Introducing the WATCH RWISA WRITE2022 Anthology, “Life Is But A Rose Garden,” debuting on Amazon today for only $2.99! We invite you to take a look at the promo for this little gem below, and lastly, we ask for your support by purchasing a copy, as well as spreading the word of its release via your own social media!
Friends, thank you for dropping by today in support of this new release! We hope that what you find between the covers brings you much joy and pleasure as you read it, and we also hope that some of what you find here will give you pause – just a little pause, though, before you hop to your feet and spring into action! There are many calls to action in this little gem! Thank you, again, for your support!
Today is your lucky day! I am a proud member of the RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB and for the next 48 hours (11/15 through 11/17) there is a $25 discount on any membership tier when you join the club!
We aren’t just an organization where you add your name to our roster, and then you disappear. We are the club that supports our members in numerous ways! Here are just a few…
-We purchase, read, and review our fellow member books that are listed in the catalog.
-We promote our fellow members and their books on social media, just as hard as we promote ourselves.
-We promote our members with interviews via our RAVE WAVES Talk Radio Shows for RRBC members only. Books are always being purchased during those interviews!
-We keep our fellow members lifted and promoted even when they can’t promote themselves (in the event of personal emergencies, illness, etc.)
-We have a hard-working Tweet Support Team, promoting our members and their books daily.
-At RRBC, we believe that “each one should teach one,” therefore, we don’t compete against each other. We lift as we climb.
There are so many more awesome ways that being a member of RRBC has benefited me and I would love to share them all with you. You have questions? Just ask me!
RRBC is such a fun place to belong! We’re not just about books, you know, we’re also about making beneficial connections and lifelong friendships!
Today, Monday, 11/15 through Wednesday, 11/17 are our Recruitment Days and when you join, please list my name on your membership application as the person who referred you, as I’ll get a special prize! You can join here > RaveReviewsBookClub.wordpress.com/rrbc-join-renew
If you have specific questions regarding membership, please reach out to Paula, our Club Personal Asst! She’s a whole lot of awesome!
I hope to see you on the other side of membership soon and your books in the catalog!
Please know this is not some gimmick. I’m honored to be a Lifetime Member of RRBC. If you’re an author, or aspiring one, take my word that this is the place to be. Thank you for sharing this page to your social media platforms for me!
GIVEAWAYS: (4) e-book copies of A GHOST AND HIS GOLD
The four forts surrounding Pretoria
Background
After the Jameson Raid in 1896, Pres Paul Kruger of the “Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek” decided to protect Pretoria by constructing forts in strategic places. Eight forts were to be built initially, but due to a shortage of funds, only four were completed. Germans designed three of the four forts, of which Fort Schanskop in Groenkloof, Pretoria is one.
Fort Schanskop was completed in 1897 and was built in such a way to avert possible attacks on Pretoria from the Johannesburg and Lourenco Marques railway line, as well as from the Johannesburg road. By mounting revolving artillery on the embankment of the fort, attacks from all directions could be warded off. Schanskop was armed with one 155 mm Creusot gun (Long Tom) and two Maxims (Pom-poms) by 1899. The soldiers included one officer and 30 privates from the Transvaal State Artillery.
At the outbreak of the war the soldiers and armament were transferred to the Natal front, leaving the fort undefended.
After the invasion of Pretoria by Gen Roberts, the British occupied the forts on 7 June 1900. The 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers occupied Schanskop.
The abandoned forts are featured in A Ghost and His Gold.
Photograph by Robbie Cheadle of Fort Schanskop
Photograph by Robbie Cheadle of the front gate of Fort Schanskop
A short extract from A Ghost and His Gold featuring the forts:
““Pieter, I’m confiding in you as one of my most loyal and trusted citizens. The government has decided not to defend Pretoria against the Khakis. I’m preparing to leave the city shortly with several my advisors. We’ll establish a provisional capital in Machadodorp.”
“Why has this decision been made, Oom [Uncle] Paul? We have our four forts that were specifically built to defend the city. Why are they not going to be used?”
Oom Paul’s shoulders slumped, and his large frame seemed to crumple momentarily. Then he pulled himself upright and straightened his shoulders. “The government fears that the British will destroy all our beautiful buildings in a bombardment if we attempt to defend the city. For this reason, we have decided to abandon the city, as was done with Bloemfontein. Johannesburg will not be defended for the same reason and is expected to fall imminently.”
Pieter thought it was a strange decision, but he smiled at the elderly president. “I understand, what do you need of me?”
“I want you to take this, Pieter,” Oom Paul said, pointing to the two heavy sacks on the floor. “The Boers in your area will need it to rehabilitate themselves after the war, whatever the outcome.””
BOOK BLURB:
After Tom and Michelle Cleveland move into their recently built, modern townhouse, their housewarming party is disrupted when a drunken game with an Ouija board goes wrong and summons a sinister poltergeist, Estelle, who died in 1904.
