Book Blitz! The Hope of Azure Springs

THE HOPE OF

AZURE SPRINGS 

by

RACHEL FORDHAM

Genre: Inspirational Historical Romance 

Date of Publication: July 3, 2018

Publisher: Revell

Number of Pages: 336

ABOUT THE BOOK: Seven years ago, orphaned and alone, Em finally arrived at a new home in Iowa after riding the orphan train. But secrets from her past haunt her, and her new life in the Western wilderness is a rough one. When her guardian is shot and killed, Em, now nineteen, finally has the chance to search for her long-lost sister, but she won’t be able to do it alone.

For Azure Springs Sheriff Caleb Reynolds, securing justice for the waifish and injured Em is just part of his job. He’s determined to solve every case put before him in order to impress his parents and make a name for himself. Caleb expects to succeed. What he doesn’t expect is the hold this strange young woman will have on his heart.

 Welcome to the charming town of Azure Springs, Iowa, where people care deeply for one another and, sometimes, even fall in love.

 

CLICK TO PURCHASE

Baker Book House * Amazon * Barnes & Noble

Christianbook.com * Kobo * Books-A-Million

PRAISE FOR THE HOPE OF AZURE SPRINGS: “In her promising first novel, Fordham assembles an endearing cast of characters in the rugged Midwest plains for a tale about surviving and thriving. . . .Fordham depicts heartbreaking emotional and physical suffering, while beautifully illustrating the power in simple acts of kindness to foster healing, hope, and happiness.”

—Booklist

EXCERPT: PROLOGUE

FROM THE HOPE OF AZURE SPRINGS

Iowa, 1881

     She dead?”

     Em heard a man’s voice from somewhere above her. A strange thumping pulsed through her with each word he spoke. Her throat burned, screaming for water, but she could not cry out.

     “There’s life in her. Not much of it though,” a second, raspier voice answered. She felt a hand press against her throat and then move over her body, gently probing. “She’s bleeding pretty bad.”

     “Gunshot?” the first voice asked.

     If only her eyes would open, and she could see them. Straining, she struggled to pull her heavy eyelids open. Finally, bits of light darted in front of her eyes, but she could not focus. The faces above her were fuzzy and indiscernible.

     Fear swept through her, suddenly waking her battered body. Afraid the men from before had returned, she opened her eyes wide, finding strength that only moments before she had lacked. With thrashing arms, she flailed at the men. Her arms flopped about but offered little defense—she was too weak from blood loss. And then they moved no longer, subdued by large, strong hands.

     “Easy, girl. We aren’t going to hurt you. We just want to help. Take you into town, that’s all. There’s a good doctor there.” The man’s deep voice sounded gentle, but still she did not trust him. Voices could be deceiving. Arms could hurt as well as help. She knew these things well.

     Soon she felt her body being raised above the ground, and moments later the hard planks of a wagon became the resting place for her injured frame. Too weak to move, she lay looking at the sky, wishing there were a way to end the agony, but knowing that for Lucy she would fight on.

     Once the wagon lurched forward, she lost track of everything again. The wheels bouncing over ruts made her pain so intense that everything closed around her and then faded to black.

Click here to read Chapter One of The Hope of Azure Springs

A short review from me: I was fortunate to get to read  The Hope of Azure Springs for this blitz. There’s a lot of pain but also a lot of healing. I found myself both smiling and crying while reading this book. It was very well written and captivated me from the start. There were beautiful messages spread throughout the book about living life, beauty, character, and hope. I hope you’ll get a chance to read it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rachel Fordham started writing when her children began begging her for stories at night. She’d pull a book from the shelf, but they’d insist she make one up. She hasn’t stopped since. She lives with her husband and children on an island in the state of Washington.

WEBSITE   FACEBOOK  

GOODREADS   AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE 

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Blog Tour & Review — Harmon General

HARMON GENERAL

Misfits and Millionaires #2 

by

KIMBERLY FISH

Genre: Historical Fiction / WWII / Spies

Publisher: Fish Tales, LLC 

Date of Publication: June 16, 2018

Number of Pages: 330

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In 1943, Lane Mercer and Emmie Tesco had nothing in common. Well, nothing stronger than a town neither of them chose and careers they couldn’t advertise as agents within the Office of Strategic Services. During the days of Longview, Texas’s Friendly Trek Homecoming Parade, Lane was gearing up for the grand opening of a bookshop that also disguised an espionage safe house, and Emmie was chasing a criminal with evil intent through the US Army’s new medical facility, Harmon General Hospital, treating diseased and amputated soldiers. Emmie ropes Lane into international threats at Harmon General, making it increasingly hard for the two spies to navigate the Junior Service League, church life, or anything else that might be considered normal for a town sizzling with oil boom wealth. A friend from Lane’s past arrives and pushes against the fiction she’s created to distance her spy history from the wedding bells ringing her future. Emmie flirts with the idea of finding a life outside of the OSS but justifies the danger as a way to make amends for those she’s betrayed. Connecting the two women, to their surprise, is a rogue agent who targets them for crimes he believes they created. For better, or worse, they have to put aside their differences to share responsibility for stopping “The Grasshopper” before he blows apart the Big Inch Pipeline project and Harmon General Hospital. The hope of malaria treatments for US soldiers depends on it, and justice of the heart demands it. 

