"The Man on the Buckskin Horse" Goes on Tour!

It's book tour time!  The illustrated edition of my Sleeping Beauty retelling, The Man on the Buckskin Horse, releases TOMORROW!  Here is a link to it on Amazon. The paperback drops on Tuesday, and you can pre-order the Kindle until then.

I am taking this book on an online tour, starting today.  The tour involves several interviews, lots of book reviews, and even a post by the illustrator!  For website and blog stops, I will update links as things go live, but for now, I've just linked to their front pages.  For Instagram stops, I have linked to the individual accounts that are hosting stops.

Note that the interviews on Monday and Friday are live events that you can join on Instagram and watch as they happen, and even ask questions during!  Those will be archived on Instagram as well, to watch any other time that works for you.

Here is the book tour itinerary:

Monday, April 29

Live interview with @books_with_cordy at 8pm EST on Instagram

Book review by @jillions_of_stories on Instagram

Tuesday, April 30 -- Release Day

Post by the book's illustrator, Skye Hoffert, on her blog Ink Castles

Book review by @thefilmdirectorswife on Instagram

Book review by @ive_seen_a_new_world on Instagram

Wednesday, May 1

Book review by Kilmeny on her blog VT Dorchester

Book review by @giltedgedpages on Instagram

Book review by @thepurplegiraffereads on Instagram

Thursday, May 2

Interview with Suey Nordberg on YouTube

Book review by @elisabethaimeebrown on Instagram

Friday, May 3

Live interview with @eldmountain at 7pm EST on Instagram

Book review by @aliciaandherbooks on Instagram

Don't forget that when you buy a copy of The Man on the Buckskin Horse by May 31, you are eligible to receive a pack of related goodies!  There's more info about that in this post.  

As always, you can order signed paperback copies of my books via this form.  I don't have paperbacks for Buckskin on hand yet, but I should have them soon, and will ship them out as soon as I have them.  All paperbacks ordered directly from me before May 31 will automatically receive the packet of goodies.

"The Annotated Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen (Annotated and Edited by David M. Shapard)

Reading an annotated book like this is almost like reading two books at once.  You have the actual novel, and you have the extensive notes, and you go back and forth from one to the other every paragraph or so.  As it happens, I love to learn about history and literature, so I absolutely am loving these annotated editions!!!  But they are a very different reading experience from simply reading Austen's books for fun.  

And yet, I still got sucked into the book.  Like always, from about the time Elizabeth visits Pemberley onward, I could not read fast enough to suit my own wishes.  It absolutely fascinates me how Austen can sweep me off my feet time and time again, even though I know exactly how the book will end, and how we get to that ending!  Powerful writing indeed.

If you don't know, Pride and Prejudice is a timeless look at how our frailties and failings can define us, but don't have to.  When two flawed people meet, they can either fall in love and accept each others' flaws, or they can fall in love and try to help each other grow and mature and improve.  Austen definitely falls in the "help each other improve" camp, and I love her for it. 

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for the text and PG-13 for the annotations, which talk about subjects such as Regency attitudes about unmarried sexual intimacy in a much more frank way than the text does. Nothing salacious, and no bad language, but not necessarily something I would hand to a young teen, either.

"Kill the Dawn" by Emily Hayse

Ahhh, Hamlet.  Is any Shakespearean play more obviously suited to a YA magical Vikings retelling?  I can't think of any.  I mean, it's already set in Scandinavia, based on a medieval Danish tale -- dragons wandering by wouldn't seem at all amiss even in Shakespeare's version.

Yes, this Hamlet retelling has dragons.  It has tamed dragons and wild dragons.  There's a dragon hunt.  There are also horses, warriors, wolves, snow, Viking ships, Viking funerals, and a lot of hard-to-pronounce names.

