R Cawkwell

Promo and Giveaway!: Last Star Standing, by Spaulding Taylor

PAPERBACK
978-1-78965-097-6
198 × 129 mm
4 February 2021
£10.99 / $14.99 / C$19.99 /€11.66
EBOOK
978-1-78965-098-3
ePub
4 February 2021
£5.99 / $7.99 / C$10.99 /€6.66

Dystopian/speculative fiction for readers of sci-fi, fantasy, thrillers and
dystopian fiction. Aimed at readers of novels by Neil Gaiman, J.G. Ballard (or
Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go)

It is the 23rd century. Aiden, imprisoned, stares up into a tiny square of sky. A prominent member of the rebellion, he expects to be executed. Aiden is
battling the Xirfell rulers, whose King oppresses many planets, the Earth
included.
But the Xirfell have executed their king and installed a new ruler. The populace riots. Amid the tumult, Aiden is sworn in, the leader he’s always longed to be.
Never one to fit in, he must re-discover himself, as an indigenous Australian, as a fighter, as a lover – and as a leader.

Giveaway!

https://widget.gleamjs.io/e.js

AUTHOR DETAILS

Alice McVeigh (writing as Spaulding Taylor) was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Southeast Asia. After surviving her teenage years in McLean,
Virginia, and achieving an undergraduate degree in cello performance at the internationally renowned Jacobs School of Music, she came to London to study cello with William Pleeth. There she worked for over a decade with orchestras including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique. Alice was first published in the late 1990s when her two contemporary novels (While the Music Lasts and Ghost Music) were published by Orion to critical acclaim.

Review: The Crow Folk, by Mark Stay

04 February 2021 | Paperback Original | £8.99

Faye Bright always felt a little bit different. And today she’s found out why. She’s just stumbled across her late mother’s diary which includes not only a spiffing recipe for jam roly-poly, but spells, incantations, runes and recitations… a witch’s notebook.

And Faye has inherited her mother’s abilities.

Just in time, too. The Crow Folk are coming. Led by the charismatic
Pumpkinhead, their strange magic threatens Faye and the villagers. Armed with little more than her mum’s words, her trusty bicycle, the grudging help of two bickering old ladies, and some aggressive church bellringing, Faye will find herself on the front lines of a war nobody expected.

Fall in love with the extraordinary world of Faye Bright – it’s Maisie Dobbs meets The Magicians.

Pen and Sword TBR Pile Review: Balloons and Airships, by Anthony Burton

This book tells the often dramatic and always fascinating story of flight in lighter than air machines. For centuries man had dreamed of flying, but all attempts failed, until in 1782 the Montgolfier brothers constructed the world’s first hot air balloon The following year saw the first ascent with aeronauts – not human beings but a sheep, a duck and a cockerel. But it was not long before men and women too took to the air and became ever more adventurous. The aeronauts became famous giving displays before crowds of thousands, often accompanied by special effects.

In the early years, ballooning was a popular pastime, but in the 19th century it found a new use with the military. Balloons were used to send messages out during the Siege of Paris and later found a role as observation balloons for the artillery. But their use was always limited by the fact that they were at the mercy of the wind. There were numerous attempts at steering balloons, and various attempts were made to power them but it was the arrival of the internal combustion engine that saw the balloon transformed into the airship. The most famous developer of airships was Graf von Zeppelin and the book tells the story of the use of his airships in both peacetime and at war. There were epic adventures including flights over the poles and for a time, commercial airships flourished – then came the disaster of the Hindenburg. Airships still fly today and ballooning has become a hugely popular pastime.

Review: Smoke Screen, by Thomas Enger & Jorn Lier Horst

SMOKE SCREEN
by Thomas Enger & Jørn Lier Horst
translated by Megan Turney
PUBLICATION DATE: 18 FEBRUARY 2021 | ORENDA BOOKS | PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £8.99

Oslo, New Year’s Eve. The annual firework celebration is rocked by an explosion and the city is put on terrorist alert.

Police officer Alexander Blix and blogger Emma Ramm are on the scene, and when a severely injured survivor is pulled from the icy harbour, she is identified as the mother of two-year-old Patricia Semplass, who was kidnapped on her way home from kindergarten ten years earlier … and never found.

Blix and Ramm join forces to investigate the unsolved case, as public interest heightens, the terror threat is raised, and it becomes clear that Patricia’s disappearance is not all that it seems…

The second in the hard-boiled and furiously compelling Blix & Ramm series, created by Thomas Enger and Jørn Lier Horst, two of the biggest names in Nordic Noir.

Extract Post: Takakush-Genus Magica Book 1 by Raine Reiter @rainereiter @lovebooksgroup #lovebookstours

www.twanohpress.com/takakush

Genre: Dark Fantasy, Paranormal, Contemporary Fantasy, Magical Realism

Takakush-Genus Magica Book 1 by Raine Reiter

Evil stalks the rainforest.

When Professor Elena Lukas returns to her cosy Pacific Northwest hometown with a broken heart, she’s plunged back into the fate she tried to escape. Like her mother and grandmother before her, Elena must now dedicate her life to a powerful ancient Lithuanian goddess. Although she is prepared to live as a priestess hiding in a contemporary tourist town, she arrives to find that a series of so-called animal attacks have terrorized her forest.

