Book Blitz & Excerpt: Through the Veneer of Time + Giveaway

THROUGH THE VENEER OF TIME RDB

I am so excited that THROUGH THE VENEER OF TIME by Vera Bell is available now and that I get to share the news!

This blitz also includes a giveaway for a $10 Amazon GC courtesy of Alexis & Rockstar Book Tours. So if you’d like a chance to win, check out the giveaway info below.

Title: THROUGH THE VENEER OF TIME

Author: Vera Bell

Pub. Date: April 3, 2023

Publisher: Champagne Book Group

Formats: Paperback, eBook, audiobook

Pages: 470

Find it: Goodreads, books2read

 

How far would you go to fulfill your terrifying ancient vow?

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets Outlander in this “hauntingly beautiful debut” (Julie McElwain, A Murder in Time). Take a plunge into this mind-blowing, genre-bending world of historical fantasy, suspense, romance, and time travel.

If not for “The Ghost”—her FBI husband’s gruesome case—Siena Forte’s life would have been perfect. But not when the D.C. serial killer is hunting women like her, and when her husband is so unsettled by this case, he refuses to discuss it. It’s a miracle her art career is thriving at all. And not only her career.

When Siena lands a medieval mural commission at the National Gallery of Art, she discovers a bizarre knack for astral projecting to her past life. In a lucky strike, her visions of love and prominence in medieval Ireland are just the creative inspiration she seeks.

What Siena doesn’t know is her vivid depiction of the past exposes her to someone she has met before—the serial killer, reborn in this century just like her. But when a vicious attack from the past reverberates into the present, Siena’s life unravels in a chilling parallel.

Silenced and alone, she discovers the true reason for her visions. They’re not the creative inspiration they seemed, but a harbinger of her centuries-old revenge vow, and the killer cannot be stopped until she fulfills it. But there is another person from the past with unfinished business—her husband. And another unwelcome déjà vu—their crumbling marriage, once again precipitated by the serial killer’s crime.


EXCERPT ONE 

His words were a blast that made something inside me snap.
Why couldn’t I unlock my  eyes from his? Unclench my knees despite an unbearable compulsion to run? I dug my fingernails  into my sweaty palms to break the paralysis, drove the graphite shards into my flesh. 

“Do you ever wonder what becomes of your characters?” His vacuous smile didn’t reach  his eyes. “What comes after your painstaking freeze-frame? Your warrior—” He pointed his chin  at the mural. “He’s cocky, but he doesn’t know what he’s riding into. Yet hours from now, he could be lying in some field, stripped of his weapons, bleeding out into the ground as the vultures  peck at his baby blues.” His eyes widened.
“Leaving his beautiful young widow all alone.”  

His impossibly soft voice was a ringing blow in my ears. A tremor braced my throat. I drew  a frantic breath against it.  

“I’m sorry,” I squeezed out, “I’m not sure I follow.” 

“I’m sure you do.” He chuckled. “But don’t look so stricken,
Siena Forte. It’s only a  painting, a fantasy. Nothing more.” 

“Excuse me…” I edged past him, cold all over. 

I rushed into the nearest restroom, tossed the broken graphite into the trash can, and  locked myself in a stall. I hugged myself. Tight. Tighter. Gasped for air, not drawing any. My vision  swam at the edges. Flickering. Fading. My heart thudded, and breath came faster in my chest,  choking me. 

Fragments of his words whirred around me, and I grasped my head to stop the awful  cacophony. But it wouldn’t stop. The image he drew cut like a knife, piercing through something  soft and vulnerable inside.
Something I’d buried deep down and wished to keep that way. But  he’d driven it to the surface and laid it out in the open, raw and exposed. 

Someone entered the restroom, and I froze at the squeak of the adjoining stall door. But  it was only a pair of black pumps through the divider gap. Heartbeat in my ears, I dropped the  toilet lid and sat down. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. 

Worgen was a narcissistic egomaniac, pissed off at not getting his way. Certainly, he could  neither read my mind nor know anything about my visions. He was messing with me. Of course,  he was!
Pygmalion was a mythical sculptor, whose ivory creation came to life after he’d fallen in  love with her. And here I was, a female artist, painting a man.
As for the widow, it wasn’t a big  leap to imagine a handsome warrior leaving a young wife at home. Worgen didn’t have to know  about me to understand this mental image would upset me.  

