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The Thinara King by Rebecca Lochlann – Historical Fiction/Fantasy/Mythology

There’s only sorrow for Aridela, the heiress to the throne of Kapthor when she learns her heart is not hers to give freely and every decision she makes concerning her love life brings about dire consequences for her people in Rebecca Lochlann’s The Thinara King, Book 2 of The Child of the Erinyes series.

When Aridela meets Chrysaleon, a Greek “barbarian” by the standards of her people, she falls in love. Chrysaleon, young, bold and brash, is as smitten with Aridela as she is with him, but he has been promised in marriage to her sister Iphiboë, who is bland and boring by comparison.

The marriage is all important, though, as it will consolidate his father’s power, linking his lineage with that of the Aridela’s culture, a culture that reveres the power and station of women. Kapthor is ruled by Aridela’s mother Queen Helice and guided by the powerful female oracle Themiste.

Aridela and Chrysaleon cannot help but consummate their forbidden love, yet as they do, a volcano erupts, devastating the island and killing many of Aridela’s relatives and friends. The volcano, seen as goddess Athene’s handiwork, is blamed on Chrysaleon, who has been identified by Themiste as the “lion” or the Thinara King, foretold in an ancient prophecy linking him to Aridela and a mysterious, unidentified bull figure. The prophecy states that this triad has the power to restore or destroy the world.

Rebecca Lochlann skillfully immerses the reader in a semi-fictional world of ancient rites and conflicts where characters live, die, and are reborn throughout her series The Child of the Erinyes.

The product of many years of study and fascination with the era and the mythology, The Thinara King establishes Lochlann’s connection with the novel’s setting and genre by smoothly combining many convincing elements: the handsome hero determined to win the strong-minded fair lady, the dark anti-hero plotting on the sidelines, the wise demi-goddess who keeps her own counsel and manipulates outcomes behind the scenes, the grisly battles fought at close range, and the spectacular festivals marking the passing of the years.

Lochlann’s over-arching narrative, switching from character to character, is deftly composed, making for many surprises without deviating from the backdrop with its elaborate history-rich trappings.

A tale of ancient kingdoms, of love promised and lost, heralded victory and hopeless defeat is the second novel in her much-acclaimed series, The Child of the Erinyes – another masterfully written historical fiction novel of Ancient Greece from Rebecca Lochlann.

March 24, 2017
UNCONVENTIONAL BOOK TOURS — Finding Your Tribe by Susan Conrad
We have a LOT of terrific sessions planned for CAC17, and we are still adding more. One of those amazing sessions will be:

My Life as an Unconventional Book Tour – Gone are the days where an author simply reads, opens the floor to Q&A, and then signs books. (Can you say YAWN FEST?)

Your audience craves engagement, and you want them to leave with your book in their hands—and with vivid memories in their minds.

The presenter for this class, Susan Conrad, is an author, adventurer, and speaker who has been living her own whirlwind book tour since the release of her debut memoir in May 2016. Susan gives us a sneak preview into the session she will be teaching.
- Is your book’s unveiling looming excitedly on the horizon? Or are you deep in the throes of promoting a recent release—but feel like you’re spinning your wheels?
- Or maybe you’re just curious how to get the best bang for your take-over-the-world-book tour campaign.
A box of chocolates from one of Susan Conrad’s fans who read the book and knows that she adores chocolate!

Just as there’s so much more to being an author than “simply writing a book,” there’s so much more to a book tour than contacting a few bookstores. Whether you are self-published or traditionally published, you’ll be sure to pick up some priceless tips and tricks to launch your own kick-a&$# book tour.

You didn’t write your book, pour out your heart, and create interesting characters, plots and themes just to make money, right? I’m assuming you (also) wrote your book to share your passion, spread your message, and tell your story. Indubitably, the next step is about making connections and building relationships—essentially finding your TRIBE!

This session will help participants wrap their brain around who their audience truly is, where the best venues are to secure those audiences, and once that audience is all under one roof—how to invite them to come into your book. We’ll brainstorm ways to find your audience, organize and present a killer book tour (and not go broke doing it), set the mood, engage and dazzle your audience, and more. We’ll also discuss ways to generate clever promotions and land the venues you want.

