Book Title: The Boat on the Lake of Regret

Series:  The Castle in Kilkenny: Fairy Tales

Author Name: Christy Matheson

Publication Date: 15 July, 2025

Publisher: Buttercup Books (self-published)

Pages: 210

Genre: Fairy tale retelling; historical fantasy

Any Triggers:

I define this series as “high adventure, no gore.” It is suitable for an older teen audience.

There are slight content warnings about unsupportive parents (off-page) and there is a war that is mentioned. The characters are in physical danger, but everyone is fine in the end, and the tone of the book makes it clear that everyone will be fine. Two characters in love spend the night together, but it isn’t even fade-to-black because it isn’t implied that they have sex (I think they cuddle).

Twitter Handles: @CMathesonAuthor @cathiedunn @marylschmidt

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Hashtags: #BoatOnTheLakeOfRegret #CastleInKilkennyFairyTales #HistoricalFantasy #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/09/blog-tour-the-boat-on-the-lake-of-regret-by-christy-matheson.html

Book Title and Author Name:

The Boat on the Lake of Regret

by Christy Matheson

Blurb:

He has one last chance to be a fairy tale hero. 

But she didn’t agree to be the damsel in distress.

When her longtime boyfriend unexpectedly slides a ring on her finger, Hannah is whisked from her everyday bedroom to a medieval ball. Hannah knew that Dylan would do anything to prove to her parents that he’s husband material, including going into the Fae world—but she never agreed to go through the Veil herself.

Now one of three princess sisters, Hannah is paired with now-Prince Dylan. But, homesick and blindsided, she pretends the Veil has wiped him from her memory.

As her prince scrambles in vain to be the right kind of hero, Hannah ignores her instincts and follows her new sisters onto a mysterious boat—which promptly sails them into a land of giants, magical traps, and enchanted pianos…and away from Dylan.

Read now to journey back to medieval Ireland, complete with the Fae and mythological monsters, in this fairy tale adventure and sweet “it was always you” romance.

Snippet 4:

Ship takes off:

The wind catches our cloaks when we reach the front of the boat, and Nuala lifts her arms and laughs into the gust. I can’t help but smile too; something about the raw free power of it after this day.

There’s a deep poom above me, as the sail snaps full. It rocks Nuala half off her feet—I grab her, she laughs, I laugh too.

“Wait!” I shake her lightly. “The sail!”

“What about the—” Nuala looks up and goes quiet.

As one, we both turn to the cove, which is a dozen yards away. Two dozen.

“Stop!” someone yells from shore, or many someones. I still can’t see them.

“It’s cozy down here,” Mór calls, “but the waves have come up a bit.”

The sail flutters and snaps full again.

“There’s no one here,” I say, terrified. “How is the ship moving?”

“We’re running straight downwind,” Nuala answers, her voice flat. “Maybe they just left the sail rigged? And the wind changed?”

Even I know that sailors don’t get off a boat and just leave the rigging in place so the first wind will take their boat away.

Behind us, there’s a scream and a splash. We both turn, but can’t see anything behind the headland. The sail is still dropping and then pulling full again, so we’re distinctly moving, but not getting anywhere fast.

Just then, there’s a clatter and the ropes drop loose in the pulleys, the winches on the other side start to turn, and the sail flops against the mast, then pulls towards the side.

There’s still no sailors. At least ones that we can see.

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link: https://buy.bookfunnel.com/hzxiszq79z

Author Bio:

Characters you connect with. Adventure. Love. Family… And endings that are more than a sugar rush. 

When Christy Matheson is not throwing ordinary characters into fairy tales, she is busy raising five children. (Very busy.) She writes character-driven historical fiction with and without fantasy elements, and her “fresh, smart, and totally charming” stories have won multiple awards.

Christy is also an embroidery artist, classically trained pianist, and sews all of her own clothes. She lives in Oregon, on a country property that fondly reminds her of a Regency estate (except with a swing set instead of faux Greek ruins), with her husband, five children, three Shelties, one bunny, and an improbable quantity of art supplies.

