Where the Gulls Fall Silent by Lelita Baldock Blog Tour - Read an Excerpt

Publication Date: 28th October 2021
Publisher: Independently Published
Page Length: 231 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

A small fishing village, a shunned healer, her daughter, tradition, superstition and a world set to change.

Kerensa lives with her mother, the healer Meliora, on the edge of a small fishing community on the Cornish Coast.

The townsfolk, who work the fish runs of pilchard and mackerel that make their way up the Atlantic coast, call on her mother for help with their ailments, but never for her company.

Bribery for Peace During the First World War A Guest Post from Alan Bardos, Author of The Dardanelles Conspiracy

Anzac day vector created by freepik - www.freepik.com

 

 

Today, in Australia and New Zealand, it is Anzac Day, a national day of commemoration and rememberance of those who served and died in all wars.

Foremost, we commemorate the military campaign of World War I, where Australian and New Zealand forces at dawn on April 25, 1915 landed on the Gallipoli peninsula, Turkey. This campaign, if it had been successful, would have allowed Allied vessels to pass through the Dardanelles, see the capture of Constantinople (present day Istanbul) and take Turkey out of the war. Instead, it ended in a defeat for the Allies, with horrendous losses on both sides.

Alan Bardos' guest post asks a significant question:

Could the Ottoman Empire have been bribed to make peace, during the First World War?

Cheerfulness Breaks In by Angela Thirkell Book Review

Synopsis

It is summer 1939 and the social event of the year is about to take place: Rose Birkett, a flighty beauty with a penchant for breaking engagements and hearts, is finally getting married, and the whole village - especially her parents - breathes a sigh of relief.

By autumn, however, summer weddings seem a distant memory as war reaches Barsetshire. While the younger generation throws itself into the war effort with cheerful aplomb, older residents remember the last war keenly, and are fearful.

When an entire London school of evacuees arrive, as well as a number of refugees, the village rallies round to accommodate them. Some inhabitants, though, fail to welcome the newcomers with open arms.

Top Ten Tuesday Authors I Haven’t Read, But Want To

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. A topic is assigned to each Tuesday. For that topic you are encouraged to make a top ten list, putting your own spin on it, if needed. Upcoming topics and

Six Degrees of Separation: From Our Wives Under the Sea to All the Rivers Run

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. I don't read much contemporary fiction these days so it is unlikely that I will ever read this novel. However, part of the book's description:

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her,

Spotlight On: The Feathered Nest by Ellen Read

Publisher: Crimson Cloak Publishing
Publication Date: 14th March 2022
Series: The Thornton Mysteries, Book 4
Page Length: 372 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction / Cosy Murder Mystery

Synopsis

Murder comes to Norfolk Island, but is the killer after Alexandra Archer’s Tahitian black pearl or a lost illustration of the rare Green Parrot?

The Thorntons, along with a small team of people, mount an expedition to Norfolk Island, a small island in the South Pacific, to study the Green Parrot and set up research programmes to help protect it and other endangered birds.

As a birthday surprise, Alexandra’s father tells her she is to be the official photographer for the expedition. Her father gives her a black pearl

Top Ten TuesdayBooks on My Autumn 2022 TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. A topic is assigned to each Tuesday. For that topic you are encouraged to make a top ten list, putting your own spin on it, if needed. Upcoming topics and

Spotlight on Her Country Gentlemen by Sian Ann Bessey, Sarah M. Eden & Rebecca Connolly

Publication Date: March 8, 2022
Publisher: Mirror Press
Series: Timeless Georgian Collection (Book 1)
Length: (300) pages
Format: Trade paperback, eBook, & audiobook
Genre: Historical Romance, Georgian Romance, Inspirational Fiction
ISBN: 978-1952611216
Tour Dates: March 7-20, 2022

Synopsis

Her Country Gentleman is the first book in the Timeless Georgian Collection, a new anthology series from Mirror Press. The book features three novellas from bestselling historical romance authors whose stories reveal that not all love is found in London.

Six Degrees of Separation: From The End of the Affair to Lady's Maid

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

This month the starting point is The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. I've not read any of this author's novels, although I do vaguely remember seeing the film based on one of his books, Our Man in Havana. Whether I enjoyed it or not, I also can't remember. As I'm lacking inspiration for my first link, I'll take the easy route and use the word affair.

Lauren Willig is a favourite author of mine and I'm linking to her first standalone novel.The Ashford Affair. This is a dual-time historical romance set in the Edwardian/post-World War I era of England and Africa, and present day New

A Royal Murder by Verity Bright Book Review

Publication Date: February, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Series: A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #9
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction/Cosy Mystery

Synopsis

At the royal boat race there are beautiful barges, plenty of bunting, a handsome prince and… is that a body in the water? Lady Swift is on the case!

Spring, 1923. One-time adventurer and now amateur sleuth Lady Eleanor Swift is attending the annual royal regatta with her new pal Tipsy Fitzroy. Tipsy has Eleanor trussed up like a debutante in a new dress, determined to turn her into a proper society lady. Even Eleanor’s favourite companion, Gladstone the bulldog,

The Red Horse by James R. Benn

Synopsis

Just days after the Liberation of Paris, US Army Detective Billy Boyle and Lieutenant Kazimierz are brought to Saint Albans Convalescent Hospital in the English countryside. Kaz has been diagnosed with a heart condition, and Billy is dealing with emotional exhaustion and his recent methamphetamine abuse. Meanwhile, Billy’s love, Diana Seaton, has been taken to Ravensbrück, the Nazi concentration camp for women, and Kaz’s sister, Angelika, who he recently learned was alive and working with the Polish Underground, has also been captured and transported to the same camp.

This news is brought by British Major Cosgrove, who asks Billy for help, unofficially, in solving what he thinks was the murder of a

The Paris Network by Siobhan Curham Book Review

Publication Date: February 15, 2022
Publisher: Bookouture
Format: ebook, print and audio
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Paris, 1940: He pressed the tattered book into her hands. ‘You must go to the café and ask at the counter for Pierre Duras. Tell him that I sent you. Tell him you’re there to save the people of France.’

Sliding the coded message in between the crisp pages of the hardback novel, bookstore owner Laurence slips out into the cold night to meet her resistance contact, pulling her woollen beret down further over her face. The silence of the night is suddenly shattered by an Allied plane rushing overhead, its tail