Media Kit

Book Title: Beautiful Ghost

Series: Sequel to Copper Sky

Author: Milana Marsenich

Publication Date: November 8, 2022

Publisher: Open Books

Page Length: 217

Genre: Historical Fiction

Twitter Handle: @milanamarsenich @cathiedunn

Instagram Handle: @milanammarsenich @thecoffeepotbookclub

Bluesky Handle: @cathiedunn.bsky.social

Hashtags: #historicalfiction #Butte #Montana #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/blog-tour-beautiful-ghost-by-milana-marsenich.html

Book Title and Author Name:

Beautiful Ghost

by Milana Marsenich

Blurb:

During the fall of 1918, the influenza pandemic crosses the nation and reaches the mining town of Butte, Montana.

Marika Jovich, who wants to go to school to become a physician, works menial tasks for Dr. Fletcher. She feels useless as she tries to save friends and neighbors from the ravages of the flu. In the midst of the pandemic, she watches the town shut down, young and old perish, and her medical dreams all but evaporate.

Kaly Monroe used to be a half-good woman of the night. She left that life to raise her daughter, Annie, and live and work with her long-lost mother, Tara McClane. Kaly waits for her husband, Tommy, to return from the war. Word from the east is that soldiers are dying of influenza and she prays that Tommy is not one of them.

When an out-of-town woman named Amelia suddenly dies in Dr. Fletcher’s office, both women try to learn more about the mysterious woman and the circumstances regarding her death. Is she another casualty of the pandemic, or the victim of manmade foul play? Who is this stranger, and is her demise a portent of the fate that awaits the residents of Butte?

Praise for Beautiful Ghost:

“Marsenich doesn’t just describe the place and times, she conjures it up like time travel.”
~ Amazon Review by Ellen Leahy Howell

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/m06BOJ

Snippet One: The Wolf Dog

The wolf dog wanders through the town where mining fumes singe the air, and tin shacks, thrown together in desperation, sit next to French mansions and yards flagged with cobblestone. He rambles past the Cabbage Patch, where bootleggers and criminals live in downtrodden shanties and the king of the Patch rules the poor with an iron club. The dog walks through Dublin Gulch, a rough bit of Butte, inhabited by stubborn Irish people and sour-faced old women, who rarely shop for fine china or cast-iron pots at the town’s one department store. He continues his journey through Chinatown, past the opium dens, and down to the train depot on East Front Street.

He sits on the platform, under a center overhang, out of the rain, and watches the passengers disembark. Soot covers every surface of the depot, and, as the sky darkens, the wolf dog feels something coming. Something rising up out of the ground, on the wind, or perhaps in a blanket. Or maybe, a young woman carries it in her lap as the train roars across the country from the east to Montana. This tiny thing is barely a whisper. But it’s there, wanting to live and live strong. It floats among the people hugging and kissing in the depot’s large waiting room. It lights on jackets of men smoking, and hovers in the perfumed air where women tend to private matters.

Author Bio:

Milana Marsenich – Author Bio

Award winning author, Milana Marsenich lives in Northwest Montana near Flathead Lake at the base of the beautiful Mission Mountains. She enjoys quick access to the mountains and has spent many hours hiking the wilderness trails with friends and dogs. For the past 20 years she has worked as a mental health therapist in a variety of settings. As a natural listener and a therapist, she has witnessed amazing generosity and courage in others. She first witnessed this in her hometown of Butte, Montana, a mining town with a rich history and the setting for Copper Sky, her first novel. 

Copper Sky was chosen as a Spur Award finalist for Best Western Historical Novel in 2018. Her second novel, The Swan Keeper, was a Willa Award finalist in 2019. Her short story, Wild Dogs, won the Laura Award for short fiction in 2020.

She has an M.Ed. in Mental Health Counseling from Montana State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Montana. She has previously published in Montana Quarterly, Big Sky Journal, The Polishing Stone, The Moronic Ox, BookGlow, and Feminist Studies.

She has three published novels, Copper Sky, The Swan Keeper, and Beautiful Ghost, and one popular history book, Idaho Madams. Her upcoming novel, Shed Girl: A Juliet French Novel, will be released January 2024. Her popular history book, Mary MacLane: Butte’s Wild Woman and her Wooden Heart, will be out sometime in 2025.

You can find her books and blog posts at https://milanamarsenich.com/.

Author Links:

Website: https://milanamarsenich.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/milanamarsenich

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

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

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

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/milana-marsenich

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Milana-Marsenich/author/B07DTJRR2K/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/16544640.Milana_Marsenich

Book Title: The Redemption of Mattie Silks

Author: Kimberly Burns

Publication Date: October 25, 2023

Publisher: Thomas Bard Publishing

Page Length: 315

Genre: Historical Fiction

Twitter Handle: @cathiedunn

Instagram Handle: @kimberlyburnsauthor @thecoffeepotbookclub

Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #HistoricalWomensFiction #WestwardExpansion #BlogTour #CoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/blog-tour-the-redemption-of-mattie-silks-by-kimberly-burns.html

Book Title and Author Name:

The Redemption of Mattie Silks

by Kimberly Burns

Blurb:     

SEEKING REDEMPTION, SHE FINDS RETRIBUTION

In 1892, running one of the West’s fanciest brothels is a rough game. In a town filled with brazen criminals, corrupt police, zealous politicians, and morality committees, Madam Mattie Silks makes her fortune catering to Colorado’s gold and silver millionaires.

