Book Link

From Amazon:

All the students at middle school are talking about the missing boy. Nobody knows who he is or when it happened.
The rumor is the boy-with-no-name went into the basement under the gymnasium and never came out!
Katie and her friends decide to investigate and discover a mysterious black hole.
Where does it lead?
What does it do?
Can they resolve the mystery of the black hole before it’s too late?

My Review:

The Mystery of the Black Hole by Judy and Keith, with illustrations by Katie Lenahan, was a refreshing read for me as I’d not read a middle-grade book in some time. This story captures the interest of the age it is written for, and the story moves along at a good pace. Most of the story takes place inside of a middle school, and makes perfect sense for the reading audience. Teachers with sharp pointy black teeth and terrible bad breath? Scary. A bottomless black hole under the school gymnasium? Pitch black? That can cause hallucinations. The missing boy with no name lost in the cavernous space below the gym comes to life as you read.

Name: Judith Arnopp

Book Title: Marguerite: Hell Hath No Fury!

Series: n/a

Publication Date: June 21^st, 2025

Publisher: independently published

Pages: 342

Genre: Historical Fiction / Biographical Fiction

Any Triggers: n/a

Twitter Handle: @JudithArnopp @cathiedunn @marylschmidt

Instagram Handle: @tudor_juditharnopp @thecoffeepotbookclub

Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #BiographicalFiction #WarsOfTheRoses #MargueriteOfAnjou #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/06/blog-tour-marguerite-by-judith-arnopp.html

Book Title and Author Name:

Marguerite: Hell Hath No Fury!

by Judith Arnopp

Blurb:

Marguerite: Queen of England

From the moment Henry VI’s new queen, Marguerite of Anjou, sets foot on English soil she is despised by the English as a foreigner, and blamed for the failures of the hundred years war in France.

Her enemies impede her role as the king’s consort and when Henry sinks into apparent madness, her bid to become regent is rejected. Marguerite must fight, not only for her own position but to maintain Henry’s possession of the crown. 

The ambitious Duke, Richard of York, seizes control of the country, thrusting Marguerite aside and inflating the mutual hatred between the houses of York and Lancaster. But the queen refuses to relinquish power and fights determinedly for the rights of her son, Edward of Lancaster.

The long and bitter civil conflict, that has come to be known as the War of the Roses, commences.

Excerpt 2:

Marguerite is in exile and has reluctantly agreed to an alliance with her old enemy the Earl of Warwick against Edward of March, who is now wearing her husband’s stolen crown.

July 1470

I know what is required of me. I must welcome the Earl of Warwick and forgive the numerous injuries he has inflicted on me and mine. To gain my heart’s desires I must embrace him as a friend and ally. It sounds a simple cure. Just one small spoonful of vile medicine to relieve years of discomfort but, by God, the pain of the remedy almost supersedes any other I have felt. I am not sure I can swallow it.

I try to refuse, find another way, but all my advisers urge me to conceal my pride and look beyond this moment and concentrate on the image of my son, his handsome face topped with the crown of England.

My glory.

Reluctantly, I agree to try.

Jasper and Exeter wait with me for the earl to arrive. My stomach is full of snakes that writhe and burn. I want to run. I want to vomit up this idea of a union between my son and the earl’s daughter. Oh, how I wish we had impaled Warwick’s head alongside York’s on the Micklegate Bar when we had the chance.

We can only do what we can do.

The world outside the chamber stirs, I hear footsteps, confident and masculine – determined. My determination quails as the doors are thrown open and I hear the sound of heels on marble. I raise my head and open my eyes, steeled for the sight of Satan as he comes slithering into my presence.

And there he is.

He swirls his cloak behind him, his hand on his sword hilt as he makes an overly extravagant bow. Does he mock me? I do not move. I keep my eyes fixed on the far wall. Long moments pass before the arrogant swine realises he should be on his knees. As I hear him lower himself to the ground, I cannot resist looking as he bows his disgusting head in fealty to me. It is something I never thought to see.

“Your Grace. I am honoured and gratified that you agreed to discuss this matter.”

He is indeed a prince of falsehoods. For all my faults, I have never been less than honest. I would trust him more were he to admit his detestation for me. I can work to the same ends with a man who hates me. I see no need for lies.

Unable to bring my lips to form amiable words, I merely stare at the back of his lowered head.

If I had a sword, I would use it.

Edward stirs beside me, nudges me to respond, but it is as if I am trapped in this moment. I should speak, I should bid him rise, allow him to kiss my fingers, and let the negotiations begin, but I cannot.