Author Links:

Website: https://christymatheson.com

Twitter / X: https://x.com/CMathesonAuthor

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Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49771827.Christy_Matheson

Substack: https://unspokenstoriesofwomanhood.substack.com/

Book Link

From Amazon:

Prince Frederik Ian George Vincent of Waltingham and Lady Tatiana have been promised to one another since birth. Soon Frederik will become king and is expected to ascend the throne as a married man. Neither he nor Tatiana want an arranged alliance and have fought the tradition since they were old enough to understand it.

Frederik has come to New York City a week before Christmas to help with a fundraiser for impoverished countries. The moment he arrives to his hotel suite, Ayvri Scott, a member of housekeeping has a clumsy moment with him. It sparks an undeniable attraction and genuine affection. It also stirs phenomenal controversy.

When the prince is asked what he’d like for Christmas his response was to marry someone of his choosing. Will he get his wish?

My Review:

Romes never disappoints, at all. This was a fast read and full of the magic of Christmas along with the struggles of those who work hard whether housemaids or not. No one is immune to heartfelt feelings that some can love to hate one with. Jan adds humor into each page and adding in an orphan’s home makes it even more endearing. Toss in one handsome prince from an obscure English kingdom, his parents who decided at birth who he would marry, and neither one wants to marry to each other, and the fun and a super fast romance blooms!

Book Link

From Amazon:

Malachi Hunter believes in ghosts.
In fact, he’s obsessed with the supernatural, and it’s made him a socially isolated loner. Then a chance encounter with a girl who remembers his dubious reputation from school, and who needs his help, leads him to investigate a haunted house. Although things don’t exactly go according to plan, Mal’s still determined to become a paranormal investigator.

Fiercely independent single mum Teena Maunder believed that she could cope with anything; until a terrifying and baffling haunting starts in her home. Desperate for help, she turns to her policeman brother, who recruits Malachi Hunter. The novice ghost hunter quickly finds himself in real danger, tackling a menacing entity which threatens everyone he cares about!

Author’s Note. Originally published in 2015, ‘The Novice Ghost Hunter’ and ‘A Matter of Faith’ were the first parts of the Ghost Hunter Series. The new edition has been extensively rewritten, and, with the addition of new material, expanded to include both stories.

My Review:

Malachi Hunter is a loner, and interested in all things supernatural and ghostly. He is a novice, but he is also learned, a man who reads books, and monitors all things paranormal on internet sites of quality. A landscaper by trade, just like his father, and a novice paranormal hunter by evening and night. Malachi is asked to help an old friend from the past. Not all goes well, but more is learned about different entities and how to deal with them. Life will never be the same for Malachi, his family, nor his friends. Danger and death are never far away.

Name: Nancy Jardine

Book Title: Tailored Truths

Series: Silver Sampler Series, Book 2

Publication Date: September 12^th, 2025

Publisher: Nancy Jardine with Ocelot Press

Pages: 468

Genre: Historical Fiction; Family Saga; Women’s Fiction

Any Triggers: I don’t think so. (Deaths described but not murder.)

Twitter Handle: https://x.com/nansjar

Instagram Handle: https://www.instagram.com/nansjar2023/

Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #FamilySaga #WomensFiction #Victorian #Scotland #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/08/blog-tour-tailored-truths-by-nancy-jardine.html

Book Title and Author Name:

Tailored Truths

by Nancy Jardine

Blurb:

An engrossing Victorian Scotland Saga (Silver Sampler Series Book 2)

Is self-supporting success enough for Margaret Law or will her future also include an adoring husband and children? She might secretly yearn for that though how can she avoid a repeat of relationship deceptions that disenchanted her so much during her teenage years?

Employment as a lady’s maid, and then as a private tutor in Liverpool in the 1860s bring thrilling opportunities Margaret could never have envisaged. Though when those posts end, her educational aspirations must be shelved again. Reliance on her sewing skills is paramount for survival when she returns to Dundee.

