Showing posts with label Book tour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book tour. Show all posts

Jan 23, 2024

Her by Khanh Ha: Book Tour/Guest Post

 
Book Tour/ Her: The Flame Tree by Khanh Ha



"The magnificent red poinciana flowers, which grace the ancient capital of Huế, symbolize farewell in Vietnamese adolescent romance"

Publisher:  Gival Press, (October 1, 2023)
Category: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Vietnam
Tour dates: January 16-Feb 23, 2024



Publisher:

Her: The Flame Tree by Khanh Ha is a love triptych that sweeps through the rich panorama of two generations of colonial and post-colonial Vietnam. The hopeless love of a young eunuch for a high-ranking concubine is one of this novel’s three stories that illuminate the oriental mystery of Vietnam, as epic as it is persevering,  Framed between 1915 and 1993, the book begins in Huế, the former imperial capital of Vietnam. It is in the Purple Forbidden City, that Canh, the young eunuch, fulfills his vow to be near the girl of his dreams, a villager-turned imperial concubine.

The novel begins with an expatriate Vietnamese man living in the United States who journeys back to Vietnam to search for the adopted daughter of a centenarian eunuch of the Imperial Court of Huế to find out who she really is. His world takes on a new meaning after he becames a part of her life.

Phượng. Her name is the magnificent flame tree’s flowers that grace the ancient capital of Huế. Her father, mentor of Canh the young eunuch, was a hundred-year-old grand eunuch of the Imperial Court, who had adopted and raised her since she was a baby. Their peaceful world suddenly changed when one day, sometime in the early years of the Vietnam war, Jonathan Edward came into their lives. On his quest to search for his just deceased lover’s mysterious birth, there he met Phượng, an exquisite beauty.

Through the eye of her father, history is retold. Just before the fall of the French Indochina during the last dynasty of Vietnam, a young eunuch hopelessly fell in love with a high-ranking concubine. Once the eunuch had secured the concubine’s trust, it became a fatal attraction. The eunuch died. The concubine, still a virgin, lost her mind. Her father said she was possessed by the young eunuch’s spirit who had been madly in love with her. 

My comments: 

I was amazed by the book's background history of the ancient city of Hue and its Imperial dynasty that existed before 1945.  I found "The Imperial City was built in 1362 and in 1993 was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Between these two periods of time, the city even served as the capital of Vietnam from 1802 to 1945 during the reign of the Nguyen dynasty." (from Backpackers Wanderlust).

The book focuses on stories of Phuong, the adopted daughter of a eunuch of the Imperial Court of Hue. Her father, the grand eunuch for 63 years, and the emperor's last concubine, An-Phi, had a love story that ended sadly. An-Phi, as a civilian in later years, roamed the streets, mad, giving away her jewels. 

The book tells, through the stories about the adopted daughter of the eunuch, Phuong, the history of Vietnam from the Imperial times through the French occupation. The other main character is the American Vietnamese boy, Jonathan Edward, who had come to Vietnam to find the parents of his deceased girlfriend, a half Vietnamese-half French girl, only to fall in love with Phuong and die tragically in her arms.

The book is long and approaches this portion of Vietnamese history in an indirect way, by telling stories of different people and their lives affected by the country's history. It's a book to savor slowly, and worthwhile to capture the flavor of the country, old and new. 



 Guest Post by the Author 

On Death Scenes

©Khanh Ha

It happens. Somebody dies. Death can occur in the middle or the end of a novel. Someone’s death could spin the story around. It could be the protagonist’s death.

Each writer writes his death scene with trepidation. How much should he write it without overwriting it?

Some death scenes are so memorable they never leave your memory as long as you read books. Here is the scene in the ending of A Farewell to Arms (Earnest Hemingway) that captures the moment after the death of the protagonist’s lover in a hospital. The doctor then offers to take him back to his hotel.

“Good night,” he said. “I cannot take you to your hotel?”

