Showing posts with label Anne Stenhouse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anne Stenhouse. Show all posts
Thursday, February 20, 2014
First Chapter Review: Bella's Betrothal by Anne Stenhouse
I won a free digital copy of this historical romance during the Christmas in October event at Penny's Tales.
BLURB: While she is travelling north to find sanctuary from the malicious gossip of the Ton, Lady Isabella Wormsley’s room in a Dalkeith inn is invaded by handsome Scottish Laird, Charles Lindsay. Charles has uncovered a plot to kidnap her, but Bella wonders if he isn’t a more dangerous threat, at least to her heart, than the villainous Graham Direlton he wrests her from.
Bella settles into the household of her Aunt Hatty Menzies in Edinburgh’s nineteenth century George Square where Charles is a regular visitor. She has been exiled to the north by her unfeeling mama, but feels more betrayed by her papa to whom she has been close. Bella hopes the delivery of her young cousin’s baby will eventually demonstrate her own innocence in the scandal that drove her from home.
Bella’s presence disrupts the lives of everyone connected to her. Direlton makes another attempt to kidnap her and in rescuing her a second time, Charles is compromised. Only a betrothal will save his business and Bella’s reputation.
Mayhem, murder and long suppressed family secrets raise confusion and seemingly endless difficulties. Will the growing but unacknowledged love between Bella and her Scottish architect survive the evil Direlton engineers?
COVER: MuseItUp Publishing has many lovely covers. This is just one of them. Bella with what one can assume is Charles in the background, an estate far behind them, makes for a stunning historical cover.
FIRST CHAPTER: Bella is startled late at night while in her room at the inn by the handsome Charles. He warns her of a plot by Graham Direlton to kidnap her while she is on the way to her aunt and uncle's home. Bella isn't certain she should believe a man who would enter a woman's room without permission, but she can't disregard his handsome features.
KEEP READING: While I'm not always into damsel in distress kinds of stories, this one captured my attention right away. There is an air of mystery surrounding what happened to put Bella on the road to her relatives' home, some gossip that may or may not be true. One has to wonder, also, why Charles is willing to go to such lengths to protect Bella. Stenhouse creates a strong first chapter that entices the reader to continue. I know I want to see how this turns out.
File Size: 2663 KB
Print Length: 300 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing (September 25, 2013)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00FGEC5N0
This review contains my honest opinions, which I have not been compensated for in any way.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Final Christmas in October Winnings!
This brings us to the end of my Christmas in October winnings. As you can see, I really don't need to request new books to review right now or participate in book tours to gain new reading material. There is plenty around here to keep me busy. Thanks to Penny's Tales and all the authors who contributed to this giveaway. Wishing everyone a blessed holiday season.
Willie has met an old flame, but is he willing to give up the decadence of Boston society for the man he loves?
For the past three years William Wilkerson has led the life of the privileged rich. Head of his father’s shipping business, Willie indulges in the pleasures of Boston’s fine young men to his heart’s content. That is, until he meets Fredrick, the one man who has captured his heart, again.
As his former tutor, Fredrick has been declared off limits by William’s father. Fredrick also believes he's beneath the attention of Wilkerson’s heir. Willie disagrees, but is he willing to throw away rank and privilege for the man he loves?
When Selena Dillon is caught in an assassination attempt on her planet’s ruler, she finds herself sentenced to twenty-five years servitude in the most feared military force, the Penal Regiments. Much to her surprise she enjoys the harsh military life and is quickly selected for officer training.
But something’s wrong, worlds are falling silent. There’s no cry for help and no warning, just a sudden eerie silence. When a flotilla of ships is despatched to investigate they exit hyperspace to find themselves facing a massive alien armada. Outnumbered and outgunned the flotilla fight a rearguard action, allowing one of their number to slip away and warn mankind.
As worlds fall in battle, and mankind’s fleets are decimated, Selena is selected to lead a team of the Penal Regiment’s most battle-hardened veterans, in a last ditch attempt to destroy the aliens’ home world. If she fails mankind is doomed. Little does Selena know that one of her crew is a psychopathic killer and another is the husband of his victim.
Can she hold her team together, get them to their target and succeed in the attack? Selena knows that if she fails then there will be nothing at all left to go home to.
