Pages

Wednesday 30 June 2021

Blog Tour: Kingfisher (The Kingfisher Series, Book One) by D. K. Marley


Join The Coffee Pot Book Club on tour with…

Kingfisher
(The Kingfisher Series, Book One)
By D. K. Marley


August 2nd – August 13th 2021

Publication Date: June 28, 2021
Publisher: The White Rabbit Publishing (HFC Press)
Page Length: 530 Pages
Genre: Historical Time Travel

The past, future, and Excalibur lie in her hands.

Wales, 1914. Vala Penrys and her four sisters find solace in their spinster life by story-telling, escaping the chaos of war by dreaming of the romantic days of Camelot. When the war hits close to home, Vala finds love with Taliesin Wren, a mysterious young Welsh Lieutenant, who shows her another world within the tangled roots of a Rowan tree, known to the Druids as ‘the portal’.

One night she falls through, and suddenly she is Vivyane, Lady of the Lake – the Kingfisher – in a divided Britain clamoring for a High King. What begins as an innocent pastime becomes the ultimate quest for peace in two worlds full of secrets, and Vala finds herself torn between the love of her life and the salvation of not only her family but of Britain, itself.

"It is, at the heart of it, a love story – the love between a man and a woman, between a woman and her country, and between the characters and their fates – but its appeal goes far beyond romance. It is a tale of fate, of power, and, ultimately, of sacrifice for a greater good." - Riana Everly, author of Teaching Eliza and Death of a Clergyman


D.K. Marley

D. K. Marley is a Historical Fiction author specializing in Shakespearean adaptations, Tudor era historicals, Colonial American historicals, alternate historicals, and historical time-travel. At a very early age she knew she wanted to be a writer. Inspired by her grandmother, an English Literature teacher, she dove into writing during her teenage years, winning short story awards for two years in local competitions. After setting aside her writing to raise a family and run her graphic design business, White Rabbit Arts, returning to writing became therapy to her after suffering immense tragedy, and she published her first novel “Blood and Ink” in 2018, which went on to win the Bronze Medal for Best Historical Fiction from The Coffee Pot Book Club, and the Silver Medal from the Golden Squirrel Book Awards. Within three years, she has published four more novels (two Shakespearean adaptations, one Colonial American historical, and a historical time travel).

When she is not writing, she is the founder and administrator of The Historical Fiction Club on Facebook, and the CEO of The Historical Fiction Company, a website dedicated to supporting the best in historical fiction for authors and readers. And for fun, she is an avid reader of the genre, loves to draw, is a conceptual photography hobbyist, and is passionate about spending time with her granddaughter. She lives in Middle Georgia U.S.A. with her husband of 35 years, an English Lab named Max, and an adorable Westie named Daisy.


Tuesday 29 June 2021

Read an excerpt from Sarah Kennedy's new book - Queen of Blood @KennedyNovels



Queen of Blood
By Sarah Kennedy


Publication Date: 26th  March 2021
Publisher: Penmore Press
Page Length: 321 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction

Queen of Blood, Book Four of the Cross and the Crown series, continues the story of Catherine Havens, a former nun in Tudor England. It is now 1553, and Mary Tudor has just been crowned queen of England. Still a Roman Catholic, Mary seeks to return England to its former religion, and Catherine hopes that the country will be at peace under the daughter of Henry VIII. But rebellion is brewing around Thomas Wyatt, the son of a Tudor courtier, and when Catherine’s estranged son suddenly returns from Wittenberg amid circulating rumours about overthrowing the new monarch, Catherine finds herself having to choose between the queen she has always loved and the son who seems determined to join the Protestants who seek to usurp her throne.


A man with a curdled face stood in the front hall, squashing his hat in his hands. Clerical dress. Quite grand. His line of attendants loitered behind him, snaking from the door into the courtyard. He wiped the edge of his shoe on the pavers and lifted it to examine the result. He said, “Catherine Davies?”