I look forward to meeting all of you at CAC17 and sharing ideas on how to get a leg up on your book tour competition! – Susan Conrad

Susan Conrad is an adventurer, author, educator, and speaker. She’s also an accomplished paddler. Her tenacious exploration by sea kayak has fueled her stories and images of the natural world for decades. Her articles and photographs have appeared in Sea Kayaker, Canoe and Kayak, Adventures Northwest, and Figure magazines. Countless newspapers, guidebooks, and historical journals also feature Susan’s work.
March 23, 2017
NIXON and DOVEY: The Legend Returns by Jay Curry – Antebellum South, Gun Slinging, Historical Fiction

Launch into a gun-slinging, horse racing, antebellum southern historical biographically-based novel in this larger than life surprise, Nixon and Dovey: The Legend Returns.

Imagine searching through the local archives in hopes of discovering a long-lost ancestor only to stumble upon a memoir written about the early days of the area in which this ancestor lived. And another find – an article about the ancestor that has alluded you for so long surfaces. As you read it, however, your stomach turns. The ancestor you have sought for so long turns out to be the most notorious murderer and villain of the day. In this page-turner, Jay Curry tells the story of his ancestor, Nixon Curry, and his sad end.

Curry opens his tale at the very beginning: Nixon learns to shoot and ride as a youngster and finds he’s quite good at it. In fact, he loves riding so much his one desire is to open a stable and breed thoroughbreds – just like the rich people in his town. Unfortunately, Nixon is not rich, nearly unforgivable in the antebellum south. And Nixon, much to the dismay of his father, has a temper.

He may have been able to climb his way out of the first tragic situation, by, perhaps winning the Governor’s Cup, the big horse race of the day. But the second, his volcanic disposition, he will never be able to escape. Now Jay Curry’s ancestor must come to grips with the fact that dreams don’t always come true and life doesn’t always go according to plan.

At its heart, though, this book is a love story. Nixon falls in love with a senator’s daughter, Dovey Caldwell. Unfortunately for the ill-fated lovers, her daddy has already set her up with Nixon’s arch rival and wealthy Southern son. Much like the sorry tales of love-struck couples of yore, the youngsters run off together and cause all sorts of consternation.

Nixon and Dovey: The Legend Returns is a heart-pounding, page-turning read straight from the pages of an 1800’s diary and family lore of author, Jay Curry.

March 23, 2017
ONCE UPON A SCANDAL by Julie LeMense – Regency Romance/Historical Romance

Since there’s no such thing as a perfect person, we can’t say that Julie LeMense has written a perfect Regency romance.

Darn close, though.

Once Upon a Scandal nails it on so many levels: plot and characters driven by the era they live in; smooth, clean writing; a fully realized heroine who’s smart, vulnerable, resourceful, flawed, compassionate, and funny; an aristocrat hero who’s believable as a man; and a fresh, twisty plot that demands pages be turned to find out what happens next.

Because the story is a romance, we can expect a happy ending. How Jane and Benjamin are ever going to find it, however, remains a mystery until the end. Both are trapped in their roles in society and hide dangerous secrets behind their identities. Jane actually has to give up her identity and become a false person in order to escape poverty and shame. Her sacrifice, it turns out, helps save her country from a traitor—who just might be her own father.

Operating in disguise creates a satisfying turnabout, wherein the honest woman rejected by society allures the snobs, doyennes, and chauvinists into eating out of her dishonest hand. Jane observes: “Their strict rules and codes of conduct had been instituted for one reason and one alone: to prove themselves superior. They didn’t judge a person’s suitability by intellect, achievement, or even kindness.”

That thought forms the theme of the novel and the deceptions practiced throughout it.

Jane’s identity switcheroo is engineered by Benjamin for his own noble yet selfish purposes, though he soon realizes he’s bitten off more than he can chew and falls crazy in love with the real Jane—jeopardizing both of their masquerades.

