I reviewed this book for the February issue of Historical Novels Review, the Journal of The Historical Novel Society.
BOOK DESCRIPTION
The bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain and Parting the Veil mines the subtle horrors of 1950s America in a gripping novel about a woman under pressure—from the living and the dead.
The first day of autumn brought the fever, and with the fever came the voices.
Missouri, 1955. Loretta Davenport has led an isolated life as a young mother and a wife to Pete, an ambitious assistant professor at a Bible college. They’re the picture of domestic tranquility—until a local girl is murdered and Loretta begins receiving messages from beyond. Pete dismisses them as delusions of a fevered female imagination. Loretta knows they’re real—and frightening.
Defying Pete’s demands, Loretta finds an encouraging supporter in parapsychologist Dr. Curtis Hansen. He sees a woman with a rare gift, more blessing than curse. With Dr. Hansen’s help, Loretta’s life opens up to an empowering new purpose. But for Pete, the God-fearing image he’s worked so hard to cultivate is under threat. No longer in control of his dutiful wife, he sees the Devil at work.
As Loretta’s powers grow stronger and the pleading spirits beckon, Pete is determined to deliver his wife from evil. To solve the mysteries of the dead, Loretta must first save herself.
BOOK REVIEW
Missouri, 1955. A young girl, Darcy, is missing, which is disturbing enough, but then Loretta Davenport begins seeing visions of the girl’s location, and, sadly, knows where her body can be found. This paranormal ability does not sit well with her husband, a Bible professor at a local college. He’s already upset about her lack of energy and weight gain. Their perfect life seems threatened enough without psychic messages that overwhelm her. After the vision of Darcy, the door to the “other side” seems to open for Loretta, and she begins to see more of the dead. She seeks out a psychologist to try and make sense of it as her life turns upside down.
This story of a 1950s housewife who can suddenly see and receive messages from the dead is so fascinating and compelling that it will be hard to put down. Loretta’s growing abilities and the cracking facade of her life are so well described. The author expertly begins to pull the curtain from Loretta’s marriage and show the truth—her husband is not perfect, and is, in fact, abusive. The combination of a bad marriage and explosive new psychic abilities makes this book shine. The lack of basic rights for women in the 1950s is also explored, as Loretta becomes almost a prisoner in her own home. And a mystery is involved, as Loretta is trying to find Darcy’s killer to save others from the same fate. There is a bit of romance, and a theme of embracing one’s true self. This is a satisfying mix of historical mystery and paranormal fiction that fans of those genres will enjoy. Highly recommended.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paulette Kennedy is the bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain and Parting the Veil, which received the prestigious HNS Review Editor’s Choice Award. She has had a lifelong obsession with the gothic. As a young girl, she spent her summers among the gravestones in her neighborhood cemetery, imagining all sorts of romantic stories for the people buried there.
After her mother introduced her to the Brontës as a teenager, Paulette’s affinity for fog-covered landscapes and haunted heroines only grew, inspiring her to become a writer. Originally from the Missouri Ozarks, she now lives with her family and a menagerie of rescue pets in sunny Southern California, where sometimes, on the very best days, the mountains are wreathed in fog.
I write what I love to read – big-issue thrillers that are super well-researched inside a complex plot full of twists and turns.
The result of the above is The Race Is On series or TRIO. The best sequence to read it in is as follows:
– MAD, a 120-page prequel novella that you can download from my website
– LEAP, Book 1, kicks off the TRIO series
– Green Ray, Book 2, is set five years after the end of LEAP
– ATOM, INC, Book 3, which picks up immediately from the end of Green Ray
I live in Leeds, UK with the love of my life and our two daughters. It rains a lot in Leeds but that works out well for me – loads of time for research and of course writing!
Another week went by when I was so busy I couldn’t post much. I wasn’t able to post the reviews I had planned, so some of them will go up today. I’m preparing for my work trip to Germany, finishing up reviews for The Historical Novel Society, and also doing some editing work for them while one of the editors is taking some time off. It’s been a great experience.
NEXT WEEK: I hope to catch up and provide you a lot of good reviews! These include Charlie Hustle, The Ark and the Dove,The Great Divide, and more.