“Yes,” she said, still on the stairs. “My husband is not at home.”

“A man of business,” he said, “and of industry. How admirable.”

“He is,” Catherine said, wary now, “except on holy days.” Her fingers touched the cold Christ against her chest.

“My name is Stephen Gardiner. I am here to speak to you. About your son.”

The name fluttered around Catherine’s brain. She knelt. “Archbishop. Lord Chancellor. I am honoured. I would have better prepared if I had known of your coming. Forgive me. I am unready for such a presence.”

“Get on your feet,” he said. “I’m not here to be entertained, and I don’t care what you’re wearing.”

Ann tore away, headed for the kitchen, and Catherine stood. He had put the crown on Mary Tudor’s head, she had heard. She looked at his hands, porky and spotted, but thick with power. “I am at your service.”

“So Her Majesty assures me. But is your family?”

The house was suddenly hollow with silence. The music had stopped. The girls were probably around the corner above them, listening. Catherine’s heart whipped itself into a gallop before she remembered that Robbie was gone.

“My family?” Catherine saw a couple of the kitchen girls scoot into the dining gallery with a plate and jugs, and she motioned toward the room. “Come and sit by the fire. Your men, as well.”

She left the big chair at the end of the table for the archbishop and waited until two of the men had seated themselves. They’d left the seat to Gardiner’s right unoccupied, and Catherine ordered the maids to pour before she slid into it. “Have more wood brought,” she said, and the girls curtsied and tiptoed away.

Gardiner reclined and let his head fall back so that he could study the ceiling. Catherine thought he was trying to make out the designs through the soot, and her cheeks went hot at the thought of how many months it had been since she had had it cleaned.

He finally sat up and said, “Your son, Robert Overton.”

Of course. Catherine reined in her voice. Steady now. “My son.”

“He has been in the company of the Duke of Suffolk lately, or so we hear. And one Peter Carew. Do you know him?”

Catherine shook her head. She could speak the simple truth. “The duke is Jane Grey’s father, is he not?”

“He claims to be,” said the archbishop. He leaned back again, as a man brought in logs and arranged them over the dying fire. The flames licked upward, and he sighed. “But this Carew. He’s an adventurer. Old enough to know better than he acts.”

“I do not mingle with adventurers. I am more of a home body.”

“Yes.” Again he straightened. “Her Majesty tells me that you prefer your kitchens to the court.”

“The court is for greater persons than I.”

“But you have done well for yourself.” He let his head fall back yet again and gazed upward. “This house would hold multitudes.”

“It is comfortable for our family,” said Catherine, “but it is shallower than it appears. We provide well for our servants, and they reward us with loyalty.”

“Loyalty. Now there is the point,” said Gardiner. “You have vowed your loyalty to our queen.”

“I have done so, many times.”

“I hope the promise is not as shallow as your house.”

“Indeed not. I have sworn my duty to her many times.”

“She remembers this. She has a great deal of affection for you. But this Carew. He’s a more unsteady sort of person. He prefers to play. He likes a challenge, and he likes loud companions. And yet, like so many of his character, he is loose of tongue when he drinks. And he likes to drink.”

“I would not have him near my daughters,” said Catherine.

“Your daughters are not my object,” said Gardiner, “nor his. Your son seems drawn to him. Almost a man, isn’t he?”

“He will be seventeen this winter.”

“Mm. A difficult age. And young men are impressionable, like heated wax. And like wax, they melt. Like moths, drawn to the flames of exploits, real or imagined. Like this.” He plucked a loose thread from his sleeve and tossed it into the hearth. It sizzled and was gone.

“What are you telling me?”

“I am telling you a story. A moral story. Some men’s mouths work faster than their minds. And their deeds run along with their words, on wind. Such men often blow up trouble, when they cast them to the ears and arms of others. Such a man is this Peter Carew. Ask your son about him. And tell him to steer clear, lest he be shipwrecked. Do you understand me?”

“I think I do,” said Catherine.

