Release Day for A HOSTAGE TO HERITAGE, Book Tour Stop 1

A Hostage to Heritage book cover

It’s Release Day for A Hostage to Heritage! Huzzah! The book is available as a paperback and in multiple ebook formats (Kindle, Nook, iTunes, Kobo).

A boy kidnapped for ransom. And a madman who didn’t bargain on Michael Stoddard’s tenacity.

Spring 1781. The American Revolution enters its seventh grueling year. In Wilmington, North Carolina, redcoat investigator Lieutenant Michael Stoddard expects to round up two miscreants before Lord Cornwallis’s army arrives for supplies. But his quarries’ trail crosses with that of a criminal who has abducted a high-profile English heir. Michael’s efforts to track down the boy plunge him into a twilight of terror from radical insurrectionists, whiskey smugglers, and snarled secrets out of his own past in Yorkshire.

Today is also Stop 1 of the A Hostage to Heritage blog tour. I’m a guest on Jean Henry Mead’s Mysterious Writers blog, talking about the creative process and where all those redcoats come from. Please stop by and say hello.

Remember these Goodreads giveaways this week:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Hostage To Heritage by Suzanne Adair

A Hostage To Heritage

by Suzanne Adair

Giveaway ended April 26, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Regulated for Murder by Suzanne Adair

Regulated for Murder

by Suzanne Adair

Giveaway ended April 26, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

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A HOSTAGE TO HERITAGE: the Blog Tour

A Hostage to Heritage book cover

Huzzah! Michael Stoddard rides again! Here’s the schedule of my blog tour stops for the upcoming release of A Hostage to Heritage. At each stop, you’ll find an essay or interview from me. The buzz is all about history, mystery, and writing.

Stop by, comment, and join the fun. Want to win a copy of A Hostage to Heritage? Among the blog stops are several book giveaways.

A huge thanks to all my blog hosts for their generosity!

Blog Tour Schedule

22 April 2013
Mysterious Writers

23 April 2013
Beth Groundwater

24 April 2013
The Ladykillers

25 April 2013
Mysteristas

26 April 2013
Jenny Milchman
Writers Who Kill

28 April 2013
Jungle Red Writers

29 April 2013
Suite T

1 May 2013
Getting Medieval

2 May 2013
The River Time

3 May 2013
Crime Fiction Collective

4 May 2013
Poe’s Deadly Daughters

6 May 2013
Historical Fiction eBooks

7 May 2013
That Thing I Said

Remember these Goodreads giveaways this week:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

A Hostage To Heritage by Suzanne Adair

A Hostage To Heritage

by Suzanne Adair

Giveaway ended April 26, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Regulated for Murder by Suzanne Adair

Regulated for Murder

by Suzanne Adair

Giveaway ended April 26, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

**********

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Read the First Chapter of A Hostage to Heritage, and Win!

A Hostage to Heritage, second title in the Michael Stoddard American Revolution Thriller series, will be released ~17 April 2013. Want a sneak peek at Chapter One now? Click on this link:
Download A Hostage to Heritage Chapter One.

In the March 2013 issue of Suzanne Adair News, look for ways to win a copy of A Hostage to Heritage. (Hint: Chapter One will help.) Check your Inbox today for the latest Suzanne Adair News. Also check your Spam folder, as the newsletter sometimes gets diverted there.

Not yet a subscriber of my free quarterly newsletter? Sign up using the simple form in the right sidebar of my blog or at the bottom of this post. You’ll receive opportunities for freebies, discounts, and special offers.

Thanks to all my loyal book and blog readers!

A Hostage to Heritage book cover

A boy kidnapped for ransom. And a madman who didn’t bargain on Michael Stoddard’s tenacity.

Spring 1781. The American Revolution enters its seventh grueling year. In Wilmington, North Carolina, redcoat investigator Lieutenant Michael Stoddard expects to round up two miscreants before Lord Cornwallis’s army arrives for supplies. But his quarries’ trail crosses with that of a criminal who has abducted a high-profile English heir. Michael’s efforts to track down the boy plunge him into a twilight of terror from radical insurrectionists, whiskey smugglers, and snarled secrets out of his own past in Yorkshire.

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Advance Promotion from AOBibliosphere for A Hostage to Heritage

A Hostage to Heritage book cover

Advance promotion for A Hostage to Heritage. What a nice gesture on the part of this book reviewer. Thanks!