Hakkr's father, the king, dies while off warring with a neighboring bunch of Vikings.  Hakkr learns from a new slave, called a thrall, that his father did not die in battle the way everyone says, but was betrayed by one of those he considered his closest friends.  When that friend marries Hakkr's sister and claims the throne that should belong to Hakkr, their entire community is set on a path of destruction that will claim many innocent lives by the end -- and some guilty lives, too.

I like that the ending here is slightly changed from Shakespeare's play, in a way that makes sense for this world and these characters.  I was particularly pleased by the true identity of one side character becoming clear only at the very end.  I don't want to say who, because it's a pretty big spoiler, but it's cool.

As usual, Emily Hayse melds a lyrical style with forceful pacing to create a book both beautiful and thrilling.  Kill the Dawn is part of the Classic Retold multi-author series of fantasy novellas that were released last fall and winter.  It's the first one I've read from the series, but I have all nine books, so expect me to read and review them all eventually.

Particularly Good Bits:

Hakkr hung back.  He was caught in a separate world, slow and empty, his grief washing over him like cold sea waves (p. 30).

"You do the right thing and don't think about it.  To some men it is a very great struggle.  You -- you are friends with doing right and do not battle it" (p. 70).

"I will not let fear keep me from that which is right" (p. 172).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for non-gory violence, including off-page deaths of children (some killed violently during war).  No bad language and no smut.  

This is my 12th book read off my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Challenge.

"Winter Holiday" by Arthur Ransome

In my defense, it WAS winter when I started reading this aloud to my kids!  I started it in January, but it's been challenging to fit read-aloud time into the general chaos that has been our lives for the first few months of this year.  In fact, I finished reading it to them in the van on the way home from a road trip to Indiana to view the total solar eclipse this week.  I think the characters in this series would have approved of that.

This is book four in the Swallows and Amazons series, and I think it ties with the first book as my favorite so far.  That's partly because I love snow, and this involves a lot of snow, and partly because it felt kind of new and different because of the setting and the addition of new characters.  To the usual Swallows (John, Susan, Titty, and Roger) and Amazons (Nancy and Peggy) and Captain Flint, we add the Ds (Dick and Dorothea).  The Ds are NOT great at things like sailing and camping and climbing mountains... but they are willing to do their best and try their hardest, and I grew to love them for their gumption.

Because the Swallows and Amazons are both spending their winter school break at the lake where they usually hang out in the summer, they decide to get together an expedition to the North Pole.  They meet Dick and Dorothea after the Ds try signalling with lights to the house at Holly Howe where the Swallows are staying, only they don't know Morse Code, so the Swallows and Amazons promptly teach it to them.  And then let them tag along as they build an igloo of sorts, and make plans and preparations for their polar expedition, and so on.  The Ds enter fully into the very real spirit behind the somewhat imaginary expedition, and end up having a truly thrilling adventure of their own before the end.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for children getting into dangerous situations.  No one is ever permanently or seriously hurt, however.

This has been my 24th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list, and my 11th for the 2024 Mount TBR Challenge.

The I'll Get Around to It Tag

I found this at The Christian Fiction Girl and thought it looked like good fun, especially as I eye my TBR stacks and shelves, and see how they just keep filling up no matter how assiduously I try to empty them.

The Rules 

• Link back to the original post @ Quote, Unquote. 
• Link back to the person who tagged you. 
• You may use the included graphic anywhere in your post (optional; a black clock with Roman numerals) 
• Answer all seven categories with a book. 
• Tag seven others. (optional)

The Categories

1. A classic book that you have been meaning to read forever but haven’t yet

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.  I even bought myself a really pretty copy a couple years ago, but that still hasn't gotten me to actually read it.  Yet.

2. A book on your shelf that you haven’t read yet 

Um, I have more than 400 books on my shelves that I haven't read yet.  And you want me to pick one?  Well, I shall pick Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, which has been on my TBR shelves longer than two of my kids have been alive...

3. A book that you got recently that you haven’t read 

I just picked up a lovely copy of The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens at a thrift store recently.  Will read it someday.