Gardiner gulped his wine and belched. “Good day to you, Lady Catherine.” The men were up before the archbishop had pushed back his chair, and they flanked the door as he went out. They mounted their horses and were gone, the line of attendants slithering after the great Lord Chancellor.

Catherine stood at the open door. The day was stark and frigid. The sun had already begun its retreat into a mass of cloud, and she closed the house against its weak face. Ann, behind her, said, “What was all that? It sounded like nonsense from where I stood.”

Catherine said, “It was a warning. It was a threat.”



Sarah Kennedy is the author of the Tudor historical series, The Cross and the Crown, including The Altarpiece, City of Ladies, The King’s Sisters, and Queen of Blood. She has also published a stand-alone contemporary novel, Self-Portrait, with Ghost, as well as seven books of poems.  A professor of English at Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, Virginia, Sarah Kennedy holds a PhD in Renaissance Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing.  She has received grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.


Monday 28 June 2021

#NewRelease - Kingfisher (The Kingfisher Series Book 1) by D K Marley @histficchickie



Kingfisher
(The Kingfisher Series Book 1)
By D K Marley


Publication Date: June 28, 2021
Publisher: The White Rabbit Publishing 
Genre: Time-Travel Romance
Page Length: 556 Pages

The past, future, and Excalibur lie in her hands.


There is a myth of a bird called the Halcyon, the ultimate symbol of peace. There is also a story of a legendary King wielding a sword of peace. Myth . . . fantasy . . . or perhaps, history? 


WALES, 1914.


 One young Welsh woman longs for the halcyon days before the war, and her obsession with Lord Tennyson's book Idylls of the King and the famous writings of The Mabinogion sends her on the ultimate quest. Peace for Britain and her family. But after discovering a hidden secret linking her ancestry to Camelot, Vala Penrys is lured into the past through an ancient Druid portal and awakens as Vivyane, the Lady of the Lake - the Kingfisher - and comes face-to-face with a mad Fae bent on destroying Britain in both eras. She needs a knight . . . or a wizard. In her desperate attempt for answers, she finds herself uncontrollably drawn to a mysterious Welsh Lieutenant who teaches her the ways of time travel and reveals that there is much more than just a fairy tale in the legend of King Arthur. There is history . . . in the past . . . and in the future.


From award-winning historical novelist, D. K. Marley - a story for OUTLANDER and MISTS OF AVALON fans - comes a time-traveling historical spanning centuries.




Twenty minutes into the ride back to Tyalwyn, we reached the edges of Glanusk Park and our smiles transformed into concern. Or, at least, Isla’s did; mine was more of the curious sort. I scanned the edges of the roadway, searching the shadows of the trees for a sign of the aforementioned gipsy band. Isla released her curtain from the tasselled restraint to cover her window and placed her hand against her stomach.

“You think there really are Kales here? This far down? I thought they usually gathered closer to the coast, like round Caernarfon.”

I leaned closer to the glass, anxious to locate them. “Yes, Caernarfon . . . I think most do live there, but they are travellers, Isla, like our grandmother before us.” My heart leapt as the carriage rounded a curve and a small glade appeared at my side of the carriage. They they were, a group of at least ten or more, sitting round a small campfire, two barrel-shaped wagons parked nearby and fur-hoofed horses munching on the meagre patch of grass along the dirt roadway.

I lowered the window and tapped on the roof of the landau. “Harri, stop here, please.”

He called back down a concerned reply, but I opened the door as the carriage halted a little ways down the road from the group. Isla grabbed hold of my arm.

“Vala, what are you doing?”

I eased my arm from her fingers and seized her wrist, urging her to come with me.

“No,” she cried out. “Are you mad?”

“Oh, come along, Isla, just a bit of sport. We’ll have our fortunes read, for grandmother’s sake.”

She jerked her hand away and her head, defiantly. “I will do nothing of the kind. Go on, if you dare, but I am staying right here.”