The moral and behavioral strictures of society during England’s Regency period seem unbelievable to those of us reading about it generations later. But they were painfully real at the time and forced many a clandestine affair. This suppression gives plausibility to the characters’ secrets and skulduggery; and the era’s lack of technology as we know it allows them to get away with stunts that would be immediately caught, and widely broadcast, today. Thus, when modern anachronisms appear in the narrative, they draw attention to themselves. The word “feminist,” for example, used in conversation by Jane in 1813, was not actually coined until decades later. Bloopers like this in such a period-sensitive novel raise doubts about the rest in the reader’s mind.

Fortunately, the story holds its own with romantic intrigue and close brushes with disaster. The result is a conflict parfait, with Jane and Benjamin’s impossible love at the top, overlying the contradictions and inequities of their society, which forms a harsh class division between the haves and have-nots, in a country deep at war. In this multi-layer mess, how can anyone dream that true love will conquer all?

Jane and Benjamin give it their best shot in this classy, cork-screwy romance that turns scandal on its head.

March 21, 2017
USING PINTEREST as an AUTHOR TOOL by Claire McKinney P/R

Have some fun with

Did you know that Pinterest is the world’s catalog of ideas and images? Millions of people are looking for books to read by imagery. Pinterest allows authors to connect with these potential readers.

Add this powerful social media tool to your author platform!

It’s hard not to immediately think about recipes, hair tutorials, or DIY projects when someone mentions the word “Pinterest,” and it can seem like there is no room for anything else when your own boards are filled with these exact objects. But as an author, you can take advantage of Pinterest—and most importantly, have fun with it.

Does your main character that has a love of dresses and cute shoes? You can create a Pinterest board full of the exact clothing that she wears. Was there a specific playlist of songs that you listened to over and over again while you were writing your latest novel?

It’s USER FRIENDLY

You can make a board solely based on the songs and artists you listed to. Do you have a blog that you post to weekly? You can upload them onto a board based on your blog.

Are there a number of quotes from your book that can be added to a graphic? Post them up on a colorful background. Are you participating in the Gilmore Girls/Rory Gilmore books challenge? Add a pin of each book you’ve read so far. (And good luck. That’s quite the goal!)

There’s so much more that you can do with Pinterest, and the best part about it is that you aren’t just limited to one thing (140 characters, a photo, a status). You can make as many boards as you want, full of as many pins as you want.

Another great aspect of Pinterest that makes it different from other social media is that it is a passive and harmless: it’s highly unlikely that you’ll come across a critical or a negative comment, and you don’t have to consistently keep others happy with tweeting, retweeting, liking, commenting, etc.

Don’t Forget to PIN IT

Make sure that you are maximizing Pinterest by adding a follow button to your website. If you have a blog, you can add a “pin it” button to your website. This allows someone who likes your blog posts to add them to one of their own boards, and it’s one more way that you can market your blog and website.

One last warning, however: You might want to put a timer on though for how long you can spend on Pinterest each day, because Pinterest is an addiction like no other!

A note from Kiffer Brown of Chanticleer Reviews:
This blog post comes to us from Claire McKinney Public Relations LLC, Communications Strategies for the 21st Century.

Claire McKinney PR, LLC

I met Claire McKinney at Shari Stauch’s PubSense Summit that was held in Charleston, S.C. several years ago. We were both on the faculty of presenters and were able to get to know each other and have since stayed in contact.

Her company specializes in campaigns for books, authors, educational programs, websites, art, film, and other intellectual properties. They work carefully with clients to create messaging; branding concepts; and marketing and media strategies that integrate both traditional and new media opportunities.

Chanticleer Reviews & Media contracts with Claire McKinney Public Relations LLC for our company’s and client’s publicity and p/r needs.

March 18, 2017
Greylock by Paula Cappa – Mystery/Thriller/Paranormal

What’s in the music we create? When we say it lives – when we say it breathes – when, for one fleeting moment it seems to bridge the gap between one soul and another – what kind of existence does it assume? What does it feel? What does it think? What does it want? Such questions may reside in theory for most, but not for piano virtuoso Alexei Georg in Paula Cappa’s Greylock.