“No, thank you.”

“It was the only thing to do,” he said. “The operation proved—"

“I do not want to talk about it,” I said.

“I would like to take you to your hotel.”

“No, thank you.”

He went down the hall. I went to the door of the room.

“You can’t come in now,” one of the nurses said.

“Yes, I can,” I said.

“You can’t come in yet.”

“You get out,” I said. “The other one too.”

But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.

To date, I have always thought that the best prose ever written in the English language is found in the opening and the ending of A Farewell to Arms. And if you are keen enough as a reader, you will notice its influence on Cormac McCarthy’s prose especially in his award-winning novel All The Pretty Horses.

That brings us to Cormac McCarthy whose hero in All The Pretty Horses meets his death in Cities of The Plain, last book of the trilogy. In this scene, John Grady Cole lies dying from a knife wound and his friend, Billy Parker, goes out to get Cole a glass of water. When he comes back, death has taken his friend away.

When he got to the packingcrate the candle was still burning and he took the glasses both in one hand and pushed back the sacking and crouched on his knees.

Here you go, bud, he said.

But he had already seen. He set the waterglasses slowly down. Bud, he said, Bud?

The boy lay with his face turned away from the light. His eyes were open. Billy called to him. As if he could not have gone far. Bud, he said, Bud? Aw goddamn. Bud?

Aint that pitiful, he said. Aint that the most goddamn pitiful thing? Aint it? Oh God. Bud. Oh goddamn.

When he had him gathered in his arms he rose and turned. Goddamn whores, he said. He was crying and his tears ran down his angry face and he called out to the broken day against them all and he called out to God to see what was before his eyes. Look at this, he called. Do you see? Do you see?

In Her: The Flame Tre, I wrote a novel whose ending witnesses the death of the main character. He is shot and dies in his lover’s arms.

He fell. The lights glared beyond. He got up, fell, and got up again. He saw lights wildly searching the darkness and heard voices descending on him.

She cradled him, weeping. He woke as if to a whitewashed memory and in that moment he knew all that he had lived through. He saw her eyes and her face as if he had never left her, as if nothing had happened or changed, like the smell of the earth.

“Jonathan! Speak to me, Jonathan!”

She turned him on his side so her warmth would keep him awake.

“Hold on, Jonathan. Just hold on.”

Red hot pain dimpled his back, so hot his breath seemed to flame. He felt her hands touching his back and saw they were red when she covered her mouth.

“Wrap him. Stop the bleeding,” someone said, hovering over him.

A monk. He knew the face, but the name didn’t come. Hands touching him. His body no longer seemed to belong to him. He felt an energy shrouding him and a deafening commotion without sound. He saw a young girl who smiled as she walked hand in hand with him through a valley yellow and red with autumn. He saw cranes sleeping in the lagoon at low tide, and among their mirrored white bodies he saw himself cloaked in white.

She pressed her cheek against his. “Jonathan.”

He closed his eyes; the scent of the earth came to him. He saw her eyes very close to his, then his head fell against her chest. The dimple of pain went away.

About Khanh Ha

Author Khanh Ha is a nine-time Pushcart nominee, finalist for The Ohio State University Fiction Collection Prize, Mary McCarthy Prize, Many Voices Project, Prairie Schooner Book Prize, The University of New Orleans Press Lab Prize, Prize Americana, and The Santa Fe Writers Project. He is the recipient of the Sand Hills Prize for Best Fiction, The Robert Watson Literary Prize in Fiction, The Orison Anthology Award for Fiction, The James Knudsen Prize for Fiction, The C&R Press Fiction Prize, The EastOver Fiction Prize, The Blackwater Press Fiction Prize, The Gival Press Novel Award, and The Red Hen Press Fiction Award.

Website: http://www.authorkhanhha.com
Blog: http://authorkhanhha.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KhanhHa69784776
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorkhanhha
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/khanhha

Thanks to the author, Khanh Ha, for a review copy of this book, and for his guest post on writing death scenes, including the one in his book. 