Notorious crime boss “Soapy” Smith is at the top of the Denver underworld. There are no rules for Smith’s gang. They solve problems with bribes and bullets. When Mattie’s husband stumbles into Soapy’s dealings, she struggles to protect him.

Gold is discovered in the Yukon and Mattie seizes the opportunity for adventure and profit. But Skagway, Alaska, is even more lawless than Denver. Mattie must use all her business sense and street smarts to safeguard those she cares about. Will it be enough? Or will Lady Justice again turn a blind eye?

Based on a true story, The Redemption of Mattie Silks is an action-packed tale of a woman succeeding in a man’s world even when the cards are stacked against her.

“The research on the era shines through, as do the grit and spirit of the characters. …A colorful and enthralling journey.”

~ K.T. Blakemore, award-winning author of The Good Time Girlsseries

“A nice, nuanced portrait of the complex underworld with fine and witty turns of phrase. A great Western romp!”

~ Randi Samuelson-Brown, award-winning author of The Bad Old Daysseries

Women of the Old West

Women of the Old West were pioneers and trailblazers, but not just in the sense that they gave up their homes and trekked into the wilderness. They also blazed trails in business, were pioneers of medicine and groundbreakers in politics.

Remember the old US Army advertising campaign: “We do more before 9AM than most people do all day”? My great-grandmother could have given any soldier a run for their money. With a baby on her hip and five more little ones trailing behind, she packed her valuables into a wagon and walked from North Carolina to Colorado. She spent the rest of her life on a homestead in the Colorado foothills, keeping the house and raising three more babies while also completing a man’s day’s work out on the range. She may have accomplished more before any given sunrise than I do in a good year. Sadly, stories of her and other remarkable but unknown heroines are being lost in the fog of history.

There were few acceptable careers for women in the 1800s, and certainly none that created wealth. Most working women struggled on subsistence earnings as laundresses, cooks, maids, or teachers. But in the West, where survival often depended on everyone pulling their weight, women could not afford to be shrinking violets. Their husbands and communities needed all hands to pitch in. The move west wrenched women from the customs, conventions, standards, and traditions with which they had been raised. They had to develop new codes of acceptable behavior, dress, and mores. In my novel The Mrs. Tabor, a local madam explains that a woman alone can act with the highest decorum and in the end, she will politely starve to death. The madam warns, “The law of survival always trumps the rules of etiquette.”

The need for labor gave Western women opportunities to create careers that their sisters in the East did not have. Women were often good with livestock, and ran cattle ranches, bred horses, or drove pack mules. It is estimated that 15% of homesteaders were single women. In an era when women could not sign a legal contract or open a bank account, female entrepreneurs owned restaurants, stores, and hotels in frontier towns.

In the mining boomtowns, most men preferred prospecting to planning infrastructure. This opened the door for the few women there to participate in government and improve the living conditions for their families and communities. In fact, many Old West towns lacked a school and church until the females organized the funding and building of these cultural institutions. White men may have explored the West, but white women settled it.

Western women also participated in politics decades before the constitution was amended to allow voting for all, regardless of sex. Wyoming Territory passed a women’s voting act in 1869, and the gals got right to work. Within a year the territory had female jury members, a bailiff and a justice of the peace. Other states and territories west of the Mississippi soon followed suit and women were voting in Colorado by 1893 and in Utah by 1896.

In a region where males greatly outnumbered females, some lonely men were of the opinion that woman’s suffrage might attract quality marriage candidates. Daring and hardy adventuresses would be drawn to a new life in the Wild West in they had a hand in shaping it. Delicate flowers accustomed to a steady life of comfort need not apply.

When their Eastern sisters were marching for the right to vote in matching white dresses, Western women were campaigning to be elected to public office themselves. All-lady town councils were elected in Oskaloosa, Kansas (1888) and Kanab, Utah (1912). In 1920, the same year that the 19^th Amendment was finally ratified, Jackson, Wyoming elected an all-female mayor and city council. One of their descendants wrote, “There was a practical approach to it. [They said] we need this and we’ll do it ourselves.” Dubbed the Petticoat Rulers, they extended electric service, installed street lights, grated streets, created a town cemetery, collected taxes, and appointed a (female) town treasurer, marshal, and health officer.

Medical schools were graduating a handful of token female doctors in the late 1800s. Many of those found acceptance in the rough western territories. Perhaps citizens felt a lady doctor was better than no doctor at all. The television show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was loosely based on the life of Doc Susie who served small mountain towns in the Colorado Rockies from 1893 until 1956. Imagine the patients she must have treated in a region filled with wild animals and wilder men. Her story and that of a few other early medical professionals are noted in state historical society collections, but most are unknown in the wider world.

