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Excerpt & Giveaway: Death at the Paris Exposition by Frances McNamara

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Frances McNamara

on Tour September 19-28 with

Death at the Paris Exposition

Death at the Paris Exposition

(historical mystery)

Release date: September 1, 2016
at Allium Press of Chicago

ISBN: 978-0-9967558-3-2
ebook: 978-0-9967558-4-9
276 pages

Website
Goodreads

SYNOPSIS

Amateur sleuth Emily Cabot’s journey once again takes her to a world’s fair—the Paris Exposition of 1900. Chicago socialite Bertha Palmer is named the only female U. S. commissioner to the Exposition and enlists Emily’s services as her secretary. Their visit to the House of Worth for the fitting of a couture gown is interrupted by the theft of Mrs. Palmer’s famous pearl necklace. Before that crime can be solved, several young women meet untimely deaths and a member of the Palmer’s inner circle is accused of the crimes. As Emily races to clear the family name she encounters jealous society ladies, American heiresses seeking titled European husbands, and more luscious gowns and priceless jewels. Along the way, she takes refuge from the tumult at the country estate of Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. In between her work and sleuthing, she is able to share the Art Nouveau delights of the Exposition, and the enduring pleasures of the City of Light, with her husband and their children.

Here’s an Excerpt from Prologue and Chapter 1:

death-at-the-paris-exposition-excerpt

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Frances McNamara

Frances McNamara grew up in Boston,
where her father served as Police Commissioner for ten years.  She has degrees from Mount Holyoke and Simmons Colleges, and recently retired from the University of Chicago. She now divides her time between Boston and Cape Cod.  She is the author of five other titles in the Emily Cabot Mysteries series, which is set in the 1890s and takes place primarily in Chicago: Death at the Fair, Death at Hull House, Death at Pullman, Death at Woods Hole, and Death at Chinatown.

Visit her website
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Follow Allium Press of Chicago on Twitter | on Facebook

Buy the book: on Amazon

***

You can enter the global giveaway here
or on any other book blogs participating in this tour.
Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook,
they are listed in the entry form below
.

Enter here

Visit each blogger on the tour: tweeting about the giveaway everyday of the Tour will give you 5 extra entries each time! [just follow the directions on the entry-form]

Global giveaway open to US residents:
1 winner will receive a copy of this book

***

CLICK ON THE BANNER
TO READ REVIEWS, INTERVIEW,
GUEST-POST AND AN EXCERPT

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The Secret Language of Stones by M.J. Rose & Giveaway

Source: France Book Tours
Hardcover, 320 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

M.J. Rose is an author who can transport you into any time and place, weaving in the occult and the mysterious along with history. It is utterly believable. Opaline Duplessi is one of the descendants of La Lune, a famous witch, and whose mother is featured in The Witch of Painted Sorrows, which I loved. In The Secret Language of Stones by M.J. Rose, Opaline has fled her parents and returned to the former home of La Lune — Paris. Rather than live with her great-grandmother, who also prefers to avoid the occult, she lives beneath the jewelry shop where she works for a family of Russian emigres, the Orloffs, who long for tsarist Russia to return from the hands of the Bolsheviks.

Her work with stones in the shop leads her to use her gifts from La Lune to help the mothers, daughters, and wives left behind by the deceased soldiers of WWI. These soldiers have fallen while protecting Paris and others from the Germans, many lying in the trenches alone. Through her gifts, the crushed stones, and other engravings, Opaline is able to reach through the ether and provide these women with a bit of solace in their despair. Motivated by her own loss, and her inability to provide hope to a fallen soldier of her own, Opaline sees it as her duty to help these women with their grief.

Rose has created an entire mythology with the Daughters of La Lune, but readers can read these books individually, though they’d have a richer experience reading them together. Her characters are dynamic and strong-willed women who navigate the unknown and often dark mysteries of the worlds beyond reality. Rose packs her narrative with history and artistry in a way that will fully absorb readers from page one. The Secret Language of Stones by M.J. Rose is captivating, feel yourself being drawn into the netherworld page by page, moment by moment, and uncover the mystery alongside Opaline.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

M.J. Rose grew up in New York City exploring the labyrinthine galleries of the Metropolitan Museum and the dark tunnels and lush gardens of Central Park — and reading her mother’s favorite books before she was allowed.  She is the author of more than a dozen novels, the co-president and founding board member of International Thriller Writers, and the founder of the first marketing company for authors, AuthorBuzz.com.

She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. Please visit her website, her blog: Museum of Mysteries.  Subscribe to her mailing list and get information about new releases, free book downloads, contests, excerpts and more. Or send an email to TheFictionofMJRose-subscribe at yahoogroups dot com

To send M.J. a message and/or request a signed bookplate, send an email to mjroseauthor at gmail dot com

Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Entry-Form

The Witch of Painted Sorrows by M.J. Rose

Source: France Book Tours
Hardcover, 384 pgs
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Sandrine Salome finds her world upended by her husband, Benjamin, and even as she flees to Paris from New York, she is haunted by her own ancestry in The Witch of Painted Sorrows by M.J. Rose.  Paris is the city of light and painting and art, and Sandrine has always loved art.  But her love of art is just one passion that drives her deeper and deeper into the mystical past of her courtesan ancestors, especially La Lune.  Arriving on her grandmother’s doorstep unexpectedly, we learn that she and her grandmother only met occasionally throughout the years after she left Paris with her parents at age 15.  Despite the distance, she is drawn to Paris as her home, and it is her sense of longing and desire for a new life that drives her closer to the edge of an abyss.