PRAISE FOR HARMON GENERAL:

“The war that changed the world brought the world to East Texas through Harmon General, a significant US Army hospital that treated thousands of wounded soldiers in Longview.  In Harmon General, we meet again Lane Mercer, a World War II heroine, and we enjoy again how the drama of her secret service to the nation and her complicated personal relationships pull us into the vast impact of the world war.” — Dale Lunsford, Ph.D., President, LeTourneau University

“Harmon General is a brilliant story for historical fiction readers! Set in World War II, the female spies, Army hospital setting, and drama amongst the Longview townsfolk kept me riveted and engaged until the very end.” – Jody T. Morse

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║ AMAZON  ║ BARNES AND NOBLE  ║

SPECIAL PROMOTION: FREE BOOK!

For the first five days of the Lone Star Book Blog Tours promotion of Harmon General, the Kindle  e-book of The Big Inch is FREE!!  That’s right, from June 22-27, the e-book that started the whole Misfits and Millionaires adventure costs nada! Click to download your copy!

Reading this book for review came at an interesting time for me–we had just returned from a short getaway in East Texas. While we hadn’t quite made it as far as Longview, it was still neat to have the story set so close to where we had been.

In one word, Harmon General is Captivating. It kept me interested and intrigued and needing to know what happened next.

Lane Mercer is trying to figure out what she wants in life, and it isn’t easy. Being an agent, even semi-retired, certainly makes figuring things out a lot more difficult, especially when it seems Longview has become a hotbed for those willing to sell secrets for a pretty penny. Also complicating matters is the fact that Lane hasn’t exactly dealt with her past, and it’s keeping her from moving on.

Lane isn’t the only one this book focuses on, but she is the main one. That’s not to say Emmie Tesco doesn’t have her own things to work through (that epilogue was so emotional!).

The entire cast of characters in this book is unique–each a thoroughly believable individual with their own motivations, agendas, secrets, and prejudices. The setting (location and time period) were very well-researched and represented in these books.

Truly, I had no idea where this book was going to lead me. I remember being almost exactly at the halfway point, and my heart was breaking for Lane, and I had no idea how the situations were going to play out–and that was just the middle! While I feel I can’t really comment on anything past that halfway point, I will say it was a great ride!

I really loved Lane’s scene at the golf course. I’d have to say, it’s certainly a wonderful way of dealing with Lane Mercer’s Pet Peeve, being underestimated because you’re a woman.

If you enjoy historical fiction, espionage, or women defying social norms/expectations, I’d highly recommend picking this book up.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My review of The Big Inch.

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR:

Kimberly Fish started writing professionally with the birth of her second child and the purchase of a home computer. Having found this dubious outlet, she then entered and won The Writer’s League of Texas manuscript contest which fed her on-going fascination with story crafting. 

She has since published in magazines, newspapers, and online formats and in January 2017, released the first novel in the Misfits and Millionaires series set during the World War II years in Longview, Texas—The Big Inch. Her second book, Comfort Plans, was published later that same year.

She lives with her family in East Texas.

WEBSITE   INSTAGRAM  FACEBOOK  

TWITTER   GOODREADS   AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE  

Visit Kimberly Fish’s YouTube channel

to see book reviews and behind the scene peeks

at places that have inspired the novels! 

~

From kissing couples to fabulous fedoras,

Kimberly Fish’s Pinterest Board shows her

inspiration behind Harmon General!

---

GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!

TWO SIGNED COPIES OF HARMON GENERAL

JUNE 22-JULY 1, 2018

(U.S. Only)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

VISIT THE OTHER GREAT BLOGS ON THE TOUR:

6/22/18	Top Ten List	That’s What She’s Reading
6/23/18	Review	Books in the Garden
6/23/18	Excerpt	Book Fidelity
6/24/18	Guest Post	Chapter Break Book Blog
6/25/18	Review	Syd Savvy
6/25/18	Character Interview	The Librarian Talks
6/26/18	BONUS Review	Hall Ways Blog
6/27/18	Review	The Clueless Gent
6/27/18	Top Ten List	Kelly Well Read
6/28/18	Playlist	StoreyBook Reviews
6/29/18	Review	The Love of a Bibliophile
6/29/18	Excerpt	Books and Broomsticks
6/30/18	Review	Reading by Moonlight
6/30/18	Guest Post	Dressed to Read
7/1/18	Review	Missus Gonzo

