The Echoes of Love - Hannah Fielding - Blog Tour Guest post and giveaway!

Today I am pleased to welcome author Hannah Fielding to the blog as part of her blog tour for The Echoes of Love. As well as her guest post below, there is a great giveaway too!

The Echoes of Love ‘Legendary’ Blog Tour: The true sword in the stone

For the love of legends by Hannah Fielding

For me, researching a book is just as enjoyable as writing it. I set each of my novels in a passionate, romantic country, and so that I can really transport my readers there, I immerse myself in the setting: its history, its scenery, its cuisine, its culture. Top of my research list are local legends – I love colourful, age-old stories; the more fantastical, the better!

Since I was a young girl, tucked up in bed and listening avidly to my governess weaving bedtime tales, I have loved legends. Fairytales too, of course – they sowed the seeds for my romantic nature – but legends fascinated me most: those that have stood the test of time, that offer intriguing explanations for the modern world, that are at once fantastical and yet, somehow, believable.

My novel The Echoes of Love, set in Venice, Tuscany and Sardinia, incorporates various Italian legends – told by the hero, Paolo, who is a raconteur extraordinaire, to my heroine, Venetia – and in my research files I collected many more. What better way to share some of these most romantic, magical and atmospheric tales but in this Echoes of Love ‘Legendary’ Blog Tour!

Today, I’m taking you to Tuscany, home to Paolo in The Echoes of Love, and a place I very much enjoyed describing in the novel, so beautiful is the scenery:

The shimmering hillside, planted with olives and vines, sloped steeply down; beyond the motionless spires of cypresses stretched the blue and green hills of Tuscany. The hollows and little valleys were brimming up with whitish haze and the flat elder blossoms spread unmoving in the heat of this glorious day.

On the seaward side, they overlooked a necklace of small, sun-drenched, white sand beaches, separated by coves and craggy coral rock outcroppings. Viewed from far above, the shoreline was spectacular, with the great Tyrrhenian Sea stretching out beyond, sprinkled with islets and dotted with boats on its turquoise surface. The Ferrari tore past clusters of pastel-hued cottages framed by flowering trees, nestling in the hills that rose to windswept bluffs, where every turning had a picture-postcard view of sprawling green land, coloured villas and blue waters.

The true sword in the stone

Visit the Chapel of Montesiepi, adjacent to the San Galgano Abbey in the Val di Merse countryside, and you’ll hear this legend:

In the 12th century there lived a knight named Galgano. He was a fearless warrior and fought bravely in countless battles. But he reached a point where the violence in which he was so often embroiled disgusted his stirring spiritual sensibilities, and when he saw a vision of the Archangel Michael, he was forever a changed man. And so, in pursuit of redemption for the pain and death he had wrought, he retreated to live the life of a hermit. Atop the Montesiepi hill, he had an epiphany and decided to dedicate his life to God. To do so, he knew he must renounce his former sins – and in symbolism of his rejection of violence, he took up his sword and plunged it down, down, down… until the sword stuck firm, with just the hilt and a little of the blade protruding, to form a cross. And the base for this self-created alter? A rock!

Eventually, Galgano would be recognised as a saint, and a formal chapel built around this miracle he had made. To this day, people come from far and wide to see the sword in the stone.

For a long time, it was assumed that the legend was nothing more than a fable – albeit a powerful one that was either inspired by or itself inspired the English legend of King Arthur and Excalibur. And yet, in 2001, when academics examined the sword, they discovered it is not, in fact, a fake; the metal of the sword dates it much earlier than modern times, and the style of the sword is suggestive of one made in the 12th century…

Follow the tour

If you’d like to read more Italian legends like this, and keep up with the accompanying Very Venetian giveaway in which lots of romantic goodies are up for grabs, follow the Echoes of Love ‘Legendary’ Blog Tour this month:

1 May: Oh My Books!

3 May: Maldivian Book Reviewer

4 May: Krystal Clear Book Reviews

5 May: Romance Junkies

7 May: Book Briefs

8 May: Words I Write Crazy

9 May: Luxury Reading

10 May: The Little Reader Library

11 May: Kristy Centeno

13 May: Love Romance Passion

14 May: MamaKitty Reviews

15 May: Books & Other Spells

16 May: Pages of Comfort

19 May: The Flashlight Reader

20 May: The Window Seat on a Rainy Day

21 May: Simply Ali

22 May: Reviews by Molly

25 May: Reese's Reviews

26 May: Moonlight, Lace, and Mayhem

28 May: Mrs. Mommy Booknerd's Book Reviews

29 May: Tiffany Talks Books

30 May: Reading Between the Wines

31 May: Rites of Romance

WIN in the Very Venetian giveaway

At least one reader commenting on this post will WIN in the Very Venetian giveaway, with prizes totalling more than $600:

·       5 signed hardback copies of The Echoes of Love

·       10 signed paperback copies of The Echoes of Love

·       3 romantic Venetian masks

·    Lots of fabulously colourful Murano glass goodies: 16 pendants, 2 bracelets, 2 paperweights and a vase.