I couldn’t tell how long I stayed in the restroom, but I emerged more determined than  ever to continue with my project. I only needed to go outside and get some fresh air first. But  Worgen was still there, talking to a visitor, and the only way out was past him. I clenched my jaw and went toward them.

All content subject to copyright © Vera Bell 2023. All rights reserved. 


About Vera Bell:

Vera Bell is the author of the time-travel romance trilogy Always & Forever, set in sixteenth-century  Ireland and present-day United States. Book One, Through the Veneer of Time, is her debut novel.  Besides being a writer, she is a wife to her high-school sweetheart, a mother to two teenagers and  one fur baby, a former commercial artist and boutique owner, and a member of the Historical Novel  Society, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and Romance Writers of America. Her favorite place  to write is on her porch, overlooking a pond lined with river birches and magnolias. The topics she  never tires of are Ireland, past lives, and love that transcends time and space.

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 Giveaway Details:

1 Winner will receive a $10 Amazon GC, International.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ends May 2nd, midnight EST.

BBNYA Semi-Finalist Spotlight: The Vicar Man, by Amelia Crowley

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This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the 50 books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website or take a peek over on Twitter: @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (If you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.


The Vicar Man
by Amelia Crowley
Publisher: Self-Published
Length: 196 Pages
Genre: Historical Fantasy, Comedy, Satire
Age Category: New Adult, Adult
Date Published: 20 August 2021

Dora is a barmaid.

Usually her life is fairly simple: she gets up, cleans the inn, feeds the chickens, argues with the increasingly obstreperous cockerel, listens to the woes of her fellow barmaid, avoids doing the laundry, and serves drinks to the motley crew of islanders who lurk about the taproom every night.

The same old routine, day in, day out.

Tonight, though, is different.

Tonight, just one week before the vernal equinox, after a catastrophically bad harvest the year before, a stranger has walked into the bar…

Amazon CA / US / UK
Goodreads


Author Bio

Amelia

Amelia lives in Yorkshire with her family.

At least she definitely had a family around here somewhere, but to be honest she’s spent so much of the last year staring into a word processor she thinks they may have wandered off.

Her writing is fuelled by mugs of terrible, over-sugared coffee, much better chocolate, and the occasional macaron, and is punctuated by her soulless whimpers and the sound of her head hitting the keyboard.

She posts updates on her books and writing at https://www.ameliacrowley.com/ When she remembers.

Spotlight & Author Interview: Woman on the Wall, by Robin Rivers

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TWO EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN RISKING THEIR LIVES
TO SECURE THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY—FIVE CENTURIES APART

women of hte wall cover

Woman on the Wall
The Sibylline Chronicles, Vol. 1
by Robin Rivers
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Robin Marie Rivers Publishing
Out September 6, 2022
394 pages

For 500 years, the once powerful order of the Sibylline has kept the identity of its future prophetess hidden in the most famous painting in the world. Amid the chaos of post-World War II France, one woman discovers their ancient secret and its ability to transform a fragmented world. 

Paris & Amboise, 1945.

A brilliant, devoted, and driven paleographer …

After 480 days as a Nazi political prisoner, Dr. Marie Guerrant returns to Paris to repatriate the Mona Lisa and find her daughter. When a British Colonel arrives claiming he needs her French Resistance connections to find the lost painting, which she helped hide seven years earlier, distrust is high. Tipped off about her daughter’s involvement and the Colonel’s obsessive belief that the Mona Lisa contains the identity of a modern-day Sibyl prophetess, Marie must risk her life to save her daughter and the masterpiece from men consumed by controlling destiny.

Amboise & Fontevraud, 1519.

A brave, bold, and potent prophetess …

On the eve of rising as the Sibyl of Amboise, Aesmeh de la Rose must rely on her visions to find Leonardo da Vinci after he and the Mona Lisa disappear from his workshop at Clos Lucé. The precious painting and its creator cannot be lost or the ancient Sibylline Order faces extermination after more than 1000 years of rebuilding their powerful matriarchy. Torn between duty and love, Aesmeh must tap into an ancient alchemy in a race to keep the Order safe. But, an unspeakable betrayal forces her to make an unfathomable choice to secure the future of the Sibylline.

