter and publisher Caitlin Masters, have barely escaped with their lives after being attacked by wealthy businessman Brody Royal and his Double Eagles, a KKK sect with ties to some of Mississippi’s most powerful men. But the real danger has only begun as FBI Special Agent John Kaiser warns Penn that Brody wasn’t the true leader of the Double Eagles. The puppeteer who actually controls the terrorist group is a man far more fearsome: the chief of the state police’s Criminal Investigations Bureau, Forrest Knox.

The only way Penn can save his father, Dr. Tom Cage—who is fleeing a murder charge as well as corrupt cops bent on killing him—is either to make a devil’s bargain with Knox or destroy him. While Penn desperately pursues both options, Caitlin uncovers the real story behind a series of unsolved civil rights murders that may hold the key to the Double Eagles’ downfall. The trail leads her deep into the past, into the black backwaters of the Mississippi River, to a secret killing ground used by slave owners and the Klan for over two hundred years . . . a place of terrifying evil known only as “the bone tree.”

The Bone Tree is an explosive, action-packed thriller full of twisting intrigue and deadly secrets, a tale that explores the conflicts and casualties that result when the darkest truths of American history come to light. It puts us inside the skin of a noble man who has always fought for justice—now finally pushed beyond his limits.

Just how far will Penn Cage, the hero we thought we knew, go to protect those he loves?

My review of Natchez Burning can be found by clicking here

About the Author

Greg Iles was born in Germany but spent most of his youth in Natchez, Mississippi His thirteen New York Times bestselling novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide. He lives in Natchez with his two teenage children.

Website

Twitter @GregIles

Amazon UK

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Thanks to Felicity at Harper for this fabulous giveaway opportunity.




~**Good Luck **~

Blog Tour ~ Natchez Burning by Greg Iles

I am delighted to feature my review of Natchez Burning by Greg Iles on this global blog tour.

Harper
2014
Penn Cage Book 4

The Sins of the Past Never Die

A bit of blurb...

Raised in Natchez, Mississippi, former prosecuting attorney Penn Cage learned all he knows of honour  and duty from his father, Dr Tom Cage.

But now Tom stands accused of murdering an African-American nurse with whom he worked in the 1960s, when racist violence was at its peak.

As  he hunts for the truth, Penn uncovers a long buried secret that could place his family in mortal danger- a conspiracy of greed and murder connected to a viscous sect of the KKK.

Up against the most powerful men in the state , Penn faces an impossible choice: does a man of honour choose his father or justice?

My review...

Whilst this is book four in the Penn Cage series of novels by this author, Natchez Burning heads the start of a trilogy, which looks in more detail the effects of the racial unrest which happened in the United States, and more particularly, in its Southern States in the early 1960s.

The story opens in 2005 when Penn Cage, a former prosecuting lawyer, has returned to his home town of Natchez in Mississippi. Hoping to find some sort of resolution, Penn has immersed himself in local life and at the start of this novel in 2005, Penn has become Mayor. It’s a position he takes very seriously, as honour and duty are traits that Cage takes to heart. These characteristics, which he has learned from his father, Dr Tom Cage, form the core of Penn’s emotional stability. However, Penn discovers, that there are secrets in in Tom Cage’s past which hark back to the dark days of racial unrest, and when Tom Cage’s friendship with his nurse, Viola Turner, is opened up to scrutiny, dark secrets which have been long buried, start to emerge with disastrous consequences.

Natchez Burning is a forceful novel with a powerful agenda, covering the relationship between a son and his father, about the accuracy of truth and the integrity of justice, and, more importantly, it's about the threat of dangerously volatile secrets, which over time become have become so deep-seated that they become almost too  difficult to vindicate. The book hits the ground running with a hard hitting prologue and makes no allowances for the impact it wants to make ,which then goes on to set the overall tone of the novel.

The novel is long, coming in at over 850 pages, and there is much to absorb both in terms of the actual story line which unfolds gradually but also in the simmering undercurrent of racial conflict which is embarked upon in some considerable detail. There is no doubt that the author has invested a great deal of time and emotion into this narrative, it’s extremely well prepared and contains content which is, at times, quite uncomfortable but, this I think allows great insight into an era which saw huge social and political turmoil.

Natchez Burning is a little out of my comfort zone, as I hadn't read any of the previous books in the series, so I found it best to read chunks of the story in short bursts rather than large sections as this  worked better for me and allowed some necessary time to absorb the finer points without getting too caught up in the sheer length of the story.

