Fall of Poppies edited by Heather Webb + a Giveaway

Happy Monday, readers! Today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War.

Since this is an anthology, I'm going to go ahead and use the official synopsis here for you before diving into my review:

Top voices in historical fiction deliver an unforgettable collection of short stories set in the aftermath of World War I—featuring bestselling authors such as Hazel Gaynor, Jennifer Robson, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig and edited by Heather Webb.

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month...

November 11, 1918. After four long, dark years of fighting, the Great War ends at last, and the world is forever changed. For soldiers, loved ones, and survivors the years ahead stretch with new promise, even as their hearts are marked by all those who have been lost.

As families come back together, lovers reunite, and strangers take solace in each other, everyone has a story to tell.

In this moving anthology, nine authors share stories of love, strength, and renewal as hope takes root in a fall of poppies.

As you all may know we are in the midst of the 100 year anniversary of WWI, which began in the summer of 1914 and stretched through to November 11, 1918 - Armistice Day. As such, there's been a bevy of new fiction, non fiction, movies, and tv shows based around that era to satisfy even the buffest of WWI history buffs. I can't claim to be a HUGE history buff (I do have to look up dates and such), but I do absolutely love stories of love, heroism, and the people of this era, which makes this particular anthology quite perfect reading.

The book features nine tales by (as the synopsis promises) top voices in historical fiction, some of whom have been featured here on the blog before:

"The Daughter of Belgium" by Marci Jefferson (The Girl on the Golden Coin) kicks off the collection, introducing readers to a brave and formidable woman whose life in Belgium has been greatly affected by the war. A tragedy has forced her to hide away in a former clinic where one last patient tests her every resolve.

Marci Jefferson - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"The Record Set Straight" by Lauren Willig (the Pink Carnation series, That Summer, and The Other Daughter) takes readers to Kenya in 1980 where an elderly woman is faced with a reunion she's long avoided and a truth that's been buried for over sixty years.

Lauren Willig - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"All for the Love of You" by Jennifer Robson (Somewhere in France, After the War is Over, and Moonlight Over Paris) is set seven years after the war when a woman makes a discovery that brings her back to Armistice Day and a lost love.

Jennifer Robson - Website | Facebook | Twitter

In "After You've Gone" by Evangeline Holland (author of, amongst others, the Bledington Park series) a widow with nothing left to lose finds out this isn't the case at all.

Evangeline Holland - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"Something Worth Landing For" by Jessica Brockmole (Letters From Skye) is a sweet read about a pilot who comes to a stranger's rescue just one day before heading to the front.

Jessica Brockmole - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"Hour of the Bells" by Heather Webb (Becoming Josephine and Rodin's Lover) finds a mother stricken by loss considering a most desperate act of revenge.

Heather Webb - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"An American Airman in Paris" by Beatriz Williams (A Certain Age, Along the Infinite Sea, Tiny Little Things...) tells the story of a pilot who carries a picture that's very near and dear to him. But while everyone believes it's a picture of his sweetheart, only he knows the truth.

Beatriz Williams - Website | Facebook | Twitter

"The Photograph" by Kate Kerrigan (the Ellis Island trilogy, Recipes For a Perfect Marriage, and The Miracle of Grace) is set around the Irish uprising and war for independence and a picture of a soldier in enemy uniform. Who the man was and why his picture was held onto for so many years makes a descendant ponder exactly what that means for her own family history.

Kate Kerrigan - Website | Facebook | Twitter

And finally, in "Hush" by Hazel Gaynor (The Girl Who Came Home, A Memory of Violets, and The Girl From the Savoy) two boys fight for the lives in the same last moments of the war.

Hazel Gaynor - Website | Facebook | Twitter

As I said above, this is quite the perfect anthology for fans of WWI fiction as well as fans of the contributing authors. But do be prepared, these are some emotional stories! You may need tissues nearby (Something Worth Landing For was the one that got me!).

Rating: 4/5

As a little bonus today, I do have a copy of Fall of Poppies to give away to one of you lucky readers. To enter simply fill out the Rafflecopter below before Monday, March 21. Open US only.

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To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

Purchase Links: HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

PS: last year I was lucky enough to be able to feature the cover and an excerpt from the anthology. You can check that post out here if you'd like a little taste of what's inside (the excerpt is from Heather Webb's fabulous "The Hour of the Bells.")

Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War - Cover Reveal, Excerpt, + a Giveaway

As you can tell from my recent Charles Todd post and today's Cat Winters post, I'm one of many readers who finds WWI (and WWII) an irresistible subject/setting in novels. Which is why I'm taking part in today's cover reveal for next spring's Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War.

Thanks to the publisher, I've got not only the cover to show you but a bit about the book to share (with preorder links):

Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War 

by Heather Webb, Hazel Gaynor, Beatriz Williams, Jennifer Robson, Jessica Brockmole, Kate Kerrigan, Evangeline Holland, Lauren Willig, Marci Jefferson 

William Morrow Trade Paperback; March 1, 2016; $14.99; ISBN: 9780062418548 

Barnes & Noble / Amazon / IndieBound / Books-a-Million 

Top voices in historical fiction deliver an intensely moving collection of short stories about loss, longing, and hope in the aftermath of World War I—featuring bestselling authors such as Hazel Gaynor, Jennifer Robson, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig and edited by Heather Webb.