The faces of all those I have lost, those Warwick killed, rise like smoke before my eyes. Somerset, and his son Harry, are at the head. This man before me has stolen not just my friends but my peace of mind too. Because of him, I will never now be the woman I could have been, should have been.

Jasper clears his throat. I glance up and discover Exeter is also urging me to speak. I turn back to the toad of Warwick and hope his knees are aching.

I wait. They wait, in awkward silence while the all-powerful scourge of England kneels in supplication to me, his queen. I want to kill him. I want to watch him suffer agonies, but I need him. I am in a cleft stick and since I cannot have his head, I will use him to my own ends.

This time, Warwick will be the puppet and I will work his strings.

Less than two weeks later, at the Chateau d’Amboise, my son pledges to marry Anne Neville, but the union is not to be sealed until Warwick has performed his part and restored my husband to the English throne.

Buy Link:

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

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Author Bio:

A lifelong history enthusiast and avid reader, Judith holds a BA in English / Creative Writing and a Masters in Medieval Studies. She lives on the coast of West Wales where she writes both fiction and non-fiction. She is best known for her novels set in the Medieval and Tudor period, focussing on the perspective of historical women but recently she has written a trilogy from the perspective of Henry VIII himself.

Judith is also a founder member of a re-enactment group called The Fyne Companye of Cambria which is when and why she began to experiment with sewing historical garments. She now makes clothes and accessories both for the group and others. She is not a professionally trained sewer but through trial, error and determination has learned how to make authentic looking, if not strictly historically accurate clothing. A non-fiction book about Tudor clothing, How to Dress like a Tudor, was published in 2023 by Pen and Sword.

She runs a small seaside holiday let in Aberporth and when she has time for fun, likes to garden and restore antique doll’s houses. You can find her on most social media platforms.

Her novels include:

A Song of Sixpence: the story of Elizabeth of York

The Beaufort Chronicle: the life of Lady Margaret Beaufort (three book series)

The Henrician Chronicle: comprising of:

A Matter of Conscience: Henry VIII, the Aragon Years (Book One of The Henrician Chronicle)

A Matter of Faith: Henry VIII, the Days of the Phoenix (Book Two of The Henrician Chronicle)

A Matter of Time: Henry VIII, the Dying of the Light (Book Three of The Henrician Chronicle)

The Kiss of the Concubine: a story of Anne Boleyn

The Winchester Goose: at the court of Henry VIII

Intractable Heart: the story of Katheryn Parr

Sisters of Arden: on the Pilgrimage of Grace

The Heretic Wind: the life of Mary Tudor, Queen of England

Peaceweaver

The Forest Dwellers

The Song of Heledd

The Book of Thornhold

A Daughter of Warwick: the story of Anne Neville, Queen of Richard III

Marguerite: Hell Hath no Fury!

Author Links:

Website: http://www.judithmarnopp.com/

Blog: http://www.juditharnoppnovelist.blogspot.co.uk/

Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/JudithArnopp

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

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

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@tudor_juditharnopp

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

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jarnopp/

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

Amazon Author Page: http://author.to/juditharnoppbooks

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

Book Title and Author Name:

The Will of God

Julian de la Motte

Blurb:

“Deus Lo Vult!”

Gilles is the natural son of the Earl Waltheof, executed by William the Conqueror for supposed treachery. Raised in Normandy by Queen Matilda of England, Gilles is a young servant of Robert, Duke of Normandy, when the first call for a Holy War against the infidel and for the liberation of Jerusalem is raised in Christendom. Along with thousands of others, inspired by a variety of motives, intense piety mixed with a sense of adventure and the prospects of richness, Gilles becomes a key and respected follower of the Duke of Normandy and travels through France and into Italy to the point of embarkation for Constantinople and the land of the Greeks.

In this epic first phase of a long and gruelling journey, Gilles begins to discover a sense of his own strengths and weaknesses, encounters for the first time the full might and strength of the Norman war machine and achieves his much coveted aim of knighthood, as well as a sense of responsibility to the men that he must now lead into battle.

The Will of God is the literal translation of the Latin phrase “Deus Lo Vult”; a ubiquitous war cry and a commonly offered explanation of all the horrors and iniquities unleashed by the First Crusade of 1096 to 1099, when thousands of Europeans made the dangerous and terrifying journey to the Holy Land and the liberation of Jerusalem. It is the first of two books on the subject.

Praise for The Will of God:

“De la Motte has superpowers as a writer of historical fiction; he’s a warhorse of a writer bred to stun and trample the literary senses. You won’t stop turning the pages of The Will of God.”