Anyone who comments on a blog tour stop post will be entered in the giveaway. Simply comment below, including your email address so that Hannah can contact the winners. Good luck!

About the author

Hannah Fielding is a novelist, a dreamer, a traveller, a mother, a wife and an incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told, Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later – following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe, falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and a career in property development – Hannah decided after so many years of yearning to write that the time was now. Today, she lives the dream: she writes full time, splitting her time between her homes in Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up romances overlooking breathtaking views of the Mediterranean.

Her first novel, Burning Embers, is a vivid, evocative love story set against the backdrop of tempestuous and wild Kenya of the 1970s, reviewed by one newspaper as ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’. Her new novel, The Echoes of Love, is a story of passion, betrayal and intrigue set in the romantic and mysterious city of Venice and the beautiful landscape of Tuscany. It was picked by The Sun newspaper as one of the most romantic books ever written.

Social media links

Website | Twitter  | Facebook | Goodreads

Book links

Amazon UK  | Amazon. com | Barnes and Noble 

Book trailer

About the novel

Seduction, passion and the chance for new love.
 A terrible truth that will change two lives forever.

Venetia Aston-Montagu has escaped to Italy’s most captivating city to work in her godmother’s architectural practice, putting a lost love behind her. For the past ten years she has built a fortress around her heart, only to find the walls tumbling down one night of the carnival when she is rescued from masked assailants by an enigmatic stranger, Paolo Barone.

Drawn to the powerfully seductive Paolo, despite warnings of his Don Juan reputation and rumours that he keeps a mistress, Venetia can’t help being caught up in the smouldering passion that ignites between them.

When she finds herself assigned to a project at his magnificent home deep in the Tuscan countryside, Venetia must not only contend with a beautiful young rival, but also come face to face with the dark shadows of Paolo’s past that threaten to come between them.

Can Venetia trust that love will triumph, even over her own demons? Or will Paolo’s carefully guarded, devastating secret tear them apart forever?

The Memory of Lost Senses - Judith Kinghorn

‘When the journey ended, this was all one was left with, memories.’

I absolutely adored Judith Kinghorn’s debut novel The Last Summer – (read my review here) – it was one of my favourite books of 2012, I felt very emotionally involved in that wonderful story of Clarissa and Tom, and I still clearly remember the weekend I sat reading it, and the bereft feeling on finishing it. I was therefore eagerly anticipating the arrival of this second book, and I was also a little nervous; will I enjoy this one as much, will the story grab hold of me, will the writing be as good? I am pleased to say that the answers were yes, yes and yes.

This is a beautifully written novel that took me back in time again to early in the twentieth century, to places and a period which are vividly evoked and introduced me to fascinating characters whose lives I was enthralled by.

A mysterious elderly lady, a countess in fact, arrives to take up residence in a quiet Hampshire village, and everyone is curious as to her identity and her past. Cecily Chadwick is one such curious neighbour of the countess, eager to find out more about the life of this enigmatic lady who has lived abroad for so many years. Cecily is attracted by this life and keen to hear about Cora’s experiences. However Cora is troubled by threats she has received, and by her memories. Her close and dear friend Sylvia, a novelist, joins her in Hampshire and endeavours to compile a more detailed account of Cora’s past to become her memoirs. The challenge of this process of thinking back over things is acknowledged; 'Sometimes it's not easy to revisit the past. It involves confronting everything we've done and said, all our actions, mistakes, and regrets.'