BOOK HAUL:
This is the third book in a fantastic series about a family of safe-cracking criminals who become government spies during WWII.
The Burning Rooms is the third book in a great series of standalone thrillers from Anni Taylor.
I’m off to make lemon bars and chicken parm! So we’re eating well tonight. How was your week?
Sisters of Fortune introduces us to the real-life Fortune sisters, who boarded the Titanic with their family and had their lives changed forever. The novel is filled with historical facts about the ship and some of its passengers, and the author’s thorough research is obvious.
I had not heard of the Fortune sisters, so this is a new take on the sinking of the Titanic and introduces passengers that many people did not know about. The description of the ship as the sisters boarded is realistic and well done, as the reader can easily imagine the decadence the wealthy sisters enjoyed. The actual disaster and sinking of the Titanic has of course been written about many times before, but the author does a great job of transporting the reader to that tragedy. The characters, both real and fictional, are woven together beautifully into an intriguing story. The author adds a fictional romance to the novel, and it is so compelling and well done.
In Sisters of Fortune, Fiction, Romance, and History are woven together to create a heartbreaking but very memorable story. Anyone interested in the sinking of the Titanic will enjoy this novel.
I received a free copy of this book. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
Indie Weekend is my effort to help Indie authors with marketing. It’s a daunting task, but if I can help even a little bit, I’m happy to do it. You can help too by sharing this review with your social media followers. Below see a book review and purchase links for Hayden’s World Volume 1. It is written by S.D. Falchetti. I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Shamaan Casey. You can see a full book description in this previous Indie Spotlight.
BOOK REVIEW
Like Andy Weir, S.D. Falchetti has the ability to create fiction that keeps me interested in science, and that’s no easy feat because I have always leaned toward the “fiction” in science fiction. But this collection of stories, set in and around “Hayden’s World,” is packed with science and technology, and then fiction takes over and transports us to the future. The characters are easy to root for, and the stories are compelling. My favorites were 43 seconds and Erebus, but all of the stories are excellent. There is a chapter at the end of the book explaining the science, and I appreciated that as I am not an expert in that area.
I listened to the audiobook, and the narrator Shamaan Casey has a captivating voice. He did an amazing job of portraying all of the characters, regardless of gender or culture. This includes AI voices too! I was captivated by his performance and will seek out his work again.
My rating is 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 on sites with no half-star option.
I received a free copy of the audiobook. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (IN HIS OWN WORDS)
S.D. Falchetti
I wrote my first story at the age of eighteen. I had a work/study job at the college computer lab, and, after completing all of my tasks of refilling the printer paper and testing the mice, I sat down and slipped a five-and-a-quarter inch disk into the drive. The Word Perfect screen greeted me with a blinking cursor. Each day I typed out a few more paragraphs, maybe a scene. I’d been reading R.A. Salvatore at the time, and, not surprisingly, wove a tale of elves, wars, and magic swords. I printed the three-hundred-page manuscript on a dot matrix printer, three-hole punched it, and slid it into a black binder.
The story rode along with me and five friends in a sixteen-hour road trip to St. Louis, giving me the perfect captive audience for reading my first draft. I remember waking abruptly at a midnight gas stop, a pop, and firelight flickering from the seams of the car’s hood. The Monte Carlo’s doors opened and I tumbled out onto the asphalt with my friends. Flames shot behind us from the engine. As we scattered, someone yelled for the keys. The driver, panicked, threw them too high and they clinked onto the overhead canopy. The more courageous fetched extinguishers from the mini-mart and sprayed the car fire. It was like spritzing an inferno. Fire trucks wheeled in and firefighters laid down water streams. The engine’s flames burst into the cabin and, with a whoosh like something from the movies, a fireball plumed and billowed out of the windows, the car’s tires popping and rollicking the vehicle. When the firefighters dropped their hoses and ran, we also picked our escape routes. One of the firefighters climbed in the truck, revved the engine, and rammed the Monte Carlo, pushing it clear of the gas pumps in a vortex of sparks and smoke. Our car was left to die in the farthest corner of the parking lot, out of harm’s way. A cavalcade of red and white flashing lights filled the station’s road as the cavalry arrived. When the last tongues of flame faded, our car had been reduced to metal bones. We blinked in disbelief as paramedics interviewed us. Three hundred miles. We were stranded three hundred miles from home. No one was hurt, but there was one casualty. My story sat in the backseat.