Amazon


Praise:

Intricately plotted, Woman on the Wall by debut author Robin Rivers is a fast-paced historical fantasy set in Paris and Amboise, France in 1519 and 1945. It honors the Sibylline as so much more than ancient myth and celebrates their place in every woman’s journey to self-discovery.

The first book in the six-part series The Sibylline Chronicles, Woman on the Wall is an entrancing tale revealing the fate of two extraordinary women risking their lives to secure the future of humanity–five centuries apart. This rich alternate his- tory binds a brilliant, devoted, and driven paleographer and a brave, bold, and potent prophetess beyond time, each fighting to restore sight to a world blinded by the power and control of men.


COMING FALL 2023

A mother’s devotion. A daughter’s determination. An ancient terror’s obsession. The Mother House [The Sibylline Chronicles Vol. 2] by Robin Rivers, available wherever books are sold.


Author Interview:

1. What inspired you to write this book? OR Tell us a little about how this story first came to be.Did it start with an image, a voice, a concept, a dilemma or something else?

About ten years ago, a friend gave me the book Azazeel by Youssef Ziedan and I fell in love with his notion of Hypatia of Alexandria as a Sibyl. I went digging and discovered that the stories of these ancient prophetesses, who are immortalized everywhere from the Sistine Chapel to the floor of the Cathedral in Sienna, Italy, don’t exist. I found that impossible to believe, so I set out to create a world in which the Sibylline are an incredible force that those who couldn’t control them set out to erase. This novel took me about three years to complete. I traveled to France in 2019 in order to get all of the local research completed and the discoveries that I made there transformed the novel.

2. What, if anything, did you learn when writing the book?

Humility. The editing process was a real lesson in what I didn’t yet know or understand how to apply. I quickly developed a thick skin and a real respect for all of the people writing a novel.

3. What surprised you the most in writing it?

How much I LOVED employing all of my journalism training and techniques to write a thriller. I found my voice with this novel.

4. What does the title mean?

It is definitely multi-layered. Woman On The Wall, at its most simple, is meant to reflect the Mona Lisa and her place at the Louvre. We can look beyond it and see the irony of the Sibylline surviving in the very halls of the men who set out to destroy them. Finally, it is the identity hidden within the brush strokes of the most famous painting in the wall, holding the fate of us all in that stillness until the time comes that the Sibylline rise again.

5. Were any of the characters inspired by real people? If so, do they know?

Sister Maurine and Iné Soudier are both inspired by the real Maurine Soudier. I met Maurine when she led me through an absolutely wonderful tour of Château Gaillard Amboise and was so charmed by her stories. She and I have kept in touch in the years since and I sent her an advance copy of the novel. I also hope to reconnect with her when I am in France later this year.

6. Do you consider the book to have a lesson or moral?

Love and hate are hewn from the same stone.

7. What is your favorite part of the book?

I love the letters from Aesmeh and those that pepper the novel. There were so many more included in the first draft and I had to pare them back to the few gems that appear in the final version of the novel. Using the literary device as a way to bridge time just makes me swoon a bit.

8. Which character was most challenging to create?

Marie was by far the most complex and challenging character to create. For me, striking the balance of tough, smart, independent woman with a softness that allowed her not to cling too dangerously to her false beliefs turned my writing life upside down for a while. To be honest, Marie was not the original heroine of this story, but emerged as the most provocative and I rewrote the novel with her as the lead.

9. What are your immediate future plans?

My immediate future plans are to pack my suitcase and hit the road for a few solo weeks in France. It’s definitely going to involve some research for Vol. 2 of the Sibylline Chronicles, which is going to center around the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud and the region of the Loire Valley surrounding Saumur. Really, though, I’m going to Saumur to sip sparkling wine and sleep for two weeks. I’m exhausted.


About the Author

Robin Rivers HeadshotRobin Rivers is an award-winning writer who guides young authors as CEO of Quill Academy of Creative Writing. She has always been fascinated with stories of lost times and nerds out in the realm of all things historical, fantastical, female, and mythological. As a result, she spends her days in a literary universe best described as slipstream

— a mix of historical, magical realism, and haunting romance. Robin lives with her husband, daughters, and their sphynx cat Hypatia on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil- Waututh Nations in Vancouver, Canada. Woman On The Wall is her debut novel. Stay up to date on The Sibylline Chronicles at thesibyllinechronicles.com and follow Robin on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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