Book Spotlight: Clement: The Templar’s Treasure (Clement, Book 3) by Craig R. Hipkins

 

Clement & Dagena return for another action-packed adventure. From the cold and dreary shores of Greenland to the fabled land of Vinland. The legendary treasure of the Knights Templar awaits.

 

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Clement: The Templar’s Treasure is set in the middle of the 12^th century. It was the age of chivalry and the day of the troubadours. The history of Europe during this time is well known. There have been countless books written about the crusades and the jousting tournaments prevalent during this age. Every student of medieval history knows about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lionheart, and Geoffrey of Monmouth. Even the peasant life of medieval Europe has been written about and popularized by writers such as Frances and Joseph Gies. In China, this was the age of the Song dynasty and the birth of gunpowder. However, not much is known about what was going on across the ocean in North America.

(Christian Krohg) Leif Discovering America

In this third installment of the Clement series, the boy knight travels in the wake of Leif Erikson, albeit a century and a half after that explorer first mentions Vinland in the Norse sagas. It is said that Leif filled a boat with grapes in a region more temperate than Greenland or Iceland. It is thought by historians Leif might have stumbled across the cranberry bogs of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Not much is known about the people living in this region during the 12th century. The indigenous inhabitants of New England at this time did not keep calendars or written records, or if they did, they have not survived. It would be nearly five centuries until the English colonists in the 17th century recorded anything about the Wampanoag or Nipmuck peoples that lived in this area. As I am a native New Englander, I am familiar with the history of these Native American people. In my book, I describe in detail what a Nipmuck village might have looked like in the 12th century. I based the description on a late 16th century watercolor of an Algonquin village which is located in the British Museum. It is believed that like most European towns and cities in medieval times, indigenous American towns would also have been fortified to prevent a sudden attack by a hostile power.

I am well familiar with the topography in Clement: The Templar’s Treasure. I grew up in Central Massachusetts and woke up every morning with a view of the ‘Lone Mountain’ out my bedroom window. The name of the mountain is Wachusett which, loosely translated is an Algonquin word for ‘Near the Mountain.’ My research of the Nipmuck and Wampanoag of New England was limited to descriptions and literature of early colonists like William Bradford. However, a lot can be discovered by reading these early accounts of New England life. I imagine that not much had changed in the centuries between the events in my book and the arrival of the Mayflower in 1620.

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 Craig R. Hipkins

Craig R. Hipkins grew up in Hubbardston Massachusetts. He is the author of medieval and gothic fiction. His novel, Adalbert is the sequel to Astrolabe written by his late twin brother Jay S. Hipkins (1968-2018) He is an avid long-distance runner and enjoys astronomy in his spare time.

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Book Spotlight: Embrace the Choice (The Choice Series, Book 2) by Ellie Yarde

 

How do you deal with choices when you don’t know how?

Lena has always been a quiet and private person who only talks to people she knows and doesn’t stray outside her comfort zone. She refuses to admit to anyone but herself that she has a crush on Tyler, the roommate of a friend’s boyfriend.

When Tyler starts making excuses to spend time with her, she can’t help but like the attention, however awkward she may find social interaction. The problem is, Lena knows next to nothing about dating. Everything she knows has come from a romance book, and she is too socially inept to be able to act like the women in her books. Will she be able to summon the courage in order to go on the date she so desperately desires?

 A quick read filled with friendship, love, and trashy romance books.

 

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Ellie Yarde

Ellie Yarde is primarily a reader and blogger. She writes short stories, which are published on her blog, Reading All Night, where she also shares her reviews.

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Book Spotlight: Escape the Choice (The Choice Series, Book 1) by Ellie Yarde

 

How do you make a choice when you don't want to choose?

Oliver's friendship may be important to Ali, after all, she's the only friend he's got, but that's all they will ever be – friends. When it comes to Noah, she can't help but hope their friendship will become something more. Her heart flutters when he is near, and her eyes always seem to find his.

Unfortunately for Ali, Oliver would make things very difficult if anything were to happen between her and Noah, and while Noah has never told her not to be friends with Oliver, his distaste for the man is quite clear. For Ali to resolve the ongoing dispute, she will have to choose between them. But how can Ali choose between the two men when her decision will mean she has to cut one of them from her life?

A quick read filled with friendship, love, and a deep adoration of coffee and muffins.

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Ellie Yarde

Ellie Yarde is primarily a reader and blogger. She writes short stories, which are published on her blog, Reading All Night, where she also shares her reviews. Escape The Choice is Ellie’s debut novel and the first in The Choice Series.

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Spotlight on Tom Durwood, author of The Pact (The Illustrated Colonials, Book One)

 

Six international teens join the American Revolution.