Hot off the release of what will surely be his magnum opus, October, Alexei has achieved the level of success found only in his wildest dreams. Hailing from a Russian family steeped in musical artistry, he has transcended all those before him and become something they never could: a legend. And that’s all thanks to October.

There’s only one problem: he didn’t compose it.

And that would have been fine for him, taking credit for pages found in an antique chest belonging to one of his ancestors, if it weren’t for the demons it conjured every time he plays those chords. If it weren’t for the shadowy figure haunting him, punishing him, coming for him. October may have surfaced through the Georg bloodline, but there is something far more sinister and mysterious hidden in each note that is threatening to break free from Alexei’s control.

Alexei wants nothing more than to move on, but the past will not let him. Add to his troubles the threat of fraud exposure from those he’s closest to and a string of grisly murders within the Boston music community that brings the police knocking on his door, he can only come to realize just how much October is at the center of it all. He’ll have to confront three generations worth of Georg family demons to overcome this evil before it claims everything he has and hopes to achieve.

Using music as a central motif and life force to drive the narrative, Paula Cappa defies the limitations of the written word and adds a new dimension in storytelling through the personification of music. The descriptions being so richly layered and animated, one might just imagine these nightmares dwelling in the punctuation, awaiting their chance to come alive themselves.

With just enough integral characters in place to create conflict, Cappa creates a compelling mystery that allows the reader to virtually hear the machinations of the plot grind away before they inevitably crank up to a satisfying crescendo.

March 18, 2017
Contest Spotlight: MARCH MADNESS — Where’s YOUR Mystery and Mayhem Novel?

Why you ask?

MARCH MADNESS is upon us!

The March 31^st deadline for the Chanticleer Mystery & Mayhem Awards (aka M&Ms) is almost upon us! At the end of the month, we go to work to uncover the hidden secrets, the lost key, the answer to the question, Whodunit?

Wendy Delaney is the 2015’s M&M Grand Prize Winner for There’s Something About Marty, a book about a gal who just has to figure out the answers to all of those pesky questions…Char — the human lie detector aka “truth wizard” — really look it up. A few people have this rare uncanny ability.

Wendy won a big ribbon, a coveted Chanticleer Editorial review, a cash prize , stickers to promote this fun not-so-cozy mystery, and digital badges to go on her website and e-books!

Trust us, Wendy Delaney is very happy she entered the Chanticleer M&M Writing Competition!

Or, follow Pamela Beason’s trail to her Grand Prize win in the 2012 for The Only Witness – a mystery about a gorilla who witnesses a crime and can communicate through sign language. The clock is ticking and lives are at stake.

Pamela Beason

You would be pleased as well, we are certain. After all your hard work putting together your brilliant cozy, wouldn’t you want your book the chance to be recognized?

“One of the best things that happened to me in 2011 was getting a GRAND PRIZE in the first Chanticleer nationwide contest for my novel THE ONLY WITNESS.” Pamela Beason

Or Bernadette Pajer of the Professor Bradshaw Series — “Fatal Induction” took home the 2013 M&M Grand Prize

The year is 1901 and Seattle is a vibrant and up-and-coming city. Bradshaw, a professor of electrical engineering and a passionate inventor, has entered a new invention competition for a device that will carry the sounds of a musical theater production through telephone wires to listeners in the comfort of their own homes.

Bradshaw is unaware that a seemingly trivial domestic concern at home is about to sweep him into the underworld of Seattle.

Thanks, Chanticleer, for all you do to help the world of books!” – Bernadette Pajer

So, is your amateur sleuth suspicious of the little old lady who lives next door? Is there something wrong in Mayberry and your hero is going to find out what it is – no matter the cost? Are the stakes so high for your heroine, she succumbs to the hot, sexy delivery man who happens to be the guy with forty bodies buried in his basement? Is your character’s cat helping him solve the latest crime?

If so, have we got the contest for you!

Chanticleer Writing Competitions – Mystery & Mayhem – is now open to take your stories and put them to the test! Don’t miss out – don’t be left behind – and for goodness sake, don’t ever go downstairs without your flashlight and your handy-dandy Swiss Army knife!