“The missus is right,” Harri protested, even as he offered his palm to me to help me step from the door. “Ye needs take care, me lady, for the likes of them.”

“Hogwash,” I spat, and marched down the road to the group, all the while searching the bottom of my mesh purse for a few pennies.

Five pairs of eyes gazed up at my face when I approached, all in various states of inebriation—glazed, half-closed, wide-eyed, curious, and another with a look I dared not label from the leer on his lips. I raised my chin and steeled my courage, holding out the two pennies.

“Is there a fortune-teller here?” They looked askance at one another, murmuring and gesturing. One of them, a thin wiry man with a snaggled grin, slurred out an answer.

“Dw I dymm yn dallt.”

He did not understand. I smiled, my mind searching the Welsh tongue still tucked beneath my English facade. Father insisted on his girls speaking English on an everyday basis, especially when visiting London or attending the Season in search of husbands, as he concluded the high-born aristocrats of London society never stooped to learn the language of the least populated section of Great Britain. He was right, for even Edward, the Prince of Wales, knew only a smattering of the tongue. Even our house staff he hired from Dorset and Warwick instead of any locals to ensure we maintained the speech. In truth, his insistence on all things English piqued my curiosity on more than one occasion. I dared never ask, though.

“Dach chi’n siarad Saesnag?” I answered back, hoping at least one of them spoke English.

Each of them, in turn, shook their head. I held up the coins again, this time asking for the fortune-teller in their language.

“Ble mae’r rhifwr ffortiwn?”

The same wiry man stood up, brushed the dust from his trousers, and motioned for me to follow him. He approached one of the wagons and tapped his swarthy knuckles against the frame.

“Kezia,” he belted out. “Mae gennych fusnes ac arian.” 

The woman, upon hearing that she had business and money, peeked out through the small square side window. She looked as ancient as the Black Mountains, grey hair, furrowed brow, and eyes full of fog.

She opened the door, her twig-like fingers beckoning for the coins and curling over them once obtained.
“Come in,” she said, her voice unmatching her appearance—wispy and soothing, yet rich like fine boxed Belgian chocolate. 

I glanced back to the carriage and waved to Isla who stared out the window, biting her fingernails, while Harri stood near the campfire with the other men, accepting an offer of a cup of something to warm his gut. Blowing Isla a kiss, I mounted the steps and entered the cramped quarters.

The woman cackled softly and pointed towards a chair across from a round table in the centre of the room. I sat, taking in the surroundings. A fire burned in a iron-belly stove at one end of the room, the scented heat inundating the ambience with oakwood and anise. Snatches of herbs dangled from a hemp rope along the ceiling and rich burgundy scarves embroidered with botanical scenes lined the walls, as well as decorating my chair and the cushions behind my back. The air exuded mystery.

The woman, Kezia, blended into the atmosphere as naturally as a butterfly on a flower, even in her worn, aged state. She poured out two cups of tea and sat across from me, smiling a quite uncomfortable yet knowing grin.

“Ye sister not want to come?” Her question billowed out and her dark midnight eyes narrowed.

“My sister? No, she did not . . . how did you know?”

She chuckled and took a sip of her tea, tapping one finger to the side of her head. “I am knowing many things.” Leaning forwards, she stared deep into my face. “Like this . . . I know who ye are, my lady of waters.”

A sudden flush of nausea flooded my stomach and I touched my hand to my neck, my pulse racing beneath my fingertips.

“Lady of waters, what do you mean?”

She leaned back, draping her arms over the thick brocade upholstered arm chair she sat on. “Is this not why ye came . . . to hear ye ffortiwn?”

The nausea morphed into fear and I made a move to stand, but she stilled me with her words.
 
“I remember ye mam-gu, ye nain,” she said. “Illya was her name, was it not?”

“Wha . . . what?” I sputtered, easing back down. “How?”

“Ooh, ‘tis fifty years now, I think, when she died. I knew her before the Major, before India . . . that journey kill’d her, ye know.”