Coming of age and making history. 

They went into 1776 looking for a fight. Little did they know how much it would cost them…

Six rich kids from around the globe join the Bostonian cause, finding love and treachery along the path to liberty.

A new perspective on one of history’s most fascinating moments.

An amply illustrated edition of a young-adult historical fiction novel.

 

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 Tom Durwood

 Fun Facts
(Stuff you may or may not already know!)

 I taught English at Valley Forge Military College for eight years and really enjoyed it. I tried to surprise the cadets every day with unexpected in-class assignments on a wide range of critical-thinking challenges, from Frank Lloyd Wright to a case study on the Lego company to the Battle of the Aleutians.  If I could engage their interest, they would write for hours.

 

I write at a painfully slow pace. Stories from what is now the collection “Ulysses S. Grant in China” were written and revised over the course of twenty years. The mission is always to ground the big vision in characters who earn the readers’ loyalty in small ways.  

 

 

A single word set me on a quest.  

I wrote my master’s thesis on Teddy Roosevelt’s biggest mistake: his 1906 dismissal of 167 members of the all-black 25^th Infantry Regiment. When I asked Professor John David Smith of the University of North Carolina to explain that series of events, the answer came back in one word: “Empire.” 

He was right (!!) Ever since, the processes of empire have become a fascination for me. I designed and taught a course on “Empire and Literature” at Valley Forge and have now posted over fifty features in my online journal, “Empire Studies.”  

I once edited my own imprint of children’s books, Calico Books with Contemporary Press of Chicago. The Calico line included works by Scott Gustafson, Winslow Pels, Russ Shorto, and Gary Gianni.

 

In college, I published three editions of an undergraduate arts journal. References from these self-important features still crop up the in footnotes of certain obscure scholarly works.

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Tom Durwood

Tom Durwood is a teacher, writer, and editor with an interest in history. Tom most recently taught English Composition and Empire and Literature at Valley Forge Military College, where he won the Teacher of the Year Award five times. Tom has taught Public Speaking and Basic Communications as a guest lecturer for the Naval Special Warfare Development Group at the Dam’s Neck Annex of the Naval War College.

Tom’s ebook Empire and Literature matches global works of film and fiction to specific quadrants of empire, finding surprising parallels. Literature, film, art, and architecture are viewed against the rise and fall of empire. In a foreword to Empire and Literature, postcolonial scholar Dipesh Chakrabarty of the University of Chicago calls it “imaginative and innovative.” Prof. Chakrabarty writes that “Durwood has given us a thought-provoking introduction to the humanities.” His subsequent book “Kid Lit: An Introduction to Literary Criticism” has been well-reviewed. “My favorite nonfiction book of the year” writes The Literary Apothecary (Goodreads).

Early reader response to Tom’s historical fiction adventures have been promising. “A true pleasure … the richness of the layers of Tom’s novel is compelling,” writes Fatima Sharrafedine in her foreword to “The Illustrated Boatman’s Daughter.” The Midwest Book Review calls that same adventure “uniformly gripping and educational … pairing action and adventure with social issues.” Adds Prairie Review, “A deeply intriguing, ambitious historical fiction series.”

Tom briefly ran his own children’s book imprint, Calico Books (Contemporary Books, Chicago). Tom’s newspaper column “Shelter” appeared in the North County Times for seven years. Tom earned a Masters in English Literature in San Diego, where he also served as Executive Director of San Diego Habitat for Humanity.

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Interview with Josephine Greenland, author of Embers

 

Two siblings, one crime. One long-buried secret. 

17-year-old Ellen never wanted a holiday. What is there to do in a mining town in the northernmost corner of the country, with no one but her brother Simon – a boy with Asperger’s and obsessed with detective stories – for company? 

Nothing, until they stumble upon a horrifying crime scene that brings them into a generations-long conflict between the townspeople and the native Sami. When the police dismiss Simon’s findings, he decides to track down the perpetrator himself. Ellen reluctantly helps, drawn in by a link between the crime and the siblings’ own past. What started off as a tedious holiday soon escalates into a dangerous journey through hatred, lies and self-discovery that makes Ellen question not only the relationship to her parents, but also her own identity.

Author Interview

Josephine Greenland

Please tell us a little about yourself.

I am Swedish-British writer born and raised in a small town west of Stockholm called Eskilstuna. I moved to the UK for university, studying English at the University of Exeter and then an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. After this, I went to Thailand to teach English as a foreign language and lived there for six months, and then to Austria to teach at a summer camp. I currently live in Edinburgh where I got my teacher qualification in Secondary English and am reaching the end of my probationary year here. Have currently no idea where I will be whisked off to after that! I am a globe trotter and love living in different countries, so hope to be able to do this once things settle down a bit and travel possibilities return. I also play music (violin and piano) and love hiking with my family.