I tried not to think of this as a sign.
But there was still the computer lab, and the blinking white cursor, and stories to be written. They weren’t very good, but I had fun writing them. I submitted a few to magazines, and like most starting writers, got the polite rejection notes. I completed my degree in mechanical engineering and went on to become an engineer, a husband, and a father. The stories took a back seat as life churned on.
One of the perks of being a dad is that you get to tell many stories. Not just stories that you read, but stories you create. Each night when I tuck my daughter into bed, I say, “What should our story be tonight?”. She gives me the setting, “A little girl and a cupcake factory that’s gone crazy.” It’s a little like a Whose Line is it Anyway sketch, creating the scene on the spot.
And it made me think of that blinking cursor, and all of those stories I wanted to tell.
So, I opened up my laptop and started pecking away. Technology has changed since those five-and-a-quarter-inch disk days, and now I can independently publish. I’m stepping up to the plate, taking a swing at the ball, and seeing how far I can run.
I was born in 1996 and raised in Converse, TX. Growing up, I always watched a lot of animation, which gave me a deep appreciation for voice acting, which only grew as the years went on. Even from a young age, I had a voice that commanded the attention of others. Though not an attention seeker, I always noticed how heads would turn when I spoke, and I was often compared to James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman, even in middle school. When I chose to pursue a career in culinary arts and work as a food salesman, everyday people would tell me that I should be in radio. With years of public speaking experience thanks to my religious ministry, I finally yielded to all of the advice I had received over the years and finally embraced getting into the world of voice-over by making audiobooks.
Now, I combine my vocal talents with my love of reading to help bring stories to life. When I’m not reading, I’m cooking, baking, or gaming. Whatever I’m doing, I’ve got a story to tell.
*If you read the book(s), please leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, as well as anywhere else you review books. Some people feel very daunted by writing a review. Don’t worry. You do not have to write a masterpiece. Just a couple of lines about how the book made you feel will make the author’s day and help the book succeed. The more reviews a book has, the more Amazon will promote it.
*Please click on the WordPress “share” buttons below and share these books with your Twitter (X), Facebook, and/or WordPress followers. A little bit of assistance from all of us will help Indie authors go a long way!
Indie Spotlight is my effort to help promote Indie books. You can help too by sharing this with all your social media followers. Below please see a book description, author bio, narrotor bio, and purchase links for Hayden’s World Volume 1, a collection of hard science fiction stories. A book review is coming soon on Indie Weekend.
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Survival tales in the skies of Uranus, desperate struggles at the solar system’s edge, and near-lightspeed interstellar expeditions await in this hard science fiction collection of seven Hayden’s World short reads:
43 Seconds:
James Hayden has a dream, and the Riggs test vehicle is going to take him there. But when failure after failure leads to his last chance exploding spectacularly, he must partner with an AI and gamble everything for one last shot at the stars.
Silver-Side Up:
Two old friends, a silver space ship, and a perfect day for a test flight.
Erebus:
In 43 Seconds, James Hayden took us to near-light-speed with the world’s first Riggs ship. Now, construction of the second Riggs ship is nearly complete, and in one month Sarah will take the helm. But growing opposition may shut down the program before she gets her chance. When James’s last-ditch publicity stunt traps him light-days from rescue, Sarah must decide just how far she’s willing to go to save a friend.
Signal Loss:
Life aboard the Aristarchus isn’t much of an adventure, and Kyan just wants to do his job and get back to his family. When he discovers a mysterious object at the edge of the solar system and an unexpected contact during comms loss, data running turns life-or-death thirteen billion kilometers from home.
Last Stand:
Kyan testifies about the events in Signal Loss, but other agendas are in play.
Aero One:
Jia can’t breathe, her ship is minutes from breaking apart in Uranus’s atmosphere, and the lifepod just burned up. Things aren’t going well. When her injured engineer’s solution sends them plummeting into the icy stratosphere, they find themselves trapped in a life-or-death battle against time, the elements, and unexpected visitors.