Estelle makes her presence known in a series of terrifying events, culminating in her attacking Tom in his sleep with a knife. But, Estelle isn’t alone. Who are the shadows lurking in the background – one in an old-fashioned slouch hat and the other, a soldier, carrying a rifle?
After discovering their house has been built on the site of one of the original farms in Irene, Michelle becomes convinced that the answer to her horrifying visions lie in the past. She must unravel the stories of the three phantoms’ lives, and the circumstances surrounding their untimely deaths during the Second Anglo Boer War, in order to understand how they are tied together and why they are trapped in the world of ghosts between life and death. As the reasons behind Estelle’s malevolent behaviour towards Tom unfold, Michelle’s marriage comes under severe pressure and both their lives are threatened.
AUTHOR BIO:
Roberta Eaton Cheadle is a South African writer and poet specialising in historical, paranormal, and horror novels and short stories. She is an avid reader in these genres and her writing has been influenced by famous authors including Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Amor Towles, Stephen Crane, Enrich Maria Remarque, George Orwell, Stephen King, and Colleen McCullough.
Roberta has short stories and poems in several anthologies and has 2 published novels, Through the Nethergate, a historical supernatural fantasy, and A Ghost and His Gold, a historical paranormal novel set in South Africa.
Roberta has 9 children’s books published under the name Robbie Cheadle.
Roberta was educated at the University of South Africa where she achieved a Bachelor of Accounting Science in 1996 and a Honours Bachelor of Accounting Science in 1997. She was admitted as a member of The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants in 2000.
Roberta has worked in corporate finance from 2001 until the present date and has written 7 publications relating to investing in Africa. She has won several awards over her 20-year career in the category of Transactional Support Services.
To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the author’s tour page on the 4WillsPublishing site. If you’d like to book your own blog tour and have your book promoted in similar grand fashion, please click HERE. Thanks for supporting this author and her work!
To all my writer friends and book lovers out there: Every year the Rave Reviews Book Club holds a Writers’ Conference and Book Exposition. Lucky you: it starts tomorrow, August 9th. You can learn new skills, plus if you visit each author’s booth, you might just win a prize! Here’s the official notice:
Hello, followers and friends! Monday, August 9th, is the start of RRBC’s 6th Annual Writers’ Conference & Book Expo, and we’d like to invite you to drop by! There will be games, prizes, surprises and other goodies, so be sure to visit each Author Booth, take a look around, then leave a comment for your chance to win each Author Booth’s door prize! There is a Scavenger Hunt Game to play, a 2 Truths & a Lie Game to play and more! In each Author Booth, you will find a clue, and if you find the correct answer to all the clues and are the first to submit your answers, you could be the winner of an awesome prize! Of course, we’ll have our READING ROOM open and one of our members is going to blow you away showcasing their talent! If you’re into BINGO, purchase your BINGO cards and join us for a game or two! And what we all wait for every year – our RAFFLE! Yes, each year we raffle off (7) $100 Amazon gift cards and this is open to the public so go on and snag your tickets today! Raffle tickets are only $5! How awesome would that prize be? Some of them also include additional goodies like other gift certificates, ebooks, and more! Enter for your chance to win one or more of these $100 Amazon gift card gift baskets. The more tickets you buy, the greater your chances of winning. (Please do not purchase more than 7 tickets). This year for the first time ever, we’ve added our BEST BOOK COVER CONTEST! This contest is open to the general public so go ahead and enter your book cover(s) now! Share your comments with us and let us know which one you think is best! Click for a full ITINERARY OF EVENTS! The venue opens at 5 PM CT on Monday, 8/9/21. We hope to see you there! In the event of minor time delays, please check the sidebar of the RRBC website for updates.
What did I tell you? Sounds like a hoot and a holler if you ask me. If you stop by my booth, please say hello. Have a great week.
Blood stains her Celtic home and kingdom. The warrior Druid princess will do anything to retake her throne.
Although Catrin is the rightful heir to the Celtic throne in Britannia, she is lucky to be alive. After witnessing the slaughter of her family at the hands of her half-brother, who was aided by the Romans, she is enslaved by a Roman commander. He disguises her as a boy in the Roman Legion with the belief that she is an oracle of Apollo and can foretell his future. The sole bright spot in her miserable new life is her forbidden lover Marcellus, the great-grandson of the famed Roman general Mark Antony.
But Marcellus has been wounded and his memories of Catrin and their secret marriage were erased by a dark Druidess. Though Marcellus reunites with Catrin in Gaul and becomes her ally as she struggles to survive the brutality of her Roman master, he questions the legitimacy of their marriage and hesitates to help her escape and retake her kingdom. If their forbidden love and alliance are discovered, her dreams of returning to her Celtic home with Marcellus will be shattered.
About the Author
Award-winning author, Linnea Tanner, weaves Celtic tales of love, magical adventure, and political intrigue in Ancient Rome and Britannia. Since childhood, she has passionately read about ancient civilizations and mythology. Of particular interest are the enigmatic Celts, who were reputed as fierce warriors and mystical Druids. he has extensively researched ancient and medieval history, mythology, and archaeology and has traveled to sites described within each of her books in the Curse of Clansmen and Kings series.
