Spotlight & Excerpt: Coming Home to Mercy + Giveaway

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On Tour with Prism Book Tours

Coming Home to Mercy
(Coming Home Series #1)
By Michelle De Bruin
Christian Historical Romance
Paperback & ebook, 251 Pages

August 17, 2021 by Scrivenings Press LLC


A society woman leaves her comfortable lifestyle so that she can help her daughter adjust to the arrival of twin sons in a small town where the courageous doctor teaches her about taking risks.

Wealthy and sociable Margaret Millerson has always thought of her brother’s Chicago mansion as her home. But when she receives the telephone call that her daughter has given birth to twins three weeks ahead of the expected due date, Margaret must leave her comfortable home, her family, and her friends to travel out of state. While she is helping her daughter care for the infants, Margaret becomes reacquainted with the town’s doctor, Matthew Kaldenberg.

Dr. Matthew Kaldenberg stays busy caring for the health of the citizens of his small town. His profession offers him daily practice in defeating death, his greatest enemy. During the twenty years since losing his own wife and baby in childbirth, Matthew has saved his money for the purchase of a flying machine. But when Matthew takes Margaret for flights on his biplane, he learns that his dreams of rising above the griefs and losses of his past come with a cost. He doesn’t want to lose the trust of the people he cares about most, or the chance at a relationship with Margaret.

Both Matthew and Margaret must make difficult decisions to hold on to the love they have discovered. Will Matthew’s heart recover from sorrow? Will Margaret find her true home?

(Affiliate links included.)
Excerpt:

“Does this remind you of anything?” He swept his hand in a large arc over the table.

Her gaze took in the flowers, the cake, and the white tablecloth. Even the glow of the lamp was reminiscent of the candlelight from their first evening together.

“Karen’s reception.” Margaret’s gaze settled on his face. “I believe the colors of the flowers are even the same.”

“I met you for the first time that night.” Matthew’s voice slid low and quiet. It was the voice he used when he shared confidential information with a patient. Margaret wasn’t his patient, but the memories he shared with her of that evening were secret and precious.

Her lashes fluttered. “I remember.”

“Do you?” Her response gave him hope that she might hold that first meeting as sacred as he did.

“Oh, yes.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

He wrestled with the sudden and strong longing to reach across the table and hold her hand. But he mustn’t do that. This dinner so unexpectedly meant for two had fanned the flame deep in his heart that threatened to burn out of control. It needed no extra fuel to spread into territory where it didn’t belong. Matthew raised his napkin to his lips and wiped his mouth. Maybe if he concentrated on eating, the fire within would die down to a manageable size.


About the Author


Michelle De Bruin grew up in Southern Iowa and graduated from Eddyville High School. These beautiful memories of childhood spent on her family’s farm are the inspiration to the setting in the books of the Tomorrow series.

After high school, Michelle received an Associate’s Degree in Office Management from Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. She returned to the family farm and later married Tom De Bruin.

Tom and Michelle and their two teenage sons, Mark and John, live in Pella where Michelle works as the Spiritual Services Facilitator for Christian Opportunity Center. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Music and in Religion with a Christian Ministries emphasis from Central College in Pella, Iowa.

In 2015, Michelle began writing and joined the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) where she discovered that the stories she wrote for fun might actually amount to something. She finished her manuscript for Hope for Tomorrow and eventually found a home for it with a small publisher of Christian fiction.

Characters that bring to life the delights of farm and small town living, whispers of Dutch heritage, and Christian faith make Michelle’s stories distinct.


Tour Schedule


 


Tour Giveaway

One winner will receive a copy of Coming Home to Mercy (print if US, ebook if outside the US) and a $25 Amazon Gift Card (open internationally)

Ends August 25, 2021

Spotlight & Author Interview: The Shade Under the Mango Tree + Giveaway

Mango Tree Tour Banner
Join Us for This Tour: August 2 to August 27
 
 
Book Title:  The Shade Under the Mango Tree by Evy Journey
Category:  Adult Fiction 18+, 396 pages
Genre: Contemporary Multicultural Fiction
Publisher:  Sojounrer Books
Release date:  November 2, 2020
Content Rating:  PG13 & M:There’s a suicide, reference to a past genocide, and reference to sex about to happen but no description of the sexual act.