Meeting Sandy Watson means love, marriage and starting a family – though not necessarily in that order – are a striking development though it entails a move north to Peterhead. Yet, how can Margaret shed her fear of commitment and her independence and take the plunge?

Jessie, her sister-at-heart, is settled in Glasgow. Frequent letters are a life-line between them but when it all goes horribly wrong, the contents of Margaret’s correspondence don’t necessarily mirror her awful day-to-day realities.

Just a little sing along…in Victorian Dundee

1860s Dundee

When writing Tailored Truths, I needed to find some evening activities for my main character, Margaret Law. At the beginning of the novel, she pitches up in Dundee at the age of sixteen, no longer having a private tutoring job in Edinburgh.

Since she can’t get a job tutoring, teaching, nor in the line of work like a lady’s maid, she pragmatically takes a job in one of the large Dundee jute mills because she needs to earn money to feed and shelter herself. Most women working in one of the mills would be employed in the main loom weaving rooms; or in the areas where the raw jute bales were softened by the use of whale oil; or perhaps the carding rooms where they produced the hanks needed for weaving. All of those jobs were poorly paid and physically exhausting. The job Margaret finds for herself is just as poorly paid, but it’s in one of the finishing rooms where the jute cloth (of varying grades) was cut and sewn into sacks for things like flour and edible produce. It’s boringly repetitive hemming work, a very long twelve-hour day from 6 am till 6 pm, with a noon dinner break – six days a week.

Evening time, when she can stay awake long enough, is precious. As is her Sunday off work.

Later in the novel, she returns to Dundee and again works in the same mill as before, but it’s in a different kind of finishing room. The best part of her second mill job is that she only works till around 12.30 pm on a Saturday!

So, what activities did I find for Margaret to do in her leisure time? Since she’s addicted to reading, that’s a well-loved activity for her evenings. However, it’s not that easy. She isn’t a member of a lending library. Not only would that entail a fee (annual or monthly), but as a female she would have been ineligible to become a member of most lending libraries at this time. She covets books but buying brand new ones is expensive. A copy of Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities (in a book production and not serialised) might cost around 5/- [five shillings sterling]. A way around this was for Margaret to find the courage to acquire copies of books from a pawn broker shop, at a much reduced price of something more like 1/- per book. There was a stigma attached to entering a pawn brokers so ensuring she was unseen was necessary!

Her best friend Jessie is working as a lady’s maid, a live-in post, so Margaret trades regular letters with her almost-sister that she’s known from the age of four. The drawback here wasn’t having Margaret write lots of missives, but it was to take into account the price of buying paper, ink, quills, and wax to seal them. Then there was the money to post a letter though that was easy enough since all she needed to do was go to the main post office in Dundee and send a letter by buying a pre-paid Penny Red stamp. She could also collect her return letters from the post office.

What she’d really love to do is attend some of the evening lectures on all manner of subjects: science topics, art, architecture. Those events admit men, perhaps a couple at some venues, but not unaccompanied females. The talks were often organized by formal associations (e.g. YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association) but to attend one had to be a member. Margaret cannot find any such club, or association, for women in Dundee. During the autumn and winter, evening walks don’t feature often since it’s too dark to wander the Dundee streets, though there’s more of a possibility during the late spring and summer.

Dundee was actually quite a hotspot of theatre entertainment, there being different establishments offering something to the paying public. When accompanied by a male friend, Margaret can attend the refurbished Kinnaird Hall with its brand new organ (formerly the Corn Exchange) where she can enjoy musical soirees with choirs and solo singers, orchestral music, though sometimes the variety shows held in the hall were a bit on the bawdy side! There were waxworks where a display depicting Queen Victoria was notoriously said to have been set up right next to an infamous murderer! And, of course, Margaret could also be escorted to circus and variety acts in other venues.