Your book could earn a place in our M&M hall of fame for 2017!

All you have to do is enter.

Unpublished Manuscripts and recently Published (Indie, Traditional, Hybrid) Novels (after Jan. 1, 2014) are accepted.

What are the M&M’s? Oh, we’re so glad you asked.

Our Mystery & Mayhem Awards are the Chanticleer Reviews search for today’s best cozy mystery fiction books!

We are searching for the best novels featuring “mystery and mayhem”, amateur sleuthing, romantic suspense, light suspense, travel mystery, classic mystery, British cozy, hobby sleuths, senior sleuths, or historical mystery. We will put them to the test and discover the best among them. (For thriller, action suspense, detective, crime fiction see our Clue Awards)

Agatha Christie’s image, the revered Queen of the Mystery genre, is Chanticleer’s icon for the M&M Novel Competition.

M&M Awards deadline is March 31, 2017. Click here to enter – and good luck!

March 17, 2017
The DRY by Rebecca Nolen – Middle-Grade Fantasy/Adventure

This middle-grade fantasy sends a determined 12-year-old into a coal mine to find his missing father. Instead, he finds a phantasmagoria deep inside the earth, where first appearances can’t always be trusted. Heads-up to insectophobes: You’ll encounter plenty of creepies crawling through this spine-tingling adventure for middle graders.

It’s 1895 and years before child labor laws when Elliot Sweeney’s father fears for the town’s children, who are being sold to the company running the coal mine and never seen again. When his investigation swallows him up as well, Elliot, apprehensive but resolute, sets off to find him. Along the way, he picks up increasingly strange objects, companions, and stalkers: a watch that runs backward, a fierce girl named Lefty, a mysterious key, a blind burro named Beulah, a rat-faced mine recruiter. But that’s nothing compared to what Elliot and Lefty find once they enter the secret entrance to the boarded-up mine.

Like Tolkien’s Mines of Moria, this underground realm is palatial and studded with stone carvings and gems. And like Moria, within the cold beauty of this place called Penumbra is an ugly truth. Here Elliot and Lefty discover the lost children living in brutal conditions, mining gems for the cruel and vainglorious Wicked Prince of Every Place. Forced to work with their hands and without their shoes, the children’s blood gives power to the prince’s Water Moon, which absorbs all water, above and below ground. Hence, the title of the book, The Dry.

Elliot’s father is here too, weakened and powerless to defeat the vast army of insects and amphibians under the prince’s command: giant wasps, salamander servants, evil beetles, stinging caterpillars, and more.

And here is one of author Nolen’s greatest strengths: creating talking critters who not only possess unique personalities but suffer moments of existential crisis as well. Chief among these is Morrigan Wasp, Foundress of the United Vespid Kingdom, who imprisons Lefty but, after much soul-searching, realizes she is as enslaved by the prince as are the children. Morrigan helps Elliot escape to the other side of the mountain, where he finds the diminishing water queen Tosia, whose watery world is receding. Emboldened by his escape, Elliot rallies the creatures there—otters, dragonflies, horses—into the climatic, and inevitable war between good and evil.

Kids, teens, and fantasy-loving adults will find much to marvel over in this classic hero’s journey through a strange land that tests his courage at every turn. While the myriad of invertebrates may at times overwhelm the youngest readers, we encourage you not to fear; Elliot Sweeney is a bona-fide twelve-year-old hero, one who perseveres in spite of his fears and because of his unwavering love for his father, his new friend, and justice.

March 14, 2017
Sidetracked in Silver City by Jacquie Rogers – Humorous Western

Stuffed with memorable characters, including a mule named Pickles and a donkey named Sassy, our heroine Honey Beaulieu navigates the difficult path of being a female bounty hunter in the Western territories, circa mid-1879.

As one might expect, all kinds of men get in Honey’s way, but it isn’t just Pickles who can show a stubborn streak. Jacquie Rogers’ newest release, Sidetracked in Silver City, is as full of humor and colorful western dialogue as any saddle bruising, gun-toting tale could be.