Titan’s Shadow:
In Aero One, Jia nearly lost everything during her encounter with the pirate ship Maya. A year later, she’s trying to restart her life as a freelancer aboard Saturn’s newly-built Cassini Station. But Cassini has its own secrets. When a chance encounter with a past adversary sets old battles in motion, she must unravel the mystery of Titan’s Shadow before more lives are lost.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (IN HIS OWN WORDS)
S.D. Falchetti
I wrote my first story at the age of eighteen. I had a work/study job at the college computer lab, and, after completing all of my tasks of refilling the printer paper and testing the mice, I sat down and slipped a five-and-a-quarter inch disk into the drive. The Word Perfect screen greeted me with a blinking cursor. Each day I typed out a few more paragraphs, maybe a scene. I’d been reading R.A. Salvatore at the time, and, not surprisingly, wove a tale of elves, wars, and magic swords. I printed the three-hundred-page manuscript on a dot matrix printer, three-hole punched it, and slid it into a black binder. The story rode along with me and five friends in a sixteen-hour road trip to St. Louis, giving me the perfect captive audience for reading my first draft. I remember awaking abruptly at a midnight gas stop, a pop, and firelight flickering from the seams of the car’s hood. The Monte Carlo’s doors opened and I tumbled out onto the asphalt with my friends. Flames shot behind us from the engine. As we scattered, someone yelled for the keys. The driver, panicked, threw them too high and they clinked onto the overhead canopy. The more courageous fetched extinguishers from the mini-mart and sprayed the car fire. It was like spritzing an inferno. Fire trucks wheeled in and firefighters laid down water streams. The engine’s flames burst into the cabin and, with a whoosh like something from the movies, a fireball plumed and billowed out of the windows, the car’s tires popping and rollicking the vehicle. When the firefighters dropped their hoses and ran, we also picked our escape routes. One of the firefighters climbed in the truck, revved the engine, and rammed the Monte Carlo, pushing it clear of the gas pumps in a vortex of sparks and smoke. Our car was left to die in the farthest corner of the parking lot, out of harm’s way. A cavalcade of red and white flashing lights filled the station’s road as the calvary arrived. When the last tongues of flame faded, our car had been reduced to metal bones. We blinked in disbelief as paramedics interviewed us. Three hundred miles. We were stranded three hundred miles from home. No one was hurt, but there was one casualty. My story sat in the backseat.
I tried not to think of this as a sign.
But there was still the computer lab, and the blinking white cursor, and stories to be written. They weren’t very good, but I had fun writing them. I submitted a few to magazines, and like most starting writers, got the polite rejection notes. I completed my degree in mechanical engineering and went on to become an engineer, a husband, a father. The stories took a back seat as life churned on.
One of the perks of being a dad is that you get to tell many stories. Not just stories that you read, but stories you create. Each night when I tuck my daughter in to bed, I say, “What should our story be tonight?”. She gives me the setting, “A little girl and a cupcake factory that’s gone crazy.” It’s a little like a Whose Line is it Anyway sketch, creating the scene on the spot.
And it makes me think of that blinking cursor, and all of those stories I wanted to tell.
So, I opened up my laptop and started pecking away. Technology has changed since those five-and-a-quarter inch disk days, and now I can independently publish. I’m stepping up to the plate, taking a swing at the ball, and seeing how far I can run.
I was born in 1996 and raised in Converse, TX. Growing up, I always watched a lot of animation, which gave me a deep appreciation for voice acting, which only grew as the years went on. Even from a young age, I had a voice that commanded the attention of others. Though not an attention seeker, I always noticed how heads would turn when I spoke, and I was often compared to James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman, even in middle school. When I chose to pursue a career in culinary arts and work as a food salesman, everyday people would tell me that I should be in radio. With years of public speaking experience thanks to my religious ministry, I finally yielded to all of the advice I had received over the years and finally embraced getting into the world of voice-over by making audiobooks.
Now, I combine my vocal talents with my love of reading to help bring stories to life. When I’m not reading, I’m cooking, baking, or gaming. Whatever I’m doing, I’ve got a story to tell.