A squadron commander searches for meaning in the tattered photo of a girl he’s never met…

A Belgian rebel hides from the world, only to find herself nursing the enemy…

A young airman marries a stranger to save her honor—and prays to survive long enough to love her…The peace treaty signed on November 11, 1918, may herald the end of the Great War but for its survivors, the smoke is only beginning to clear. Picking up the pieces of shattered lives will take courage, resilience, and trust.

Within crumbled city walls and scarred souls, war’s echoes linger. But when the fighting ceases, renewal begins…and hope takes root in a fall of poppies.

and an excerpt: 

Excerpt from “Hour of the Bells” 

A short story included in Fall of Poppies 

Beatrix whisked around the showroom, feather duster in hand. Not a speck of dirt could remain or Joseph would be disappointed. The hour struck noon. A chorus of clocks whirred, their birds popping out from hiding to announce midday. Maidens twirled in their frocks with braids down their backs, woodcutters clacked their axes against pine, and the odd sawmill wheel spun in tune to the melody of a nursery rhyme. Two dozen cuckoos warbled and dinged, each crafted with loving detail by the same pair of hands—those with thick fingers and a steady grip.

Beatrix paused in her cleaning. One clock chimed to its own rhythm, apart from the others.

She could turn them off—the tinkling melodies, the incessant clatter of pendulums, wheels, and cogs, with the levers located near the weights—just as their creator had done before bed each evening, but she could not bring herself to do the same. To silence their music was to silence him, her husband, Joseph. The Great War had already done that; ravaged his gentle nature, stolen his final breath, and silenced him forever.

In a rush, Beatrix scurried from one clock to the next, assessing which needed oiling. With the final stroke of twelve, she found the offending clock. Its walnut face, less ornate than the others, had been her favorite, always. A winter scene displayed a cluster of snow-topped evergreens; rabbits and fawns danced in the drifts when the music began, and a scarlet cardinal dipped its head and opened its beak to the beauty of the music. The animals’ simplicity appealed to her now more than ever. With care, she removed the weights and pendulum, and unscrewed the back of the clock. She was grateful she had watched her husband tend to them so often. She could still see Joseph, blue eyes peering over his spectacles, focused on a figurine as he painted detailing on the linden wood. His patient hands had caressed the figures lovingly, as he had caressed her.

The memory of him sliced her open. She laid her head on the table as black pain stole over her body, pooling in every hidden pocket and filling her up until she could scarcely breathe.

“Give it time,” her friend Adelaide had said, as she set a basket of jam and dried sausages on the table; treasures in these times of rations, yet meager condolence for what Beatrix had lost.

“Time?” Beatrix had laughed, a hollow sound, and moved to the window overlooking the grassy patch of yard. The Vosges mountains rose in the distance, lording over the line between France and Germany along the battle front. Time’s passage never escaped her—not for a moment. The clocks made sure of it. There weren’t enough minutes, enough hours, to erase her loss.

As quickly as the grief came, it fled. Though always powerful, its timing perplexed her. Pain stole through the night, or erupted at unlikely moments, until she feared its onslaught the way others feared death. Death felt easier, somehow.

Beatrix raised her head and pushed herself up from the table to finish her task. Joseph would not want her to mourn, after two long years. He would want to see her strength, her resilience, especially for their son. She pretended Adrien was away at school, though he had enlisted, too. His enlistment had been her fault. A vision of her son cutting barbed wire, sleeping in trenches, and pointing a gun at another man reignited the pain and it began to pool again. She suppressed the horrid thoughts quickly, and locked them away in a corner of her mind.

With a light touch she cleaned the clock’s bellows and dials, and anointed its oil bath with a few glistening drops. Once satisfied with her work, she hung the clock in its rightful place above the phonograph, where a disk waited patiently on the spool. She spun the disk once and watched the printed words on its center blur. Adrien had played Quand Madelon over and over, belting out the patriotic lyrics in time with the music. To him, it was a show of his support for his country. To Beatrix it had been a siren, a warning her only son would soon join the fight. His father’s death was the final push he had needed. The lure of patrimoine, of country, throbbed inside of him as it did in other men. They talked of war as women spoke of tea sets and linens, yearned for it as women yearned for children. Now, the war had seduced her Adrien. She stopped the spinning disk and plucked it from its wheel, the urge to destroy it pulsing in her hands.

She must try to be more optimistic. Surely God would not take all she had left.

Reprinted Courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers

Given not only the subject but the fabulous list of contributing authors, you can probably tell that this is one that's already on my list of books to buy for 2016! 