When two dismembered and unidentifiable torsos wash up on a local riverbank, beautiful 29-year-old registered nurse Jackie Reeves, believes the killer is a man from her past with a history of mental problems. She contacts the dangerously handsome 34-year-old FBI Special Agent Walker Harmon, who arrives in the sleepy town of Pleasant Valley, and met with a reception of lies and threats from local police and citizens. Under constant pressure from both the media and public, along with taunting messages aimed at Agent Harmon and Jackie from person's unknown, the agent races against time to catch the killer before he strikes again, and before an innocent man is convicted. With a suspect list involving the victims' parents, ex-lovers, Satanists, a contaminated crime scene, corrupt police, and the motorcycle gang the Devil's Disciples, circumstances turn the hunt personal, as the hunters become the prey.
While she is travelling north to find sanctuary from the malicious gossip of the Ton, Lady Isabella Wormsley’s room in a Dalkeith inn is invaded by handsome Scottish Laird, Charles Lindsay. Charles has uncovered a plot to kidnap her, but Bella wonders if he isn’t a more dangerous threat, at least to her heart, than the villainous Graham Direlton he wrests her from.
Bella settles into the household of her Aunt Hatty Menzies in Edinburgh’s nineteenth century George Square where Charles is a regular visitor. She has been exiled to the north by her unfeeling mama, but feels more betrayed by her papa to whom she has been close. Bella hopes the delivery of her young cousin’s baby will eventually demonstrate her own innocence in the scandal that drove her from home.
Bella’s presence disrupts the lives of everyone connected to her. Direlton makes another attempt to kidnap her and in rescuing her a second time, Charles is compromised. Only a betrothal will save his business and Bella’s reputation.
Mayhem, murder and long suppressed family secrets raise confusion and seemingly endless difficulties. Will the growing but unacknowledged love between Bella and her Scottish architect survive the evil Direlton engineers?
Leaving the chapel in London’s 19th century Thames’ side where she teaches the alphabet to a raggle-taggle of urchins, Mariah Fox is charged by a stray pig. The quick intervention of Tobias Longreach saves her from certain injury. Mariah has always believed her destiny to be teaching. After the early death of her mother, she was brought up by her papa, Jerome, to believe that she could learn anything a boy could. She shares his vision of a future in which everyone, rich or poor, boy or girl, will be taught at least the rudiments of reading, writing, and counting.
Tobias was brought up a second son, but following his elder brother’s premature death, inherits an Earldom and the need to provide it with an heir. He comes to believe that Mariah will make a perfect countess and enrolls her papa’s help in securing her hand.
However, Sir Lucas Wellwood, whose debts have made him urge his sister to attempt to trap Tobias into marriage, has sinister intentions. Mariah suspects Wellwood has been mistreating his sister and she heads off impetuously to rescue her. Will Tobias and his friends reach Wellwood’s home before he can exact revenge on Mariah?
Julie Bond grew up in Europe as a military brat. She found her very first permanent home in Landry, GA as a teen going into high school. Almost four years later, she's having pre-graduation jitters and flashing back to an incident of school violence she experienced in Europe. She attempts to convince herself that it can never happen again, but continually finds herself flashing back to that day no matter how hard she tries.
The people around her present any number of problems for Julie, and she's hard put to keep from drowning under all the issues. Then Michael, a cool guy she's crushed on for three years, returns, and Julie now has one more thing to distract her as she prepares to leave high school. One thing she firmly believes in … no one will ever invade her classroom with violence again.
Once again, the impossible happens … once again, she's in a classroom with a madman holding a gun … once again, she must survive.
Italian-born Mina Calvi lives in a mansion in idyllic Orange County, California with her protective older sister, Paola. Unemployed again and aimless, Mina can’t seem to find her niche in her adopted country, but confusion and restlessness soon become the least of her problems. Someone is stealing from the software business owned by Paola and her husband, losses so great the business is sinking like the Titanic. And the strange death of a company employee turns out to be murder. Then, while, facing a loss so terrible she can’t bear it, Mina discovers an old family secret that turns her world upside down. There’s some solace in the arms of her blue-eyed lover, amateur sleuth Brian Starr, but danger still stalks her at every turn, edging closer and closer as Mina tries to untangle the web of lies, adultery and treachery, and put her life back together.
A short story about a girl who goes missing on Halloween and the unfortunate police officer who finds her.
Dylan Jones, seventh grader at Langdon Middle School lives the good life. His family has money. He gets most everything he wants. Even so, everybody likes Dylan ’cause he is a happy go lucky kid.
Miss Wickware, his seventh grade history teacher, tells the class they will be studying the United States in the late 1800 for the next few weeks. Everybody will be expected to present an oral report on a subject that is drawn from a box. Dylan draws The Orphan Train.