Indie Weekend is my effort to help Indie authors with marketing. It’s a daunting task, and if I can help even a little, I’m happy to do it. You can help too by sharing this post far and wide with all your social media followers. Below is my review of Land of the Blue Mist, which I originally reviewed for The Historial Novel Society. The author, Susan Mallgrave, also graciously agreed to be interviewed, so please be sure and check out the Q&A below.
BOOK DESCRIPTION (FROM AMAZON)
In the tradition of Jean Auel, Charles Frazier, and Tony Hillerman comes a work of historical fiction… Land of the Blue Mist: A Novel of Courage, Love, and Survival.
The Principal People, known as the Cherokee by others, have lived for millennia in the place they call the Land of the Blue Mist. Much of their ancestral land has been taken, over decades. But still more land is demanded.
Aster Sweetwater comes of age in this time of fierce pressure on her tribe in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Sent to boarding school to learn so-called civilized ways, she returns home to help her people fight forced removal from their mountains and valleys. But Aster returns home not knowing where she belongs. Who are her people? Should she remain in the Land of the Blue Mist or leave the only home she’s ever known, to search for her missing father?
After gold is discovered in Georgia in 1828 and the Indian Removal Act is passed two years later, the crisis intensifies, ending with U.S. troops invading Aster’s village.
Not all the Cherokee will travel the deadly Trail of Tears to the West. Having escaped capture, but with her family torn apart and her life shattered, Aster must find a way for a remnant of her people to survive in the Land of the Blue Mist.
BOOK REVIEW
The Land of the Blue Mist, or The Blue Ridge Mountains, is the home of The Principal People, also known as the Cherokee. In the 1820s, Aster is sent by her white father to a boarding school to learn the ways of his people. His intent is for her to then teach the Cherokee how to survive in a white man’s world, because he is going far away to avenge the death of his brother in another land. But then gold is discovered, and greedy politicians are determined to remove the Cherokee from their homeland and send them far out west. As Aster fights to find her place in a divided world, she is determined to save her people from removal.
This is a well-woven book about the events leading up to the Trail of Tears, the impact on the Cherokee at that time, and the fact that some Cherokee did escape from it. As we go with 9-year-old Aster to boarding school, we also watch political events unfolding in the U.S. that will lead to the horrors of removal. The author does a good job of building Aster’s world while also showing the government’s intrusion and her determination to stop it. Real-life events and people are woven in, such as John Ross, Principal Chief, who fought unsuccessfully against the removal. And it’s a fictionalized story of the small group of real Cherokee who fought back, hid, negotiated and were able to remain. Full of action, intrigue, politics, romance, and danger, this book is not to be missed. Fans of Native American History and the history of The Blue Ridge Mountains will enjoy this book.
AUTHOR BIO
Susan Mallgrave’s first novel, a work of historical fiction, is set in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains near her current residence and the surviving bent trees of which she writes. She is currently working on a sequel to Land of the Blue Mist. She also writes poetry, short stories, and creative nonfiction. When not writing, she can be found playing tennis, hiking, traveling, and handcrafting, especially knitting socks for family and friends.
Q&A WITH SUSAN MALLGRAVE
Bonnie: Susan, first of all, thanks for agreeing to answer my questions today.
Susan: Bonnie, it’s my great pleasure! Thank you so very much for reading my book and reviewing it. It’s a lot to ask of another person, a commitment of your precious time and I appreciate it.
Bonnie: Let’s go beyond the bio. Tell us something about yourself that we wouldn’t know from reading your bio.
Susan: I’ve always loved books of all sorts–adventure tales as a child (and now!), classics, mysteries, historical novels, and non-fiction. I’m probably not so different from your readers. I wasn’t one of those folks who always wrote stories though—I envy them! I recently went through journals I had kept intermittently. What I discovered was I had been talking about writing, thinking about writing, and writing about writing for years! I was circling. If I didn’t try, I wouldn’t fail. That sort of thing. I knew, intellectually, that you can only write if you write. But I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think I knew a thing about it. And maybe I didn’t: which is why I would need to write—to learn. Silly sometimes, aren’t we?