Now, it is quite a while before the book is out but the publisher is offering up a great giveaway to celebrate the reveal. This is a reveal wide giveaway so you can enter on any of the participating blogs. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Girl on the Golden Coin by Marci Jefferson + a Giveaway

Hi, readers! Today I'm pleased to be part of the blog tour for Marci Jefferson's debut, Girl on the Golden Coin. And thanks to the publisher I'm able to offer up a giveaway copy to one lucky winner - be sure to read to the end to enter.

In turning down France's Kind Louis XIV, Frances Stuart unwittingly became a pawn in political scheming and manipulation. If he couldn't have her as his lover, then Louis XIV would have her as his ambassador in England. Frances is to seduce Charles II in order to depose his current mistress and become the woman behind the throne, influencing his decisions in favor of France as well as his own mother, who hopes that the king will bring England back to the Catholic faith. But Frances was never meant to actually love the king. 

Whew! I think as more and more historical fiction set around the English monarchy is released - beyond King Henry VIII, that is - I've come to realize that I know next to nothing about any of them other than King Henry VIII! I'm gleaning bits and pieces along the way, though.

Marci Jefferson's debut focuses on Frances Stuart in the years after her cousin, Charles II, was restored to the throne - her part of the story from 1661 to 1688 to be exact. When we first meet her, she is looking back on her life, about to begin telling her story to her niece, Anne. We jump to 1661 when her cousin, sister to Charles II, is set to be married off to France's Louis XIV's younger brother. The cousins, Frances and Henriette Anne, are best friends until the king himself comes between them. But the young Frances longs to be true to her cousin and refuses the king's advances in spite of becoming a bit infatuated with him.

Unfortunately for Frances the combination of having spurned such a powerful man, angering her cousin, and the dawning realization that her family possesses at least one secret that should never be revealed to the court means that she is mercy to the whims and fancies of the two royal families - France and England. And the real issue for Frances is balancing the wishes of those whose favor she needs as well as her own family (which are at times at odds with one another), avoiding almost unavoidable scandal, and staying true to herself at the same time. It must have been exhausting to be her!

Jefferson's tale is definitely not dry or boring. This historical fiction is chock full of political machinations and debauchery! It doesn't help that history shows both Charles II and Louis XIV to be rampant womanizers. (Wait, that seems to be most of the kings as a whole.) And the Frances that's brought to life here is warm and charming as well as clever. Fans of historical fiction should take note as I hope this is the first of many such titles we'll see from Jefferson.

Rating: 4/5

And now for the giveaway. To enter just fill out the Rafflecopter below before Monday, March 10. US only and no PO Boxes please.


a Rafflecopter giveaway


For more on Marci and the book as well as guest posts and additional chances to win a copy be sure to visit the rest of the tour:
1/29 – giveaway, Devourer of Books: http://www.devourerofbooks.com/
1/31 – interview/giveaway, Literary, etc: http://literaryetc.com/
2/1 – review, A Bookish Libraria: http://abookishlibraria.blogspot.com/
2/3 – review, The Bookish Owl: http://thebookishowl.wordpress.com/
2/4 – review/giveaway, Writing the Renaissance: http://writingren.blogspot.com/
2/5 – interview, Writing the Renaissance: http://writingren.blogspot.com/
2/6 – interview, Between the Sheets/Heather Webb: http://www.heatherwebbauthor.com/category/blog/
2/7 – interview, Spann of Time: http://www.susanspann.com/
2/8 – review/giveaway, Passages to the Past: http://www.passagestothepast.com/
2/9 – review, Royal Reviews: http://theroyalreviews.blogspot.com/
2/10 – Picture This, SheReads: http://www.shereads.org/
2/10 – review/giveaway, The Lit Bitch: http://thelitbitch.com/
2/11 – review, Reading the Past: http://readingthepast.blogspot.com/
2/11 – interview/on-sale announcement, Enchanted by Josephine: http://enchantedbyjosephine.blogspot.com/
2/11 – Three Favorite Things, USA TODAY’S Happy Ever After: http://www.usatoday.com/blog/happyeverafter/
2/12 – review/giveaway, Enchanted by Josephine: http://enchantedbyjosephine.blogspot.com/
2/12 – review, Muse/Erika Robuck: http://www.erikarobuck.com/Blog.html
2/13 – review, Unabridged Chick: http://unabridged-expression.blogspot.com/
2/13 – interview/giveaway/excerpt, Harlequin Junkie: http://harlequinjunkie.com/
2/14 – interview, Unabridged Chick: http://unabridged-expression.blogspot.com/
2/15 – review, Historical Fiction Obsession: http://historicalfictionobsession.blogspot.com/
2/16 – review, Lesa’s Book Critiques: http://lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com/
2/17 – review/interview, A Bookish Affair: http://abookishaffair.blogspot.com/
2/18 – review, Let Them Read Books: http://letthemreadbooks.blogspot.com/
2/19 – interview, Let Them Read Books: http://letthemreadbooks.blogspot.com/
2/20 – review/giveaway, The Maiden’s Court: http://themaidenscourt.blogspot.com/
2/21 – review/giveaway, No More Grumpy Bookseller: http://nomoregrumpybookseller.blogspot.com/