Enter the Rafflecopter sweepstake, hosted on the blog tour, to win a copy of the book. 

Jan 3, 2024

Book Tour: The Spice Maker's Secret by Renita D'Silva

 


The Spice Maker's Secret by Renita D'Silva, historical fiction

Publication: January 3, 2024; Bookouture, NetGalley

I enjoyed the sweet romance that developed in an Indian village between Bindu, the poor teenage tenant of a rich landowner, and Guru, the landowner's young son. That Guru did not let Bindu's low status prevent him from wooing her was an interesting part of the plot. 

However, when society's strict rules and the landowner's own restrictions put Bindu, his son's new young wife, in a golden cage, so to speak,  Bindu rebels in the only way she can, convincing her wealthy husband to allow her to continue making her spice pastes and to cook, but also secretly submitting her poetry and stories to a publication run by a handsome British journalist. Bindu is not allowed to read magazines or discuss politics with any of the Indian or British guests at the many parties the landowner throws. 

The tragedy of Bindu and Guru's ill fated marriage takes up most of the rest of the novel. The story switches from unhappy Bindu in 1930s India to Eve, a young woman living in1980s London. The novel later reveals the connection between the two women living in different historical periods in a dramatic fashion.

Heartrending, the novel first shows the restricted lives of women, poor and wealthy alike, in pre-Independence India, and focuses on Bindu, one woman who chafes at these rules and the price she pays for her independent spirit. 

The author has given a startlingly clear depiction of both the rich and green land of India and the tropical surroundings, the relationship between those in poverty and those of wealth, and the role of women in 1930s India. 

I heartily recommend this historical novel for those wanting to know more about the social and working life and the culture and traditions of people in this era in India.

Author Bio:

Renita grew up in a picturesque coastal village in the South of India, the oldest of three children. Her father got her first story books when she was six and she fell in love with the world of stories. Even now she prefers that world, by far, to this.

Sign up to be the first to hear about new releases from Renita D'Silva here: https://www.bookouture.com/renita-dsilva

Buy Link:

Thanks to Bookouture for providing access to this novel for their book tour.

Oct 21, 2022

Book Tour: Somewhere Sisters by Erika Hayasaki

 Nonfiction book review

Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Family

by Erika Hayasaki, October 11, 2022, Algonquin Books

Identical twins Isabella and Hà were born in Vietnam and raised on opposite sides of the world, each knowing little about the other’s existence, until they were reunited as teenagers, against all odds. (publisher)

Topic: Vietnamese identical twin girls are given up for adoption at birth in 1998.  One girl was adopted by a wealthy Midwestern family in the U.S. and the other remained in Nha Trang, Vietnam with an aunt. This nonfiction work tells the story of the unusual steps taken to finally reunite the two sisters. 

The book: The author discusses the two girls, the twins, during their teens when they first meet, and compares their different experiences growing up, in terms of nature vs nurture science. The book also examines culture and belonging and the conflicts inherent in the topic of adoption.

I was very impressed with the amount of research that went into this book. I was also wowed by the author's interviewing of the U.S. and Vietnamese families and the multiple travels to and from Vietnam to complete this study and write the story of the twins before and after they meet.

The American adoptive mother's extensive efforts to reunite the girls and to prepare the Vietnamese raised twin to live with them in the U.S. is astounding. The amount of planning and funds needed to do this was extraordinary. 

I understand that many adoptees may not get this kind of dedication from adoptive parents but this book makes me wonder about other similar stories that we have not heard. 

A five star read. 

Book beginning: 

1998 

The babies are crying. Nguyen Thi Kim Lien treks through the clogged city streets of Nha Trang. She is exhausted, carrying two newborns in her arms in a double clutch. It is 1998. A hip malformation that she's had since birth forces her weight to rest more heavily on her right side and her legs to curve outward like the body of a harp. It was hard for her to find a job before birth. Now it is impossible.