Book Description:

Gold Medal, Contemporary Fiction,  2021 Global Book Awards (formerly New York City Book Awards)

Finalist, Multicultural Fiction,  2021 International Book Awards
After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home in California and Hawaii where she grew up. An adventure in which she can also make some difference.Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s journal at a café. Though he has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it, they don’t stop him. His decision changes his life forever.Months later, they meet at a bookstore. Fascinated by his stories and adventurous spirit, Luna goes on a Peace Corps stint to a rural rice-growing village in Cambodia. There, she finds a world steeped in ancient culture and the lasting ravages of a deadly history. Will she leave this world unscathed?An epistolary tale of courage, resilience, and the bonds that bring diverse people together.
Buy the Book:
Amazon ~ B&N 
Kobo ~ Apple iBooks


 

Author Interview:

Tell us about your book. What is it about and what inspired you to write it?

The Shade Under the Mango Tree is an epistolary novel about a sheltered young woman hungry for adventure. Inspired by a young man who’s travelled the world, she goes to a rural village in Asia and steps into world steeped in an ancient culture and a deadly history. What she finds there defies anything she could have imagined. Will she leave this world unscathed?

As an epistolary novel, a good part of the story is told through a journal. I got inspired to write it when, one day, as I was rummaging through old pieces of paper in the garage. I came across a little notebook, about 2.5×4 inches. It’s filled with my thoughts, and lyrics, or poetry I collected when I was a teenager. So I thought, why not an epistolary novel?

Your book is set in (the San Francisco Bay Area and a rural village in Cambodia). Can you tell us why you chose these locations in particular?

Why the San Francisco Bay Area? Simple. I live here. I know it very well—both its geographic and demographic characteristics. Better yet, I have a good feel for the people who live here, and the main protagonists represent some of those people. The setting moves to Cambodia more than halfway into the story. Luna wanted to go to a place very different from where she grew up. And this country qualifies. A lot of Peace Corps volunteers are sent there. Maybe I also wanted readers to be aware of it. The Khmer Rouge genocide is mostly unknown—more so than the Holocaust.

In looking back over the books you have written, what elements of you can be found scattered throughout the characters of the heroines you create?

The female protagonist’s interiority. All my heroines have rich inner lives. They reflect on what happens to them and it helps them grow.

The overt passivity of thinking doesn’t appeal to many modern readers, however. We prefer action and excitement. But interiority is important to me, partly because of my training and the subsequent work I did.

I also live in a multicultural world, like the heroines in four of my books, including Luna in The Shade Under The Mango Tree.

Is there anything you would like people to take away from your book?

First, I hope readers get the message that to open up to cultures very different from their own expands and enriches their humanity. You also realize you’re not as different from each other as you might think. Two others are contained in the epigraphs I placed in the beginning of the book: Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other (Rainer Maria Rilke) and Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).

Lastly, I hope it comes across that writing can help heal you from painful experiences. That idea is what started this book, in the first place.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Travel, do art, ogle art in museums.


Meet the Author:
 
Evy Journey writes. Stories and blog posts. Novels that tend to cross genres. She’s also a wannabe artist and a flâneuse. Evy studied psychology (Ph.D. University of Illinois) so she spins tales about nuanced characters dealing with the problems and
issues of contemporary life. She believes in love and its many faces. Though she has traveled to many places, she has one ungranted wish: To live in Paris where art is everywhere and people have honed aimless roaming to an art form. She visits and stays a few months.
Connect with the Author: websitefacebook ~ pinterest ~ twitter

Tour Schedule:

Aug 2 –
Viviana MacKade – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway

Aug 2 – Cover Lover Book Review – book spotlight / giveaway
Aug 3 – Rockin’ Book Reviews – book review / guest post / giveaway
Aug 3 – Olio By Marilyn – book review / giveaway
Aug 3 – Working Mommy Journal – book review / giveaway
Aug 4 – @twilight_reader – book review
Aug 4 – Kam’s Place – book spotlight
Aug 5 – Talk of Tales – book review / giveaway
Aug 5 – A Mama’s Corner of the World – book review / giveaway
Aug 6 – fundinmental – book spotlight / giveaway
Aug 9 – Literary Flits – book spotlight
Aug 9 – Gina Rae Mitchell – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Aug 10 – Lamon Reviews – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Aug 10 – Book Corner News and Reviews – book spotlight / giveaway
Aug 11 – Jazzy Book Reviews – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Aug 11 – Rajiv’s Reviews – book review / giveaway
Aug 12 – @booking.with.janelle – book review / author interview / giveaway
Aug 13 – Hall Ways Blog – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Aug 16 – Sadie’s Spotlight – book spotlight / author interview / giveaway
Aug 17 – Westveil Publishing – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Aug 17 – Locks, Hooks and Books – book review / giveaway
Aug 18 – Sefina Hawke’s Books – book review
Aug 19 – Reading is My Passion – book review
Aug 19 – Deborah-Zenha Adams – book spotlight / guest post / giveaway
Aug 19 – I’m Into Books – book spotlight / giveaway
Aug 23 – Read with Me – book review
Aug 23 – Books Lattes & Tiaras – book spotlight
Aug 24 – Splashes of Joy – book review / author interview / giveaway
Aug 25 –Falling Into A Good Book – book review / giveaway
Aug 26 – She Just Loves Books – book review / giveaway
Aug 27 – Books for Books – book review
Aug 27 – Adventurous Jessy – book review / giveaway


