Book Promo – Valens the Fletcher and His Captive

Valens the Fletcher and His Captive (MF)
by Lindsay Townsend
Medieval Captives 2

Siren-BookStrand, Inc.

Heat Rating: SENSUAL

Historical

http://www.bookstrand.com/valens-the-fletcher-and-his-captive

 

Katherine has been let down by men before.
Can she trust the man who captures her?

England, Summer 1132

Valens is an arrow-maker and spy for Lord Sebastian (the hero of Sebastian the Alchemist & His Captive, Medieval Captives 1). His beloved sister Julia has died, leaving an infant who needs breast-feeding. Valens is still single, so needs to find a wet nurse for the baby.

He kidnaps young Katherine, and her baby, Jack, from a camp of women. Can Katherine save Edith, Valens’s little niece? Can she trust the handsome Valens, share her secrets, make a life with him? Can she recover Jack’s lost inheritance?

Ordered to court Katherine by his lord, Valens slowly begins to understand that he loves Kate, that he loves making a family with her, Jack, and Edith. Does his realization come too late? When, on their wedding day, a plot between Valens and Sebastian is revealed, can Katherine forgive Valens? Can she trust a spy?

BOOKSTRAND

AMAZON COM 

AMAZON UK

Valens the Fletcher and His Captive is book 2 of Lindsay’s Medieval Captives Series. Book 1, Sebastian the Alchemist and his Captive, is already out.

Sebastian the Alchemist and his Captive

He takes her for hate. Will he keep her for love?

Sebastian, lord of the tower in the northern high lands, is a proud, bitter man with a dark past. An alchemist and a warrior, he has had lovers but knows he is ugly—experience and betrayal have taught him that.  When Melissa, the beautiful, neglected daughter of two old enemies, falls into his possessive hands he is determined to hold her. Why?

As one of the detested and defeated Felix family,  Melissa must cling to her courage when she is claimed as a war-prize by the tall, grim Sebastian. Expecting torture and ravishment, she finds instead a peace and sanctuary that she has never known. Treated with kindness for the first time in her life, Melissa begins to blossom.

But there are secrets and old betrayals between them. Sebastian’s abiding jealousy is not easily quelled, especially when someone at the tower seeks to destroy his growing love with Melissa…

Medieval Captives 1  ~  Read Chapter One 

BOOKSTRAND

AMAZON COM 

AMAZON UK

BARNES AND NOBLE 

KOBO 

APPLE

Lindsay Townsend, historical romance.   Lindsay’s Book Chat 

Medieval Captive series by Lindsay Townsend

 

Valens the Fletcher and His Captive (MF)
by Lindsay Townsend
Medieval Captives 2

Siren-BookStrand, Inc.

Heat Rating: SENSUAL
Word Count: 23,476

Historical

Now on Amazon and other sellers!

http://www.bookstrand.com/valens-the-fletcher-and-his-captive

 

Katherine has been let down by men before. Can she trust the man who captures her?

England, Summer 1132

Valens is an arrow-maker and spy for Lord Sebastian (the hero of Sebastian the Alchemist & His Captive, Medieval Captives 1). His beloved sister Julia has died, leaving an infant who needs breast-feeding. Valens is still single, so needs to find a wet nurse for the baby.

He kidnaps young Katherine, and her baby, Jack, from a camp of women. Can Katherine save Edith, Valens’s little niece? Can she trust the handsome Valens, share her secrets, make a life with him? Can she recover Jack’s lost inheritance?

Ordered to court Katherine by his lord, Valens slowly begins to understand that he loves Kate, that he loves making a family with her, Jack, and Edith. Does his realization come too late? When, on their wedding day, a plot between Valens and Sebastian is revealed, can Katherine forgive Valens? Can she trust a spy?

OUT NOW FROM
AMAZON COM , BOOKSTRAND, AMAZON UK,
AND OTHER SELLERS

Valens the Fletcher and His Captive is book 2 of the Medieval Captives Series. Book 1, Sebastian the Alchemist and his Captive, is already out.

Sebastian the Alchemist and his Captive

He takes her for hate. Will he keep her for love?