If you are familiar with this author and his writing, and have enough time to invest in the trilogy as a whole, I am sure that fans of his work will be delighted with the way that this trilogy continues the Penn Cage story.

Best Read With...A starchily sour Bourbon and a packet of peanut M&Ms...

About the author

Greg Iles was born in Germany but spent most of his youth in Natchez, Mississippi His thirteen New York Times bestselling novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide. He lives in Natchez with his two teenage children.

Website

Twitter @GregIles

**Fabulous chance to win a paperback copy of Natchez Burning and a Tote Bag**

My thanks to Felicity at Harper for the invitation to be part of this tour and 

for providing this bumper giveaway opportunity to one UK winner.

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Good Luck


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The author in my spotlight is ....Martine Bailey

I am delighted to welcome to Jaffareadstoo the best selling author of 

An Appetite for Violets and The Penny Heart

Martine Bailey

Hi Martine and a very warm welcome to Jaffareadstoo and thanks for being our author in the spotlight today...

Where did you get the first flash of inspiration for -The Penny Heart?

Hi Jo. Well it's a bit of a story as in 2011 my son Chris and his partner were caught up in the Christchurch earthquake. Though they were thankfully unharmed, my husband and I flew out there to see them and have a long working holiday. For our first year, we house-swapped on New Zealand's East Cape, with an ocean view of the Pacific. One day I was walking on the empty beach and thought about life across the Tasman Sea in Botany Bay in Australia, where the British had set up a prison colony in 1788. Meanwhile, my husband was teaching Maori students, descendants of the original inhabitants of my new hometown. I had already glimpsed their strong traditions of singing, tattooing and celebration, and explored the remains of some stockaded fortresses on our street.

I then discovered Penny Heart convict tokens or 'leaden hearts', made by British convicts and now collectors' pieces in Australian museums. They were smoothed copper pennies engraved with messages for loved ones about to be transported from Britain on the Georgian equivalent of a trip to the moon – with just as little prospect of returning home. 

Many Penny Hearts have messages like 'When this you see, remember me,' but as well as pain at separation, some communicate real anger and defiance. The women's images particularly intrigued me: one shows a woman releasing a dove towards a transport ship, beside an anchor of hope and reads 'I Love till death, shall stop my breath'. 

In The Penny Heart, my character Mary, has a penny token engraved at Newgate prison with a rhyme that is part promise, part threat:

Though chains hold me fast,

As the years pass away,

I swear on this heart

To find you one day

Without giving too much away – what can you tell us about the story?

It is the story of two women with hugely different backgrounds and characters whose lives collide as a result of the Penny Heart. It is partly told by Grace, a sensitive and artistic young wife who finds herself at isolated Delafosse Hall, horribly attracted to her indifferent and selfish husband. The other main character is Peg, her housekeeper, a clever cook and - the reader realises - an escaped convict and talented confidence trickster. I wanted to look at a mistress and servant relationship from a darker perspective than in An Appetite for Violets, and take envy and revenge as far as I could go. 

Whilst you are writing you must live with your characters. How do you feel about them when the book is finished? Are they what you expected them to be?

Yes, I did live with my characters all through my twenty months in the Antipodes and beyond. My two women characters both developed and mostly I was surprised and pleased with the way they turned out. Grace, the mistress of Delafosse Hall, was harder for me to write as she starts out as terribly naive and gullible. Mary arrived almost fully formed in my head, as highly motivated and very dangerous. I see part of my job in writing novels as taking emotions to extremes, and this involved racking up the tension in a series of confrontations until only one woman could succeed. Now the book is finished I'm surprised at how hugely both women grew from my first sketches, and what an emotional rollercoaster it was.

Ocean View
New Zealand

Which character in the story did you identify with the most?

Superficially, I'm more like Grace – quiet and artistic. But then again I'm more determined than people would ever think, and very interested in justice and fairness, and sympathise with the underdog. Both of them have their troubles but clearly the balance of fate weighs more heavily against Mary, as she is poor and parentless in a brutal society. I had to draw on different parts of my personality to write them both, but like many readers, I truly admire Mary's courage and pluck. One of the questions in my Reading Group Guide is about how readers feel about the ending. More than one murder has been committed, but whether justice has been done remains a matter of debate. 

