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I am delighted to welcome Paul D. Marks to the blog!

From the publisher:

Bobby Saxon lives in a world that isn’t quite ready for him. He’s the only white musician in an otherwise all-black swing band at the famous Club Alabam in Los Angeles during World War II–and that isn’t the only unique thing about him…

And if that isn’t enough to deal with, in order to get a permanent gig with the band, Bobby must first solve a murder that one of the band members is falsely accused of in that racially prejudiced society.

I am so excited to welcome the fiercely feminist fantasy author, Claire Legrand, to the blog!

The Music That Inspired the Empirium Trilogy

by Claire Legrand

I’ve told this story before—how I came up with the idea for the Empirium Trilogy when I was eighteen and a recent high school graduate. How, while listening to Howard Shore’s score for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, I daydreamed the character of Rielle Dardenne. How I worked on the trilogy for fourteen years before the first book, Furyborn, was published.

What I haven’t talked about quite as frequently is the specific music that took me beyond that first moment of inspiration. The apocalyptic choral bombast of “The End of All Things”—the music that accompanies the climactic scene in Return of the King—ushered in the character of Rielle. But what about the days after that, once the heady rush of initial inspiration had passed, when I actually had to sit down and figure out how to write this thing?

In middle school, high school, and the first two years of college, I studied music with determination and fervor. My goal was to become a professional orchestral musician, and my instrument was the trumpet. But even before my official study of music, which took my love of instrumental music to the next level, I was obsessed with film scores.

I remember obsessively listening to Danny Elfman’s score for Black Beauty when I was in elementary school, and using it to daydream up all kinds of weird and often dark stories—always infused with magic and always centering around some kind of love story. A girl and her horse. A princess and her knight. Two best friends on the adventure of a lifetime. If music has been my greatest source of inspiration in terms of the Empirium Trilogy, then I can trace that inspiration all the way back to Black Beauty, and the hours I spent listening to it on repeat as a child. (Thanks, Danny.)

Another important piece of music in the process of writing the Empirium Trilogy was Fantasia On a Theme By Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams, a haunting, bittersweet work for string orchestra that I listened to on repeat while writing the original prologue of Furyborn. I can still remember the nervy, giddy feeling that came over me as I sat down to write that opening chapter. I had been planning the trilogy for a few years by that point, and I remember feeling like the moment I began writing this story for real would be pivotal, and that I would remember it forever. I was right. (Side note: The Furyborn prologue has stayed virtually the same over the years.)

Originally, the world of the Empirium Trilogy was our own. Rielle existed in a forgotten/concealed past, and Eliana lived in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic version of the southern United States. You can see a nod to this original concept in the name of Orline, Eliana’s home city. In the first version of the story, she lived in New Orleans. I spent a lot of time writing her opening pages in my university library, tucked away in various quiet corners. Hans Zimmer’s score for The Da Vinci Code was—and still is—a huge part of the musical soundscape of the book, and one particular track, “L’esprit Dès Gabriel,” helped me establish the look and feel of that post-apocalyptic New Orleans, which remains very much the same, even now that it’s Orline.

Last but certainly not least (though I could honestly keep going through my extensive original playlist for several thousand more words), is John Powell’s score for X-Men: The Last Stand. Seeing this movie in the theater was my introduction to the character of Jean Grey/Phoenix, and since I had at the time already started developing the character of Rielle, I was fascinated by this powerful, incredibly dangerous character, who was similar to Rielle in many ways. Say what you will about the movie itself, but Powell’s score is truly deserving of the overused “epic” descriptor. The three-track sequence “Entering the House,” “Dark Phoenix Tragedy,” and “Farewell to X” imprinted on me in a big way. The all-female chorus, the sense of mystery and encroaching doom, and the feeling of rage—it’s basically Rielle in musical form.

These are only a few of the musical pieces that inspired me in the early days of writing the Empirium Trilogy. For more music like this, check out my book playlists on Spotify!

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Kingsbane

Empirium, Book 2

In this sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller Furyborn, two queens, separated by a thousand years, connected by secrets and lies, must continue their fight amid deadly plots and unthinkable betrayals that will test their strength—and their hearts.