The story begins in crisis and with a familiar sense of frustration, as Honey Beaulieu, intent on leaving town as soon as possible and catching her next bounty, is confronted with problem after problem rooting her in place. Rogers is talented in keeping the dialogue moving, even as Honey is often lost in her own thoughts or speaking to a ghost that only she can see, named Roscoe who hangs out with a with a three-legged ghost horse named Luther, naturally.

Honey’s big heart is on every page as she strives to make enough money to buy a future for herself and others. Talking to her animal companions as if they are humans isn’t all that peculiar for Honey – especially when a racing mule, a bonnet-wearing donkey, a surprise goat, and more than one horse all seem to understand. And while carrying multiple guns and knowing darn well how to shoot them builds the tough outer layer the world sees when they look upon Honey, her aim is to never have to use them. It takes her big, handsome admirer, Sam Lancaster, to see that soft inside of her soul.

From Silver City to Fry Pan Gulch, Honey wrestles with being in the right place at the right time, whether it’s missing the morning train or being there in time to hold her sister’s hand when she gives birth. For anyone who has ever fought the clock and lost the battle, Honey’s exasperation is palpable. We want her to “get her man” no matter what it takes, and Rogers is quite good at building the dramatic tension with the many characters that both complicate Honey’s plans and endear us to her in this wild, wild west she calls home.

March 14, 2017
Spoils of Olympus II: World on Fire by Christian Kachel – Historical Fiction/War & Military/Post-Alexandrian Greece

Spy-craft, betrayals, and bloody battles infuse this historical novel of Ancient Greece in the chaotic years following the death of Alexander the Great.

World on Fire is the second novel in a complex historical saga narrated by Andrikos, a young man who started his fighting career on the streets of his hometown of Illandra. As a member of the underground cult, The King’s Hand, Andrikos and his traveling companion Vettias dedicate themselves to keeping Alexander’s lineage on the throne of Macedon. The pair is a study in contrasts: Vettias, the elder, is the more hardened soldier who teaches Andrikos the arts of espionage; while Andrikos maintains a youthful idealism that is sometimes at odds with the grim necessities of war.

The lessons Andrikos learns from Vettias offer gripping scenes of surveillance, stealth, and expeditious killings. Together they must help restore Alexander’s dynasty, often posing as enemy operatives. This infiltration creates a multi-layered plot with far reaching implications on and off the battlefield.

In addition to spy-craft and bloodletting, writer Christian Kachel makes room and time to establish Andrikos as a loyal, home-loving son whom his parents trust enough to guard Alexander’s widow Rhoxane and her young son, Alexander IV, within their household despite the obvious dangers.

The arts of war form a central element of World on Fire, with vivid descriptions of ancient weaponry and hand-to-hand combat. To our delight, Kachel does not neglect the feminine, as he presents two powerful young women, both wise beyond their years: the teenage Queen of Macedon, Adea, who becomes a willing player in the plots against the enemies of Vettias and Andrikos; and Mara, Andrikos’ first love, to whom he made prior promises that he is now able to keep.

By the end of ten years of travels and intrigues, Vettias and Andrikos will see the world differently and will have played their part in making positive changes.

Kachel has staged this epic skillfully. Placing Andrikos as the narrator allows the reader to see many political and military viewpoints held by others through a young, albeit, sometimes naïve perception, and to enjoy periods of respite from war and treachery in scenes of romance, home life, and some moments of stolen passion.

Kachel, three times deployed to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, is a student of warfare who has chosen to concentrate his novelistic mastery on a sometimes neglected period of history—the aftermath of the death of Alexander the Great and resulting internecine struggles for dominance in the middle eastern region. Historians disagree on many details of this troubled era, giving Kachel free rein to explore possibilities clearly grounded in fact and research, but also informed by the author’s substantial imaginative gifts.

“A master tactician and student of war, Christian Kachel brings history to life in The Spoils of War II: World on Fire; an engaging foray into the aftermath of Alexander the Great.” – Chanticleer Reviews

March 11, 2017

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