When did you start writing?

I started writing at about age nine. I wrote one short story and then one novel about horses, before delving into fantasy and beginning a high fantasy novel which I worked on back and forth for seven years (!), from 12-19. I didn’t start writing seriously in English, though, with the aim to get published, until I started university.

What projects have been published?

I was a finalist in the Literary Taxidermy 2020 competition by Regulus Press, winner of the Bumble Bee Flash 2019 Competition by Pulp Literature, Runner-up in the Summer Solstice 2018 Competition by Hard Time Moon and winner of the Fantastic Female Fables Competition 2017 by Fantastic Books Publishing (those stories were all then published in the anthologies). Other journals and online magazines that feature my work include: Toasted Cheese, Aloka Magazine, The Conceptualist, AHF Magazine, Litro, Plum Tree Tavern, Porridge Magazine, Literary Yard, Soft Cartel Mag, and Dream Catcher.

Tell us about Embers

Embers is a YA Mystery and crime novel set in the fictional mining town of Svartjokk in northern Sweden. It tells the story of 17-year-old Ellen Blind, who travels to Svartjokk with her brother Simon, a 14-year-old with Aspergers. They’re on a holiday arranged by their parents, who claim that the siblings should bond, visit the birthplace of their late grandfather, Lars-Erik, and discover their Sami roots. Ellen, though, knows that her parents also want them out of the way so they can sort out their marital problems. The holiday turns upside down when the siblings discover reindeer heads in the forest. Simon’s findings at the scene suggest the reindeer have been poisoned, and he suspects people in the town. Frustrated with the police’s lack of interest, he is determined to solve the case himself. The siblings’ investigation takes them to the local Sami village and the owner of the dead reindeer, Per-Anders Thomasson. It turns out that Per-Anders knows far more about Lars-Erik’s past than the siblings did. The more they learn, the more Ellen suspects that the reindeer killing is somehow connected to their grandfather and the reason he left his home-town and the Sami community behind. As Ellen and Simon are to discover, embers of the past rarely burn out.

How did you select the title of your novel?

It came to me when I started the third draft during my MA (the opening of the novel was my dissertation project). I realized that the key concept/motif in my novel was that no matter how hard we try to repress the secrets of our past, they will always come back to haunt us unless we confront them and acknowledge them in the open. Like embers, glowing in the background in the hearth, hard to spot at first, but still there nevertheless.

What was your inspiration?

My travels with my brother to northern Sweden. Some of the activities we did are all featured in the book, the mining town we stayed in became Svartjokk in my novel, and the relationship between siblings Ellen and Simon is also loosely based on us. The crime in the novel is based on a true crime that happened not far from the town where we stayed: two teenaged girls discovered reindeer bodies laid out in a circle in the forest, but the perpetrator was never found. I felt compelled to write a book in which the guilty party was found.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently finishing the third draft of my second novel, a literary thriller for adults. Like Embers, it is set in Sweden, but closer to home, describing the hunting community and small-town life close to where I grew up, and the secrets and conspiracies that can take place within a family. It is also loosely based on a real incident that happened in the area, about wolf hybrids roaming the countryside and passing through towns, which had to be tracked down and shot.

What are you reading at the moment?

Comeback by Chris Limb, a fellow Unbound author.

What do you like to do in your free time when you're not reading or writing?

Hiking and travelling. I think it’s very important to broaden your horizons and learn about different cultures – especially for writers! I also enjoy playing in orchestras and dancing.

Do you have any advice for other authors?

It is never too early to share your work with other writers/readers. Perfection does not exist and striving for it before you’re willing to share your story can kill the heart of the work. Throw yourself into whatever opportunities come your way, and actively seek out opportunities, in equal amounts.

And finally, can you tell us some fun facts about yourself, such as crossed skydiving off my bucket list.

I play five instruments (or used to, when I wasn’t writing as much). I have a black cat who often watches me write when I’m at home. I’ve done bamboo rafting in Thailand which was probably the hardest and scariest balancing act I’ve ever pulled off!

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Josephine Greenland

Josephine is a Swedish-British writer from Sweden, currently working as an English teacher in Edinburgh. She has a BA in English from the University of Exeter, and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Birmingham. She started writing novels at the age of nine but only began writing seriously in English while at university, for her first creative writing course (2015). Since then, she’s had 14 short stories published, won two competitions, and been shortlisted twice. Embers is her first novel, inspired by her travels in northern Sweden with her brother, and was her dissertation project for her MA. When not writing, she enjoys playing music, jogging, hiking, and discussing literature with her cat. 

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