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I am a big fan of Andrew Joyce’s books, and I think this may be the best one yet. Perhaps it’s because the book is so entertaining, perhaps it’s because I’m part Irish through the migration during an Gorta Mór (the Irish potato famine or great hunger), or perhaps because I am a sucker for history and family sagas – but probably all three. Mahoney is the story of the family by that name and was written as a trilogy tied together by common ancestry. The reader is first introduced to Devin, who is the last of the Mahoneys, famine and sickness having taken everyone else in his family. He lies on the dirt floor of the single room in his small, dark home in Ireland, waiting to die. When given the opportunity to take a ship to America, which looms large in his mind as a place where he can grow rich, he takes it. The author has done some incredible research for his book, as he has for all the previous ones. Devin’s voyage to Quebec in the crowded and disease-ridden hold of a ship is richly drawn in its sordid and dangerous details. The story of how Devin makes his way and his living in cities prejudiced against the Irish is intense and his letters as a soldier in the Civil War are heart-breaking. The next Mahoney we meet is Dillon, son of Devin. His life is a tapestry of adventures, from working on the transcontinental railroad, to becoming a cowboy on a vast cattle ranch, to earning a reputation as a gunslinger in the Wild West, to earning a fortune as an oil wildcatter in California. Finally there is David, the dissipated and spoiled son of Devin. The disappointment I initially felt with this character is gradually lifted with his foray into the South during the time of the Depression and the Klu Kux Klan. All in all, an adventurous ride I could not put down. The writer’s strengths are in his ability to paint the history in succinct brush strokes, in the development of his characters, and most of all, in the dialogue. The story of Devin is perhaps the strongest of the three, as this characters has the most to overcome and does it mainly on his own. I wanted to stay with his story, but events of the time interfered. Dillon and David have somewhat miraculous help at critical times (who’s not to say they wouldn’t?) to move their story forward. Nevertheless, Andrew Joyce gives us a rich and colorful picture of America, with all its faults, from the Irish migration to the Deep South of the 1930s, covering a lot of history with an engrossing story. I highly recommend Mahoney if you want a great read. About the author (from Amazon): Andrew Joyce left home at seventeen to hitchhike throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico. He wouldn’t return from his journey until years later when he decided to become a writer. Joyce has written seven books. His first novel, Redemption: The Further Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, was awarded the Editors’ Choice Award for Best Western of 2013. A subsequent novel, Yellow Hair, received the Book of the Year award from Just Reviews and Best Historical Fiction of 2016 from Colleen’s Book Reviews. Joyce now lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts. You can find Andrew Joyce On twitter: @andrewjoyce76 On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrewjoyce76/ And at his site: https://andrewjoyce76.com/ Mahoney is available on Amazon: 0 0

Today we take note of the 75th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II.  This operation turned the tide of the war, leading to the eventual collapse of the Third Reich and the cessation of the evil, death and destruction it had wreaked on Europe. The amphibious landings were preceded by aerial and naval bombardment and an airborne assault, involving members of the 101st and 82nd Airborne. Many of you know that my son is currently serves proudly with the 82nd Airborne and had the honor of flying over Normandy and serving as a parachute Jump Master during last year’s celebrations, one the highlights of his service. They flew over the village of Ste Mere Eglise. On D-Day in June of 1944, among the 24,000 US, Canadian and British airborne troops sent to precede the amphibious landings, the 82nd Airborne Division, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was assigned to capture of Ste Mere Eglise. Early on the morning of June 6 (12:20-1:40 AM), pathfinders were dropped behind the enemy lines in order to prepare the drop zones. At 1:40 AM, the men of the 82nd Airborne were dropped off over the Merderet River and marsh. The poor weather conditions – low clouds and ground fog over the drop zones – altered the visibility of the marker flares installed by the pathfinders. Heavy German anti-aircraft fire added to the situation. As a result, the drops of both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were scattered over an area four times larger than the scheduled one. These men carried heavy packs, but no radios to communicate with each other. In addition, the aircraft carrying the paratroopers found themselves under severe anti-aircraft enemy fire as soon as they approached the coasts. The 505th was the only Regiment to be