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Blog Tour & Review — Sins of the Younger Sons

SINS OF THE

YOUNGER SONS

by

JAN REID

Genre: Literary Fiction / Romance / Spy / Thriller

Publisher: Texas Christian University Press

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Publication Date: February 28, 2018

Number of Pages: 296 pages

Sins of the Younger Sons has received the Jesse H. Jones Award for Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters! Luke Burgoa is an ex-Marine on a solitary covert mission to infiltrate the Basque separatist organization ETA in Spain and help bring down its military commander, Peru Madariaga. Luke hails from a Basque ancestry that came with the Spanish empire to Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, and, seventy-five years ago, to a Texas ranch. Neighbors consider the Burgoas Mexican immigrants and exiles of that nation’s revolution, but the matriarch of the family speaks the ancient language Euskera and honors traditions of the old country. Luke’s orders are to sell guns to the ETA and lure Peru into a trap. Instead he falls in love with Peru’s estranged wife, Ysolina, who lives in Paris and pursues a doctorate about an Inquisition-driven witchcraft frenzy in her native land. From the day they cross the border into the Basque Pyrenees, their love affair on the run conveys the beauty, sensuality, exoticism, and violence of an ancient homeland cut in two by Spain and France. Their trajectory puts Luke, Ysolina, and Peru on a collision course with each other and the famed American architect Frank Gehry, whose construction of a Guggenheim art museum seeks to transform the Basque city of Bilbao, a decrepit industrial backwater haunted by the Spanish Civil War—and a hotbed of ETA extremism. Ranging from the Amazon rain forest to a deadly prison in Madrid, Sins of the Younger Sons is a love story exposed to dire risk at every turn.

PRAISE FOR SINS OF THE YOUNGER SONS:

“Reid’s story is a fascinating blend of page-turning thriller and vivid tableau of Basque culture and the movement that battled the Spanish establishment for many decades. A reader can’t ask for more—a book that’s engaging, entertaining, educative, and unique.”

—Thomas Zigal, author of Many Rivers to Cross and The White League
“What a fine book Jan Reid has written! At once history—both cultural and political—and sensual love story, it reaches beyond genre to make for a magical and profound reading experience. Don’t start reading it at night unless you want to stay up until dawn and then some.” —Beverly Lowry, author of Who Killed These Girls? and Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life
“Page by page, Sins of the Younger Sons invites the reader to dwell for a while within its unique world, to suffer and celebrate with its unforgettable characters. It’s a trip that, if taken, is well worth the effort.” —Ed Conroy, San Antonio Express-News
“Sins of the Younger Sons vividly takes us into a world few of us have seen and into a bitter conflict most of us have never considered nor understood.” —Si Dunn, Dallas Morning News

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This is certainly an intricately crafted, thoroughly thought out, and researched novel.

In the beginning it almost seems like a handful of only slightly-related stories, but as the novel progresses you realize just how tied together these stories are. It’s also a reminder that politics stretch over time periods, each with their fingers entwined in what has happened in the past, and what they want out of the future. Isolated incidents are rarely such, and sometimes the reasons reach far into the past.

I love how much of the language, culture, and explanations found their way into this novel. It was certainly an immersive experience in that way.

However, because of the use of Basque, Spanish, and sometime French dialogue, the reading was greatly slowed down. There were also times when the characters would slip into thinking about their past almost imperceptibly, and I’d have to go back and find the place where it changed so I could know it wasn’t the “current” time of the story. I found this book to be a but more challenging than what I typically choose; that’s not a bad thing, it just requires a different amount of effort and type of reading headspace.

I think the characters in this story are very human and want a lot of the same things most people do–a better world–even if the means to the end aren’t quite ideal. I didn’t really find myself empathizing with them though.

This book is a great choice for people who enjoy literary pieces that turn on the brain.

Jan Reid’s highly praised books include his novel Comanche Sundown, his biography of Texas governor Ann Richards, Let the People In, his memoir of Mexico, The Bullet Meant for Me, and The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock. Making his home in Austin, Reid has been a leading contributor to Texas Monthly for over forty years.