A Colorado native, Linnea attended the University of Colorado and earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry. She lives in Windsor with her husband and has two children and six grandchildren.
From the Author
Weaving Mythology Into Historical Fiction
Catrin, the primary heroine in Amulet’s Rapture, is based on the complex archetypes of Celtic goddesses. The Patheon of Celtic goddesses represent a wide spectrum of characteristics from healing to warfare, from creation to destruction, and from nourishment to death. Catrin must undergo trials to learn how to balance what seems like her contradictory nature as a female. She struggles with her dual nature to love her Roman husband, Marcellus, and to sustain her unborn child versus seeking to destroy her Roman masters who abuse her. Based on historical accounts of female gladiators, she is condemned to fight in Roman games at Lugdunum (modern day Lyon, France). Her weapon of choice is a spear that serves as a conduit for lightning which she can summon from storms. The ability to manipulate lightning to destroy her enemies is inspired by the Celtic myth of Lugh, a warrior king whose magical spear always hit its mark. His spear is a living weapon that thirsts for blood. Its tip must be immersed in a pot of water to keep it from igniting. When battle is near, it roars as fire flashes or lightning strikes from it. The fiery spear rips through the ranks of the enemy, never tired of slaying. Ultimately, Catrin must embrace the entire spectrum of the female persona, including her warlike rage, to take back and defend her kingdom in Britannia.
Thank you for supporting the books and authors along the RRBC ’20 WC&BE SPONSORS BLOG TOUR! These authors are generous in their support of others so we want to show our support of them in return. You may follow along each day of the tour by visiting the tour’s home page. Be sure to leave a comment below to ensure that you have a chance at winning a $20 Amazon Gift Card!
Special congratulations to #RRBC Spotlight Author, Lisa Kirazian! Enjoy the spotlight, as it’s all about you and your stories. My blog is yours, Lisa
The Journey Concludes — or Does It?
Writing Cadenza
Lisa Kirazian
It’s an honor to write this guest post — and to be RRBC’s Spotlight Author for February!
My novel trilogy, The Music We Made, about three generations of the Driscoll family of musicians, concludes with the book Cadenza, recently released.
Anyone who has poured their heart and soul into a piece of writing know how much it takes out of you — and how much it gives you. Even more so when you reach the end of a series, where you’ve been with the same group of characters for years. It feels bittersweet, like you are saying farewell to them. Even though, our characters, our works, our own dear children like Jane Austen called them, are never really gone, are they?
Does it seem like I’m referring to my characters as real people? Absolutely. Does that seem strange? Not to an avid writer or reader.
The journey of creating the characters has perhaps finished, but the journey of experiencing them has not. Why? Because of the readers. Their experience of the characters becomes part of our continued journey with them, as we see the impact the characters have on others who come in contact with them. It encourages me to no end, when a reader tells me how much they enjoy my stories or relate to my characters. And in the case of this particular series, one of the best compliments I often get is when people say they don’t particular care for classical opera or music, or the “world” of these books — but they still love the books, because of the characters.
Some readers don’t like that style of music, or they can’t understand why someone would spend 12 hours a day practicing an instrument or rehearsing into the night. But they can relate to how these characters want to find love, make a difference in the world, or go after their dreams. They can relate to them trying to make ends meet or facing rejection or loss. In that regard, classical musicians or singers are just like everyone else. And thus, hopefully, these books are for anyone and everyone. And thankfully, the journey never ends!
Thank you for reading, and for all your support. Onward!
——–
Author Bio
Lisa Kirazian writes fiction, plays, screenplays, and also directs for stage and screen. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Performing Arts Magazine, San Diego Union Tribune and many other publications. She is in demand as a speaker and has been a guest on KPBS Public Radio and at various conferences. Lisa is a graduate of Stanford University.
Several of her screenplays have placed in major competitions and festivals. Twelve of her stage plays have been produced across the U.S. and have won numerous awards, including a few publications. She also directed and wrote the adapted screenplay of the short film, “Reflection Day.”
Her novels include BRAVURA, APPASSIONATO, and now CADENZA, the three books of “The Music We Made” series, following three generations in the Driscoll family of musicians and inspired by her experience as a violinist. The series is also being developed for television.
Lisa lives in San Diego with her husband and two daughters and is involved in the Armenian community locally, nationally and abroad.
Book Summary:
In CADENZA, the final book of “The Music We Made” series, the young tenor Brian Martin finds himself on the cusp of superstardom and marriage, until he is compelled to leave behind his distinguished musical family, and his fiancé, in London, to visit the U.S. to see where his famous late grandmother, Maggie Crawford, the only other opera singer in the family, grew up. His journey takes him to Marshall, Minnesota, and Maggie’s hometown high school, where he meets the music teacher, Laura Jones, who helps him with his family history in more ways than he could have imagined.
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