I huffed through my nose, an sardonic sneer as I pushed my teacup away and crossed my arms. “No, I wouldn’t know.”

She replied with a wink and a chuckle. “No, I suspect ye wouldn’t living with secrets now, would ye?”

“Secrets?”

She snickered and struck a white-tipped matchstick, lighting a thick beeswax candle in the centre of the table. The flickering flame danced in her pupils and she held the smouldering stick in between her thumb and forefinger; the smoke wafting in two slender entangling streams.

“White phosphorous . . .” she said, “very deadly, if eaten. One pack of matchsticks can kill a person.”

I arched my eyebrow, uncertain if I ought to sip any more of the tea. She blew away the smoke with a blast of breath, finishing off with a wave of her hand and crooked a smile.

“Useful information, is it not?” She added.

“I suppose, if you need to know such a thing.”

She nodded in agreement and pointed to my teacup. “Go on, finish the tea and with the last few drops, swirl the leaves and hand me the cup.”

With much trepidation, I finished the strong brew, deciding if she indeed poisoned me, at least Harri and Isla were close enough to ensure a rescue.

Handing her the cup, I waited for a moment as she turned the cup clockwise from the handle, her slight hum pausing once, twice, and a third time, with a ‘hmm’ or ‘ahh’.

She set the cup down and pointed to a long line close to the rim, formed by the residue of the leaves.

“Ye will take a long journey . . . far away from here. And here . .  . near the bottom . . . the ‘T’. Do ye see it?”

I squinted and tilted my head, unsure, but agreed any ways. “Yes . . . I think.”

“This is for love . . . ye will look for this letter in your search for love. And the last, ye are a traveller as ye grandmother before ye.”

My heart leapt in my chest. “And where does it show that?”

She smiled and pushed the cup away, wrapping her warm hands over mine. “I need not the cup to see that.” Raising her hand, she pointed her forefinger and jabbed her rounded fingernail into my chest, right above my pounding heart. “Here . . . in ye soul and in ye eyes.”

The words lured me in with a strong pulling sensation, creeping into my core. “You said you remember her,” I said, hoping to draw more information from her about my past.

“Yes, she was like me.”

“A gipsy traveller, you mean . . . a Kale . . . from Caernarfon.”

She snickered. “Ooh, much more than just a Kale . . . for she knew the ways of travellers from long ago. She was a woman Bard with a voice like a nightingale—her favourite was Keats . . . do ye have a favourite?”

“Yes . . . I do. I adore Tennyson.”

“Ah,” she acknowledged, her eyes alighting with a long ago remembrance. “Of course, ye love Tennyson . . . the days of King Arthur. Romantics, both poets in search of escape, and dreamers of days long gone.” She narrowed her eyes. “Ah, I am seeing doubt in ye eyes. You have listened to rumours that we gipsy folk are ignorant . . . illiterate, even. Some are, no doubt, but ye nain was special, like a muse of fire to poets. She used to read poetry to me late into the night. One of her favourite lines was from Keats—‘O, for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!’”

I grinned at the quote. “I know that line . . . my mother recites that quite often. But, what do you mean ‘of course, I love Tennyson’?”

She chuckled and lifted the teacup, tilting the rim for me to see inside. “What do ye see when ye look inside?”

I thought, for a moment, that her question answering my question was her attempt to evade, but as I stared into the cup, a clear picture formed in my thoughts. I shook my head and touched my fingers to my temple, just above my right eyebrow.

“The roots of a tree . . . like my ancestry reaching deep into the soul . . . searching for water . . .”

She cackled, reached across and touched my arm. From her fingertips, the goose flesh sped across my skin, all the way to the crown of my head. She narrowed her eyes and quoted another line. “Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry, for large white plumes are dancing in mine eyes.”

Keat’s poetic words compulsed from my heart and throat. “Last night I lay in bed, there came before my eyes that wonted thread of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances . . .”

She continued. “You know the Enchanted Castle—it doth stand upon the rock on the border of a lake . . . ye know it well enough, where it doth seem a mossy place, a Merlin’s hall, a dream . . .”