Page 56 of ebook: 

I first learned about the sisters in 2016, six months after giving birth to my own identical twin boys. As part of a science journalism fellowship, I was researching stories about environmental interactions with genes.

 

 About the author:

Erika Hayasaki is an award-winning journalist based in Southern California, the author of The Death Class, and a professor in the Literary Journalism Program at the University of California, Irvine. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the AtlanticWiredSlate, and others. She has been a 2021-22 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow and a 2018 Alicia Patterson Fellow. She is the mother of a daughter and twin boys

Memes:The Friday 56. Find any sentence that grabs you on page 56 of your book. Post it, and add your URL to Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.

 

Jun 27, 2022

Book Tour: Shadow of the Gypsy by Shelly Frome

Shadow Of the Gypsy by Shelly Frome: On Tour



Shadow Of the Gypsy by Shelly Frome

Publisher:  Boutique of Quality Books (May 3, 2022)
Category: Amateur Sleuths, Crime Thriller, Love Story

Description: Shadow Of the Gypsy by Shelly Frome

A nemesis out of the past suddenly returns, forcing Josh Bartlett to come to terms with his true identity.

Josh Bartlett had figured all the angles, changed his name, holed up as a small-town features writer in the seclusion of the Blue Ridge. Only a few weeks more and he’d begin anew, return to the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut and Molly (if she’d have him) and, at long last, live a normal life. After all, it was a matter of record that Zharko had been deported well over a year ago.

The shadowy form Josh had glimpsed yesterday at the lake was only that—a hazy shadow under the eaves of the activities building. It stood to reason his old nemesis was still ensconced overseas in Bucharest or thereabouts well out of the way. And no matter where he was, he wouldn’t travel thousands of miles to track Josh down. Surely that couldn’t be, not now, not after all this.

 Guest post by Shelly Frome on creating her fictional gypsy character 

Story and the Advent of the Gypsy

by Shelly Frome

In creating fiction, there is a longstanding issue over writing what you know or fabricating a plot and filling in the blanks with a little research. By the same token, there’s also a disagreement over character driven action and sheer narrative. But the actual process in search of something sustaining and meaningful can’t be distilled to any surefire approach. As a case in point, you really can’t go on until you understand the special world you find yourself in.

For instance, Shadow of the Gypsy began with a sense of refuge in a small town in the Blue Ridge of North Carolina. There was also a debt I seem to have incurred as a very small child which I never understood, William Faulkner’s dictum that the past is never past, and a fanciful  image of a recurring nightmare stemming from a plunging dagger. When the image became more intriguing along with the notion of an early childhood trauma, the need for a shadowy figure became more pressing.

Admittedly, only an incurable storyteller would be faced with the need for someone foreign and volatile; the time-worn cliché headstrong, unscrupulous band of travelers and wild women with dangling earrings, juxtaposed against the actual Romany people who want to assimilate into society. Thus in order to propel this tale, Zharko Vadja had to become the gypsy, not a gypsy. A rogue gypsy, if you will, with his special backstory and quirks, a nefarious outlook and aim, a jaded scheme that wouldn’t quit. He would have to earn his role as a nemesis.  

After a great deal of research, he began to come alive for me when, imaginatively, he scrawled his response on his lawyer’s coffee table book of Romany life:

Oh, for sure, Novac, you think I going to settle down, sweet Romany life, grow crops, start business? Forget what I know from old country, corruption, paying protection money?  Parasites (good word no?) living off workers? Shell companies and shell bank accounts? As much or more corruption here in U.S. lousy government I hear. As bad or much worse everywhere you go—payoffs under table or what have you got. Race is to the swift so I hear. Winners and losers, zero sum game. This is what I know.  

 

From this moment on I could give Zharko free rein as the tale truly started to become self-generating.