With the help of a handsome detective from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Elena uses her expertise in invasive and endangered species to identify that these are no normal animal attacks. The woods are stalked by a dark, mystical creature bent on ravaging the area in an attempt to quell its insatiable hunger. When her little sister goes missing, Elena realizes that the beast can only be vanquished if she is brave enough to face it in-person, embrace her identity as a high priestess, and expose her powers to the man she cares for.

“A fantastic tale that weaves a spell of ancient mysticism and modern charm.” –Tim Marquitz, Author of the Demon Squad series, The Enemy of My Enemy series, and more

Blog Tour Calendar: The Crow Folk, by Mark Stay

Blog Tour Calendar: Last Star Standing, by Spaulding Taylor

Cover Reveal: Being, by Lynn Mann @LynnBMann1 @BEING_LBM @lovebookgroup #lovebookstours

Blurb

You know how to be a human thinking,

and a human doing, but do you know

how to be a human BEING?

BEING isn’t just the absence of doing. It’s a dynamic place within you. Transform your experience of life by developing the ability to inhabit it. Discover how to cultivate the five states of BEING, and create all that your life can be – from your true self. BEING is a practical roadmap, and offers the antidote to the chaos that living in our head creates for us: psychologically, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. In learning to inhabit Being, you will find:

– True rest and relaxation

– Mental peace and emotional equilibrium

– The true voice of your authentic self

– A sense of empowerment

– Your own vision and a framework for how to create it.

– How to fulfil the promise of your unique potential as a human being.

BEING is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle meets Untamed by Glennon Doyle.

Book Blitz: What The World Needs Now: Bees!, by @cherylrosebush @freshly_press @lovebooksgroup #lovebookstours

Blurb

Inside the sprawling forests of Ontario, Canada lives a friendly black bear named Melly. One of Melly’s favourite things to do is EAT! And many of the delicious fruits she snacks on wouldn’t grow without the help of some very important little forest creatures.

What the World Needs Now: Bees! explores the vital role busy, busy bees play in helping plants to grow the food people and animals love to eat.

Author Bio

I was born and raised in Southern Ontario, Canada in the cities of Burlington and St. Catharines. Long before the internet and mobile phones (now I’m ageing myself!), my childhood was spent in forests and parks, on bike rides, and playing hide and seek until the streetlights came on. My family did comical Griswold-style road trips in wood-panelled station wagons. We spent summers swimming in friends’ backyards. These are my very fortunate roots.

I knew from an early age that my destiny would take me far from Southern Ontario. I graduated high school and moved to Montreal to study international politics at McGill University. The subject fascinated me, but as graduation approached, I realized I didn’t know what I wanted to do with a degree in international politics. I didn’t want to become a lawyer. I didn’t want to become a politician or civil servant. The media industry, on the other hand, intrigued me.

The West Coast of Canada also intrigued me. So, after graduating McGill, I packed up again, moved to Vancouver and took the first media job I could get at a local Top 40 radio station (Z.95.3) in Vancouver. Best job. Great bosses. I learned so much. But after a couple of years there, the winds of change came calling again.

September 11, 2001. In a heartbeat, Z95.3 went from playing Britney Spears to reporting up-to-the-minute information on the local, national and international fallout of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. In that moment, I knew I had found my calling. I wanted to do something that was needed on a good day, and needed even more on a bad day. I wanted to become a full-time journalist.

So, I packed my bags again (a running theme in my life), and moved to Ottawa, Ontario to do my Masters of Journalism. Another incredible two years culminated in me getting a research internship with the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) in London, England. That position helped me land back in Montreal for a second chapter there as a local news reporter for the CBC. While I was there, I wore just about every hat you could in CBC’s radio and TV newsrooms. Depending on the day, I was a researcher, producer, reporter, or online writer. I even filled in for the weather reports every once in a while.

https://www.cherylrosebush.com/

Pen & Sword Review: The Real World of Victorian Steampunk, by Simon Webb

43972585 — Paperback, 168 pages
Published November 13th 2019 by Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1526732858 (ISBN13: 9781526732859)

In the last few decades, steampunk has blossomed from being a rather obscure and little-known subgenre of science fiction into a striking and distinctive style of fashion, art, design and even music. It is in the written word however that steampunk has its roots and in this book Simon Webb explores and examines the real inventions which underpin the fantasy. In doing so, he reveals a world unknown to most people today.

The Real World of Victorian Steampunk shows the Victorian era to have been a surprising place; one of steam-powered airplanes, fax machines linking Moscow and St Petersburg, steam cars traveling at over 100 mph, electric taxis and wireless telephones. It is, in short, the nineteenth century as you have never before seen it; a steampunk extravaganza of anachronistic technology and unfamiliar gadgets. Imagine Europe spanned by a mechanical internet; a telecommunication system of clattering semaphore towers capable of transmitting information across the continent in a matter of minutes. Consider too, the fact that a steam plane the size of a modern airliner took off in England in 1894.

Drawing entirely on contemporary sources, we see how little-known developments in technology have been used as the basis for so many steampunk narratives. From seminal novels such as The Difference Engine, through to the steampunk fantasy of Terry Pratchett’s later works, this book shows that steampunk is at least as much solid fact as it is whimsical fiction.