A penniless Dylan finds himself at the train station in New York in 1875 and he is as scared and unsure as the children getting ready to ride the Orphan Train. How will Dylan make it when money is nowhere to be found?
Willie has met an old flame, but is he willing to give up the decadence of Boston society for the man he loves?
For the past three years William Wilkerson has led the life of the privileged rich. Head of his father’s shipping business, Willie indulges in the pleasures of Boston’s fine young men to his heart’s content. That is, until he meets Fredrick, the one man who has captured his heart, again.
As his former tutor, Fredrick has been declared off limits by William’s father. Fredrick also believes he's beneath the attention of Wilkerson’s heir. Willie disagrees, but is he willing to throw away rank and privilege for the man he loves?
When Selena Dillon is caught in an assassination attempt on her planet’s ruler, she finds herself sentenced to twenty-five years servitude in the most feared military force, the Penal Regiments. Much to her surprise she enjoys the harsh military life and is quickly selected for officer training.
But something’s wrong, worlds are falling silent. There’s no cry for help and no warning, just a sudden eerie silence. When a flotilla of ships is despatched to investigate they exit hyperspace to find themselves facing a massive alien armada. Outnumbered and outgunned the flotilla fight a rearguard action, allowing one of their number to slip away and warn mankind.
As worlds fall in battle, and mankind’s fleets are decimated, Selena is selected to lead a team of the Penal Regiment’s most battle-hardened veterans, in a last ditch attempt to destroy the aliens’ home world. If she fails mankind is doomed. Little does Selena know that one of her crew is a psychopathic killer and another is the husband of his victim.
Can she hold her team together, get them to their target and succeed in the attack? Selena knows that if she fails then there will be nothing at all left to go home to.
When two dismembered and unidentifiable torsos wash up on a local riverbank, beautiful 29-year-old registered nurse Jackie Reeves, believes the killer is a man from her past with a history of mental problems. She contacts the dangerously handsome 34-year-old FBI Special Agent Walker Harmon, who arrives in the sleepy town of Pleasant Valley, and met with a reception of lies and threats from local police and citizens. Under constant pressure from both the media and public, along with taunting messages aimed at Agent Harmon and Jackie from person's unknown, the agent races against time to catch the killer before he strikes again, and before an innocent man is convicted. With a suspect list involving the victims' parents, ex-lovers, Satanists, a contaminated crime scene, corrupt police, and the motorcycle gang the Devil's Disciples, circumstances turn the hunt personal, as the hunters become the prey.
While she is travelling north to find sanctuary from the malicious gossip of the Ton, Lady Isabella Wormsley’s room in a Dalkeith inn is invaded by handsome Scottish Laird, Charles Lindsay. Charles has uncovered a plot to kidnap her, but Bella wonders if he isn’t a more dangerous threat, at least to her heart, than the villainous Graham Direlton he wrests her from.
Bella settles into the household of her Aunt Hatty Menzies in Edinburgh’s nineteenth century George Square where Charles is a regular visitor. She has been exiled to the north by her unfeeling mama, but feels more betrayed by her papa to whom she has been close. Bella hopes the delivery of her young cousin’s baby will eventually demonstrate her own innocence in the scandal that drove her from home.
Bella’s presence disrupts the lives of everyone connected to her. Direlton makes another attempt to kidnap her and in rescuing her a second time, Charles is compromised. Only a betrothal will save his business and Bella’s reputation.
Mayhem, murder and long suppressed family secrets raise confusion and seemingly endless difficulties. Will the growing but unacknowledged love between Bella and her Scottish architect survive the evil Direlton engineers?
Leaving the chapel in London’s 19th century Thames’ side where she teaches the alphabet to a raggle-taggle of urchins, Mariah Fox is charged by a stray pig. The quick intervention of Tobias Longreach saves her from certain injury. Mariah has always believed her destiny to be teaching. After the early death of her mother, she was brought up by her papa, Jerome, to believe that she could learn anything a boy could. She shares his vision of a future in which everyone, rich or poor, boy or girl, will be taught at least the rudiments of reading, writing, and counting.
Tobias was brought up a second son, but following his elder brother’s premature death, inherits an Earldom and the need to provide it with an heir. He comes to believe that Mariah will make a perfect countess and enrolls her papa’s help in securing her hand.
However, Sir Lucas Wellwood, whose debts have made him urge his sister to attempt to trap Tobias into marriage, has sinister intentions. Mariah suspects Wellwood has been mistreating his sister and she heads off impetuously to rescue her. Will Tobias and his friends reach Wellwood’s home before he can exact revenge on Mariah?