My comments on Shadow of the Gypsy :


Written in the traditional style of crime fiction, the novel slowly reveals the story behind Josh's past, which he thought he had left behind when he changed his name and began working at a small town newspaper in the Blue Ridge mountains. But normal life escapes Josh when a gypsy from his past shows up to demand a favor, or else....


 The action is paced in this crime fiction, with some suspense but a more relaxing read than a thriller. Zharko, the gypsy in question, is unusual, perhaps a bit stereotypical, even though the author describes him as a rogue gypsy. His character as described and developed fits well into the role of villain. 


An enjoyable crime novel. 


Thanks to Virtual Author Book Tours and Teddy Rose for a review copy of this book and for the invitation to tour. Visit the site for other reviews on this book tour. 


 Memes: It's Monday: What Are You Readingand  Stacking the Shelves

Apr 8, 2022

At Least You Have Your Health by Madi Sinha

 


At Least You Have Your Health

by 
Dr. Maya Rao is a gynecologist with three young children, a career, and a happy marriage. But Maya is forced to walk away from her career.
She meets Amelia, owner of an exclusive wellness clinic that needs a gynecologist for house calls to wealthy women clientele.  (publisher)

Book beginning:

When Amelia DeGilles - forty-five, tailored jeans, nude sling backs with a red sole - caught the arm of Maya Rao - thirty-six, threadbare leggings, brown stain on one off-white canvas sneaker - in the parking lot of Hamilton Hall Academy after the October parent council meeting, people noticed.

At 56% of book:

"The baby says she wants to be born in Belize." 
Maya's eyebrows shot up. She laughed, assuming this was a joke. 

Would you read on? 

The Friday 56. Find any sentence that grabs you on page 56 or on a 56% page of your ebook. Post it, and add to Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.

Nov 21, 2021

Book Tour: the moon won't be dared by Anne Leigh Parrish

 

About the moon won’t be dared

Author: Anne Leigh Parrish

Publisher: Unsolicited Press (October 14, 2021)

Paperback: 152 pages

the moon won’t be dared is a poetry collection by award-winning author Anne Leigh Parrish that features artwork by Lydia Selk. In this momentous debut collection, the poet harnesses language to give readers a new vision of nature, the impossible plight of womanhood, love, aging, and beauty. Being a woman in a male-dominated society affords Anne Leigh Parrish the space to witness the world on an uneven keel. Parrish pays tribute to beauty, but also weaves the harsh truths of betrayal and brutality into the filaments holding the collection together.

My comments:

Poetry is subjective, so that any reader will get something different from reading a specific poem. These are some of the poems and lines that stood out for me from Anne Leigh Parrish's book of poetry.
I looked for, and found, skillful descriptions and use of imagery to set mood and tone, and to convey meanings. 

obsession:"the meager glow/of a cande/flickers away the hours  in a gentle/play/of shadows"
vacation: "palm trees sway in the breeze/hearts flatten again the gale of deceit/why expect truth?"

don't we always? "look me in the eye and smile/toss me a spark/from your heart's fire/take me home and hold me long enough...."

the river: "ride, then name the river that runs/through your life/carry no grief for the passing years...."

That the poet chose to write only in the lower case, using no capital letters in her titles or poems, signifies to me her wish to have her words flow in a stream, like a river, to captivate your interest and establish her moods. 

I will pick up this book of poems now and again to continue to enjoy the poet's view of life and her entwining of nature and feeling. 