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Cover Reveal for A Hostage to Heritage

A Hostage to Heritage, second title in the Michael Stoddard American Revolution Thrillers series, is scheduled for a 17 April 2013 release. Here are the cover image and book jacket description:

A Hostage to Heritage book cover

A boy kidnapped for ransom. And a madman who didn’t bargain on Michael Stoddard’s tenacity.

Spring 1781. The American Revolution enters its seventh grueling year. In Wilmington, North Carolina, redcoat investigator Lieutenant Michael Stoddard expects to round up two miscreants before Lord Cornwallis’s army arrives for supplies. But his quarries’ trail crosses with that of a criminal who has abducted a high-profile English heir. Michael’s efforts to track down the boy plunge him into a twilight of terror from radical insurrectionists, whiskey smugglers, and snarled secrets out of his own past in Yorkshire.

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Interview on Mysteristas Blog

I’m sending out Michael Stoddard #2,A Hostage to Heritage, to beta reviewers this weekend and continuing to schedule promotion for the book’s release at the end of April. Meanwhile, I’m talking
Michael Stoddard, masseurs, and dark chocolate in an interview on the Mysteristas blog. Stop by and check it out!

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Judging a Book by its Cover

Early books
The earliest books with some form of paper for pages most often had no cover images. If you were fortunate enough to own books, the front cover was usually dark leather. In the twentieth century, paper jackets became common over the covers of books. Soon, publishers discovered that they could include an image on the jacket to make it more interesting. These images were printed on the front covers of paperback versions, too. Sometimes the images gave an accurate representation of the book’s content. Often they did not.

Advantages of physical books
In the good old days of publishing, when books were made of paper, authors groused over bad cover images for their books. However, prospective readers might overlook a poor book cover because there was a tactile connection. Consumers could hold a book and thumb through the pages, reading at leisure, perhaps even enjoying that “new book” smell.

Challenges of ebooks
No tactile (or olfactory) connection exists for consumers who purchase electronic books. Thus an ebook’s cover image pulls a great deal more weight in the consumer’s decision-making process. It must capture the attention of the ebook’s target audience; accurately convey the ebook’s concept, tone, and setting; and lure the audience inside. Yet many writers who self-publish, and even a few publishers, either fail to understand these crucial functions of the cover image or ignore them in favor of just getting the ebook out there with some cover image.

Finding cover art that reaches the right readers
For my “Mysteries of the American Revolution” trilogy, my original publisher used artwork from the public domain as the basis for each cover image. When the press ceased operation, and my rights reverted to me, one of my first tasks was to seek out cover artists to create new covers. I’d been listening to what my readers liked about my books, and why. I knew those first covers weren’t appropriate for the books.

Here’s a before-and-after comparison of the cover art for each book in the trilogy.

Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution

Paper Woman book cover comparison

The Blacksmith’s Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution

The Blacksmith's Daughter book cover comparison

Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution

Camp Follower book cover comparison

The Mysteries of the American Revolution Trilogy

Book covers for the Mysteries of the American Revolution Trilogy

Good cover art becomes even more important if an ebook series is involved. When executed correctly for each title of the series, the cover images create a unified appearance that identifies the ebooks and author for the target audience. The images also promise the reading experience that will be found in the series. It’s a covenant of satisfaction and security for readers, the knowledge that if they enjoyed book 1, they can find more of the same in other books of the series. If you love your readers, you’ll give them all that.

How important is a book’s front cover image in influencing your decision to buy the book?

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Reenacting and Gratitude

Many years ago, encumbered by the point of view of someone dwelling in the twentieth century, I joined a group that depicted a unit of the Thirty-Third Light Company of Foot during living history events in the American South. My desire was to immerse myself in the activities and sensory impressions an eighteenth-century woman living during the Southern theater of the American Revolution would have experienced, so I could more accurately depict the world of Sophie Barton, protagonist in my first book, Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution.

33rd Light Company of Foot reenactors

Reenacting is an enlightening research tool. It helps me create the world of the Southern theater in my fiction. Reenacting is the ultimate hands-on history. By immersing myself in the military world of the late eighteenth century for entire weekends at a time, I cannot escape brushes with some of the hardships that plagued our ancestors. Sudden downpours and windstorms with no shelter. Sudden freezing rain, even with shelter. Heat indices of 120 degrees. Mosquito swarms without screens. No plumbing. No refrigeration. No electricity. No phone service. You get the idea.