With too much time in between them, I wrote a dozen or so poems and a half-dozen short stories. Covid down-sized and then eliminated my remote job (in Communications) and as I lamented having to find another, my husband Harry said, “You keep saying you’d like to write a novel–maybe it’s time to get serious about that?” Well, yay! (He’s my biggest supporter. At one point during my struggle with the first draft, the only reason I kept writing the novel was because I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wanted out.
You can learn the craft of writing, but I believe much of the art of writing comes osmotically, in a way. The language carried me while I learned how to structure a novel-length work. The impetus to write and the words for writing came from my having been in love with books forever. Sacred objects. It’s always been a parallel world, my journey with books.
Bonnie: Your book, Land of the Blue Mist, is set during the time of the Indian Removal Act. What inspired you to write about that terrible time?
Susan: We moved to upstate South Carolina five years ago and I joined a writers’ group. I wrote some short stories to share with the group. Land of the Blue Mist started as one. But the story kept growing and the characters became real and compelling to me, especially after I began researching. I was—and am—in awe of the 19th century accomplishments of the Aniyunwiya—the people that others call Cherokee. I had no idea prior to my research, for instance, that by 1820 they had a system of government modeled on that of the United States. Also, at one point, the Cherokee were the most literate people in the country, due to a Cherokee warrior and silversmith named Sequoyah. He invented a syllabary—a written set of symbols based on the sounds of their spoken language, and it was a brilliant success. The tribe also published a newspaper from 1828-1834, named the Cherokee Phoenix—later renamed the Cherokee Phoenix and Indians’ Advocate. Each article was written in Tsalagi (the Cherokee language) and English, side-by-side. The paper has been revived and is now published in Oklahoma, by the way.
The people and their leaders went to great lengths to assimilate within the larger culture so that they could remain in the Land of the Blue Mist, which is what they called the Blue Ridge Mountains that they had lived in for millennia. I also admire their love of and respect for nature and the environment. They are an admirable people.
I also wanted to give an alternative end to the horrendous journey to the West, during which so many died, later called The Trail of Tears.
Bonnie: Tell us about your research process for this book.
Susan: I read James Mooney’s books, Myths of the Cherokee and The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee. Mooney was an early ethnographer, working under the auspice of the Smithsonian Institute, who lived with Cherokee clans in the late nineteenth century for several years. He wanted to chronicle as much as possible about the culture before all memory of it was gone.
I also learned from John Ehle, who wrote The Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. As the title indicates, it included not just the expulsion, but other time periods as well, leading up to that ignominious ouster. I read biographies of Chief John Ross and Major Ridge, both of whom appear in the novel. I visited the Cherokee Museum in Walhalla, SC, gleaned from Native American websites, and plowed through some Eastern Cherokee census rolls. I read some scholarly articles and some editions of the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper. I read books on Cherokee herbology and gold panning. I researched for four months before writing, and then dipped in and out while writing the book.
Bonnie: Your main character, Aster, appears to be in Georgia during this book. Your biography says you live near the surviving bent trees, which were Native American trail markers. Where are the bent trees located?
Susan: The Cherokee had networks of trails for hunting and trading, as well as for “warpaths,” when engaged with enemies. These ran east to west and north to south. There was a warrior trail that connected Georgia to Pennsylvania and New York. A major trail from Charleston, SC was used to bring goods back from the coast to the northwestern corner of the state, where I live now. Because of these extensive trails, they needed guideposts. It’s speculated that’s the reason they created bent trees, starting with saplings, as “way signs.” A group called Mountain Stewards has mapped several thousand reputed marker trees in 44 states! Most of them, though, appear to be clustered where Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina meet.
Bonnie: Aster is a fictional character, but is she based on anyone in real life?
Susan: No. Well, maybe a composite. She was the trickiest for me to write, but I’m not sure why, exactly. Going Snake—Aster’s grandfather, her adopted brother Little Fox and Jayce, “the cowboy” more or less walked up to me and said “Howdy!”
Bonnie: One interesting aspect of all of this is that Aster’s father is a white man who goes back to England to avenge the death of his brother. Without giving away spoilers, it seems that there is a whole other world to possibly explore in another book. Is that something you have considered?