About the author:

Anne Leigh Parrish is the author of nine previously published books: A Winter Night, a novel (Unsolicited Press, 2021); What Nell Dreams, a novella & stories (Unsolicited Press, 2020); Maggie’s Ruse, a novel, (Unsolicited Press, 2017); The Amendment, a novel (Unsolicited Press, 2017); Women Within, a novel (Black Rose Writing, 2017); By the Wayside, stories (Unsolicited Press, 2017); What Is Found, What Is Lost, a novel (She Writes Press, 2014); Our Love Could Light The World, stories (She Writes Press, 2013); and All The Roads That Lead 

Tour schedule here.  Organized by Lisa Munley  TLC Book Tours


Linked to The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also, Sunday Salon

Nov 5, 2021

Khahn Ha: A Mothers Tale: Book Tour




A Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh Ha: On Tour

Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh HaA Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh Ha

Publisher: C&R Press (October 15, 2021)
Category: Linked Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction
Tour dates: October 11-November 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1949540239
Available in Print and ebook, 150 pages

Description Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh Ha

A Mother’s Tale is a tale of salvaging one’s soul from received and inherited war-related trauma. Within the titular beautiful story of a mother’s love for her son is the cruelty and senselessness of the Vietnam War, the poignant human connection, and a haunting narrative whose set ting and atmosphere appear at times otherworldly through their land scape and inhabitants.

Captured in the vivid descriptions of Vietnam’s country and culture are a host of characters, tortured and maimed and generous and still empathetic despite many obstacles, including a culture wrecked by losses. Somewhere in this chaos readers will find a tender link between the present-day survivors and those already gone. Rich and yet buoyant with a vision-like quality, this collection shares a common theme of love and loneliness, longing and compassion, where beauty is discovered in the moments of brutality, and agony is felt in ecstasy.


My comments:

The Vietnam War ended for the United States in 1975, but for many who were personally touched by the conflict, the results lasted a much longer time, and may even persist to the present day. 

The stories of Khanh Ha in A Mother's Tale are testiment to the endurance of the memories of the history of the war in Vietnam, of the soldiers on both sides and of their families and loved ones who survived. 

Though frank and brutal in their honesty, the stories are a permanent reminder of the horrors of  war and of the consequences the mothers, families, and survivors had to face. 

The book includes descriptions of men injured and maimed by the war,  whose survival depend so much on families and their ability to cope and endure. They also include the voices of the soldiers themselves, both American and Vietnamese, both North and South. 

Mrs. Rossi in Mrs. Rossi's Dream is also a survivor. In her story, she has come to Vietnam from the United States to try to find the bones of her deceased soldier son in a dense, swampy forest, filled with the bones of so many others on both sides of the conflict. Hers is only a dream in the face of the stark reality that time plays.

It is not easy to read these accounts, but it is important that they exist, to remind us of a time in history from which we can all learn important lessons.  

Praise for A Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh Ha:

WINNER C&R PRESS 2021 FICTION AWARD




Follow Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh Ha

Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus Oct 11 Kickoff & Excerpt

Sal Bound 4 Escape Oct 12 Guest Review

Jas International Book Reviews Oct 14 Review

Bee Book Pleasures Oct 15 Review & Interview

Cleopatra Amazon Oct 18 Review

Katy Celticlady’s Reviews Oct 20 Guest Review & Excerpt

Suzie M. My Tangled Skeins Book Reviews Oct 22 Guest Review

Lu Ann Rockin’ Book Reviews Oct 23 Review & Guest Post

Don S. Amazon Nov 1 Review

Harvee BookBirdDog (Book Dilettante) Nov 4 Review

Nancy Reading Avidly Nov 9 Review

Serena Savvy Verse & Wit Nov 10 Review

Betty Toots Book Reviews Nov 12 Review & Interview

Donna T Amazon Nov 18 Review

Denise D. Amazon Nov 19 Review

Ilana WildWritingLife Nov 22 Review & Guest Post

Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus Nov 23 Review


vailable now, it is for pre-sale: C&R Press https://www.crpress.org/shop/a-mothers-tale-other-stories/

Sunday Salon: Letting Go of September by Sandra J. Jackson

  Books reviewed Letting Go of September by Sandra J. Jackson, July 31, 2024; BooksGoSocial Genre: thriller , family drama Themes: reflectiv...