dropped almost accurately to the northwest of Ste Mere Eglise, while many other paratroopers from the 101st touched ground far west from their planned drop zone. At 1:00am, the constant enemy shelling triggered a fire in one of the houses situated by the town’s church, raising the alarm among the inhabitants and the Germans positioned in the village. The fire spread in the town and lit up the sky, allowing  the Germans to locate the paratroopers as they were coming down. Numbers of paratroopers were riddled with bullets before reaching the ground and others landed on trees or utility poles and were killed before they could even undo their parachutes. Still others fell into the fire. The town was eventually wrested from the Germans by paratroopers under the command of a Lieutenant-Colonel Krause around 4:30 AM. Sainte Mere Eglise became known to the world after the film The Longest Day because of the paratrooper John Steele of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Steele had landed on the church’s steeple and pretended to be dead to avoid being shot by the Germans. He stayed put, hanging in the air, for two long hours and watched helplessly as the Germans shot his comrades around him. The Germans eventually noticed him and took him prisoner, but he managed to escape and rejoin his division when it entered the village at 4.30am. The town has hung a dummy paratrooper and his parachute on the steeple of the church as a monument to the men who liberated them, along with two commemorative stained glass windows. The Allies landed more than 160,000 troops on the Normandy beaches, of which 73,000 were American and  83,115 British and Canadian forces, landing a total of two million men between June 6 and August 21. This was the largest amphibious assault in history, and the casualties were very high, especially on June 6. The men on the beach came under  heavy fire from gun emplacements overlooking the beaches, and the shore was mined and covered with obstacles such as wooden stakes, metal tripods, and barbed wire, making the work of the beach-clearing teams difficult and dangerous. Casualties were heaviest at Omaha beach, with its high cliffs. Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead. The Normandy American Cemetery is the resting place for 9,387 Americans, most of whom died during the landing operations and in the establishment of the beachhead. The names of 1,557 soldiers are inscribed on tablets in the cemetery’s Garden of the Missing. The remains of approximately 14,000 others originally buried in this region were returned home at the request of their next of kin.  A father and his son are buried here, side by side, and in 33 instances two brothers rest side by side.  The headstones are of white Italian marble — a Star of David for those of Jewish faith and a Latin Cross for all others.  It is a place of beauty, tranquility and awe. Today, I give thanks to all the men and women who gave a full measure of devotion in World War II to preserve our freedoms. The ‘greatest generation’ who fought this war is leaving us, and it is now our duty never to forget. 0 0

It has been a while since I posted, mainly because I am up to my eyeballs in reworking the first draft of my book, The Last Pilgrim. The rewrite of a historical novel has proved different and rather difficult and quite a learning experience.  First, I am looking up the etymology of many of the words I have used. Were they in common use in the 17th century? Scramble is a good example: From: https://www.etymonline.com/ – an invaluable source “1580s (intransitive), perhaps a nasalized variant of scrabble (v.), in its sense of “to struggle, to scrape quickly.” Transitive sense “to stir or toss together randomly” is from 1822. Broadcasting sense “to make unintelligible” is attested from 1927. Related: Scrambled; scrambling. Scrambled eggs first recorded 1843.” So I was okay using this word but not with the meaning I intended for that time. Second, checking and rechecking dates. I just discovered I had Isaac Allerton, Mary’s father, marrying two years later than I thought. I had to do some rearrangement within several chapters. I have gotten some birth/death dates wrong as well. Third, finding where I slipped into passive voice.  A biggie!  Fourth, changing scenes from indirect to direct to make the telling of the history more interesting and interjecting emotion. The Pilgrims were not unemotional automatons! ***** And so it goes. I’m trying to get back to book reviews I owe everyone, but it’s hard because my head is in the 16th century and there I use no contractions and the language is somewhat stiff. Hubs and I are returning to Plymouth in August to celebrate our anniversary, but actually for me to do more research and get further impressions. I discovered why the original grave marker for Thomas Cushman, Mary’s husband, is no longer on Burial Hill. They took the marker away – such a shame – and replaced it with the huge monument to the Cushmans, where Mary receives a small citation. Since she was buried next to her husband, her bones must lie under that monument, too. Please forgive my absence in reading your posts – I try to get to some each day. Whatever will I do when I am finished with this? I hope I have not lost all my blogging buddies along the way… 0 0