When researching, I noticed that some of my timing was just too unfortunate. The bulk of Tailored Truths happens between New Year’s Eve1855 and 1868 (though she’s not in Dundee after June 1866). Some of the more substantial non-wooden theatre venues were only opened in 1866 so a tiny bit of author juggling was necessary to write in scenes where she attended the Theatre Royal in Dundee.

Margaret could have had plenty of opportunities to attend various entertainments if she attended church organized ones but, apart from an initial dabbling at a few events, she prefers her own company, reading something of her own choice. She’s well used to having read her bible growing up but feels she isn’t learning anything new at Bible groups in Dundee, and it’s new educational opportunities that she covets and knows she would thrive on!

Dundee did offer opera at some venues in the late 1860s, but since Margaret has had a taste of attending an opera at the Theatre Royal in Liverpool, in exalted company, she isn’t feeling left out by not attending any in Dundee.

Why Liverpool? Well, that’s another part of Margaret’s story in Tailored Truths.

Buy Link:

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

This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Author Bio:

Nancy Jardine writes historical adventure fiction, historical saga, time travel historical adventure and contemporary mysteries. Research, grandchildren, gardening fill up her day in the castle country of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, when not writing or promoting her writing. Interacting with readers is a joy at Book and Craft Fairs where she signs/sells paperback versions of her novels. She enjoys giving author presentations on her books and on Ancient Roman Scotland.

Memberships include: Historical Novel Society; Scottish Association of Writers, Federation of Writers Scotland, Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Alliance of Independent Authors. She’s self-published with Ocelot Press.

Author Links:

Website: https://www.nancyjardine.com/

Twitter / X: https://x.com/nansjar

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nansjar2023/

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Amazon Author Page: viewauthor.at/findmybookshere

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Book Link:

From Amazon:

Not even heaven can please everyone!

Alan, a nonconformist type of soul, thinks heaven is a boring nightmare. As for its numerous rose gardens, well we won’t talk about that.

But how did he end up in heaven?

Over millennia, Alan’s made enemies in every part of the Universe.

Now, not even hell wants him!

Heaven is the only place that will take him in.

Once there, Alan challenges heaven’s heavenly ways.

Unfortunately, his actions backfire and the consequences are scary, even for a soul like Alan.

Thankfully, he learns he has friends. These heavenly folks are determined to help Alan find his place in paradise.

Let’s wish them luck!

My Review:

I loved this book. I was laughing all the way through. Alan has been many things such as human and even ants on many colorful worlds. Alan is easily bored and havoc always ensues. Alan has been to Heaven before, and then given a new life on a plethora of planets. This time, things are different. If you want a lighthearted short read, this book will have you laughing.

Book Title: The Blackest Time

Series: n/a

Author Name: Ken Tentarelli

Publication Date: September 25,2025

Publisher:  Black Rose Writing

Pages: 268

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Any Triggers: n/a

Twitter Handle: @cathiedunn @marylschmidt

Instagram Handles: @KenTentarelliAuthor @thecoffeepotbookclub

Hashtags: #HistoricalFiction #Medieval #ItalianHistoricalFiction #Plague #BlackDeath #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub

Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2025/08/blog-tour-the-blackest-time-by-ken-tentarelli.html

Book Title and Author Name:

The Blackest Time

by Ken Tentarelli

Blurb: 

Set in the 1300s during the devastating black plague, The Blackest Time is a powerful tale of compassion, love, and the human spirit’s ability to endure immense adversity.

Gino, the central character, is a young man who leaves his family’s farm to find work in a pharmacy in Florence. His experiences show us how people coped in the most horrific time in history.

Shortly after Gino arrived in the city, two years of incessant rain destroyed crops in the countryside, leading to famine and despair in the city. Gino offers hope and help to the suffering— he secures shelter for a woman forced to leave her flooded farm, rescues a young girl orphaned by the plague, and aids others who have lost everything.

The rains had barely ended when the plague hit the city, exposing the true character of its people. While some blamed others for the devastation, the story focuses on the compassionate acts of neighbors helping each other overcome fear and suffering. Doctors bravely risk infection to care for their patients. A woman healer, wrongly accused of witchcraft and driven from the city, finds a new beginning in a village where her skills were appreciated.

