Book Title: Boy With Wings

Series: n/a

Author: Mark Mustian

Publication Date: March 15th, 2025

Publisher: Koehler Books

Pages: 322

Genre: Literary Fiction / Historical Fiction

Twitter Handles: @markmustian @cathiedunn @marylschmidt

Instagram Handle: @thecoffeepotbookclub

Hashtags: #LiteraryFiction #HistoricalFiction #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/04/blog-tour-boy-with-wings-by-mark-mustian.html

Book Title and Author Name: 

Boy With Wings

by Mark Mustian

Blurb:

 “A brilliant fever dream of a novel, a haunting coming of age story reminiscent of both Franz Kafka and Charles Dickens.”

~ Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of The Jackal’s Mistress

What does it mean to be different?

When Johnny Cruel is born with strange appendages on his back in the 1930s South, the locals think he’s a devil. Determined to protect him, his mother fakes his death, and they flee. Thus begins Johnny’s years-long struggle to find a place he belongs.

From a turpentine camp of former slaves to a freak show run by a dwarf who calls herself Tiny Tot and on to the Florida capitol building, Johnny finds himself working alongside other outcasts, struggling to answer the question of his existence. Is he a horror, a wonder, or an angel? Should he hide himself to live his life?

Following Johnny’s journey through love, betrayal, heartbreak, and several murders, Boy With Wings is a story of the sacrifices and freedom inherent in making one’s own special way-and of love and the miracles that give our lives meaning.

Reading the Classics

I never wanted to be a writer. It wasn’t a childhood dream—I wanted to be a lawyer, and I became one for forty years. But I’ve always liked to read, beginning with the Hardy Boys and moving on to The Lord of the Rings and its ilk. I was big into Dune. I was in advanced English classes through high school, and we read fairly widely: Life on the Mississippi, Siddartha, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Slaughterhouse Five, Beowulf, Romeo & Juliet, Lord of the Flies. I can still recall many of the books we read in my freshman English class in college: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Stranger, Deliverance, Candide (all of which I hated, except for Deliverance). The students in that class seemed to me mostly puffed-up snobs. I still recall my mandatory conference with the professor, a dead ringer for Paul Lynde, in which his message to me seemed to be that some dreams couldn’t be realized. I was a business major. I wanted a “B” and to move on with things.

About ten years into my legal career, driving alone on Florida’s highways and perhaps in an early midlife crisis, I decided that I wanted to try a few things besides practicing law: I wanted to run for public office, I wanted to teach, and I wanted to try and write a book. I eventually did all three, teaching two years at Tallahassee Community College (that was enough to cure me of that), serving on the Tallahassee City Commission for ten years (I later described this as a fit of insanity), and writing what became The Return. I had no idea what I was doing, an act I later saw described as the equivalent of waking up one morning and deciding to start practicing thoracic surgery. But I did it, I discovered that I liked writing, and I felt like I had modest talent. I’ve kept on to this day.

Along the way, I ran across a list of the “100 novels you should have read by the time you’re thirty,” or something to that effect. Having not read most of them, I decided to whack away. These were mostly 20^th century American works, and it was interesting to see what seemed to hold up and what didn’t. I think the period of your life in which you read certain books affects your appreciation of them, and some of these (like those I read in the freshman English class) I wouldn’t have appreciated if I’d read them at 19. A few of my favorites:

• I, Claudius, by Robert Graves
• Augustus, by John Williams
• The Magus, by John Fowles (bizarre, but good)
• An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser

A few I found a bit more dated:

• The Bridge at Sun Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder
• Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler
• The Good Soldier, by Ford Maddox Ford

Others will have other opinions, I’m sure. I’m grateful for the time, opportunity and interest to be able to read for pleasure. It’s what’s made me a writer. It’s a big world out there.

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/mdxEoR

Author Bio:

Mark Mustian is the author of the novels “The Return” and “The Gendarme,” the latter a finalist for the Dayton International Literary Peace Prize and shortlisted for the Saroyan International Award for Writing. It won the Florida Gold Book Award for Fiction and has been published in ten languages.

The founder of the Word of South Festival of Literature and Music in Tallahassee, Florida, his new novel, “Boy With Wings,” is out in 2025.

