Book Title:                 Millie’s Escape

Series:                                     The Hartford Manor Series

Author:                      Marcia Clayton

Publication Date:      2 November 2023

Publisher:                  Sunhillow Publishing

Page Length:             348

Genre:                        Historical Fiction/Family Saga/Women’s Literary Fiction

Twitter Handle:        @MarciaC89111861 @cathiedunn

Instagram Handle:    @marciaclayton97 @thecoffeepotbookclub

Bluesky Handle:        @marciaclayton.bsky.social @cathiedunn.bsky.social

Hashtags:                   #HistoricalFiction #FamilySaga #Victorian #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page:            https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/blog-tour-millies-escape-by-marcia-clayton.html

Book Title and Author Name:

Millie’s Escape

By Marcia Clayton

Blurb:

1885 North Devon, England

It is winter in the small Devon village of Brampford Speke, and a typhoid epidemic has claimed many victims. Millie, aged fifteen, is doing her best to nurse her mother and grandmother as well as look after Jonathan, her five-year-old brother. One morning, Millie is horrified to find that her mother, Rosemary, has passed away during the night and is terrified the same fate may befall her granny, Emily.

When Emily’s neighbours inform her that Sir Edgar Grantley has also perished from the deadly disease, the old woman is distraught, for the kindly gentleman has been their benefactor for many years, much to the disgust of his wife, Lilliana. Emily is well aware that Sir Edgar’s generosity has long been a bone of contention between him and his spouse, and she is certain Lady Grantley will evict them from their cottage at the first opportunity.

As she racks her brain for a solution, Emily remembers her father came from Hartford, a seaside village in North Devon and had relatives there. Desperate and too weak to travel, she insists Millie and Jonathan leave home and make their way to Hartford before the embittered woman can cause trouble for them. There, she tells them, they must throw themselves on the mercy of their family and hope they will offer them a home.

With Emily promising to follow as soon as possible, the two youngsters reluctantly set off on their fifty-mile journey on foot and in the harshest of weather conditions. Emily warns them to be cautious, for she suspects Lady Grantley may well pursue them to seek revenge for a situation that has existed between the two families for many years.

Snippet 4:

Living in Pengelly Court was quite an eye-opener for Millie and Jonathan, but they were well-treated, given enough to eat, and not harmed. The women tended to rise late in the mornings, for they knew there would be little trade early in the day, and they usually needed to sleep off the effects of the alcohol and drugs they relied on to cope with their sordid life. They would leave the house late in the morning and then come home around tea time for their main meal before going out again to work the night shift.

Millie and Jonathan were fascinated by Fanny Prowse, the landlady of the house. No one knew how old Fanny was or how she had come to own the place, but she was quite a character. Her plump face was lined with wrinkles and fine red lines, and her large, slightly purple nose was a testament to her life of alcoholism. She had wispy white hair, thinning on the top and barely hiding her shiny scalp. She was seldom seen outside the house without her faded yellow bonnet tied with ribbons under her chin. A prostitute herself in her younger days, three of the girls were her daughters, and she did her best to keep them as safe as possible. Fanny knew enough muscle around the town to frighten off any men with ideas of becoming the girls’ pimp, and few would dare to cross her.

At first, Millie and Jonathan were frightened of this formidable lady, for her language was ripe, with every other word an obscenity, but one day when Jonnie was suffering from an earache, she mixed up a potion to ease the pain, then cuddled him on her lap until he fell asleep. She was the same with all the youngsters, and Millie thought the old lady loved them more than their mothers.

Buy Links:

This title is available to read with #KindleUnlimited.

Universal Buy Link: https://mybook.to/MilliesEscape

Barnes and Noble      Millie’s Escape by Marcia Clayton

All the books in The Hartford Manor Series can be ordered from any bookshop.

Author Bio:

Marcia Clayton is the author of five books in The Hartford Manor Series, a heart-warming family saga stretching from the Regency period to Victorian times. A sixth book is to be released in 2024.

Marcia was born in North Devon, a rural and picturesque area in the far South West of England. When she left school, Marcia worked in a bank for several years until she married her husband, Bryan, and then stayed at home for a few years to care for her three sons, Stuart, Paul and David. As the children grew older, Marcia worked as a Marie Curie nurse caring for the terminally ill and later for the local authority managing school transport.

Now a grandmother, Marcia enjoys spending time with her family and friends. She’s a keen researcher of family history, and this hobby inspired some of the characters in her books. A keen gardener, Marcia grows many of her own vegetables. She is also an avid reader and enjoys historical fiction, romance, and crime books.