Despite the hardships, love blossoms between Gino and a young woman he met at the apothecary. Together they survive, finding strength in each other and hope in a world teetering on the edge.

Ken Tentarelli guest blog for When Angels Fly

The Blackest Time takes place in Florence, Italy, during a time when two consecutive events combined to make it the most horrific period in history. Starting in 1346, two years of unrelenting rain ruined farm crops, which brought the city close to famine. Just when the rains subsided, the Black Plague struck the city and claimed more than half its population.

Those terrible events form a backdrop, but the story isn’t about the disasters; it’s about the compassion and courage of the people who coped with the incredible adversity. Gino, the book’s central character, is a young man who moved from his family’s farm to Florence to find work in an apothecary shop. Through his experiences, we see how people supported each other to overcome extraordinary hardship. Working in an apothecary shop, Gino encountered a broad cross section of Florentine society: doctors, merchants, government officials, working folk and affluent businessmen. Each of them revealed an aspect of life during the plague. It was these differences that I found fascinating and wanted to capture in the book.

Today, we know today the plague was caused by bacteria carried on fleas carried by rodents. Medieval Florentines believed it was caused by bad air. The apothecary shop where Gino worked sold not only medicines but also perfumes, elixirs, and pigments for artists. People came into the shop every day asking for the most pungent perfume, hoping the scent would dispel the bad air. The strongest scent Gino could prepare was made from gardenia flowers. The perfume helped people smell nice, a good thing because they didn’t bathe very often in those days, but the perfume did nothing to combat the plague.

Doctors found that their traditional treatments were useless against the plague, but they bravely went into the homes of the sick, risking their own health to treat family members. They believed that balancing bodily fluids would keep people from contracting the plague. (The practice of balancing bodily fluids began two thousand years ago in the time of Hippocrates and continued to the 19^th century.)

The plague fractured the cohesive Florentine society. Before the plague, Florence was a prosperous industrial city where people worked in shops and mills. Its silk and woolen mills exported fabric across Europe. Families and extended families were important. People cared about the relatives and neighbors and visited them often. 

The plague drove people to act out of fear and desperation. Some thought sinners had displeased God, so He sent the plague as punishment. They looked for scapegoats to blame for God’s displeasure. In the book, Gino befriended a woman healer who had been treating poor people who couldn’t afford to see a doctor. When rumors spread claiming she was making potions and practicing witchcraft, Gino, at his own personal risk, helped her flee the city in the middle of the night to avoid being burned as a witch. He brought her to a village that had no doctor and was thankful to have a healer.

Florentines were devout Christians. Families went to Mass together every Sunday. When the plague came, people started going to Mass several times a week. Old women gathered at churches in the afternoons to say the rosary. Yet despite their faith, when people started blaming each other, even the priests didn’t escape. The Blackest Time illustrates this with a scene where a priest proclaimed God sent the plague because people lacked humility. A lumberjack attending the mass became outraged and challenged the priest, shouting, “Look at me. I’m wearing my best tunic, and it’s all frayed. You’re wearing fine silk vestments. You replaced your pewter chalice with one of silver. If anyone lacks humility, it is you priests.”

The anger of the lumberjacks was one way people reacted to the hardships. Rather than confront the problems, some wealthy men fled the city with their families in carriages to villas in the countryside. When these owners of the shops and mills left the city, they shut the factories and left their employees without jobs, worsening an already difficult situation.

While some people cast blame and some fled, others dedicated themselves to helping the less fortunate. Men’s groups called confraternities, organized by churches, sponsored shelters run by nuns. Despite the confraternities’ best efforts, the shelters were overwhelmed by farm families who had fled to the city when their crops were ruined.