Your writing is very atmospheric – how do you ‘set the scene’ in your novels and how much research did you need to do in order to bring the place and people to life?

I love research about the way people used to live, old country houses, fashion, and everything from servant hiring fairs to elegant York Assemblies. I find it very useful to literally 'set the scene' by choosing a location and then sketch room plans, and make a pin board or use Pinterest. Delafosse Hall, the dilapidated manor where much of the action takes place, is based on a once abandoned Jacobean house called Plas Teg, near where I live on the Welsh border. 

Plas Teg
The inspiration for Delafosse Hall

The opportunities to shop in the 1790s surprised me, that women like Grace could choose furniture, wallpaper and fabrics at home from pattern books of beautiful objects. A star day for me was going to Berrington Hall, which contains many of the National Trust's historic costumes and gasping over the beautiful silks and embroideries. 

At the other end of the social scale, I'm also addicted to reading criminal trials, especially when I can catch people's voices in authentic transcripts. For example, the inquest and letters from Australia at the end of the book are loosely based on reports in The Times from that period.

And finally …can you share with us anything about your next writing project?

My current work in progress is an intricate murder mystery set in an English village. My research so far has sent me looking at the impact the seasons, traditions and rituals of country life. To get into the mood I recently went to the Acton Scott Museum, where the BBC's Victorian Farm was filmed. I had a lovely time pretending to be a 'Farmer's Wife', dressing up and making butter, feeding lambs and sewing around the table. When my worldly heroine is stranded in the village after a robbery, she combines forces with a mysterious hack writer and together they solve a series of riddles and enigmas. I am loving writing it.

The Penny Heart is a Sunday Times Summer Read and is available from Hodder Books in paperback from the 28 July 2016. It is also published by St Martin’s Press in the US as A Taste For Nightshade. 

More about The Author

Visit Martine's website

Follow on Twitter  @MartineBailey #ThePennyHeart

Find on Facebook

 Martine is offering one lucky winner the chance to win a signed copy of The Penny Heart in this fabulous giveaway

Open to UK residents only

Giveaway ends 15th August ~ Good Luck

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Huge thanks to Martine for spending time with us today and for her generous giveaway. It's been great fun learning more about the inspiration for The Penny Heart.



You can see my review of this fabulous story here.

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Charlotte Brontë Bicentenary 1816-2016

Charlotte Brontë was born on April 21st 1816 in Thornton, a suburb of Bradford. In 1820, she and her family moved to the small town of Haworth which snuggled into a corner of the wild Yorkshire Dales.

 ©Digital Images

Charlotte’s father Patrick took over as minister at the church of St Michael’s and All Angels and the Brontë family moved into the adjacent parsonage.

 ©Digital Images

Sadly, Maria, Charlotte’s mother, died in 1821, leaving husband Patrick, and her Maria’s sister Elizabeth Branwell, to look after the children,Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell.

In August 1824 Patrick sent Charlotte, Emily, Maria and Elizabeth to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire. Charlotte maintained that the school's poor conditions permanently affected her health and physical development, and hastened the deaths of Maria (born 1814) and Elizabeth (born 1815), who both died of tuberculosis in June 1825. After the deaths of her older sisters her father took Charlotte and Emily from the school. It is thought that Charlotte used the school as the basis for Lowood School in Jane Eyre.

Back at the Howarth Parsonage, Charlotte and her surviving siblings Anne, Emily and Branwell escaped into a fictional world, where they made up stories to entertain each other. These fictional escapades laid the foundation for what was to come.

 ©Digital Images

Charlotte grew to adulthood and was educated between 1831 and 1832 at Roe Head in Mirfield. She later spent time there as a teacher in 1835-1838. In 1839 Charlotte took up the position of governess to a Yorkshire family. In 1842, Charlotte and her sister Emily travelled to Brussels where they enrolled in a boarding school run by Monsieur Constantin Héger and his wife. In return for board and lodgings, Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music. This experience in Brussels and Charlotte’s infatuation with Héger gave Charlotte the inspiration for her novels, The Professor and Villette. The sister’s time at the school was cut short by the death of their aunt Branwell and Emily returned to Haworth in 1842, whilst Charlotte returned to Brussels only to return to Haworth in 1844.