Author Links:

Website:                                 https://marciaclayton.co.uk/

Twitter:                                  https://twitter.com/MarciaC89111861

Facebook:                              Marcia Clayton – Author | Facebook

Instagram:                             https://www.instagram.com/marciaclayton97/

Bluesky:                                 https://bsky.app/profile/marciaclayton.bsky.social

Book Bub:                              Bookbub: Marcia Clayton

Amazon Author Page:          Amazon: Marcia Clayton

Goodreads:                            Marcia Clayton: Goodreads

Allauthor:                              https://allauthor.com/author/marciaclayton/

Book Title: The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu

Series: Echoes of Empire

Author: Ann Bennett

Publication Date: 31^st October 2023

Publisher: Andaman Press

Page Length: 356

Genre: Historical Fiction / Historical Romance / Women’s adventure and romance

Twitter Handle: @annbennett71 @cathiedunn

Instagram Handle: @annbennettauthor @thecoffeepotbookclub

Bluesky Handle: @cathiedunn.bsky.social

Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #HistoricalRomance #WomensAdventure #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/blog-tour-the-fortune-teller-of-kathmandu-by-ann-bennett.html

Book Title and Author Name:

The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu

Ann Bennett

Blurb:

A sweeping wartime tale of secrets and love, mystery and redemption, moving from the snow-capped Himalayas to the steamy heat of battle in the Burmese jungle.

Perfect for fans of Dinah Jeffries, Victoria Hislop and Rosie Thomas.

Hampshire, UK, 2015. When Chloe Harper’s beloved grandmother, Lena dies, a stranger hands her Lena’s wartime diary. Chloe sets out to uncover deep family secrets that Lena guarded to her grave.

Darjeeling, India, 1943, Lena Chatterjee leaves the confines of a strict boarding school to work as assistant to Lieutenant George Harper, an officer in the British Indian Army. She accompanies him to Nepal and deep into the Himalayas to recruit Gurkhas for the failing Burma Campaign. There, she discovers that Lieutenant Harper has a secret, which she vows never to reveal.

In Kathmandu, the prophesy of a mysterious fortune teller sets Lena on a dangerous course. She joins the Women’s Auxiliary Service Burma (the Wasbies), risking her life to follow the man she loves to the front line. What happens there changes the course of her life.

On her quest to uncover her grandmother’s hidden past, Chloe herself encounters mystery and romance. Helped by young Nepalese tour guide, Kiran Rai, she finds history repeating itself when she is swept up in events that spiral out of control…

“A great read” Advance Reader.

” Thank you so much for allowing me to read the advance copy. I could barely put it down!” Advance Reader,

“What a wonderful book… I loved it. The dual time lines were delineated to perfection… the settings were perfectly rendered..” Advance Reader.

The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu – Writing a dual-timeline novel

Most of my books have a dual timeline and I continued this approach with The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu (published on October 31^st 2023). My books are nearly all about the Second World War in South-East Asia, inspired by the research I did into my father’s wartime experience as a prisoner of war of the Japanese on the Thai-Burma railway. For some of my books, for example Bamboo Island: The Planter’s Wife and Bamboo Road: The Homecoming, my central character revisits a time or place from her past and resolves mysteries or unfinished issues from long ago. In others, a character in the present day, or at least in modern times, is inspired by an event or a revelation to look into the past of a family member, making surprising discoveries along the way.

The reason I write my stories that way is because that is how I started out with Bamboo Heart: A Daughter’s Quest, my first novel, which was vaguely autobiographical. My central character, Laura, a twenty-something lawyer, makes a discovery about her father’s wartime past which leads her to travel to South-East Asia to the place where he had been incarcerated and enslaved during the war to find out more. I think that the quest for knowledge about family history is a powerful impetus for a character’s journey and really resonates with readers. That connection between past and present seems somehow more meaningful than a straightforward story about the past (although done well, such stories can be just as memorable).

In the Fortune Teller of Kathmandu, I weave two stories from past and present. Firstly, the 1940s story of Lena, a young Eurasian woman living in Darjeeling in British India, who accompanies her employer, British army lieutenant George Harper, into Nepal to recruit young soldiers into the Gurkhas to bolster the allied campaign on the Burma front. In the modern-day strand, her granddaughter Chloe reads Lena’s wartime diary, embarks on a journey of her own to India and Nepal, and discovers the secrets Lena guarded for a lifetime – and finds romance and adventure along the way.

The challenge was, as ever, ensuring the modern-day story is as interesting and compelling as the historical strand. Chloe is at a turning point in her life, having just come out of a long-term relationship, grieving for her grandmother and looking for answers to questions never addressed during Lena’s life. Chloe lives in a place I know well, the border between Surrey and Hampshire in the UK, countryside I walk in every day, so it wasn’t difficult to conjure up the settings for Chloe’s story. Chloe has never travelled before, so to embark alone on a journey to India and Nepal is a brave act. For Chloe’s travels, I drew on my old diaries and memories of my own backpacking days in 1987 when I made similar journeys (in particular, the trek to Ghorepani and Poon Hill in the Annapurna range) with a schoolfriend. I also included some momentous events from Nepal’s modern-day history in Chloe’s strand, which reflected some of the things Lena experienced in 1940s India, to link the two timelines more closely.

For Lena’s story, I drew upon my own impressions of Darjeeling, Nepal and Burma through my own visits. Also, the extensive historical research I’ve done over the years on the Second World War in SE Asia, as well as more recent research about particular aspects of the Burma campaign. In particular the fascinating and little known story of the Wasbies – the Women’s Royal Auxiliary Service, Burma – unsung but courageous women who risked their lives to support soldiers on the front line.  