Susan: I thought the same thing! Great minds…I ultimately took a different direction. But I do like Timothy and may visit his life in the Lakes District of England at some point. I also may write a prequel to Blue Mist, so that I can explore Going Snake’s formative years—much happened in the Cherokee nation during his lifetime!
Bonnie: You are currently writing a sequel to Land of the Blue Mist. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Susan: The sequel takes place eighty years later, in the small, Southern Appalachian village that Aster and the others settled. The protagonist is Aster’s great-grandson, who returns to South Carolina in 1920 from the world’s war, suffering from shell shock. He finds many changes have taken place in his town while he was gone. Of course there’s a cast of other characters as well, including a young woman suffragist who yearns to leave the small town where they all live and to have a career in big city journalism. The new novel also contains entries from Aster’s 19th-century journal, so that readers discover what happened to the original group after they settled in the shadow of the Blue Wall. This is the Cherokee name for the Blue Ridge Escarpment, the sheer rock-face end of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Bonnie: Land of the Blue Mist is your first Independently published novel. How was the experience of publishing your first book and what did you learn along the way?
Susan: I used Amazon Kindle, which was a learning curve for me, but when all is said and done, it’s quite doable, in terms of formatting and uploading and there’s plenty of guidance online. I also learned I should have done publicity ahead of time and still need much improvement on promotion and marketing efforts. It’s a bit overwhelming, but other writers are helping me—shout outs to you, Bonnie, and Gail Meath!
Bonnie: It was nice to meet you, Susan, and thanks for answering my questions today! Please come back when you publish the sequel.
Susan: I’ll be happy to come back—thanks for the invitation!
BUY LINK
*Click on the image below to go to Amazon
BEFORE YOU GO….
*If you read the book, please leave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, as well as anywhere else you review books. Some people feel very daunted by writing a review. Don’t worry. You do not have to write a masterpiece. Just a couple of lines about how the book made you feel will make the author’s day and help the book succeed. The more reviews a book has, the more Amazon will promote it.
*Please click on the WordPress “share” buttons below and share these books with your Twitter (X), Facebook, and/or WordPress followers. A little bit of assistance from all of us will help Indie authors go a long way!
Everyone remembers her daringly short, silver lamé dress. An iconic photo capturing an electric moment, where emerging American designer Astrid Bricard is young, uninhibited, and on the cusp of fashion and feminism’s changing landscape. She and fellow designer Hawk Jones are all over Vogue and the disco scene. Yet she can’t escape the legacy of being the daughter of Mizza Bricard, infamous “muse” for Christian Dior. Astrid would give anything to take her place among the great houses of couture—on her own terms. I won’t inspire it when I can create it.
But then Astrid disappeared…
Now Astrid’s daughter, Blythe, holds what remains of her mother and grandmother’s legacies. Of all the Bricard women, she can gather the torn, shredded, and painfully beautiful fabrics of three generations of grief, heartbreak, and abandonment to create something that will shake the foundations of fashion. The only piece that’s missing is the one question that no one’s been able to answer: What really happened to Astrid?
BOOK REVIEW
This is a multi-period novel exploring the lives of three Bricard women who are talented but largely unrecognized for that talent. Mizza Bricard was a talented designer who is better known as the real-life muse of Christian Dior. Her fictionalized daughter Astrid Bricard was known as the daughter of Mizza Bricard and also as the muse of designer Hawk Jones. Astrid’s daughter Blythe is fighting to be recognized as a designer in her own right, but she is in the shadow of media perceptions and her designer ex-husband Jake. She is also living with the fact that her mother disappeared when she was a baby and her father has never been there for her either.
This novel looks at the oppression of women in the fashion industry, mental health, abandonment, and other issues. The characters are strong, talented women who face an uphill battle with discrimination, public perception, and media portrayals. The fashion industry background is richly described, and the treatment of the media towards women over the decades is eye-opening. Important mental health issues that affect women are also brought to the forefront. The three time periods—the 1940s, 1970’s, and present day are very different, but all share the same issue of women fighting to be recognized in the fashion industry. The love stories set in the midst of the glamour and betrayal of this industry are well done.
I also listened to the audiobook, and the narrator Barrie Kreinik does a great job of portraying all of the characters.