This is a novel about love, intrigue, memory, mystery and truth. It asks, can we rely on our memories? Place is very important in this story; both Hampshire and also Rome, the expatriate life there, and places within the story are intensely realised, as is the way in which places can offer 'a kind of freedom, and the chance to be whoever one wished to be,' as Cora speaks about Rome. Indeed she entrances Cecily with her strong recollections of her life in Rome: 

'And behind every doorway, no matter how humble, were masterpieces, friezes depicting ancient stories, magnificent frescoes, statues, intricate mosaics and richly marbled floors. Every window and balcony overlooked the antiquities, like one's own museum, one's very own art gallery. It felt to me like the centre of the world. And of course it had been, once. Everywhere one looked were relics, history and art, stupendous art. How could one fail to be inspired in such a place? All of it shaped me, who I am, and like those I have loved, it remains here,' she said, placing her palm flat upon her chest. 'It lives within me...that place.' And how could it not? Cecily thought.'

From the start, the clever structure hints at mysteries. There are secrets hidden in Cora’s past which her grandson Jack, staying with her now, wishes to uncover, to know more about his family’s past. The emotions stirred by the past, and the nature of memories, run throughout the novel. The author illustrates through Cora a keen understanding of the acute pain of joy and sadness deep within our pasts, and how, when we think about the events and feelings in our pasts, it can be overwhelming:

'Numbness had come with old age, but to her bones, not to her heart. And though in public she was careful to keep her emotions in check, to maintain - or try to maintain - a ready smile, a relaxed countenance, in quiet, solitary moments, moments of reflection, and often when least expecting it, she was sometimes plunged under, submerged, left gasping for breath; drowning in a great swell of sorrow and joy and pain and rapture. And it was this, the memory of senses and sensations, that made her weep.'

The quandary with me when reading this book, one that I think other readers will identify with when it comes to a new book by a favourite writer, was that part of me wanted to read it as quickly as I could, to devour it greedily because I couldn’t wait, and part of me wanted to take my time in reading, to savour it; having waited with excitement to read it, I didn’t want to rush it. The prose has a lyrical quality; there were many passages I savoured as I read.

Judith Kinghorn is now very high up on my list of authors that I know I can trust to skillfully create another world on the page for me to venture to and become ensconced in, always with a compelling, beautifully written tale to tell, a gorgeous use of language, with characters I love and relationships that are certain to intrigue me. Definitely recommended; settle yourself in a comfy chair and be captivated by this lovely period story. As with The Last Summer, this is certainly a book that I will keep on my shelves and return to one day.

Published by Headline

Thanks very much to the publisher for kindly sending me a copy of this novel to read and give an honest review.

You can follow the author on twitter @JudithKinghorn and visit her website here.

A Treacherous Likeness - Lynn Shepherd

‘Thoughts of the past pursue me like a treacherous likeness of myself…’

Once again the reader is invited by the all-knowing, all-seeing narrator to journey back with them and revisit the past so vividly reawakened by this author. We join with Charles Maddox again, this time late in 1850, as he investigates a new case. Charles is enlisted by Sir Percy and Lady Shelley to look into matters surrounding none other than Percy Bysshe Shelley, the romantic poet, and his wife Mary, writer of Frankenstein. Sir Percy is the only surviving son of the poet who died back in 1822.

Charles is asked to look into missing papers that may be held by certain people, with Lady Shelley in particular being keen to rid the world of any papers which may further besmirch Shelley’s reputation. There is more to this than meets the eye, as Charles begins to suspect, and his investigations will reveal secrets regarding the couple and their wider family and circle, and cause Charles to question the truth about the death of Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, who, it was believed, had killed herself; is there a darker side to the story? Walking alongside Charles as he weaves his way through an ever expanding web of secrets, we learn about the shocking events of the past that have thus far been concealed.

Charles’ great-uncle Maddox, himself a much admired and respected detective of his day, features once again in this novel; indeed his role is a prominent one, and as we step back further into the past, to 1814, we learn of his previous work for members of this extended family, and we begin to wonder at the real extent of his involvement with them. Maddox suffers and endures the cruel illness mentioned as blighting him in the author’s previous novel, Tom-All-Alone’s; indeed his health appears to take an even worse turn on hearing the name Shelley again after so many years.

This is another lovely, richly imagined historical mystery novel from Lynn Shepherd. She weaves together such a mysterious web of literary lives, delivering a great mystery, brilliantly written, delving into pasts and mysteries that have never been fully clarified and offering us an interpretation of these events and possible answers in this fictionalised account. The author states from the outset that 'what follows is a work of fiction, but it is one based on fact.'

The author transported me back to another time and introduced me to dark secrets and people with hidden truths and sides to their lives, each with their own motivations and passions driving them forwards, and many harbouring their own peculiar torment, sadness or suffering.