In May 1846 Charlotte, Emily and Anne now living together at the Parsonage decided to self-finance the publication of a joint collection of poems under their assumed names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

On the use of a male pseudonym Charlotte wrote:

"Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because — without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called "feminine" – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise"

Charlotte Brontë Novels

1847 Jane Eyre

1849 Shirley

1853 Villette

1857 The Professor (published posthumously)

1860 Emma (unfinshed)

Tragically, the Brontë family suffered the deaths of three of its members within eight months. In September 1848 Branwell died of an illness made worse by heavy drinking, although Charlotte believed that his death was due to tuberculosis. Emily became seriously ill shortly after Branwell’s funeral and died of pulmonary tuberculosis in December 1848. Anne died of the same disease in May 1849.

Charlotte Brontë continued to live at the Howarth parsonage with her father. In June 1854 she married her father’s curate Arthur Bell Nicholls. Charlotte became pregnant shortly after their wedding but sadly, died with her unborn child, in March 1855, just three weeks before her thirty-ninth birthday. She is buried along with other family members in the family vault in the church of St Michael and All Angels.

 ©Digital Images

All the images you see were taken on my visit to Haworth were I spent time in the shadow of the Brontës , making literature come alive in my imagination.

To celebrate this Bicentenary I am giving away a paperback copy of my favourite Charlotte Brontë  classic...

Jane Eyre

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Guest Author is Alison Morton author of INSURRECTIO ....and a fabulous GIVEAWAY!

I am delighted to welcome back to Jaffareadstoo

Alison Morton 

Her latest novel INSURRECTIO was published on the 12th April

Silverwood Books
12 April 2016

A twentieth century Roman heroine?

Aurelia Mitela came to life when I was writing the first Roma Nova book, INCEPTIO. Then, she was the clever, worldly-wise grandmother of Carina, INCEPTIO’s heroine. In PERFIDITAS, six years on, we see Aurelia, now in her mid-seventies, the cool politician and ex-Praetorian, holding the family together after they’d been falsely arrested:

“[Aurelia to Carina] ‘I’ve been through a great deal worse. I’m not a little old lady out of some genteel novel.’ 

No, she truly wasn’t. She’d been Praetorian Guard Special Forces in her time. Although now in her mid-seventies, she definitely belonged to the “tough gals” league. 

Throughout the first three books, INCEPTIO, PERFIDITAS and SUCCESSIO, we catch glimpses of Aurelia’s early life, but even more, a whole range of questions are thrown up. What did she do in the Great Rebellion nearly twenty-three years before the time of INCEPTIO? Why is she so anxious when she compares the villain in SUCCESSIO to Caius Tellus, the brutal ‘First Consul’ who instigated the rebellion all those years ago? Who was the great love of Aurelia’s life that Carina only learns about in SUCCESSIO?

In AURELIA, the fourth book which takes us back to the late 1960s when Aurelia was a tough young woman just 30 years old. She’s accused of murder while on a mission to Berlin, and while in remand undergoes a (hostile) psychological assessment. Here’s the report on her:

Subject is highly rational, quick-minded and a natural leader. She sees nothing is impossible given enough time and resources. Subject has the confident personality and willpower to pursue and implement her goals, easily bringing others with her. A dominant personality.

Strategic thinker, curious, innovative, able to grasp and deal with problems with determination and precision. Energetic and excellent communication skills, happy to confront and negotiate with others. Intelligent enough to recognise other people’s talents, and work with them. Requires challenges and even failures, or her self-confidence could easily turn into arrogance and condescension.

Personalities of this type cannot tolerate inefficiency or those whom they perceive as lazy or incompetent. They can be chillingly cold and ruthless when the situation arises, operating purely on logic and rationality. 

This is a slant on the classic ENTJ personality  profile from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a psychometric test system popular in business to indicate psychological preferences about how people perceive the world and make decisions. I needed to make the report negative for the story, but positive aspects of this type of personality are that they are conceptual and global thinkers, able to see connections where others don’t, and to think ahead. Couple this with the intuition and sense of fair play many ENTJs possess, it can make life frustrating for this personality when people around them don’t grasp things the way they do. Of course, this conflict is a gift for a writer…

In essence, Aurelia is a blood-and-bone Roma Novan whose values are based on traditional ancient Roman ones; tough, loyal with a strong sense of duty and fully aware of her responsibilities as head of a great family. But her desire to keep all the balls juggling in the air with precise timing leads to her being riven by guilt if she doesn’t perform a hundred per cent.

Aurelia

Aurelia has one big vulnerability, her love for her frail daughter, Marina. This vulnerability, and willingness to sacrifice everything for Marina, is also her greatest strength, along with her determination to serve her country.