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VISIT THE OTHER GREAT BLOGS ON THE TOUR:

5/17/18	Promo	The Page Unbound
5/18/18	Review	Hall Ways Blog
5/19/18	Excerpt	Texas Book Lover
5/20/18	Author Interview	The Librarian Talks
5/21/18	Review	Books in the Garden
5/22/18	Promo	Book Fidelity
5/23/18	Playlist	The Clueless Gent
5/24/18	Review	The Love of a Bibliophile
5/25/18	Promo	Forgotten Winds
5/26/18	Review	Reading by Moonlight

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Blog Tour & Review — The Way Of Beauty

THE WAY OF BEAUTY

by

Camille Di Maio

Genre: Historical Fiction / 20th Century / Literary

Publisher: Lake Union Press

Date of Publication: May 1, 2018

Number of Pages: 384  

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Blog Tour & Review — Mornings on Main

MORNINGS ON MAIN:

A Small-Town Texas Novel

by

Jodi Thomas

Genre: Mainstream Romance

Publisher: HQN

Number of Pages: 320 pages

AVAILABLE APRIL 10, 2018!

Bloggers’ Choice Awards WINNERS! Best Hook and Most Creative Concept – Lone Star Book Blog Tours

The Lone Star Book Blog Tours team has voted, and the results are in!  From Best Fiction to Most Engaged Author, we have seventeen awards to hand out to the awesome Texas books and authors featured on Lone Star Book Blog Tours in 2017.

 

From February 15-23, 2018, please join us as we hop around the LSBBT blogs and share the winners, runners-up, and shortlisted titles. Don’t miss it!

Click to learn more about:

Bonnie & Clyde Resurrection Road by Clark Hays & Kathleen McFall

The Grave Tender by Eliza Maxwell • [See my review!]

Badlands (Sawbones 3) by Melissa Lenhardt 

Deep Extraction by DiAnn Mills 

The Unremembered Girl by Eliza Maxwell

Loving Luther by Allison K. Pittman

Before the Rain Falls by Camille DiMaio • [See my review!]

Click to learn more about:

Bonnie & Clyde Resurrection Road by Clark Hays & Kathleen McFall

Almost a Minyan by Lori S. Kline and Susan Simon • [See my review!]

Evidence of Things Not Seen by Lindsey Lane 

Nowhere Near by Teddy Jones  [See my review!]

The Adventures of Miss Vulpe by Elena Maria Sandovici

Bloodoath / Badlands by Melissa Lenhardt   

The Day the Angels Fell by Shawn Smucker   

One Night in Sixes by Tex Thompson

AWARDS SCHEDULE:

2/14: Awards Announcement

2/15: Best Hook & Best Creative Concept

2/16: Best Non-Fiction History, Best Biography/Memoir, & Best Western

2/17: Best Children’s/Juvenile/YA & Best Series

2/18: Best Literary Fiction & Best Religious/Inspirational/Spiritual

2/19: Best Mystery/Suspense, Best Romance, & Best Fantasy

2/20: Best Cover & Most Engaged Author

2/21: Best Texas Book

2/22: Best Non-Fiction Book

2/23: Best Fiction Book

PARTICIPATING BLOGS:

2/15/2018

Best Hook and Most Creative Concept

Book Fidelity

Books and Broomsticks

Books in the Garden

Chapter Break Book Blog

Forgotten Winds

Hall Ways Blog

Missus Gonzo

Momma on the Rocks

The Librarian Talks

The Love of a Bibliophile

Rebecca R. Cahill, Author

StoreyBook Reviews

Syd Savvy

Tangled in Text

Texas Book Lover

Come back tomorrow for the next award announcements!

Review — Caraval by Stephanie Garber

I have been seeing the Caraval cover on Twitter forever, and seeing people rave about the book as well. It always sounded interesting, but I hadn’t ever picked it up. As luck would have it, my mother-in-law brought it home on winter break and let me borrow it when she was finished with it. I’m so glad she did! Other than thinking it sounded good, the author is part of the line up for North Texas Teen Book Festival, and to be quite honest I’ve hardly read any of the 76(?) authors that are going to be there, so I thought I should read a few, although my experience is that even if you haven’t read their books, you can still appreciate what is being said in the panels.

Review — The Speaker by Traci Chee

I was on one of the campuses I often substitute teach on, and I had a class in the library when I looked over and the librarian had a nice stack of just-out-of-the-box books. In beautiful purple and gold, there was The Speaker, Book Two of Sea of Ink and Gold. I could have died. When I told her I had read and loved The Reader and couldn’t wait to read The Speaker, she let me borrow it! I  am so very grateful to her! I read The Reader almost exactly one year ago, and I’m posting this review a year later on the dot, which is pretty cool timing. Here’s my Review.

Blog Tour & Review — Elephant Dreams

ELEPHANT DREAMS

by

MARTHA DEERINGER

Genre: Young Adult / Historical Fiction / Sweet Romance

Publisher: Melange Books

Date of Publication: September 2, 2017

Number of Pages: 224

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Blog Tour & Review — Holding the Fort

HOLDING THE FORT

The Fort Reno Series, Book 1

by

REGINA JENNINGS

  Genre: Historical Western Christian Romance

Publisher: Bethany House Publishers

Date of Publication: December 5, 2017

Number of Pages: 353

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