~ Charles McNair, Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of Land O’Goshen

Excerpt 3:

Matilda of Flanders, his companion, co-conspirator and help mate of many years, was a tiny doll like figure the size of a child. William, at one and the same time, both venerated and feared her. In his periodic audiences with her he would begin with unease and trepidation and conclude, exhausted, and with a fine collection of fresh and wise advice; as pungent and lingering as the scent of her store kept herbs. In all their years together, her shrewd and acute mind, sharp as a knife and full of useful filed and stored information, always seemed to be at least two full steps ahead of him; full of speculation and expert analysis, measuring the fine lines between possibility and attainment.

She was in full cry now in her roaring great chamber, a space seemingly made small by the vast impedimenta she had gathered and accrued over the years. She sat at the very centre of her world upon a once immaculate divan. Her nose was pinched and pointed and her hands, once long and slender, now all but crippled with arthritis. Her eyes glittered like diamonds packed in ice. It had been some months since his last visit. To William it seemed that his wife had grown yet smaller. Briefly, he smiled at her with a rare smile of genuine affection. Matilda was unmoved.

‘My fierce little mouse’ he thought fondly to himself. She was sharp as a weasel on a whetstone, a store of bulging information gathered in the recesses of her mind as her eyes sparkled with mischief and, possibly, malice. As ever, the old lady delighted in posing questions to which she already knew the answers, relishing the prospect of throwing a speculation into the air and then seeing where it might land and what might also come with it in its fall back to the earth, and then taking it from there. If, by chance, she did not fully know the answer to her own question then she had a rich store of information stored away in her fevered, busy brain to draw upon. Long ago, from the days of his tempestuous wooing, he had learned to treat her with respect and caution. Once in the early days of his exuberant courtship, back in her childhood home in Flanders and when an unseemly ardour had gripped him, she had actually stabbed him, quite severely, with a large darning needle. Or so it was reported. The story was commonly believed and reported, and indeed he could vouch for its truth but for the fact that it shamed him. The matter was never discussed within the hearing of the Duke and King. With Matilda, honesty was always the best policy. Do not presume to dissimulate and the treasure of her wisdom could be yours for the asking.

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link:  https://geni.us/uXe6u

Author Bio:

Julian de la Motte is a Londoner. He graduated from the University of Wales with a degree in Medieval History. He was further awarded a Master of Arts qualification in Medieval English Art from the University of York.

He studied and taught in Italy for nearly four years before returning to the U.K. and a career as a teacher, teacher trainer and materials designer before taking up a new role as a Director of Foreign Languages and of English as a Foreign Language.

Married and with two grown up children, He is now extensively involved in review writing and historical research, primarily on medieval history.

”The Will of God” [the first of two books on the subject of the First Crusade] is his third novel.

Author Links:

Website: www.historiumpress.com/julian-de-la-motte

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julian.delamotteharrison.3

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XWMRPYK

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/20873400.julian_de_la_Motte

Book Link:

From Amazon:

A mysterious event has gripped the world!
How, why, who and what — is taking the grass?

Globe leaders are baffled; unbeknownst to them there’s a secret agency who
solve weird, bizarre events and it’s run by dogs!

Jake and Sammy are everyday pets until a strange encounter changes their lives forever; this puzzling case will test their bosses, Gino and Phillip, to the limits.

Can they pull together and save humanity before it’s too late? Will Jake ever get that packet of crisps he so desperately craves for? And will the age-old question be answered—are four legs better than two?

In this crime mystery where dogs rule, anything can go wrong and probably will. But we all love an underdog!

My Review:

I love reading about Jake and Sammy. The way they could speak to each other withour humans hearing, yet not their human parents. Oh the adventures animals can have. The book is perfect for young kids to be read to them, and older kids can read on their own. Where did the animals go? And why? Animals from another planet build a spaceship from spare metal pieces? What could be more fun in the park across the street where the pets met up each day? Secret missions? Even a ten-year-old would love this story. That is a win/win.