Sebastian, lord of the tower in the northern high lands, is a proud, bitter man with a dark past. An alchemist and a warrior, he has had lovers but knows he is ugly—experience and betrayal have taught him that.  When Melissa, the beautiful, neglected daughter of two old enemies, falls into his possessive hands he is determined to hold her. Why?

As one of the detested and defeated Felix family,  Melissa must cling to her courage when she is claimed as a war-prize by the tall, grim Sebastian. Expecting torture and ravishment, she finds instead a peace and sanctuary that she has never known. Treated with kindness for the first time in her life, Melissa begins to blossom.

But there are secrets and old betrayals between them. Sebastian’s abiding jealousy is not easily quelled, especially when someone at the tower seeks to destroy his growing love with Melissa…

Medieval Captives 1

Read Chapter One 

OUT NOW FROM

BOOKSTRAND    AMAZON COM      AMAZON UK
BARNES AND NOBLE    KOBO   APPLE 

Lindsay Townsend, historical romance.   Lindsay’s Book Chat 

follow Lindsay Townsend on Twitter: @lindsayromantic

Book Review: Jews and Jewishness in British Children’s Literature

Jews and Jewishness in British Children’s Literature
(Children’s Literature and Culture)

by Madelyn Travis

In a period of ongoing debate about faith, identity, migration and culture, this timely study explores the often politicised nature of constructions of one of Britain’s longest standing minority communities. Representations in children’s literature influenced by the impact of the Enlightenment, the Empire, the Holocaust and 9/11 reveal an ongoing concern with establishing, maintaining or problematising the boundaries between Jews and Gentiles. Chapters on gender, refugees, multiculturalism and historical fiction argue that literature for young people demonstrates that the position of Jews in Britain has been ambivalent, and that this ambivalence has persisted to a surprising degree in view of the dramatic socio-cultural changes that have taken place over two centuries.

Wide-ranging in scope and interdisciplinary in approach, Jews and Jewishness in British Children’s Literature discusses over one hundred texts ranging from picture books to young adult fiction and realism to fantasy. Madelyn Travis examines rare eighteenth- and nineteenth-century material plus works by authors including Maria Edgeworth, E. Nesbit, Rudyard Kipling, Richmal Crompton, Lynne Reid Banks, Michael Rosen and others. The study also draws on Travis’s previously unpublished interviews with authors including Adele Geras, Eva Ibbotson, Ann Jungman and Judith Kerr.

About the Author

Madelyn J. Travis is an Associate Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She has published on historical and contemporary British and American children’s literature and is currently researching Jewish childhood in England. This is her first book.

Review

‘An original and significant addition to understanding of the interaction of British culture with the Jews and “Jews.”‘ – Professor David Feldman, author of Englishmen and Jews: Social Relations and Political Culture1840-1914

Amazon Review

  Innovation, insight and interest reviewed by R. White

Madelyn Travis has produced an outstanding work of scholarship, at its heart the most important driver of all – innovative insight. In `Jews and Jewishness in British Children’s Literature’ we are gifted a complex, well-argued work that carries within it messages far beyond children’s literature – for it examines the translation of a troubling issue for adults into the world of fiction for the young, where its impact will be formative.

This book delivers a shock, though, in its detailed, well-argued unfolding of the persistence of Semitic and anti-Semitic stereotypes, and in its revelation of how ready they can be to spring up out of earth thought cleansed at last. Cited in the book, the resigned yet all-too understandably embittered phrase “The closed season on Jews is over”, is haunting – not least because of its recent provenance. And yet one can see a basic literary problem facing modern authors of clear sight and goodwill – how do you resist a poisoned stereotype (is that tautology?) without first describing or at least somehow encompassing it? And what might you unleash when you do?

It’s also revelatory to read of modern authors yielding to the seductive power of this image (the “bad Jew” etc.) Sadly, all Gentiles – like the present writer – have the potential for this corruption in them, though obviously the key point is what an individual does (and doesn’t) do about it. It would seem in the end far better for a writer to deny to her/his pages such a “stereotrap” – how much harm would that do, either artistically or didactically? Surprising, too, is Travis’ finding that so few have used the nature of being Jewish as an affirmative thing – to make, say, a work that tells of a journey from knee-jerk dislike to acceptance and understanding. Jewish culture and faith is so deep that would surely succeed, by simply presenting difference as rewarding, creative, stimulating – which, approached with an open heart, always enriches. Any Gentile who has, for example, attended shiva to commemorate the life of a departed person, will have found the firm but gentle inclusivity of the ceremony truly moving.