Cooking at a Revolutionary War reenactment

My first reenacting event, I didn’t know to expect primitive conditions. After more events, I settled in with the understanding that at the end of the weekend, I’d be reunited with the technological comforts of my time. That’s when I comprehended how tough, persevering, and remarkable my ancestors must have been—and how fortunate I was to live in a country where I had access to wonders such as running water, electricity, refrigeration, and plumbing.

In the United States, we take our twenty-first century standard of living for granted. We forget that comforts such as running water are truly wonders, luxuries to many people in the world, people who start each day by walking several miles, burdened by buckets or jugs, to the nearest source of water (likely not clean). Survival is foremost in the minds of these people when they awaken each day, just as it was for people—patriot, loyalist, and neutral—during the American Revolution.

Thanksgiving turkey

Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers and friends. When you gather with family and friends to celebrate this holiday, consider the hardships endured by courageous people who lived more than two centuries ago during the time of the American Revolution. Today, people throughout the world endure those same hardships. Remember those people in your thoughts and hearts for a moment. And don’t take for granted your luxuries or your liberty.

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Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November

Remember, remember, the fifth of November.
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes

Today is Guy Fawkes Day, a tradition marked with parties, bonfires, and fireworks for hundreds of years in Britain, a celebration to mark King James’s survival of an assassination attempt. Guy Fawkes was a member of a group of revolutionaries who plotted to blow up the House of Lords. The “Gunpowder Conspiracy” was uncovered on 5 November 1605, and many members of the group were captured. A confession was tortured out of Fawkes. After he’d staggered to the top of the tall scaffold where he was to be hanged (step 1 in the “hang, draw, quarter” sequence), he threw himself off it and broke his neck.

Guy Fawkes Day was celebrated in America early during the colonial period. The fête had fallen out of fashion by the time of the American Revolution, another tie to cut while severing bonds with Britain. (In my third book, Camp Follower, the loyalist main character, Helen, laments to her friend, “I’ve noticed they don’t much celebrate the old ways here. It’s even difficult to find a decent bonfire for Guy Fawkes.”) Thus my first exposure to Guy Fawkes Day came in 1982, when I was living in Britain. The enthusiastic responses of Brits to the festival, like their responses to football (soccer) games, made me speculate that in the British Isles, I might not have to look far beneath the stiff, upper lip to find a tribal human from thousands of years ago.

The next time I was exposed to Guy Fawkes Day was a little over a decade ago, when I participated with my school-age sons as British camp followers for the annual reenactment of the Battle of Camden. After dark, the Crown forces reenactors played at mob mentality while parading a
fireworks-filled effigy of Guy Fawkes (“the Guy”) to a bonfire. My sons were both frightened and fascinated by the spectacle. As they grew older, and we attended more Guy Fawkes celebrations at the annual reenactment, they grew to love the festival almost as much as the Fourth of July, which is what it resembles to us Yanks.

Many expatriate Brits in America hold their own Guy Fawkes celebrations. One told me the story of having a celebration about fifteen years ago interrupted by the arrival of the police. A neighbor, witnessing the effigy and bonfire, had called 911 to report human sacrifice in progress.

These days, Guy Fawkes is making a comeback here in America. In Raleigh, North Carolina, “bands and bonfires” mark a fiery, official Guy Fawkes night downtown. I’m glad to see the festival reappear. It provides a good history reminder. And it’s an introduction to a season of lights that hearkens back to the wonder of early humans, who rejoiced at the return of the sun after the winter solstice.

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The Blacksmith’s Daughter: Available in Paperback

The Blacksmith's Daughter book cover

Huzzah! The Blacksmith’s Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution is finally back in print! That means all my books that have been released are available in both trade paperback and
electronic formats — and in time for the holidays.

You wouldn’t believe the roadblocks I ran into getting this particular title back in print. Hurdles during the final week? The subtitle got left off the book, and my cover illustrator suddenly became my co-author. Yikes!

Got a minute? Please help me make this new print edition more visible on Amazon by tagging the book to place it in the correct search categories. Here’s the quick and easy procedure:

  1. Sign onto your Amazon account.
  2. Go to the Amazon book page for The Blacksmith’s Daughter.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the page, to the Tags section, and click on each of the 15 tag buttons (ex. historical mystery, american revolution) there.

Done! As I said, quick and easy! If you want, you can also click the “Like” button on the book page. That’s up at the very top, near the title.

Thanks very much!

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