As predicted, all of our trees leafed this past weekend, releasing clouds of pollen. Our driveway is mustard colored, our cars are coated, and yesterday driving along the interstate, the air was yellow and you could see billows of the yellow stuff when trucks drove through it. Rather than taking such ugly pictures, I chose to take photos of some of our blooms. Tulips do not grow well in our soil, but I found one, sad lone tulip that braved the conditions to sprout in my garden. The azaleas are out and we have one kind that has large pale lilac-colored blossoms with the most amazing delicate spots! And then there is our Japanese cherry tree. Each year it sports delicate clusters of pink flowers, along with a slightly sour smell. This year is no exception. The temperatures here have gotten to the 70s, the pool hit 65 on Sunday – so naturally I went in – and now it’s a balmy 70 so I can swim! 0 0

My fellow blogger, Charles Yallowitz, has come up with another of his great (and occasionally funny) lists, this time about vampires – to which he is clearly addicted! – to promo his new book. Read on, my friends: A big thanks to Noelle for helping to promote my newest book, War of Nytefall: Rivalry. This is my third book that revolves around the Vampire Civil War of Windemere, which is the same magical world that was home to Legends of Windemere. Yeah, I guess that’s kind of obvious considering the title.  Now, I’ve been asked a few times, usually on days ending in ‘Y’, about why I decided to go for vampires.  They’ve been done a lot over the decades.  Well, my first response is because they were the next project in my mental queue and I’ve been dying to write stories with the Dawn Fangs as the focal points.  My second response comes after some thought because vampires seem to always have a toehold on popularity.  Even when they’ve been overdone, you still see people swarming to new versions.  So, what is it about these monsters that has kept them around for so long? They’re immortal. Seriously, they live forever, which is kind of an obsession with mankind.  Most of us are scared of death to some extent, so there we could look at these immortal monsters as a fictional vehicle to avoid this fear.  It could also go the other way where we see how lonely and sad vampires are, so we see that mortality might have some advantages. Due to vampires looking human, audiences can connect to them. People tend to relate to other people or humanized things in fiction. A movie that has a dog as a main character may give them a voice the audience can hear or show a wide range of emotions through physical gestures. This creates a bridge, which vampires always have because they usually look perfectly human.  Them being pale, having fangs, having powers, or acting strange doesn’t take away from their human look. Only thing that does that is the classic widow’s peak haircut. Vampires can be reimagined to various settings. While werewolves require a lunar cycle, vampires don’t have that level of limitation. Even that isn’t consistent since it was originally being weakened by the sun and other versions are fine during the day.  You can put vampires in fantasy, science fiction, drama, horror, westerns, and any other genre with some tweaks to the formula.  Yes, you will have people complaining that it isn’t ‘their vampires’.  Yet, there’s a long history of alterations that supports doing just about anything with them. Characters can have sex with vampires and not be considered a necrophiliac. I don’t know if this is a reason for them still being popular.  It’s just something that I can’t wrap my head around when I think about it. The power! The sheer, brutal, savage power!  Audiences just love vampires for their strength and abilities.  Some want to possess it because the idea of turning into a bat or bending metal bars is fun.  Others love to see weak mortals overcome something so terrifyingly strong.  You can even have hierarchies of power within vampire societies, so you can get an underdog from their own ranks.  It also demonstrates that a weaker being can become stronger over time, which can be fairly inspiring. Vampires are as versatile as mortals when it comes to character roles. They can be the monster hunting down the heroes or the cunning villain planning world domination.  They can be the noble hero who is fighting against his darker nature or the brutal anti-hero that seeks his own type of justice.  Romantic partners, jealous stalkers, loyal allies, devious traitors, and the list keeps on going.  This ties back into them looking and acting human.  It means they can hold the same roles as humans as long as they are established within a world that allows for their existence. Because they’re fun and, most times, are treated with respect. It isn’t easy reinventing the wheel that is vampire stories.  Every creator has to put their own twist on the mythos in order to avoid being called a copycat.  This can be the vampires themselves, the world they’re in, or the society they’ve made.  