My rating is 4.5 stars, rounded up to five on sites with no half-star option.
Anyone interested in fashion and historical fiction will enjoy this novel.
I received a free copy of the ebook from Forever Books and a free copy of the Audiobook from Hachette Audio. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (FROM GOODREADS)
Natasha Lester is the multi-award winning and New York Times best-selling author of THE PARIS SEAMSTRESS, THE PARIS ORPHAN, THE PARIS SECRET and THE THREE LIVES OF ALIX ST PIERRE. Her new book, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ASTRID BRICARD is out now in Australia, and was published in North America in Jan 2024.
Prior to writing, she worked as a marketing executive for L’Oreal, managing the Maybelline brand, before returning to university to study creative writing.
Natasha’s books have been translated into more than twenty-one different languages and are now published all around the world.
She lives in Perth, Western Australia with her 3 children and loves fashion history, practicing the art of fashion illustration, collecting vintage fashion, traveling and, of course, books. (less)
Below are the American and Australian covers. Which one do you like better? I think I’m leaning toward the Australian cover, but I like the color of the dress on the American cover. I don’t always like it when they cut the face in half on a cover, so I will choose Australia.
Top Ten Tuesday is run by That Artsy Reader Girl. There is a different topic every week. This week’s topic is: Top Ten Quick Reads/Books to Read When Time is Short. Click on the covers to learn more about the books.
This is the prequel novella to Gail Meath’s Jax Diamond Mysteries series and tells us how it all got started when Jax met his German Shepherd partner, Ace. It’s only 112 pages.
This is one of many novellas in Jodi Taylor’s The Chronicles of St. Mary’s series. She always releases a short story on Christmas and this is the latest. 100 pages.
A classic. What more do I need to say? It’s only 128 pages.
This is a short story in the St. Mary’s Universe about how it all got started. 76 pages.
This is a short story from The Frogmorton Farm series, which couldn’t be more different than St. Mary’s. There’s no time travel, but there is a magical golden horse. 44 pages.
This is a heartbreaking novel of Soviet Russia. It’s 194 pages, but that’s still pretty short. My review is here.
In this one, I was in awe of the author’s talent and deeply affected by the story. And it’s only 82 pages. My review is here.
Can you believe it’s only 108 pages?
This is a lesser-known story of the Titanic, and it’s only 66 pages.
Ok, book bloggers. This is the story of a woman whose book collection has gotten so big it’s threatening to collapse. We can all relate. It’s only 40 pages.
Can you think of any shorter books that you love or want to read?
New York City, 1911. Edith Wharton, almost equally famed for her novels and her sharp tongue, is bone-tired of Manhattan. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, she makes the decision to leave America, her publisher, and her loveless marriage.
And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips—a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it—is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Court of the Belmont hotel. When Phillips is killed, Edith’s life takes another turn. His sister is convinced Graham was killed by someone determined to stop the publication of his next book, which promised to uncover secrets that powerful people would rather stayed hidden. Though unconvinced, Edith is curious. What kind of book could push someone to kill?
Inspired by a true story, The Wharton Plot follows Edith Wharton through the fading years of the Gilded Age in a city she once loved so well, telling a taut tale of fame, love, and murder, as she becomes obsessed with solving a crime.
BOOK REVIEW
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the personality of a real-life character as well described as it is in this portrayal of Edith Wharton. Mariah Fredericks has captured the inner thoughts, feelings, doubts, heartbreak,, and desires of her main character so well that she comes alive. It is a master class in writing and a true portrait of Wharton’s faults, disappointments, and imperfections as well as her talents and strengths.
The murder mystery is based on the real-life murder of David Graham Phillips, and it is captivating from start to finish. The plot and history of the time combine with superbly written, strong characters to create a fascinating and compelling story. Wharton’s struggles, both in her marriage and her career, are honestly depicted and nothing is hidden from the reader. It is an intriguing combination of murder mystery and fictionalized biography that fans of historical fiction will enjoy.
I also listened to the audiobook, and the narration by Kitty Hendrix is well done.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mariah Fredericks was born and raised in New York City. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history. She enjoys reading and writing about dead people and how they got that way. She is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series.
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