Author Links:

Website:  https://markmustian.com/

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/@markmustian

Facebook: https://facebook.com/markmustianauthor

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/mark-mustian

Bluesky: https://markmustian.bsky.social

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mark-T.-Mustian/author/B0CSF8JY2Y 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3463600.Mark_Mustian

Book Title: Last Train to Freedom

Series: n/a

Author: Deborah Swift

Publication Date: 8^th May 2025

Publisher: HQDigital

Pages: 361

Genre: Historical Fiction

Any Triggers: WW2, so mild violence

Twitter Handles: @swiftstory @cathiedunn @marylschmidt 

Instagram Handles: @deborahswiftauthor @thecoffeepotbookclub

Hashtags: #WW2 #TransSiberian #Russia #Japan #WomensFiction #Spies #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/04/blog-tour-last-train-to-freedom-by-deborah-swift.html

Book Title and Author Name:

Last Train to Freedom

by Deborah Swift

Blurb:

‘Taut, compelling and beautifully written – I loved it!’ ~ DAISY WOOD

‘Tense and thought-provoking’ ~ CATHERINE LAW

1940. As Soviet forces storm Lithuania, Zofia and her brother Jacek must flee to survive.

A lifeline appears when Japanese consul Sugihara offers them visas on one condition: they must deliver a parcel to Tokyo. Inside lies intelligence on Nazi atrocities, evidence so explosive that Nazi and Soviet agents will stop at nothing to possess it.

Pursued across Siberia on the Trans-Siberian Express, Zofia faces danger at every turn, racing to expose the truth as Japan edges closer to allying with the Nazis. With the fate of countless lives hanging in the balance, can she complete her mission before time runs out?

‘Such an interesting and original book…. Informative, full of suspense and thrills.’

~ Netgalley Review

For When Angels Fly:

The Power of the Pen

by Deborah Swift

Or in this case, the power of the brush.

Chiune Sugihara was the unknown Japanese WW2 hero who saved thousands of refugees with his writing brush.

He was a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania during World War 2, and his courageous efforts to issue transit visas against all his superiors’ orders became one of the most underrated life-saving decisions of the war.

In the summer of 1940, Chiune Sugihara was serving as the Japanese Vice-Consul in Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania. Hitler had already invaded much of Europe, and the Soviet Union had recently annexed the Baltic States, including Lithuania. Because of this, the Jewish population in Kaunas was growing increasingly desperate. Many were refugees from Nazi-occupied Poland who had fled to Lithuania, only to find themselves trapped again between two brutal regimes: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Jewish refugees began gathering outside the Japanese consulate, begging for transit visas. The plan was to escape via the Trans-Siberian Railway through the Soviet Union, then Japan, and hopefully onward to other safe havens like the Americas or Palestine. But to do this, they needed a transit visa from Japan.

His government wouldn’t help

Sugihara cabled Tokyo three times to request permission to issue these visas. Each time, the response was the same: permission denied. This was because Japan did not want to antagonize Germany, its Axis partner.

Sugihara knew the rules. But he also saw the faces of the refugees in the long straggling queue outside the embassy.

Parents clutched their children. Elderly men wept in the courtyard. Students, some as young as 13 or 14, pleaded for their futures. It was no longer a matter of diplomacy. It was a matter of conscience.

Sugihara made a life-altering decision: he would issue the visas anyway. He knew this could cost him his career. But as he later said, “They were human beings, and they needed help. I’m not the kind of person who can ignore such a situation.”

On the morning of July 31, 1940, Sugihara sat down at his desk and began writing visas by hand. And he did not stop.

Six thousand lives saved

From early morning until late at night, often 18 to 20 hours a day, he wrote visas. His wife Yukiko assisted him, bringing him food, and helping organize the crowds gathered outside the consulate. Sugihara would write up to 300 visas a day—each one taking several minutes—while his wife would press them with the consulate’s official seal.

Between July 31 and September 4, 1940, when he was forced to leave Lithuania, Sugihara issued thousands of transit visas. Estimates vary, but it’s believed he issued more than 2,100 visas, many of them for families, ultimately saving over 6,000 lives.

The refugees who received Sugihara’s visas made the arduous journey across Siberia by train, then boarded ships from Vladivostok to reach Japan. From there, many dispersed to countries across the globe—settling in Canada, the U.S., Australia, and Palestine.