I was drawn deep into their tangled relationships, and I was extremely curious as to how the mystery would unravel. I felt the uncertainty, the sadness and loss, the lies and jealousies, the many moments of passionate love and the tragic encounters with death that these people had endured.

I was compelled to keep reading, to keep looking into this world and discover more of the Shelleys and the Godwins, to consider the many and varied sides to these intriguing characters that are hinted at and depicted here, to think about things and consider these complex relationships. I was fascinated in particular by the character Claire Clairmont, who I knew nothing of before reading this work, but who is so fully brought to life for me here. 

The language used is perfect for a narrative that delves back to this period in time, it conveys the atmosphere of the surroundings, and is fitting for telling this tale. The extensive research conducted is evident within this well-plotted story. I enjoyed being in the company once again of the omniscient narrator who is able to look both forwards and back in time. I also enjoyed being back in the surroundings of Victorian London and being a guest in the Maddox household, where Charles is not always fully aware of events around him.

The novel prompted me to discover more about these figures from our literary heritage. The extended family tree included at the start of the book is a very welcome addition that I referred to many times whilst reading. 

The author's own interest in and enthusiasm for her subject comes through whilst reading, and there is an engrossing combination of truth, mystery, and intrigue in the story here which all combine to make for an engaging and rewarding read. I very much hope that Charles will return once again as I am excited to follow him on another investigation soon. 

Published by Corsair on February 7th 2013

Thanks very much to the publisher for sending a copy of this novel to read and review.

You can find the author on twitter @Lynn_Shepherd and visit her website here - it offers some wonderful extra background information about her books.

You can read my review of Tom-All-Alone's by Lynn Shepherd here.

Recipe for Love - Sasha Wagstaff

When Lindsay asked me to be a guest reviewer on her blog and offered me a choice of books, this one appealed immediately. Romance, food, mystery, Sorrento and Vegas – sounded perfect. But so often these books disappoint with their poor research, weak writing, namby pamby characters... but not this one! I loved it from the moment I entered the world of food writer Cassia Marini and chef and restauranteur Rocco Disanti, and it was a really nasty shock to the system being deposited back in my Yorkshire home and day-to-day life at the end.

Cassia Marini, daughter of a famous actress who has lost her way, writes for “Scrumptious” magazine and is planning her wedding to nice but boring lawyer Finn.  But when she gets the opportunity to do an up close and personal series on Rocco Disanto, the notoriously difficult restauranteur, with restaurants in Sorrento and London, and another to open in Las Vegas, she leaves her wedding planning to her mother-in-law and heads off to Italy.  She also sees it as an opportunity to research the background of her late father, the food writer Marco Marini. What happens in Italy won’t surprise anyone, but the subsidiary characters and story threads are what gives this story its depth, breadth and interest. Cassia’s mother, Diana, decides to abandon her dissolute lifestyle, dump her toyboys, and return to the stage in a searingly exposed role.  Finn’s mother, Grace, takes full advantage of Cassia’s absence to create the wedding she wants, blissfully ignoring the wishes of the couple. Meanwhile Cassia’s sister Jules has an ill-judged relationship with Finn’s tennis pro brother Dom.

Meanwhile, in Italy, Cassia gets to know Rocco’s family – his widowed grandmother Sofia and heart of the family, and model Aurelia (Rocco’s sister) planning her own wedding in Capri.  Overshadowing it all is a historic curse over the family, and the mystery around an orphaned child rescued from a landslide.  The threads and many characters converge for Aurelia’s wedding, and the ending is as feel-good as it should be, with all the threads beautifully tied together.

The whole book has a wonderful sense of place, and the food descriptions make this book one to avoid if you’re on a diet.  I loved every page – this book is in the best traditions of the likes of Jilly Cooper, but with a fresh modern twist. Pure escapism between two covers, and highly recommended for anyone who enjoys excellent storytelling that engages all the senses.

Reviewed by Anne Williams

Guest reviewer Anne Williams has kindly reviewed this novel for The Little Reader Library - many thanks to Anne for her lovely, enthusiastic review. Anne is an avid reader whose reviews I always enjoy reading and whose opinion I trust when choosing a book, and she is part of the ReadItSwapIt website..

Published by Headline Review

Thanks to the publisher for sending a copy of this novel to read and review.

You can follow the author on twitter @SashaWagstaff  and visit her website here.