The previously mentioned versatility of vampires makes this both easy and difficult.  You can really do anything with them, but you also need to work hard to make it fit.  Don’t just say something is a vampire because it has fangs and that’s it.  You need to have the creatures earn the title right from the beginning, which requires respect.  Doing this successfully for any level of audience helps the popularity of vampires continue. Seriously, that necrophilia thing is creepy. Hope you enjoyed my off the cuff list.  The topic was actually a lot harder than I imagined it would be.  Check out my own take on vampires in War of Nytefall: Rivalry.  Thanks for reading and see you in the comments. About the Author: Charles E. Yallowitz was born, raised, and educated in New York. Then he spent a few years in Florida, realized his fear of alligators, and moved back to the Empire State. When he isn’t working hard on his epic fantasy stories, Charles can be found cooking or going on whatever adventure his son has planned for the day. Truthfully, his tales of adventure are much more interesting than his real life, so skip the bio and dive into the action You can find Charles at: Blog: www.legendsofwindemere.com Twitter: @cyallowitz Website: www.charleseyallowitz.com Good luck, Charles, with the new book! Bring on the reviews, folks! 0 0

One rural village; so many secrets… Blenthorne nestles in a quiet corner of Cumbria and is home to local entrepreneur, Lizzie Lockwood. Lizzie has returned to the home she loves after an unpleasant hiatus.  She is determined to put the past behind her as she concentrates on her thriving business interests and a fledgling relationship. Her happy bubble is soon burst by the arrival of tainted newcomer, Helen Anderson who is intent on inveigling herself into Lizzie’s life.  Hot on her heels is investigative journalist, Percival Lynton Whitaker.  As he garners gossip for his impending ‘Reasonable Doubt?’ exposé on Helen, a chance encounter takes him back to a macabre event from yesteryear. Has he inadvertently stumbled across someone who was implicated in a notorious unsolved multiple murder? Lizzie is far from pleased that the journalist’s focus appears to have shifted.  As events play out, she starts to wonder how well she knows her community.  Maybe Helen is the least of her worries?  Is it possible that among her friends or neighbors lurks a murderer?  For all its tranquil appearance, is Blenthorne harboring a child-killer? About the author: Julie Haiseldelen’s debut novel, Long Shadows, was published in 2015. Reasonable Doubt? is her  second offering, a Victorian thriller, and Evil Echoes her third, a contemporary sequel to Long Shadows, will be published soon. Although all three books are stand alone, so you won’t miss anything by picking up one of them. In her past life, the author tread the boards and shouted the odd stage direction.  Currently, she works as a church verger and when not writing, reviewing or blogging, gives talks to local groups and is a volunteer room guide for the National Trust.  This energetic author is blessed with a marvellous home life as a wife, mother and grandmother. You can find Julie Haiselden at: Her website – https://jhbooksblog.wordpress.com/ On twitter – https://twitter.com/juliehaiselden On Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/juliehaiseldenbooks And on Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13607989.Julie_Haiselden Amazon Link to her book: Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reasonable-Doubt-Julie-Haiselden-ebook/dp/B07PNJMXZX/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8​ There’s no reasonable doubt! Give this mystery author a read and review! All we authors are indebted for your interest! 0 0

First I want to offer a heartfelt thanks each and every one of you who chose to follow my blog in the past several months. I wish I had time to recognize you individually, but time does not permit – especially now that I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with regard to the first draft of the book I am currently writing. Many of you know this is a historical novel (Hubs likes to call the hysterical novel, due to my sometimes frantic research) about the longest-living passenger of the Mayflower, Mary Allerton Cushman. I’m fully immersed in the life of the time and could never have foreseen how much research the book would require. Every day I am off chasing threads and trying to verify events and people’s vital statistics. It’s been Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Mary Cushman lived to be 83 years old and died in 1699, remarkable for a woman of that era but not for those Separatists who survived the first winter. Many of these Old Comers, as they were called, lived unusually long lives for the time. Governor William Bradford noted this in his book Of Plymouth Plantation and commented that perhaps it was their healthy, active life with good food (after the first years) that gave them long life. I thought I might provide you with a little clip from Chapter 16, so you could see how the story is coming.  