For many, Sugihara’s transit visa was not only a document but a lifeline. The people he saved went on to rebuild lives, families, and communities. Today, their descendants number in the tens of thousands.

Last Train to Freedom tells the story of some of those refugees.

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link: http://mybook.to/TransSiberian

Author Bio:

Deborah Swift is the English author of twenty historical novels, including Millennium Award winner Past Encounters, and The Poison Keeper the novel based around the life of the legendary poisoner Giulia Tofana. The Poison Keeper won the Wishing Shelf Readers Award for Book of the Decade. Recently she has completed a secret agent series set in WW2, the first in the series being The Silk Code.

Deborah used to work as a set and costume designer for theatre and TV and enjoys the research aspect of creating historical fiction, something she loved doing as a scenographer. She likes to write about extraordinary characters set against a background of real historical events. Deborah lives in England on the edge of the Lake District, an area made famous by the Romantic Poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Author Links:

Website: www.deborahswift.com

Twitter https://twitter.com/swiftstory

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

Pinterest https://www.pinterest.co.uk/deborahswift1/

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

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/deborah-swift

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

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

Book Link

From Amazon:

A Historical Romantic mystery novella

When her father is killed in a train crash, twenty-one-year-old Marian Jamison is left to care for herself and her mother. She admires Thomas Hawthorn, who enters her life by design. Mysterious occurrences and a voice in the night make Marian question her mother’s sanity. She is left not knowing whom to trust, including her own heart. Love and intrigue are woven into an intricate design, fitting perfectly inside the walls of her dress shop, but a loose thread could unravel her entire world.

My Review:

The Dress Shop is a sweet, cozy historical novella full of romance and mysterious goings-on at the dress shop. The mysteries are heart-rending, the love is palpable – one meant to be. This couple falls in love in a clean, romantic manner. The nuances are true to the point in time. However, how can a lady sew a dress so fast? I don’t know, but they did back then.

Book Title: Tangled in Water

Series: n/a

Author: Pam Records

Publication Date: March 18th, 2025

Publisher: Historium Press

Pages: 418 pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

Any Triggers: no

Twitter Handle: @cathiedunn @marylschmidt

Instagram Handles: @pam.records.author @thecoffeepotbookclub @mschmidtphotography

Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #Prohibition #Mermaid #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/04/blog-tour-tangled-in-water-by-pam-records.html

Book Title and Author Name:

Tangled in Water

Pam Records

Blurb:

1932. Natalia is 16 and a bootlegger’s daughter, playing the mermaid mascot on a rundown paddlewheel used to entertain brewers and distributors. 

A sequined costume hides her scarred and misshaped legs, but it can’t cover up the painful memories and suspicions that haunt her. An eccentric healer who treats patients with Old Country tonics, tries to patch wounds, but only adds to the heartache. A fierce storm threatens to destroy everything, including a stash of stolen jewels.

1941. Prohibition is over, but the same henchmen still run the show. Nattie’s new mermaid act is more revealing, with more at risk. When the dry-docked paddlewheel is bought by the US Navy for training exercises, the pressure escalates further.

Can Nattie entice a cocky US Navy officer to help her gain access to the ship for one last chance to confront her past, settle scores, and retrieve the hidden loot? Is there a new course ahead?

Excerpt 5:

Nattie listened for engine sounds and looked over the railing. On the main deck, passengers were finally arriving. In small clusters they strolled up to the ticket counter, carrying small valises for the three-day trip. Some had porters carrying a travel trunk. Some men had nothing. They didn’t plan to sleep, it seemed.

The onslaught of passenger voices was sharp-edged against the metal hull, ricocheting from rust patches and layers of paint over iron bones. Teeth-hurting noises, metal scraping on metal, came in bursts. Tugs in the harbor made big hoot-hoot bellows, like jumbo-sized mama owls calling their owlets for dinner. The owl babies never answered. Maybe they had deformed legs, too, and were ashamed. Maybe they were waiting for the mutiny at midnight, the one the fog spirits had wanted her to join.

She thought about slipping away before passengers had a chance to stroll up to the Mermaid Lagoon. She could use some quiet time in the rat-runs, the crew-only passageways and secret-door vaults that crisscrossed the ship, places to hide bootleg barrels in case of a raid. They were also a good hiding place for a mermaid sick of being on display.