“I did not cause the madness, the deaths, or the rest of the tragedies any more than I painted the paintings.  I had help, her help.  Or perhaps I should say she forced her help on me.  And so this story — which began with me fleeing my home in order to escape my husband and might very well end tomorrow, in a duel, in the Bois de Boulogne at dawn — is as much hers as mine.  Or in fact more hers than mine.”  (page 1)

Her secretive grandmother may have unwittingly provided Sandrine and her father with the tools they needed to become blind to the magic around them and to willfully turn a blind eye to the dangers that stalk them.  But her warnings are stark and should not be ignored.  Rose is a gifted story-teller who infuses her historical fiction with ancient mystery, passion, and wonder.  Her characters love strongly and are often guided by things beyond their rational control, but at their hearts they believe they are doing right.  Sandrine is no different.  She has longed for a life free of constraint and to be immersed in art, and what she finds in Paris is more than she bargained for, but in many ways she’s afraid to give it up and to return to a lackluster life.

The Witch of Painted Sorrows by M.J. Rose is a story of love, passion, and ambition, but at its heart, it is about the quest for immortality — even if it is just being remembered as a great architect or artist.  Skeptics will enter this world and try to interject rationality, much like Julien does, but they will soon find themselves swept up in a story like no other and forced to re-examine their own conceptions of the spirit world.  Is art a divine gift or is it a talent that can be nurtured and shaped into legend?  Rose delves into these questions and more in her deeply layered world of artistry and passion.

About the Author:

New York Times Bestseller, M.J. Rose grew up in New York City mostly in the labyrinthine galleries of the Metropolitan Museum, the dark tunnels and lush gardens of Central Park and reading her mother’s favorite books before she was allowed. She believes mystery and magic are all around us but we are too often too busy to notice … books that exaggerate mystery and magic draw attention to it and remind us to look for it and revel in it. Please visit her website, her blog: Museum of Mysteries; Subscribe to her mailing list; and Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Here is the Giveaway Entry-Form

There will be 5 winners; Open internationally; $20 gift card

Please check out the rest of the stops on the blog tour:

Mailbox Monday #312

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has a permanent home at its own blog.

To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links.  Leave yours too.

Also, each week, Leslie, Vicki, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.

Here’s what I received:

1. The Daddy Diaries by Joshua Braff a surprise from Tandem Literary.

2. Diamond Head by Cecily Wong, which I won from GoodReads.

At the turn of the nineteenth-century, Frank Leong, a fabulously wealthy shipping industrialist, moves his family from China to the island of Oahu. But something ancient follows the Leongs to Hawaii, haunting them. The parable of the red string of fate, the cord which binds one intended beloved to her perfect match, also punishes for mistakes in love, passing a destructive knot down the family line.

When Frank is murdered, his family is thrown into a perilous downward spiral. Left to rebuild in their patriarch’s shadow, the surviving members of the Leong family try their hand at a new, ordinary life, vowing to bury their gilded past. Still, the island continues to whisper—fragmented pieces of truth and chatter, until a letter arrives two decades later, carrying a confession that shatters the family even further.

3.  Chicken Soup & Homicide by Janel Gradowski from the author for her blog tour.

Amy Ridley and her friend, Sophie, have perfected their chicken soup recipe, and the winter-weary residents of Kellerton, Michigan can’t wait to watch them compete against other local chefs in the Chicken Soup Showdown. But the charity event starts out with a bang, literally, when one of the rival chefs falls out of a freezer and onto Amy. If it wasn’t stressful enough for Amy to catch a dead body, the detective in charge of the investigation targets her best friend, Carla, as the chief suspect in the murder.

In order to clear her friend’s name, Amy does her own investigating. The problem is nobody liked the arrogant murdered celebrity chef, and soon her suspect list is longer than the list of ingredients in her secret chicken soup recipe. Can Amy figure out who killed the celebrity chef? Or will Carla be spending the spring in jail?

4.  The Witch of Painted Sorrows by M.J. Rose for review with France Book Tours.

Sandrine Salome flees New York for her grandmother’s Paris mansion to escape her dangerous husband, but what she finds there is even more menacing. The house, famous for its lavish art collection and elegant salons, is mysteriously closed up. Although her grandmother insists it’s dangerous for Sandrine to visit, she defies her and meets Julien Duplessi, a mesmerizing young architect. Together they explore the hidden night world of Paris, the forbidden occult underground and Sandrine’s deepest desires.

Among the bohemians and the demi-monde, Sandrine discovers her erotic nature as a lover and painter. Then darker influences threaten—her cold and cruel husband is tracking her down and something sinister is taking hold, changing Sandrine, altering her. She’s become possessed by La Lune: A witch, a legend, and a sixteenth-century courtesan, who opens up her life to a darkness that may become a gift or a curse.

What did you receive?