Overall responsibility for the welfare of its people fell to the Signoria, the city’s government officials. With the central market nearly empty because of crop failures, the Signoria dispatched ships to Sicily to purchase grain so the city’s bakers could make bread. During the plague, the Signoria subscribed to the belief that bad air was responsible for the pestilence, and instituted measures to improve hygiene. They had trash removed from the streets, had the streets swept every night, and banned highly perishable foods from being brought into the city. These measures deprived the disease-bearing rodents of food, thereby decreasing the rodent population and ultimately ending the plague. They also forced prostitutes to leave the city—you can speculate for yourself why the Signoria expected this measure might help combat the plague.

When we think back to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, beyond the misfortune and tragedy, we remember the first responders: nurses, doctors, emts and others who worked tirelessly to treat the afflicted. Similarly, I hope readers of The Blackest Time will look beyond the plague itself and appreciate the resilience and caring of the people who supported each other during that horrible time.

The Blackest Time is a testament to the strength of the human spirit in overcoming unimaginable tragedy.

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link:  https://books2read.com/u/bPO08J

Author Bio:

Ken Tentarelli is a frequent visitor to Italy. In travels from the Alps to the southern coast of Sicily, he developed a love for its history and its people.

He has studied Italian culture and language in Rome and Perugia, background he used in his award-winning series of historical thrillers set in the Italian Renaissance. He has taught courses in Italian history spanning time from the Etruscans to the Renaissance, and he’s a strong advocate of libraries and has served as a trustee of his local library and officer of the library foundation.

When not traveling, Ken and his wife live in beautiful New Hampshire.

Author Links:

Website:   https://KenTentarelli.com

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ken.tentarelli.3/

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

Book Bub:  https://www.bookbub.com/authors/ken-tentarelli

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ken-Tentarelli/author/B07PDYZ34Q

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18920645.Ken_Tentarelli

I was informed by Thomas (Literary Titan) received a gold rating. Clover is found here.

Clover is a children’s picture story about all things’ bunny rabbits. Clover teaches children about the life of a bunny rabbit from how they live, shelter, what they eat, and even predators. Children learn what rabbits like to eat and other animals they will or will not play with. Children need to know how wild animals interact with each other in a natural setting such as a park or a backyard. Rabbits and squirrels are everywhere in any location so children quickly identify with them. Clover loves to share in a rhyming manner what he likes to eat and how he and other bunny rabbits play. It is important for children to learn about nature and animals they may or may not see on a regular basis. Children gain a greater understanding about rabbits and wildlife, and they learn the types of food they can place outside for rabbits to munch on. The concept and principles of caring for rabbits and nature can be taught at an early age in any type of setting. Knowing how rabbits and squirrels interact starts the early process of learning about different animals right in your own backyard or park. 

Book Link

From Amazon:

‘I can be anything you want me to be. Even if you don’t know you want it.’

Café owner Kate is mentally drained after a tough two years; all she wants from her online chess partner is entertainment on lonely evenings, and maybe a little virtual flirtation.

She is unaware that Nico Lewis is a highly intelligent con artist who, with an intricately spun web of lies about their emotional connection, will soon convince her that he is The One.

Neither does Kate know that his schemes involve women who seek love on dating sites, as well as his small publishing business. A host of excited authors believe Nico is about to make their dreams come true.

Terry Tyler’s twenty-fourth publication is a sinister psychological drama that highlights the dark side of internet dating—and the danger of ignoring the doubts of your subconscious.

My Review:

This novel was intense for sure. People can be jealous over things that don’t have anything to do with them. But I’m ahead of myself. Online dating sites. Never been on any, never will. This novel reinforces that some people you meet are NOT who they portray, no matter how skilled they are in their deceit. Nico is good at that. But Nico is also greedy and he doesn’t follow the ground rules that his team have in not scamming a poor person, only setting up with with plenty of money. That is one of his downfalls. This novel has it all, romance, in many ways, murder in a couple different ways, people with a gazillion aliases, friends who are not who they appear to be, deceit is rampant. That deceit comes forth in this twisted novel that is truly more than intense.