The water was choppy, the wind gusting in haphazard whooshes and wails. The up-and-down motion of the boat was making her gastric abnormalities act up. Being sickly was inconvenient.

Margret would be by soon, making sure she was ready for passengers. Nattie checked the ink on her arms. Some scales were forever ink under her skin. Other rows were added with a fountain pen as needed. Drawn with water-blue ink and a very unsteady hand, the scales looked like ivy groping on wind. Perhaps she’d had too many dribbles and maraschino cherries from discarded Polynesian Passions when she did the last touch-up.

Nattie rubbed some spit polish on her bare shoulders, making the mix of old and new ink scales glisten like she was fresh out of the lake. Men liked her to look slippery like that, or so they said. Then she adjusted the shells hanging around her neck to make sure all her right parts were covered. No point in giving away the goods, Mimi always said.

She finger-combed her hair, tucking the big tangles behind her ears, letting the ribbons knotted with pearls and strings of sequins skim her neck and bare shoulders. She hoped she looked at least a little bit lovely. Jakub had promised he would come by. He still might.

On each side of Nattie’s tank, hanging blue and green scarves draped off a small dressing room for her. She wheeled her rollie chair through the silk curtains for one more check of how she looked.

A mirror, bolted to a metal beam, was cracked so her face looked sliced and spliced, put together by a blind man. Bangs fell over her eyes. Her hair was a dirty blond color, ordinary. But her eyes were vibrant, turquoise, like still lagoons at twilight. A saxophone player had told her that once. He smelled like BO and she told him so. He didn’t make her sit on his lap after that.

Universal Buy Links:

Ebook: https://geni.us/cNfENHQ

Paperback: https://geni.us/3IgN95U

Hardcover: https://geni.us/EzoT1

Author Bio:

Pam and her husband, Mark, recently uprooted from the Midwest to move to Savannah, Georgia, the perfect place for enjoying the beach, historic architecture and Spanish moss.

She’s recently retired from writing content for software companies and now focuses on writing fiction, camping, and exploring historic cities.

Pam is the author of three historic novels.

Author Links:

Website: www.PamRecords.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090920739720

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/pam-records-writes

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pam.records.author/

Amazon Author Page: https://amazon.com/author/pamrecords

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19472278.Pam_Records

Book Link

From Amazon:

Confronting their pasts

 …to stop an infamous killer

When a fourth woman is found dead in a river, security expert Mack Holbock takes on the search for a cunning serial killer. A disabled vet, Mack is consumed by guilt that’s left him with no room or desire for love. But while investigating and facing danger with Charlotte—a traumatized victim of sex trafficking—he must protect her and win her trust…without falling for her.

From Harlequin Intrigue: Seek thrills. Solve crimes. Justice served.

Discover more action-packed stories in the Secure One series. All books are stand-alone with uplifting endings but were published in the following order:

Book 1: Going Rogue in Red Rye County
Book 2: The Perfect Witness
Book 3: The Red River Slayer

My Review:

This series by Mettner is awesome, and this is my favorite book thus far in this series. Both Mack and Charlotte and perfect, even though they think too much about what they are ashamed of and not enough about their good qualities. In true Mettner style, she brings about a transformation between them that creates beauty and love instead of low self-esteem and unworthiness. Each person at Secure One has their strengths and is great for the team. Due diligence brings the TRed River Slayer down.

Book Title:     Nothing Proved

Series:                        Regina           

Author:          Janet Wertman

Publication Date:      May 19, 2025

Publisher:      Janet Wertman

Pages:                         376

Genre:                        Historical Fiction

Twitter Handle: @cathiedunn @marylschmidt

Instagram Handles:  @janetwertman @thecoffeepotbookclub

Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #TudorFiction #ElizabethTudor #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/04/blog-tour-nothing-proved-by-janet-wertman.html

Book Title and Author:

Nothing Proved

by Janet Wertman

Blurb:

Danger lined her path, but destiny led her to glory…

Elizabeth Tudor learned resilience young. Declared illegitimate after the execution of her mother Anne Boleyn, she bore her precarious position with unshakable grace. But upon the death of her father, King Henry VIII, the vulnerable fourteen-year-old must learn to navigate a world of shifting loyalties, power plays, and betrayal.