Is she sympathetic? Yes, because under all that resolution and toughness, she is still a human being who experiences fear, love, despair and grief. She bitterly misses the strong comradeship of her earlier military career, and is exhilarated when going back into action. And then, there is her devotion to her life-long love, elusive though he sometimes is…

INSURRECTIO, which came out a few days ago, is set twelve years later.  Aurelia’s nemesis has returned and is not only intent on destroying her but also on grabbing power in Roma Nova. Whether Aurelia can summon enough inner strength to challenge him, preserve her inner core and survive is the question at the heart of INSURRECTIO.

Caius Tellus

WATCH THE TRAILER

About Alison

Even before she pulled on her first set of combats, Alison Morton was fascinated by the idea of women soldiers. Brought up by a feminist mother and an ex-military father, it never occurred to her that women couldn’t serve their country in the armed forces. Everybody in her family had done time in uniform and in theatre all over the globe.

Busy in her day job, Alison joined the Territorial Army in a special communications regiment and left as a captain, having done all sorts of interesting and exciting things no civilian would ever know or see. Or that she can talk about, even now…

But something else fuels her writing… Fascinated by the mosaics at Ampurias (Spain), at their creation by the complex, power and value-driven Roman civilisation she started wondering what a modern Roman society would be like if run by strong women.

Alison lives in France with her husband and writes Roman-themed thrillers with tough heroines.

Social media links

Connect with Alison on her Roma Nova site: http://alison-morton.com

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/AlisonMortonAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/alison_morton @alison_morton

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5783095.Alison_Morton

Buying link for INSURRECTIO: (multiple retailers/formats):

http://alison-morton.com/books-2/insurrectio/where-to-buy-insurrectio/

ENTER THIS FABULOUS GIVEAWAY TO WIN A  SIGNED COPY OF INSURRECTIO


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Huge thanks to Alison for her generous giveaway opportunity and for being , as always, a lovely guest on the blog.




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Blog Tour ~ February Fiesta with Hannah Fielding...

Introducing… 


Hannah Fielding

Hannah Fielding is an incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told, Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later – following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe, falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and a career in property development – Hannah decided after so many years of yearning to write that the time was now. Today, she lives the dream: writing full time at her homes in Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up romances overlooking breath-taking views of the Mediterranean. 

To date, Hannah has published four passionate, evocative novels: Burning Embers, a ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’, set in Kenya; the award-winning Echoes of Love, ‘an epic love story that is beautifully told’, set in Italy; and books 1 and 2 of the Andalusian Nights trilogy, set in sultry Spain, entitled Indiscretion and Masquerade. She is currently working on her fifth book, Legacy, which will publish this spring.

     

A glimpse of Burning Embers....

When she woke up, the sun was setting rapidly, casting its reflection on the treetops, the rocks, and the water, painting them with the most beautiful shades of orange, purple, and crimson. The vague recollection of a dream played on the edge of her mind in which Rafe whispered her name tenderly and brushed her lips with a kiss. Coral dragged herself up on her elbows, her eyes still filled with sleep, her body still numb with a pleasurable indolence. She blinked, and then her eyes widened. Was she still dreaming?

He emerged out of the lake, the declining sun drenching him with aureate light, the droplets on his body iridescent in their beams. He walked confidently toward her, almost every inch of his sculptured body exposed in his black swimsuit. Each sharp contour of muscle glistened, each limb unfolded with lithe grace as he approached, his eyes riveted on her. Coral watched spellbound, a yearning surging up within her, eager and expectant. The air around them trembled with infinite anticipation.

He was taking his time, and Coral felt that he was deliberately delaying, tormenting them both with the ache of unsatisfied desire until it was so overwhelming that neither of them could bear it any longer.

A few paces from her, Rafe stilled. Coral stared up at him, her lips slightly parted, and their eyes met and held. He reached out a hand, his face intent.

©Hannah Fielding

You can read my review of Burning Embers here


Hannah is offering this wonderful prize in this amazing Blog Tour giveaway..


Main Prize – A £100/$150 Amazon Gift Card

Runners-up Prizes – Each of Hannah Fielding’s novels in paperback (INT postage)

Find out More Details here

Please use this Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway

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Huge thanks to Hannah for inviting me to be part of her fabulous February Fiesta Blog Tour and good luck to all those entering this generous, giveaway opportunity.

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