The insights `Jews and Jewishness in British Children’s Literature’ offers are often troubling, but for that very reason of great value. It should be a first starting point for anyone writing on such subjects, in fiction or in academe, and there is little doubt it will become a seminal text. Its originality and insightful power will readily ensure that.

Buy Links

Amazon (US) Kindle
Amazon (US) Hardcover
Barnes & Noble
Amazon (UK) Kindle
Amazon (UK) Hardcover

 

‘The Serial Dater’s Shopping List’ by Morgen Bailey

‘The Serial Dater’s Shopping List’

      31 men in 31 days – what could possibly go wrong?

Isobel MacFarlane is a recently-turned-40 journalist who usually writes a technology column for a newspaper based in Northampton, England, but her somewhat-intimidating boss, William, has set her the task of meeting 31 men, via a local internet dating site, all within a month. Having an active, though fruitless, social life with her friend and ‘Health & Beauty’ colleague Donna, she knows what she wants in a man, so creates a shopping list of dos and don’ts, and starts ticking them off as she meets Mr Could Be Right Except For, Mr Not Bad, Mr Oh My Goodness and Mr Oh So Very Wrong. Follow the ups (there are a few) and downs (there are many) of the dating process and intertwined with her experiences, get to know her colleague and family, including her niece Lola who, apart from being an amazing storyteller, can eat ambidextrously whilst wearing a Princess glove puppet on her right hand, and Baby, William’s non-too-healthy African Grey parrot.

***

Excerpt:

I shake my head, attempt a smile and watch him clear the plate. Finally, he picks up the chicken bones and I expect him to eat them whole, but he just licks them clean and drops them back on the plate. He issues another belch, this time apologising as he realises it was loud enough to draw attention to himself, as if the devouring of an African family’s monthly intake wasn’t bad enough. Throughout the whole episode, there’s not been a word of proper chat between us. He’s been too busy eating and I’ve been concentrating on keeping my hotpot down.

As the last morsel of food disappears into the black hole, the waitress heads for our table, I assume to clear the platter away, but she’s holding a plate above her left shoulder. I’m relieved it’s not big enough to be another meal for two, although I wouldn’t put it past him, but more like a standard sized dinner plate. I will it to be nothing I would normally eat, but am sorely disappointed as laid before me is a double helping of, the waitress announces, “homemade Banoffee pie”. I could cry.

I smile less than half-heartedly at the waitress who looks sympathetically at me before retreating to the kitchen, I assume to gossip about Table 14. At the thought of the beautiful dessert being dismembered in such a way, I look at Tim’s eyebrows. I can’t bear to look any further down as his nose is running and it’s close to meeting the barbecue sauce on his upper lip. I’ve finally had enough and blurt out, “I’m sorry, but I’ve just remembered I’ve left my oven on.” But then I recall Duncan’s battle to lose weight and feel guilty, until Tim’s mouth gapes open revealing a mixture of toffee syrup and pastry, which threaten to spill over the edge like a coin cascade at a fair, and I can’t bear to look at him anymore.

As I get up to leave, he splutters a, “so, do you want to meet again?” and I don’t know what to say without hurting his feelings. I mumble a non-committal, “I’ll message you” and almost do a Usain-Bolt-sprint down the stairs.

***

Morgen Bailey biography

Based in Northamptonshire, England, Morgen Bailey (“Morgen with an E”) is a prolific blogger, editor / critiquer, tutor, speaker, and podcaster. Chair of two writing groups, she is a freelance author of numerous short stories, novels, articles, and some poetry. Like her, her blog, http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com, is consumed by all things literary. Her email is morgen@morgenbailey.com. 

Blog: http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Morgen-Bailey/e/B007SNIBF8

Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Morgen-Bailey/e/B007SNIBF8

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/morgenbailey

Twitter: https://twitter.com/morgenwriteruk and https://twitter.com/NtonWritingGrps

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/morgenwriteruk / http://www.facebook.com/MorgenBaileyAuthor

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5313774.Morgen_Bailey

Morgen’s books: http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/books-mine