Rielle Dardenne has been anointed Sun Queen, but her trials are far from over. The Gate keeping the angels at bay is falling. To repair it, Rielle must collect the seven hidden castings of the saints. Meanwhile, to help her prince and love Audric protect Celdaria, Rielle must spy on the angel Corien—but his promises of freedom and power may prove too tempting to resist.

Centuries later, Eliana Ferracora grapples with her new reality: She is the Sun Queen, humanity’s long-awaited savior. But fear of corruption—fear of becoming another Rielle—keeps Eliana’s power dangerous and unpredictable. Hunted by all, racing against time to save her dying friend Navi, Eliana must decide how to wear a crown she never wanted—by embracing her mother’s power, or rejecting it forever.

About the Author

Claire Legrand

Claire Legrand is the New York Times-bestselling author of FURYBORN, the first book in the Empirium Trilogy, as well as the YA horror novel SAWKILL GIRLS and the Edgar Award finalist SOME KIND OF HAPPINESS. Her other novels include THE CAVENDISH HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLS, THE YEAR OF SHADOWS, WINTERSPELL, and FOXHEART. She is one of the four authors behind THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, an anthology of dark middle grade fiction. She lives in New Jersey, where she works as a librarian. Visit her at claire-legrand.com and on Twitter @clairelegrand.

Alexander McCall Smith visits Nepal with The Gurkha Welfare Trust

Bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith CBE visited Nepal this Spring to see at first-hand the vital work of international charity The Gurkha Welfare Trust.

The author, who is best known as the creator of The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, visited Nepal to find out about the charity’s work with Gurkha veterans and their families across the country.

During his visit Professor McCall Smith saw how the Salisbury-based charity ensures that Gurkha veterans, their widows and their wider communities are able to live with dignity in Nepal. This is done through the provision of financial, medical and community aid, which is often complicated by the beautiful but challenging landscape.

Highlights of the visit included meeting a 105-year-old Gurkha veteran whose retirement was made much more comfortable thanks to the charity. And another of 92 years, whose house had been rebuilt by The Gurkha Welfare Trust following an earthquake that devastated the county in 2015.

McCall Smith has had a special interest in the charity for a number of years.

You can read more about the visit in the author’s own words below.

From Nepal, by Alexander McCall Smith:

The desire to visit Nepal can occur at any stage in life. For some, reading at the age of eight about the conquest of Everest is enough to trigger the ambition. There’s the mountain, clean and white against the sky; there’s the line of Sherpas – what an evocative word! – toiling across the fields of snow; and there are Hillary and Tenzing on the summit, begoggled, triumphant. And at that age one does not give much thought to poor brave Mallory, frozen down below, where he fell, his body not to be recovered for three-quarters of a century.

Of course, there are other reasons for deeply-embedded hankerings to visit Nepal. There are the temples, pictures of which used to be in the Children’s Encyclopedia that some of us devoured when young; there is the name of the capital – Kathmandu – one of the great romantic place-names of the world, along with Rio de Janeiro, Dar-es-Salaam, and Constantinople; and then there are the Gurkhas, those stocky Himalayan volunteers who pop up in military histories, striking fear and trembling in their adversaries.

I have just returned from my longed-for trip to Nepal. My immediate reason for going was a connection I had established with The Gurkha Welfare Trust, a well-regarded charity that looks after Gurkhas and their families, including many veterans of the various conflicts that Britain has been involved in since 1939. The Trust had offered to show me what they did if I were ever to find myself in Nepal, and that was encouragement enough. Four hectic days at the Jaipur Literary Festival in Rajasthan might justify a few days in the mountains. More than justify, I thought, and bought tickets to Kathmandu from Delhi.

And then I was there. One further hop – on the wonderfully-named Yeti Airlines – took us to Pokhara, a major centre of The Gurkha Welfare Trust activity. Once in Pokhara we booked into Tiger Mountain Lodge, owned and run by a gregarious and charming Englishman, Marcus Cotton. Marcus was bitten by the Nepal bug in his twenties and has never looked back. He returns to North Devon for a couple of months every year, but the other ten months are spent on top of his Himalayan mountain, helping others to enjoy the view of the Annapurna Range.