After narrowly escaping entanglement in Thomas Seymour’s treason, Elizabeth rebuilds her reputation as the perfect Protestant princess – which puts her in mortal danger when her half-sister Mary becomes Queen and imposes Catholicism on a reluctant land. Elizabeth escapes execution, clawing her way from a Tower cell to exoneration. But even a semblance of favor comes with attempts to exclude her from the throne or steal her rights to it through a forced marriage. 

Elizabeth must outwit her enemies time and again to prove herself worthy of power. The making of one of history’s most iconic monarchs is a gripping tale of survival, fortune, and triumph.

Guest Post for When Angels Fly:

Elizabeth Tudor’s reign ushered in England’s Golden Age – after a path to the crown that should have been impossible. My latest novel, Nothing Proved, shines a light on the process by which she came to learn the lessons that shaped her transformation from bastard to queen.  Orphaned, abused, imprisoned, and betrayed, she learned suspicion, self-reliance, loyalty, and strategy – qualities she wielded for the rest of her life.

Elizabeth was born on September 7, 1533, to King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Her birth was a profound disappointment: Henry had desperately hoped for a male heir – and when Elizabeth was just two years old, he executed her mother on fabricated charges of adultery, incest, and treason, all to remarry. Elizabeth’s resulting precarious position gave her a front-row seat to the downfall of queens, courtiers, and family members, imbuing her with natural caution.

Henry’s death in 1547 thrust Elizabeth into a dangerous new reality. She found some brief stability with her stepmother, Katherine Parr – at least until Katherine’s husband made inappropriate advances and Elizabeth had to leave. To rebuild her reputation, she became the perfect Protestant princess, which put her in great danger when Catholic Mary took the throne in 1553. The Protestant resistance made Mary see Elizabeth as both a rival and a threat; and in 1554, after Wyatt’s rebellion, Elizabeth was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London where she lived under the shadow of a potential execution order. Her release did not end the danger: she was kept under house arrest for over a year, constantly watched and manipulated by a paranoid regime. Even after her release and ostensible rehabilitation, plots swirled to usurp her power by marrying her to someone who could control her.

Elizabeth’s survival in the face of danger gave her the confidence to lead, and navigating her way through these challenges taught Elizabeth the lessons she would use all her life. When Mary I died in 1558, Elizabeth ascended the throne at age 25 and surrounded herself with carefully chosen, loyal advisers. She never married, perhaps because she saw too well how power could shift through unions – or perhaps because she had seen too much of betrayal in personal relationships. And unlike her father, who ruled with impulse and fury, Elizabeth governed with patience and subtlety, navigating religious disputes, foreign threats, and internal dissent with calculated care. In all, she turned her traumatic upbringing into a source of strength, reshaping those lessons into a reign that proved a woman could not only survive but rule – and rule well.

Buy Links:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/bM8Vrk

Additional Buy Links:

Barnes & Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nothing-proved-janet-wertman/1146831389

Kobo:

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/nothing-proved

Apple:

https://books.apple.com/us/book/nothing-proved/id6740549129

Author Bio:

By day, Janet Wertman is a freelance grantwriter for impactful nonprofits. By night, she writes critically acclaimed, character-driven historical fiction – indulging a passion for the Tudor era she had harbored since she was eight years old and her parents let her stay up late to watch The Six Wives of Henry VIII and Elizabeth R.

Her Seymour Saga trilogy (Jane the Quene, The Path to Somerset, The Boy King) took her deep into one of the era’s central families – and now her follow-up Regina series explores Elizabeth’s journey from bastard to icon.

Janet also runs a blog (www.janetwertman.com) where she posts interesting takes on the Tudors and what it’s like to write about them.

Author Links:

Website:         https://janetwertman.com

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

LinkedIn:       https://www.linkedin.com/in/janet-ambrosi-wertman-b5531aa/

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

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

Pinterest:       https://www.pinterest.com/janetwertman

Book Bub:      https://www.bookbub.com/profile/janet-wertman          

Amazon Author Page:                      https://www.amazon.com/stores/Janet-Wertman/author/B01CUSMWFA 

Goodreads:        https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2028387.Janet_Ambrosi_Wertman