Julie Bond grew up in Europe as a military brat. She found her very first permanent home in Landry, GA as a teen going into high school. Almost four years later, she's having pre-graduation jitters and flashing back to an incident of school violence she experienced in Europe. She attempts to convince herself that it can never happen again, but continually finds herself flashing back to that day no matter how hard she tries.
The people around her present any number of problems for Julie, and she's hard put to keep from drowning under all the issues. Then Michael, a cool guy she's crushed on for three years, returns, and Julie now has one more thing to distract her as she prepares to leave high school. One thing she firmly believes in … no one will ever invade her classroom with violence again.
Once again, the impossible happens … once again, she's in a classroom with a madman holding a gun … once again, she must survive.
Italian-born Mina Calvi lives in a mansion in idyllic Orange County, California with her protective older sister, Paola. Unemployed again and aimless, Mina can’t seem to find her niche in her adopted country, but confusion and restlessness soon become the least of her problems. Someone is stealing from the software business owned by Paola and her husband, losses so great the business is sinking like the Titanic. And the strange death of a company employee turns out to be murder. Then, while, facing a loss so terrible she can’t bear it, Mina discovers an old family secret that turns her world upside down. There’s some solace in the arms of her blue-eyed lover, amateur sleuth Brian Starr, but danger still stalks her at every turn, edging closer and closer as Mina tries to untangle the web of lies, adultery and treachery, and put her life back together.
A short story about a girl who goes missing on Halloween and the unfortunate police officer who finds her.
Dylan Jones, seventh grader at Langdon Middle School lives the good life. His family has money. He gets most everything he wants. Even so, everybody likes Dylan ’cause he is a happy go lucky kid.
Miss Wickware, his seventh grade history teacher, tells the class they will be studying the United States in the late 1800 for the next few weeks. Everybody will be expected to present an oral report on a subject that is drawn from a box. Dylan draws The Orphan Train.
A penniless Dylan finds himself at the train station in New York in 1875 and he is as scared and unsure as the children getting ready to ride the Orphan Train. How will Dylan make it when money is nowhere to be found?
Friday, May 31, 2013
Interview with Anne Stenhouse, Author of Mariah's Marriage
ANNE STENHOUSE has always loved words. Reading them and using them greedily, she can’t truly remember a time when she couldn’t escape into the pages of a book and certainly can’t remember when she couldn’t talk and ask questions. Anne is a published and performed playwright. She studied both English and History at University in Edinburgh, and finds it a great joy to combine these two disciplines in her first novel, Mariah’s Marriage. Being a playwright means Anne loves dialogue and knows a piece is going well when she ‘begins to hear the characters talking to each other’. She has been a civil servant, full-time Mum and, for a while, a worker in an Addictions’ rehabilitation unit. Anne lives in Scotland with her husband and dancing partner of over thirty years. Their children and a grandchild are close by.
www.annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/annestenhouseAuthor
Where did you grow up?
In Scotland. I grew up in an industrial village in the Shale Oil field.
When did you begin writing?
I wrote ‘letters’ to my granny from a very young age, before I went to school. Later I discovered my Dad would take the scribbles in their envelopes and dispose of them. Explains why I never got any replies. My first play, a re-working of Goldilocks and the Three Bears called "The Magic Dumpling," was performed by my school class for the whole school when I was eight.
What is this book about?
Mariah’s Marriage is about the suffering a woman experiences when her aspirations for a career clash with the knowledge she’s as vulnerable to a handsome man as any other.
What inspired you to write it?
I’ve always been interested in the mind-set that will not challenge accepted practice. Why should a woman be excluded simply because she’s female? Likewise, why should education be withheld from anyone because their parents aren’t wealthy?
If you knew then, what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?
I would have joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme earlier. They ask you to write a book every year and it is critiqued by a published writer. So valuable.
Where can readers purchase a copy of your book?
MuseitUp Publishing: https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=585&category_id=69&manufacturer_id=278&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1
Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mariahs-Marriage-ebook/dp/B00CMAEKPM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368539581&sr=1-1
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/mariah-s-marriage?keyword=mariah%27s+marriage&store=ebook
What is one piece of advice you would like to share with aspiring authors everywhere?
Write the story, re-write the story. Edit the writing, edit it again, edit it some more. Ask a writer friend to read it and give an honest opinion and mark ms typos they’ve noticed. Research the market. Submit. Start the next novel/story/play.
What is up next for you?
I’m structuring a novel or novella using two of the subordinate characters from Mariah’s Marriage. Their story is begging to be told.
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