“Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ― G.K. Chesterton

Friday, July 28, 2017

The Perfect Read for Book Lovers--"A Name Unknown" by Roseanna White Blog Tour and Giveaway!


Click here to purchase your copy.

About the Book

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Book title: A Name Unknown
Author: Roseanna M. White
Release date: July 4, 2017
Genre: Historical Romance

She’s Out to Steal His Name.

Will He Steal Her Heart Instead?

Rosemary Gresham has no family beyond the band of former urchins that helped her survive as a girl in the mean streets of London. Grown now, they are no longer pickpockets—now they focus on high value items and have learned how to blend into upper-class society. Rosemary’s challenge of a lifetime comes when she’s assigned to determine whether a certain wealthy gentleman is loyal to Britain or to Germany. How does one steal a family’s history, their very name?

As Europe moved closer to World War I, rumors swirl around Peter Holstein. Awkward and solitary, but with access to the king, many fear his influence. But Peter can’t help his German last name and wants to prove his loyalty to the Crown—so he can go back to anonymously writing a series of popular adventure novels. When Rosemary arrives on his doorstop pretending to be a well- credentialed historian, Peter believes she’s the right person to help him dig through his family’s past.

When danger and suspicion continue to mount, though, and both realize they’re in a race against time to discover the truth—about Peter’s past and about the undeniable attraction kindling between them.


My Review


"A Name Unknown" by Roseanna White is the first entry in her new "Shadows over England" series.  If you love books (and if you’re reading this, I’m assuming you do!), then you have to read this book!  It's a book about books—a lot of books in a huge, messy, unorganized library!  To top it off, our main characters are a writer and a woman pretending to be a librarian who helps this writer sort out said library. 

The story is very well written with a great plot.  The opening sentence grips you and pulls you into the story.  Ms. White inserts humor into the way she writes as well, bringing a smile to my face as I read about the banter between our main characters and the way they think.  This story takes place right before World War I, and our hero is of German descent, living in England.  What he has to deal with really made me think about what it would be like to be a German living in England during that time and the difficulties they would face.  There is also a great faith element in the story.

I absolutely love our main characters, Peter and Rosemary!  They are so well developed and not cliché.  Peter is the one with the huge library which needs organizing and he is also a writer.  I appreciate that Ms. White wrote his character with a stutter.  So not only does he have to overcome the difficulties of being a German in England during that tumultuous time in history, he also has a stutter to deal with.  He can write, but it's hard for him to speak what he's thinking.  This book goes back and forth between the two characters’ points of view.  I sometimes don't like when this is done, as I get more bored with the male point of view.  I feel that Ms. White really fleshes out Peter's story though, and I especially enjoyed seeing what the mind of a writer is like.  Rosemary is also a fun character, who is a thief pretending to be a librarian.  There is great chemistry between the two characters!

This book is one of my favorites of 2017 so far!  The plot and characters are so well done and the ending is excellent with many surprises.  It blew me away with such a great conclusion to a wonderful book!

Content and Rating:  I give this book 5 stars!  It is a clean read. 

I want to thank Roseanna White, Bethany House Publishers and Celebrate Lit for the complimentary copy of this book for review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I express in this review are my own. This is in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s CFR 16, Part 255.

RoseannaJuly2016About the Author

Roseanna M. White pens her novels beneath her Betsy Ross flag, with her Jane Austen action figure watching over her. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two children, editing and designing, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of over a dozen historical novels and novellas, ranging from biblical fiction to American-set romances to her British series. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to make their way into her novels…to offset her real life, which is blessedly boring. You can learn more about her and her stories at www.RoseannaMWhite.com.
 

Guest Post from Roseanna White

 
It’s always a challenge to make a historical setting authentic—especially when it’s set in a region you’ve only ever read about. As I was writing A Name Unknown, I learned so much about Cornwall—all the more when I had the opportunity to visit the gorgeous Penzance region while the book was still in edits! I quickly learned that I had far too many trees in my story, and hadn’t quite captured the uniqueness of the coastal setting. I dove into rewrites with excitement and gusto, ready to make my fictional Cornwall more like the real one.

I studied the Cornish accent, Cornish foods, typical Cornish coloring in hair and eyes. I’ve now gotten rather proficient at making pasties (beef hand pies) from scratch, I’ve special-ordered ingredients to make Cornish ginger cookies called fairings, and I’ve spent quite a lot of time listening to videos of people speaking in a Cornish accent.

Delving into this rich region and its history was a blast! And I’m so excited to get to share the culture of Cornwall—and a taste of their unique flavors—with you. In a special Celebrate Lit giveaway, I’ll be offering not only a signed copy of my book, but also some homemade ginger fairings! Here’s the recipe I used . . . after special ordering the Mixed Spice (reminiscent of pumpkin pie spice) and Golden Syrup (a thick syrup with a bit of a toffee flavor) from Amazon.  (I have a gram scale so did use the weight measurements rather than volume—also, English teaspoons and tablespoons are a bit bigger than American, so I heaped them, and I turned out deliciously.)

GINGER FAIRINGS RECIPE

100 grams butter, cold and diced
225 grams all-purpose flour
¼ heaping teaspoon salt
2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
2 heaping teaspoons baking soda
1 heaping teaspoon ginger
2 heaping teaspoons mixed spice
100 grams superfine (caster) sugar
4 heaping tablespoons golden syrup

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease baking sheets or line with parchment paper.

Combine flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and spices in a stand mixer. Add the butter and beat until mixture forms coarse crumbs. Stir in sugar.

In a small saucepan, warm the golden syrup until it’s clarified a bit; stir into the flour mixture until a dough forms. Roll the dough into walnut sized balls and put on prepared baking sheets a few inches apart.

Bake 8-10 minutes, until golden. Cool a few minutes on the trays and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Blog Stops

July 20: Genesis 5020
July 21: Pause for Tales
July 22: Bigreadersite
July 23: Vicky Sluiter
July 26: Carpe Diem
July 27: cherylbbookblog
July 27: Splashes of Joy
July 31: Cafinated Reads
July 31: Artistic Nobody
 

Giveaway

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To celebrate this tour, Roseanna is giving away a grand prize of a paperback copy of A Name Unknown & 2 dozen cookies from Roseanna!!! Click below to enter. Be sure to comment on this post before you enter to claim 9 extra entries! https://promosimple.com/ps/bc0e
 
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6 comments:

  1. MJSHJuly 29, 2017 at 1:22 PM

    Thanks for the review and post!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Megan ScottJuly 29, 2017 at 4:18 PM

      Hi MH, thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment!

      Delete
  2. ConnieJuly 29, 2017 at 4:54 PM

    I really want to read this book!! Winning it would be great!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Megan ScottJuly 29, 2017 at 4:56 PM

      Hi Connie, Thanks so much for your comment! It's an amazing book. Good luck in the giveaway!

      Delete
  3. SabrinaJuly 29, 2017 at 7:29 PM

    Thank you for the review. I look forward to reading it! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Megan ScottJuly 29, 2017 at 7:34 PM

      Hi Sabrina! Thanks so much! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

      Delete

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