Name: Julia Ibbotson

Book Title: A Shape on the Air

Series: Dr DuLac series, Book #1

Publication Date:  January 8^th, 2022

Publisher: Archbury Books

Pages:  220 ebk, 366 pbk

Genre:  Medieval Timeslip Mystery Romance

Any Triggers: n/a

Twitter Handles: @JuliaIbbotson @cathiedunn @marylschmidt

Instagram Handles: @julia.ibbotson @thecoffeepotbookclub

Hashtags: #Medieval #HistoricalFiction #AngloSaxon #TimeTravel #TimeSlip #Mystery #Romance #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/07/blog-tour-a-shape-on-the-air-by-julia-ibbotson.html

Book Title and Author Name:

A Shape on the Air

by Julia Ibbotson

Blurb:

Can echoes of the past threaten the present? They are 1500 years apart, but can they reach out to each other across the centuries? One woman faces a traumatic truth in the present day. The other is forced to marry the man she hates as the ‘dark ages’ unfold.

How can Dr Viv DuLac, medievalist and academic, unlock the secrets of the past?

Traumatised by betrayal, she slips into 499 AD and into the body of Lady Vivianne, who is also battling treachery. Viv must uncover the mystery of the key that she unwittingly brings back with her to the present day, as echoes of the past resonate through time. But little does Viv realise just how much both their lives across the centuries will become so intertwined. And in the end, how can they help each other across the ages without changing the course of history?

For fans of Barbara Erskine, Pamela Hartshorne, Susanna Kearsley, Christina Courtenay.

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link: https://myBook.to/ASOTA

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Author Bio:

Julia Ibbotson is fascinated by the medieval world and the concept of time. She is the author of historical mysteries with a frisson of romance. Her books are evocative of time and place, well-researched and uplifting page-turners. Her current series focuses on early medieval time-slip/dual-time mysteries.

Julia read English at Keele University, England, specialising in medieval language / literature / history, and has a PhD in socio-linguistics. After a turbulent time in Ghana, West Africa, she became a school teacher, then a university academic and researcher. Her break as an author came soon after she joined the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme in 2015, with a three-book deal from Lume Books for a trilogy (Drumbeats) set in Ghana in the 1960s.

She has published five other books, including A Shape on the Air, an Anglo-Saxon timeslip mystery, and its two sequels The Dragon Tree and The Rune Stone. Her latest novel is the first of a new series of Anglo-Saxon dual-time mysteries, Daughter of Mercia, where echoes of the past resonate across the centuries.

Her books will appeal to fans of Barbara Erskine, Pamela Hartshorne, Susanna Kearsley, and Christina Courtenay. Her readers say: ‘Julia’s books captured my imagination’, ‘beautiful story-telling’, ‘evocative and well-paced storylines’, ‘brilliant and fascinating’ and ‘I just couldn’t put it down’.

Author Links:

Website: https://juliaibbotsonauthor.com

Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/@juliaibbotson

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julia.ibbotson

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

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/juliai1

Amazon Author Page: https://Author.to/JuliaIbbotsonauthor

Goodreads: https://goodreads.com/juliaibbotson

Book Link

From Amazon:

In a devastated world where love and tenderness are scarce and survival is often at the point of a knife, nothing is what it seems…

Alita’s life was ripped apart when her parents disappeared, likely murdered by a brutal member of their newly adopted tribe. Stalked by him for years, it’s almost a relief when she becomes the annual tribute to the leader of a mysterious race of saber cats from the wild lands.

Though drawn to the Great Saber, Alita doesn’t understand what he wants from her. Is she supposed to become his mate? She’s never dared hope to share the love her parents felt for each other, but she’s starting to wonder about the possibilities. Yet the forces of magic and fate are threatening their lives and future and there seems little chance of escape.

A Shapeshifter Story

My Review:

Mary Schmidt

5.0 out of 5 stars Love, sabers, and shape shifting

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2025

Verified Purchase

This short story is about tradition and love in a world most likely not the planet Earth we know. A different planet Earth. One with tribes of humans living among shape shifters and using old ways of making spear heads of stone and tanning hides for clothing and warmth. Can a human woman learn to love a saber? Read and find out.

Book Link

From Amazon:

A collection of Odes, Poems, Rants, Dreams, and Short Stories. Stories that will make you laugh, bring you joy and make you cry. Stories filled with mystery hidden in the words. Some are about people long dead and some very much alive. Songs and poems about lost love, pesky cats, beautiful places, desolate worlds, and glorious food. Thoughts that inspired me, saddened me, and made me stand in awe of our Universe.

My Review:

Mary Schmidt

5.0 out of 5 stars Odes and shorts

Reviewed in the United States on July 16, 2025

Verified Purchase

This book is filled with ideas and short story bits. Some is rather romantic when written about women with beauty and scent so sweet. Toss in odes to Centauri Prime and what could be, or Mars and traveling the red dirt, even mating snails that can mate for up to 12 hours. That’s stamina. This is but a sample of what is within these pages.