The Gurkha Welfare Trust proved to be splendid hosts. A gleaming white Land Cruiser with a Union Jack on the front arrived at the lodge to take me, and my small party (of four, not a small party, in the sense of a small friend) down to their headquarters in the middle of Pokhara town. And there were the Gurkhas – a splendid body of men in immaculate blazers and highly-polished shoes, with the unmistakeable bearing of former soldiers.

We saw their clinic, where ex-Gurkhas and their wives – and widows – are looked after for life. We saw the nearby retirement home, built around a spotless courtyard; lunch was being served in the dining hall and generous helpings were being ladled onto the plates of the octogenarians and nonagenarians. On one of the doors, the room of a ninety-two year old ex-Gurkha, I saw his photograph proudly displayed, in uniform, with his military number. His face, like the faces of all the residents, was etched with the character that comes from the leading of a hard life at high altitude.

Later, in a side-street in the town, I was taken to the home of a Gurkha veteran aged one hundred and five. In Nepal it is difficult for people to be absolutely sure about how old anybody is, as records are not always reliable. This estimate, however, was made on the basis of age at enlistment, and so it was probably correct within a year or so.

We met in the courtyard of his son’s house. He walked quite well for a man of one hundred and five, supported by a walking frame bought for him by The Gurkha Welfare Trust. He sat down, and I sat down opposite him, our interpreter at his side.

He told me his story. After signing up, he had been sent to India, and from there to Iraq. Then he went on to Egypt, where he fought in the Western Desert. I asked him whether he had been under the command of Montgomery, and he said no, it was Mr Churchill who was in charge. Then he was taken to Italy, with the invasion, and he fought at the Battle of Monte Cassino. He said: “I lost many friends. Many of us did not come back.”

Our next visit was in the hills, where we went to see a veteran of a mere ninety-two. His house had been destroyed by the earthquake that devastated Nepal a few years ago, but had been rebuilt for him from scratch by the Trust. It was strong, I was told, and would withstand the next quake, which everybody says is bound to come.

At the end of our conversation, this elderly Gurkha stood up and saluted. He stood firm and dignified, for a moment a symbol of what these men stand for, which is loyalty. Once they give their word, then they mean it, and they have meant it for generations. That, I thought, is what makes our obligation to them so significant.

We went away in silence, each moved, in our different ways, by what we had seen. We looked up at the Himalayas, just a few miles away, at Annapurna IV, and the cloud that made a white line below it.

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The Department of Sensitive Crimes

A Detective Varg Novel

In the Swedish criminal justice system, certain cases are considered especially strange and difficult, in Malmö, the dedicated detectives who investigate these crimes are members of an elite squad known as the Sensitive Crimes Division.

These are their stories.

The first case: the small matter of a man stabbed in the back of the knee. Who would perpetrate such a crime and why? Next: a young woman’s imaginary boyfriend goes missing. But how on earth do you search for someone who doesn’t exist? And in the final investigation: eerie secrets that are revealed under a full moon may not seem so supernatural in the light of day. No case is too unusual, too complicated, or too, well insignificant for this squad to solve.

The team: Ulf “the Wolf” Varg, the top dog, thoughtful and diligent; Anna Bengsdotter, who’s in love with Varg’s car (and possibly Varg too); Carl Holgersson, who likes nothing more than filling out paperwork; and Erik Nykvist, who is deeply committed to fly fishing.

With the help of a rather verbose local police officer, this crack team gets to the bottom of cases other detectives can’t or won’t bother to handle. Equal parts hilarious and heartening, The Department of Sensitive Crimes is a tour de farce from a true master.

About the Author

Alexander McCall Smith is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors. For many years he was a professor of Medical Law and worked in universities in the UK and abroad before turning his hand to writing fiction. He has written and contributed to more than 100 books including specialist academic titles, short story collections, and a number of immensely popular children’s books. But it wasn’t until the publication of the highly successful The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series that Alexander became a household name. That series has now sold over twenty million copies in the English language alone, and since the books took off, he has devoted his time to writing.