And I added, without volition. “Here do they look alive to love and hate, to smiles and frowns; they seem a lifted mound above some giant, pulsing underground.”

She leaned towards me, her eyes narrowing. “And from them comes a silver flash of light, as from the westward of a summer’s night; or like a beauteous woman’s large blue eyes gone mad through olden songs and poesies . . . it is a flaw in happiness to see beyond our bourn—it forces us in summer skies to mourn, it spoils the singing of the nightingale . . .”

“I have a tale to tell,” I rhymed. “And yet, I cannot speak it.”

“And yet, your dreams speak the tale, do they not?”

I shook my head, scattering her question tingling the hairs on my arm, and rubbed my brow again.

“What . . . what just happened?” I asked.

She answered only with another low chuckle.

Even with much eyelash blinking and lip-biting, confusion bubbled inside me, fearing what just passed between me and the gipsy. Looking over to the empty teacup, I felt a sudden fear that more than tea, indeed, poured from her kettle and down my throat; therefore, in an attempt to steady my nerves, I asked a grounded question.

“Can you tell me more about my grandmother? What was her voice like, or her eyes, or her passions?”

Kezia’s hand retreated to her side of the table, aware of my sudden anxiety and need for answers. Still, though, she maintained a potent smile.

“She was a rare beauty with dark hair, not remarkable at first glance, but once ye recognised the sparkle in her dark eyes, there it was. She possessed an ancient strength as with Boudicca or Cartimandua, and knew the rites of a Druidess. When the Major came into her life, she sprang like a tigress at the chance to follow him to the spiced paths below the Himalayas. I heard from her a year later, her words indicating she never left the sheltered walls of the Residency in Lahore, ‘corseted and confined’ were her words. She was there during the uprising in 1858; then, one last letter coming nine years later telling me she and her husband were living in Lhasa. I knew nothing more of her until the day I saw ye mother in Caernarfon before ye were even born. I knew she was Illya’s daughter, despite the golden hair, for she possessed the same wandering eye and soul. Both ye nain and ye mam sought escape, as do ye . . . and for love, but not just any love . . . a love surpassing time.”

“Did my nain find it . . . with the Major, my grandfather?” I thought of the hidden tintype, wondering now if the man was my mother’s or my grandmother’s secret.

She smiled and shrugged. “I knew her no more after the last letter.”

Standing up, she sauntered over to a bookshelf along the back wall and removed a small wooden box. Inside, a stack of yellowed papers, old and worn from the passing years. She rifled through them, sliding out two and held them out to me.

“Here, take them. Ye might find something lingering in her writing or in her words.”

I took them, my fingers shaking as if I held a sacred relic and tucked them inside my purse.

With her still standing and no additional words trailing the offer, the candle wick waned, the tea leaves dried, and the former mystic aura faded into the stifling closeness of the wagon. I sighed and reached inside my purse to retrieve another coin.

“For your kindness,” I said, offering her a single sixpence. 

At just the moment she slid the coin from my palm, a knock vibrated through the room. She strolled to the door and before even opening it, remarked.

“Ye sister comes for ye.”

Isla stood before the steps with a quivering lip and wide watery eyes.

“Vala, how much longer must I wait?” She blubbered.

Kezia bowed and motioned for me to leave.

“I’m done. I was about to leave before you knocked.”

Isla hugged me tight when I stepped down from the steps, whispering in my ear. “I was so frightened. I had no notion of what was happening inside.”

I kissed her on the cheek, then gestured towards Kezia leaning against the door frame. “We had a nice chat, sister dear. This lady is Kezia . . . she knew our grandmother, Illya.”

Isla gazed up and curtsied to her. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Kezia held up her hands and bowed to Isla. “No . . . ye need not bow to me . . . my lady . . . for ye are a Queen-in-waiting.”