Enter the Giveaway:

THE SHADE UNDER THE MANGO TREE Book Tour Giveaway

Spotlight & Excerpt: The Wise One + Giveaway

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On Tour with Prism Book Tours

The Wise One
(The Scottish Scrolls #1)
By K.T. Anglehart
Young Adult Fairy Tale, Folklore, Fantasy
Hardcover, Paperback & ebook, 254 Pages
October 25, 2020 by Kat Biggie Press


Worlds collide for both young and mature readers, who will love the fast-paced thrills, chemistry between characters, and interplay of witchy fantasy, mythology, Celtic folklore, and reality in The Wise One—book one of The Scottish Scrolls series.

Mckenna’s never thought much of her nightmares, but on her seventeenth birthday, a vivid dream of burning at the stake awakens her dormant abilities, thrusting her into a world where faeries are real, spirits hold a grudge, and a High Priestess obsessed with a 16th-century prophecy is tracking her every move.

Now, her overprotective dads, Seán and Andre, are forced to tell her the truth—they know who her birth mother is, and her life is not the surrogate story she’s always been told. Abigail, Mckenna’s mom, is some sort of mystic, and Mckenna a Wise One.

Whatever the hell that means.

With the help of a persistent little wren and company of a newfound friend, Mckenna journeys to Ireland in search of her mother and real answers. Along the way, she learns to harness her innate magic and trust her intuition, as best she can anyway—Cillian, a kind and passionate delegate who crosses her path, is proving much harder to read.

Only her mother could truly help her halt her ill fate and prepare her for what’s to come . . . before she gives in to the darkness she knows is buried deep within.

Author K.T. Anglehart expertly weaves a story set in Ireland that is both timeless and unique, a perfect cross-market read for those searching for the next endearing urban fantasy classic.

Praise for the Book

“A heartwarming coming-of-age story with characters that resonate, rich European folklore, and enchanting details that tickle the senses long after the last page is read.” —V. G. Anderson, author of The Light in the Sound


(Affiliate links included.)

Chapter 8—Kytelyer’s Inn

Instinctively, he grabbed hers. She shook her head, fighting a laugh. “I said your hand—” She placed his hand flat against the standing stone nearest to them. “—and now, close your eyes.

Come on,” she insisted over Seán’s snickers.

“Good. Remember, you’re entering a place of worship,” she continued. “Introduce yourself.”

“I’m Seán, luv,” he said, opening one eye and giving his best smouldering stare.

Shushing him, she said, “In your head. And now, ask the circle’s guardians if you’re welcome to enter. Politely . . .”

That voice—he wanted to wake up to its gentle rhythm every morning. It was hypnotic as hell, sparking a tingling sensation at the base of his neck. As it travelled down his body, he decided he was willing to look like a fool and more for this eccentric, alluring stranger.

As he focused, Seán felt something—a small gust of wind. It was so swift, though. Had he imagined it?

“Breathe. Harmonize your energy with the energy you feel here, in this place.”

“How do I do that?”

She placed a hand on his arm. “Be present.”

Seán did his best to focus on the here and now—the touch of her fingers, the sounds of the wet ground and rustling leaves, and his even breaths—until the chatter around the site dissolved.

“I think I’m ready,” he whispered.


About the Author

Katrina Tortorici Anglehart is a born and bred Italian-Canadian from Montreal. A devoted academic, she holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism; a graduate certificate in Scriptwriting; and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. After dabbling in TV writing and working as a digital marketing content manager, she left the nine to five to launch her freelance editing and coaching career. Today, she relishes in helping aspiring authors to develop and refine their stories.

Besides English, Katrina speaks French, Italian, and Spanglish. When she’s not writing, diving into magical reads, or Netflixing, she’s travelling with her favourite human–her high-school-sweetheart-turned-husband, Andy–and obsessing over her pet bunny, Magic, and newly rescued pup, Nessie. Katrina currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Tour Schedule



Tour Giveaway

One winner will receive a print copy of The Wise One (open to US, CAN and UK)

Ends August 25, 2021

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