His various series of books have been translated into forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world.

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I am excited to introduce new author Tally Adams to the blog! If you love romantic suspense and paranormal titles, read on!

I learned at a young age my imaginary friends weren’t like everyone else’s. Mine didn’t go away as I got older, for example, and they were always running around in the back of my mind in ‘what if’ scenarios. In my preteens, I learned to channel them into words and gave them delightful tales to get them out of my head for a while. By the time I was 11, I’d begun to enter adult writing competitions and managed to win a few. Stories of adventure and overcoming all odds held my attention, and I started reading about heroes in mythology. (How can a person ever go wrong with Hercules?) Before long, I couldn’t get enough! I spent the next few years reading everything I could find on mythology from all over the world.

Then, sometime in my teen years, I discovered Johanna Lindsey and her Fabio-laden book covers. For a while, mythology was all but forgotten as I disappeared into romance. It didn’t take long to realize different writers had very different takes on what makes a good romance. Some of them had the classic wilting-flower heroine, while others portrayed women who were adventurous and daring. Eventually, I found Laurell Hamilton and realized both of my passions could exist in a single story. From there, Shadow Pact was off and running.

I would soon learn, however, that finding a publisher who was willing to tackle a new no-name writer was far more challenging than writing. Since my imaginary friends were already stirring and the next book was coming together in my head, I decided to self-publish Shadow Pact and move on in the series.

Before I knew it, Amazon wasn’t able to keep up with the orders and I found myself needing to produce faster than the print-on-demand model could offer. After a little thought (okay, a lot of thought), I decided to find a small print press in Dallas and have a number of copies made. Brown Books came up on my search for phone numbers and I called them to place an order for distribution. I explained what I needed and why and was told by the receptionist there was someone I needed to talk to. That’s when Tom Reale (President of Brown Books) got on the phone. I rattled off my situation and asked for a price on a print run. He started to laugh and said, “I’m not a print press. I’m a publisher, and I want to see this book.” The next thing I knew, Brown Books had taken me under their wing and Shadow Pact was released nationally, reaching far more readers than I’d ever dared to hope. Now, with the backing of a terrific team, Shadow Pact is gaining in popularity and starting to carve a place for the rest of the Immortal Romance Series. For anyone who loves adventure, a dab of magic and a dose of romance, check out Shadow Pact!

Shadow Pact (Immortal Romance)

On a quest to find her missing sister Amber, Emily finds herself in the middle of an age-old conflict between vampires and werewolves.  When she runs into trouble, Emily is rescued by an anomaly of the supernatural realm: the handsome vampire-werewolf hybrid, William. Now caught between two worlds, they must navigate the vampire and werewolf courts to try and save Amber, themselves, and whatever peace that remains between the feuding species.

With countless dangers at every turn a twisted vampire queen, a bloodthirsty Coven, and a power-hungry werewolf king who will stop at nothing to dominate the magical world Emily’s courage will be tested. She must become a part of a world she never knew existed to thwart plans of uprooting the reality she holds dear.

About the Author

Tally Adams

Tally Adams lives in Texas with her husband and four children (and one big, fat English bulldog). She’s been writing all her life, realizing at a young age the characters just swirl around maddeningly in her head if she doesn’t put them on paper. She began participating in adult writing competitions before she even hit her teens. Years later, she worked as a nurse and continued to write. Finally, she decided to move forward into the world of publication and share her imaginary friends with the world.

I’m always happy when Lisa has a new book out and she wants to pay a visit here. This one is especially timely. I always learn something fascinating and hope you do, too!

WHAT IS QUALITATIVE EASING AND WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

If you are like or have a spouse like mine, addicted to the 24-hour news channels, you may have heard more than you cared to about ‘qualitative easing’ as a response to the past decade’s financial crisis. The plan of the Federal Reserve was to first, buy ‘troubled assets’ from banks and financial firms. This took these bad investments off their books and raised their credit scores, as it were, so that they were more able to buy and sell as normal and get the economy moving again. If the economy is an engine, credit is the gas. Second, the Fed bought Treasury securities with the same goal.