Isla laughed and squeezed my arm, pushing me towards the carriage. “Dear me, a Queen-in-waiting? I think Queen Mary might have a thing to say about that. Come along, Vala, it is getting late.”

All five men seated round the campfire rushed to their feet as Kezia shouted towards them in clear Welsh.

“Sefyll I fyny! Mae dau offieriades yn cerdded o’ch blaen!”

As the carriage sped away, Isla leaned near to me and whispered. “What did she mean, two priestesses walk before you? And why did she call me a queen-in-waiting?”

I merely shrugged, unable to give an answer to Isla’s questions, or perhaps I ignored her, for my thoughts rested on the strange recitation in the wagon, as well as the letters in my purse. I felt anxious for Harri to hurry the horses home so I might rush to my bedroom, snuggle into the covers, and read my nain’s words by candlelight.

Staring out the window as the carriage edged along the Usk, Kezia’s words tripped across my soul— ‘ye are a traveller like her’, ‘ye seek escape like her’, ‘not just any love . . . a love surpassing time’.

I closed my eyes and smiled. This yearning deep inside me was an inheritance from my Kale grandmother, real and substantial, not the flighty romantic dreams my father accused me of. The peaceful thought comforted me on the ride back to Tyalwyn.

Amazon UK • Amazon US


D. K. Marley is an award-winning author specializing in Historical Fiction, Alternate Historicals, and Historical Time Travel novels.

After spending the bulk of her life as a mother and graphic designer, she embarked on her writing career and published three Shakespearean-themed books from 2018 - 2020.
Her first book, Blood and Ink, won the Bronze Medal for Best Historical Fiction of 2018 from The Coffee Pot Book Club, and the Silver Medal for Best Historical Fiction from the Golden Squirrel Book Awards. Along with Blood and Ink, her novel The Fire of Winter won a "Highly Recommended" award from The Coffee Pot Book Club. Now, with her new series, she has taken her love for books like Outlander and The Mists of Avalon, and built a world around five time-traveling sisters amidst the chaos of WWI, plummeting them back to the days of King Arthur in her new KINGFISHER series.

When she is not writing, she loves being an online bookshop owner, a fun Nana to a beautiful granddaughter, and a happy wife of 35 years living near Atlanta GA.

Social Media Links:

Blog • Facebook • Twitter • Instagram • Bookshop 



We are so excited to be taking Sigurd’s Swords (Olaf’s Saga, Book 2) by Eric Schumacher on tour!


Sigurd’s Swords 
(Olaf’s Saga, Book 2) 
By Eric Schumacher

June 28th – July 9th 2021

Publication Date: June 28, 2021
Publisher: Bodn Books
Page Length: 300 Pages (print)
Genre: Historical Fiction

From best-selling historical fiction novelist, Eric Schumacher, comes the second volume in Olaf’s Saga: the adrenaline-charged story of Olaf Tryggvason and his adventures in the kingdom of the Rus.

AD 968. It has been ten summers since the noble sons of the North, Olaf and Torgil, were driven from their homeland by the treachery of the Norse king, Harald Eriksson. Having then escaped the horrors of slavery in Estland, they now fight among the Rus in the company of Olaf’s uncle, Sigurd. 

It will be some of the bloodiest years in Rus history. The Grand Prince, Sviatoslav, is hungry for land, riches, and power, but his unending campaigns are leaving the corpses of thousands in their wakes. From the siege of Konugard to the battlefields of ancient Bulgaria, Olaf and Torgil struggle to stay alive in Sigurd’s Swords, the riveting sequel to Forged by Iron


Eric Schumacher


Eric Schumacher (1968 - ) is an American historical novelist who currently resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his wife and two children. He was born and raised in Los Angeles and attended college at the University of San Diego.

At a very early age, Schumacher discovered his love for writing and medieval European history, as well as authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Those discoveries continue to fuel his imagination and influence the stories he tells. His first novel, God's Hammer, was published in 2005.

Connect with Eric:

Follow the tour HERE!

Tour Schedule