Some women found work on the wrong side of the law. Pearl Hart robbed stagecoaches. Belle Star led a gang of cattle rustlers. Sing Choy, also known as China Mary, controlled the opium dens and Chinese prostitution in old Tombstone. The main character of my latest book, Mattie Silks, used her sharp business acumen to run one of Denver’s most successful brothels for over forty years.

Regardless of where they found employment, the women of the Old West displayed an incredible work ethic and courage enough to fill a library with adventure stories. But there is another, less glamorous trait they seemed to possess — pragmatism. If there was work to be done, they simply got to it. I don’t think many of the women who settled the wild frontier took any time to reflect on accomplishments or bask in any congratulatory accolades. There were few philosophical debates about equality of ability or opportunity. They were too busy, living by the motto, “Get ’er done!”

Buy Links:

This title is available to read with #KindleUnlimited

Universal Link: https://books2read.com/u/mlpKRv

Author Bio:

Kimberly Burns grew up in Colorado hearing stories about the colourful characters of the Old West. She has degrees from the University of Colorado and the University of Hartford. Kimberly is a member of the Historical Novel Society, Western Writers of America, and Women Writing the West. She lives with her husband and black Lab in Leesburg, Virginia.

Her debut novel The Mrs. Tabor won numerous awards including the Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award for Best New Novel, a gold medal for Best Regional Fiction from the IndependentPublisher Book Awards, a National Indie Excellence Award, and a silver medal from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association EVVY Awards.

Kimberly and her unruly heroines make for an entertaining book talk. She is available to discuss her novels with book groups in person or online. Email her at info@kimberlyburnsauthor.com.

Author Links:

Website: www.kimberlyburnsauthor.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100072454670660

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

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kimberly-Burns/author/B09G4S8N2L Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21851914.Kimberly_Burns

Book Title: Twelfth Cake House

Series: Heartwarming Christmas

Author: Heidi Eljarbo

Publication Date: December 15^th, 2023

Publisher: independently published

Page Length: approx. 90 pages

Genre: Clean Historical Christmas Romance

Twitter Handles: @HeidiEljarbo @cathiedunn

Instagram Handles: @authorheidieljarbo @thecoffeepotbookclub

Bluesky Handle: @cathiedunn.bsky.social

Hashtags: #heartwarmingchristmas #historicalfiction #holidayromance #goldenyearromance #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Link: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2023/11/blog-tour-twelfth-cake-house-by-heidi-eljarbo.html

Book Title and Author Name: 

Twelfth Cake House

Heidi Eljarbo

Blurb:

Even a clever matchmaker may need a push in the right direction if she’s to find true love. When she’s asked to find a match for herself, it proves to be the most difficult task she’s ever undertaken.

Mid-December 1796.

Sixty-year-old spinster Miss Jemima Thurgood has three weeks to finish the preparations for her annual Twelfth Night party. In her position as a matchmaker, for over forty years she has assumed a grave responsibility. Luckily, she’s a shrewd observer of people, and many happy reunions have come about due to her exceptional talent for nudging kindred hearts in the right direction.

Every year, Jemima invites twelve carefully selected men and women to her festivity, and each guest is assigned a dinner partner. The days before the merrymaking are constantly disrupted by one unforeseen event after another. Jemima must work hard to be ready in time, and more importantly, to provide the kind of celebration her chosen guests deserve.

But this year, what Jemima doesn’t know is that her life is about to take a sudden change of course—one she could not have predicted or planned for. As the days pass, several gentlemen indicate they are interested in becoming better acquainted with her, but only a very special man can charm a matchmaker.

A sweet romance novella set during a witty and enchanting Georgian-Era Christmas, Twelfth Cake House is a story about traditions, goodwill, and finding hope and the courage to change and take a chance on finding true love.

Buy Links:

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/b6lWzJ

Author Bio:

Heidi Eljarbo is the award-winning author of dual-timeline historical fiction with heartwarming clean romance, wit, and adventurous mystery.

Heidi grew up in a home filled with books and artwork and never imagined she would do anything other than write and paint. She studied art, languages, and history, danced on the BYU Ballroom Dance Team, and still sings in choirs.

After living in Canada, six US states, Japan, Switzerland, and Austria, Heidi now calls Norway home. She and her husband have a total of nine children, and fifteen grandchildren—so far—in addition to a bouncy Wheaten Terrier.

Their favorite retreat is a mountain cabin, where they hike in the summertime and ski the vast, white terrain during winter.

Heidi’s favorites are family, God’s beautiful nature, and the word whimsical.

Sign up for Heidi’s newsletter at https://www.heidieljarbo.com/newsletter!

Author Links:

Website: https://www.heidieljarbo.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeidiEljarbo

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

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

Pinterest: https://no.pinterest.com/heidieljarbo/

Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/heidi-eljarbo

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Heidi-Eljarbo/e/B073D852VG/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16984270.Heidi_Eljarbo

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