Critics read this as the Fed printing money, wagonloads of it, and as we all know from countless Batman and WWII thriller plots, that would cause runaway inflation and plummet the value of a dollar. This is something like what Japan did after their 1991 crisis, and it didn’t work out so well for them.

But the Fed made these purchases by creating reserves, not by printing more cash. This is a very difficult concept to grasp and I can’t quite get it myself, but it means they create an account in the name of the bank for the purchased items. Therefore the securities go from being a liability of the bank’s to an asset held in reserve. These are eventually resold (at a profit, don’t ask me how—this profit goes to the Fed and, as all their profit is, turned over to the Treasury to reduce the national deficit). These events are more like loans than purchases, and they do not affect the amount of cash in circulation at any point in the process, and therefore cannot affect inflation or deflation. (The surest proof that the Fed was not ‘just printing money’ is that the inflation rate stayed at 1.4%. Which is actually not good—zero inflation is not the goal as that means that the economy has stagnated. An inflation rate of between two and four percent is considered ideal.)

Did this ‘fix’ the problem? Partially. The economy started growing again in 2009, only a year and a half after the crash, but the job market did not. Unemployment stayed high, and then the European market crashed. So QE#1 ended in March 2010, but QE#2 began. (Which does not, to my eternal disappointment, refer to a cruise ship.) In the #2 round the Fed decided not to replace the Fannie and Freddie Mac mortgage backed securities, which was a good way to passively tighten up money over time, but kept purchasing the Treasury securities. Again, this avoided messing with the money supply and the inflation or deflation that might result, but gas and food were still high, credit was tight, and unemployment off the charts.

For QE#3, September 2013 to October 2014, the Fed returned to buying Fannie and Freddie securities as well as Treasury ones. Many of these policies were open-ended so some activities continued until QE4 began in June 2017. QE#4 was meant to be the most passive approach to date, simply letting the securities mature instead of replacing them, eventually condensing the national balance sheet. The unemployment rate is well below 5%, inflation hovering around 2%.

Okay, so, why do you care? First of all, inflation and unemployment rates affect everyone. Second, it’s important to see that how the 24-hour news channels characterize events is dependent on what agenda they’re pushing, and a little information can help us take that agenda with a much-needed grain of salt.

But were these QEs and securities and reserve-creating the best thing to do? Who knows? Econ students will be debating these strategies and responses for decades to come. Some might try to make the argument that these responses aggravated an already bad situation. Most will argue that, as bad as things got, they would have been much worse if the government had simply gone the austerity route (like Europe) or done nothing at all. The 2008 crisis created uncharted territory, so there will never be a way to know for sure.

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A Gardiner and Renner Novel (Book 3)

Bestselling author Lisa Black takes readers on a nailbiting journey to the dark side of justice as forensic expert Maggie Gardiner discovers troubling new details about her colleague Jack Renner, a homicide detective with a brutal approach to law and order . . .

The scene of the crime is lavish but gruesome. In a luxurious mansion on the outskirts of Cleveland, a woman’s body lies gutted in a pool of blood on the marble floor. The victim is Joanna Moorehouse, founder of Sterling Financial. The killer could be any one of her associates.

Maggie knows that to crack the case, she and Jack will have to infiltrate the cutthroat world of high-stakes finance. But the offices of Sterling Financial seethe with potential suspects, every employee hellbent on making a killing. When another officer uncovers disturbing evidence in a series of unrelated murders, the investigation takes a surprising detour.

Only Maggie recognizes the blood-soaked handiwork of a killer who has committed the most heinous of crimes—and will continue killing until he is stopped. Burdened with unbearable secrets, Maggie must make an agonizing choice, while her conscience keeps telling her: she’s next.

PERISH by Lisa Black. Kensington (January 30, 2018). ISBN 978-1496713544. 320 p.