Buy Links:

This title is available to read with #KindleUnlimited.

Universal Buy Link: https://mybook.to/tftok

Author Bio:

Ann Bennett is a British author of historical fiction. She was born in Pury End, a small village in Northamptonshire, UK and now lives in Surrey. Her first book, Bamboo Heart: A Daughter’s Quest, was inspired by researching her father’s experience as a prisoner of war on the Thai-Burma Railway. Bamboo Island: The Planter’s Wife, A Daughter’s Promise and Bamboo Road:The Homecoming, The Tea Panter’s Club and The Amulet are also about the war in South East Asia, which together with The Fortune Teller of Kathmandu make up the Echoes of Empire Collection.

Ann is also author of The Runaway Sisters, bestselling The Orphan House, The Forgotten Children and The Child Without a Home, published by Bookouture.

The Lake Pavilion, The Lake Palace, both set in British India in the 1930s and WW2, and The Lake Pagoda and The Lake Villa, set in French Indochina during WW2, make up The Oriental Lake Collection.

Ann is married with three grown up sons and a granddaughter and works as a lawyer. For more details please visit www.annbennettauthor.com.

Author Links:

Website: https://www.annbennettauthor.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/annbennett71

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annbennettauthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annbennettauthor/

Amazon Author Page UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00D21SJ7A

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1951323.Ann_Bennett

Book Title: How to Dress Like a Tudor

Author: Judith Arnopp

Publication Date: September 2023

Publisher: Pen and Sword Books

Page Length: 224

Genre: Historical Non-Fiction

Twitter Handle: @JudithArnopp @cathiedunn

Instagram Handle: @tudor_juditharnopp @thecoffeepotbookclub

Bluesky Handle: @jarnopp.bsky.social @cathiedunn.bsky.social

Hashtags: #HistoricalCostume #TudorFashion #Tudors #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page:  https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/blog-tour-how-to-dress-like-a-tudor-by-judith-arnopp.html

Book Title and Author Name:

How to Dress Like a Tudor

Judith Arnopp

Blurb:

Have you ever hankered to dress like a Tudor lord or lady, or perhaps you prefer the status of goodwife, or costermonger, or even a bawd?

For beginner historical reenactors, the path to authenticity can be bewildering and sometimes intimidating. Judith Arnopp uses her own experience, both as a historian and a medieval/Tudor lady, to make your own journey a little easier.

The author traces the transition of fashion from the relatively subtle styles popular at the court of Henry VII, through the carefully constructed royal grandeur of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I to the pinnacle of majesty and splendid iconography of Elizabeth I.

In contrast to the magnificence of court come the ordinary folk who, subject to sumptuary laws and regulations, wore garments of a simpler cut and cloth – a strata of society that formed the back bone of Tudor England.

This brief history of 16th century fashion examines clothing for both rich and poor, adult and child, and offers tips and tricks on how to begin to sew your first historically inspired garment, this book is aimed at helping the beginner learn How to Dress like a Tudor.

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link: mybook.to/howtodress

Author Bio:

Judith writes historical fiction set during the late medieval and Tudor period. Her usual focus is on the women who lived close to the monarch, women like Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York and Mary Tudor but more recently has been writing from the perspective of Henry VIII himself. Her books are on Kindle, Audible and Paperback.

You can find her fiction books here: http://author.to/juditharnoppbooks

She also writes non-fiction, her work featuring in many anthologies and online magazines. Her latest non-fiction, How to Dress like a Tudor published by Pen & Sword Books is available now.

Judith is a founder member of a reenactment group The Fyne Company of Cambria, and began making Tudor costumes for herself, her husband, John, and other members of the group. It was this that inspired How to Dress like a Tudor and she hopes to write more non-fiction Tudor history in the future.

Author Links:

Website: http://www.judithmarnopp.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JudithArnopp

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thetudorworldofjuditharnopp

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/judith-arnopp-ba999025

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tudor_juditharnopp/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jarnopp.bsky.social

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/judith-arnopp

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Judith-Arnopp/e/B003CGLWLA/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4088659.Judith_Arnopp

Book Link

From Amazon:

Does opportunity Knock at your Door? That is the question of the day. Need a little encouragement? Ever wonder if spirit or guardian angels have a message for you?

Look no further. This book offers those messages by allowing your subconscious to draw you to a door. Either through direct selection, or through a seemingly random page flip, each page presents a colorful, and unique door companioned with an inspiration; comforting, and confidence-enhancing message for you.

Keep this book close and whenever you need affirmation, this oracle will bestow the inspiration to keep you strong, peaceful, confident, and most importantly, in the flow of creative magic.

My Review:

I found this to be a charming book and uplifting. We all have doors in our lives. The questions is: Are you brave enough to look through doors presented to you? Can you take that chance on seeing what lay behind the door? Some people are more timid than others. Yet doors are here for all. In my opinion, what does one lose by opeing a door and seeing what is there? A path that was meant to be maybe? Doors are put in our paths for a reason and I, myself, say a prayer and then I opne the door and walk right in.