Remember this snippet is but a rough draft. Background: The year is 1624, so the colony has been in existence for roughly four years. Mary is eight years old and has been living with her older brother, sister, and her widowed father in a one room, rough house on Plymouth’s main street, across the road from William Bradford and his second wife Alice. She has been without a mother since the age of four, and her father decided to ask the Bradfords if they would accept her into their household (something that was often done with young boys) to bring her up in a respectful and godly manner. In this chapter, her father has just left her with Alice Bradford. ***** I remember the look on Mistress Bradford’s face as I wiped my mouth on my sleeve after finishing the goat’s milk. I couldn’t decide if it was one of humor or horror. “Well, well,” she said. “I can see we first need to teach you manners. Do you see the cloth on the table in front of you?” “Yes, mistress.” “It’s called a napkin and you are to put it over your left shoulder and use it to wipe your hands and your mouth whilst you are eating and when you have finished.” To emphasize that, she got up, place the napkin on my shoulder, then had me remove it and wipe my mouth. “There, a first lesson.” She sat down again. “Come here, girl, and let me look more closely at you.” I did as she asked, standing nervously in front of her, shifting from one foot to the other. She gave a soft cluck. “Tsk, tsk. Your clothes need some work.” I was immediately conscious of my dress. It was an old one of Remember’s, in a coarse brown wool and oft mended. It was too short, because I can recall seeing my brown feet clearly sticking out from under it. My bidden was already hanging down my back, and my hair, which was in tangled curls, hung free. Goodwife Bradford shook her head. “Let me see your hands.” I stuck out my hands and for the first time noticed how dirty they had become, with soot under the nails, and long scratches from the chickens. Mistress Bradford rose and taking me by the hand, led me outside to a water bucket, which had a washing cloth hanging on it. There she proceeded to do a more thorough washing of me than had Remember, who had just wiped off my face. While she did that, I took notice of her for the first time. Although I was to know her for a long time, my first impression of the governor’s wife was one of substance. She had a pleasant, round face with dark hair tucked neatly under her linen coif. Her dark eyes regarded everything around her seriously, but she smiled as she cleaned me, even to my feet. She was dressed better than most of the women in the village – in a fairly clean linen smock, which showed beneath her waistcoat of blue wool, and a skirt of brown, with a soiled linen apron that hung to the bottom of her skirt. A linen collar was around her neck. There were none of the mending marks most of our clothing bore, nor the wear at the cuffs and hem. “There,” she said when she finished. “We need to do something with your hair and you are more than ready for a proper coif.” She led me back inside and to the corner of the room where there was a bed, two chests, a bedside chair and some candlesticks that shone with polish. I thought at the time the Bradfords must be rich. Mistress Bradford had a brush and sitting the chair, placed me in front of her facing away and tackled my tangles with energy. It proved to be a laborious task and eventually she took scissors to some of the most formidable mats. Then she used a fine comb to comb the lice from my hair. “Finally. You look quite presentable, Mary.” I felt my head and indeed my hair felt smooth and tangle free. I hoped the constant itching from the lice would go away. “Now let’s see if we can find you some proper clothes. I have but two sons, so I will see if something of mine can be reduced to fit, or we can make new.” Lifting the lid on one chest, she pulled out clothes and

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One of the members of my Early Birds critique group (we got our name because we used to meet very early in the morning, but now meet at a more civilized hour of 9:30) wrote a story about her adventures working in the soda fountain of one of the two pharmacies in Cary, NC, when she was a teenager. The owner of the pharmacy, Ashworth’s, is still alive and running the store and never fired any of his teenage hires, even though, as Elizabeth tells it, he had plenty of reason to do so. She also told us the pharmacy hasn’t changed much at all over the years, especially the soda fountain. We were so taken with the story that we decided to have our next meeting there, which we did last week. We occupied a booth for two hours, with coffee flowing, then had lunch – I had a 9″ beef hotdog with all the timmings for $1.95 (!) and it was delicious. Coupled it with an orangeade made with fresh orange juice. Others had milkshakes (milk and real ice cream) and BLT, egg salad and chicke salad sandwiches – I don’t think any of us spent more than $5 for our lunches. Great food. Elizabeth says the soda fountain hasn’t changed from the 1970’s, so here’s a couple of pictures.Don’t you just love the green vinyl seats? After it’s published, I hope to put part of Elizabeth’s story up, with her permission.       0 0