About the Author

Lisa Black has spent over twenty years in forensic science, first at the coroner’s office in Cleveland Ohio and now as a certified latent print examiner and CSI at a Florida police dept. Her books have been translated into six languages, one reached the NYT Bestseller’s list and one has been optioned for film and a possible TV series.

www.lisa-black.com@LisaBlackAuthor

I am delighted to welcome guest blogger  Hannah Fielding!

Choosing Greece as the setting for my new novel

So far, my fiction has taken readers to Kenya (Burning Embers), to Venice and Tuscany, Italy (The Echoes of Love), and to Andalucía, Spain (Indiscretion, Masquerade and Legacy). In each of these novels, the setting is essential to the mood and the themes; it’s not just a backdrop that could be substituted for some other place, but an integral part of the story. So it is with my new novel, Aphrodite’s Tears, set in the Greek islands.

Greece has been on my ‘must write’ list for many years, because it is one of my favourite corners of the globe. I first fell in love with Greece through meeting Greek people. I grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, at a time when it was a very cosmopolitan place, and many of my parents’ friends and my school friends were Greek. They were wonderfully warm and loyal people.

Of course, during my childhood I also became intrigued with Greece through the many stories of this land I was told – legends full of wit and wisdom, with a god or goddess for everything, from love to war to wine-making. I was so enthralled that my father gave me a book, a compilation of the best stories. I remember it as well-thumbed, with a cracking spine, and falling open on certain stories I loved: Persephone and Hades, King Midas and the golden touch, Theseus and the Minotaur – although the Minotaur illustration would frighten me. My governess read this book over and over to me, as did my parents, and I lived the stories in my imagination.

Then, in my early twenties it was time to spread my wings, and I travelled across Europe and spent time on the Greek mainland and the islands. I explored the Acropolis of Athens; I ate mezedes in little cafes; I went to festivals that were a whirl of dance and song. I met many Greek people, and was taken by their joie de vivre, their hospitality, their sentimentality.

I was so enchanted by Greece, and swept away by the romance of it all, that when I married my husband I not only had a Greek designer make my wedding dress but I honeymooned on the island of Santorini, where, like Oriel and Damian in my novel, I saw the most spectacular sunsets.

In the years since, I continued to visit the Greek islands, and to read the stories of Greek mythology, which really are more dramatic and romantic and complicated than any soap opera! Eventually, I had a head full of legends and of beautiful sights and experiences from Greece, and it was the most natural thing in the world to put pen to paper.

Aphrodite’s Tears, then, is the book I just had to write set in Greece, steeped with the history and traditions of this beautiful and fascinating country. I hope readers will enjoy visiting Greece through my story, and will fall in love with it as I did.

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Aphrodite’s Tears   by Hannah Fielding

In ancient Greece, one of the twelve labours of Heracles was to bring back a golden apple from the Garden of Hesperides. To archaeologist Oriel Anderson, joining a team of Greek divers on the island of Helios seems like the golden apple of her dreams. Yet the dream becomes a nightmare when she meets the devilish owner of the island, Damian Lekkas. In shocked recognition, she is flooded with the memory of a romantic night in a stranger’s arms, six summers ago. A very different man stands before her now, and Oriel senses that the sardonic Greek autocrat is hell-bent on playing a cat and mouse game with her. As they cross swords and passions mount, Oriel is aware that malevolent eyes watch her from the shadows. Dark rumours are whispered about the Lekkas family. What dangers lie in Helios, a bewitching land where ancient rituals are still enacted to appease the gods, young men risk their lives in the treacherous depths of the Ionian Sea, and the volatile earth can erupt at any moment? Will Oriel find the hidden treasures she seeks? Or will Damian’s tragic past catch up with them, threatening to engulf them both?

Aphrodite’s Tears by Hannah Fielding. London Wall Publishing (January 25, 2018) ASIN: B076LPC1HP. 624p.

NOTE: The Kindle version will be available on Jan. 25; the print version not until April, 2018!

Aphrodite’s Tears is out in paperback on 25^th January for £7.99.

About the author