4. A book that you’ve had forever but haven’t read 

I've had Under the Deodars by Rudyard Kipling on my shelves since before all three of my kids were born.  Still haven't read it.

5. A book a friend recommended that you haven’t read 

People tell me I will love The Story Girl by L. M. Montgomery, and I have a copy on my shelves for when I am in the right mood for some Montgomery!

6. A book you’re procrastinating on 

I keep telling myself to read Villette by Charlotte Bronte, but I am a little afraid to try it, to be honest.  I'm afraid I will compare it to Jane Eyre too much, and it can't possibly live up to that.  I know I can choose not to compare them intentionally, but I worry I will do it subconsciously.  One of these days, I'll read it!

7. The next book on your TBR

Break the Beast by Allison Tebo, a fantasy retelling of Beowulf!

Not tagging anyone with this today because I just don't feel like it.  Play if you want to!

The categories again, for your copying ease:

A classic book that you have been meaning to read forever but haven’t yet 

A book on your shelf that you haven’t read yet 

A book that you got recently that you haven’t read 

A book that you’ve had forever but haven’t read 

A book a friend recommended that you haven’t read 

A book you’re procrastinating on 

The next book on your TBR

"The Lonely Men" by Louis L'Amour

Not my favorite Sackett book, I'm afraid.  Even though it stars Tell Sackett, who IS my favorite Sackett!  Mostly, I think I disliked it because it had Laura Sackett for a villain, Orrin's ex-wife, and she is poisonous and spiteful and horrid.  I just wanted to get myself (and Tell) as far away from her as possible.  She's really just in bits here and there, but ugh, I hated having to deal with her whenever she cropped up.

I did love how Tell and three friends risked everything to rescue some children.  I love protective characters, and that is no doubt why I love Tell Sackett.  Also, Dorset was another of L'Amour's wonderful female characters filled with grit and grace.  She was the direct opposite of Laura, which was refreshing.

Particularly Good Bits: 

With none to share our sorrows or regrets, we kept them to ourselves, and our faces were impassive.  Men with no one to share their feelings learn to conceal those feelings.  We often spoke lightly of things which we took very seriously indeed (p. 17).

I figure I was shaped to be a wallflower, but I don't mind.  I sort of like to set back and listen to folks, to drink coffee, and contemplate (p. 20).  (ME TOO, Tell!)

The desert is the enemy of the careless (p. 40).

"It is easy to destroy a book, but an idea once implanted has roots no man can utterly destroy" (p. 94).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for a lot of violence, including torture, and kids in peril.  The violence is not gory, but it isn't too glossed-over, either.  There is a smattering of bad language.

This is my 10th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"Ruthless" by Candice Pedraza Yamnitz

The novella Ruthless is a prequel to Unbetrothed, which I reviewed here a couple years ago.  It focuses on Cottia, the mother of Unbetrothed's heroine, and her late teen years when she was an assassin.  I kid you not!  She is held in a sort of thrall by an evil man who makes Cottia use her magical talents to kill people on his orders.

Cottia is desperate to leave this lifestyle.  She believes her master when he says that if she can kill a certain person at a big party and use is death to start a war, he will release her from fealty to him.  But Cottia discovers her powers are useless against believers in the Ancient One, this fantasy world's version of God.  Slowly, Cottia begins to believe she may be able to be freed from her master if she puts her trust in the Ancient One.  A handsome and extraordinarily kind prince is instrumental in her coming to believe this, and in helping Cottia break free.  This is kind of a how-they-met story, rather than a love story, which I found a lot of fun.

Like Unbetrothed, Ruthless is set in a fantasy world that has a Latin flavor, not a Germanic or Nordic one.  Although this is a prequel, it stands alone perfectly fine and would be a great introduction to this world for new readers.  I liked the fast pacing of this novella, and how much character development for Cottia it held.  I could have used more development for the prince, but I know Yamnitz is working on a sequel to this, so I expect we will get to know him better in that.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for fantasy violence, assassinations, perilous situations, and deaths.