ONE WEEK UNTIL ANGEL HEART IS PUBLISHED!

 ANGEL HEART will be released on 30th July by Accent Press.  
 I can't wait! In the meantime, here is the blurb and a short excerpt...

Blurb

Devonshire, 1815.
A mysterious Templar relic,
A web of intrigue and lies,
A woman about to lose her heart...

Marie-Ange, the young widow of an English officer, accepts an inheritance in France only to find that everything in Beauregard is not as it seems. Why is the sinister Malleval so obsessed with her family? And could her darling Christopher still be alive? Marie-Ange finds herself trapped in a dangerous web of lies, intrigue and mystical possession, and the only person to whom she can turn for help is Captain Hugo Saintclair. Yet the enigmatic Hugo represents a danger of a different kind …

‘Angel Heart’ is a lavish mix of romance, adventure and a hint of the supernatural, largely set in France against the turbulent background of Napoleon’s return from Elba.

Excerpt
Marie-Ange meets Capitaine Hugo Saintclair...

She pushed open the door to the drawing room and hurried inside. Splinter and Rusty ran under her feet, tripping her. Her cry of alarm died on her lips as two strong arms caught her. Surprised, she tilted her head up to look at the tall, dark-haired man holding her against his hard, wide chest. His intense blue eyes held her gaze and sent a shiver down her spine. One side of his weather-beaten face was barred by a long, ragged scar. The thin line of the mouth and the tightness in his jaw gave an impression of controlled anger. For a moment fear gathered in her chest. Then he smiled, a slow, confident smile, and he was transformed into the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes on.

The dogs barked at them furiously. Marie-Ange parted her lips to order them to stop but before she could speak Robert took a few steps forward, an angry scowl twisting his face, his fists clenched by his sides.

‘Let her go at once, sir,’ he warned, ‘or …’

‘Or what?’ The man arched his eyebrows, a mocking smile at the corner of his mouth, as if he dared Robert to come any closer. He shook his head and released her.

 ‘I will ask you to restrain your puppies, Madame. The three of them,’ he said as he looked down at her.

‘How dare you call me a puppy?’ Robert's face flushed a deep red, and he took another step forward.

Marie-Ange found her voice at last.

‘Rusty. Splinter. Lie down at once.’ She pointed to the rug in front of the fireplace. The dogs whimpered but obeyed. ‘Robert. That's enough. Monsieur was just helping me.’

Robert muttered an apology and crouched beside the dogs to stroke their wet, muddy coats.

‘You must be Capitaine Saintclair,’ she said, tilting her chin up to look at him again.

 The papers had been full of sketches and reports about the famous French cuirassiers and she had no difficulty imagining Saintclair in a dark blue uniform, his chest covered with shiny metal plates and his helmet topped by a black horse mane, charging onto the battlefield. His current attire of black breeches and tall leather riding boots topped by a short brown coat did nothing to dispel the heroic image conjured in her mind.

He clicked his heels together and bowed his head.

‘At your service, Madame.’

Links
http://www.accentpress.co.uk/Book/17119/Angel-Heart

The Last Campaign of Marianne Tambour, by David Ebsworth

I love history and historical research, and I have always been particularly interested in the great upheaval that was the French Revolution and fascinated by Napoleon Bonaparte. One of my historical romances, ANGEL HEART, is set in 1815 during Napoleon's exile in Elba and the 'Hundred Days' which was the period between his return to power and his abdication in July. You can read my post about The Perfumes of an Imperial Couple here http://marielaval.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/perfumes-of-imperial-couple.html
and about Napoleon's last days on St Helena here http://marielaval.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/auction-of-napoleons-last-shirt-in-paris.html

I am therefore delighted to welcome David Ebsworth and his great novel THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF MARIANNE TAMBOUR on the blog today. There is a giveaway at the bottom of the post, so don't miss the chance to win a copy of the book!

 

1815 - On the bloody fields of Waterloo, a battle-weary canteen mistress of Bonaparte’s Imperial Guard battalions must fight to free her daughter from all the perils that war will hurl against them – before this last campaign can kill them both.

“Superb! David Ebsworth has really brought these dramatic events to life. His description of the fighting is particularly vivid and compelling.”  (Andrew W. Field, author of Waterloo: The French Perspective and its companion volume, Prelude to Waterloo: Quatre Bras)

A novel of action and intrigue based on the real-life exploits of two women who fought, in their own right, within Napoleon’s army.

Includes a Battlefield Tour Guide for those wanting to follow the route taken by the story’s main characters or to visit the sites of the 1815 Waterloo Campaign.

About the Author

 

David Ebsworth is the pen name of writer, Dave McCall, a former negotiator and Regional Secretary for Britain's Transport & General Workers’ Union. He was born in Liverpool (UK) but has lived for the past thirty years in Wrexham, North Wales, with his wife, Ann. Following his retirement, Dave began to write seriously in 2009.

 https://twitter.com/EbsworthDavid

https://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Ebsworth/372113212814491

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5780879.David_Ebsworth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aSgSB3dlT0

BUY LINKS

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Last-Campaign-Marianne-Tambour/dp/1781323216

http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Campaign-Marianne-Tambour/dp/1781323216

http://www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk/product/9781781323212/the-last-campaign-of-marianne-tambour

https://store.kobobooks.com/ebook/the-last-campaign-of-marianne-tambour

GIVEAWAY

2 COPIES OF THE BOOK

(UK WINNER PAPERBACK / INTERNATIONAL WINNER EBOOK)

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/4be0301754/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Auction of Napoleon's last shirt in Paris

Several items of clothing and personal belongings of Napoleon Bonaparte were due to be auctioned last Sunday in Paris at Maison Orsenat.

Among them were a cambric shirt worn by the emperor the day before he died (estimated at between 30000 and 40 000 euros), a lock of hair cut the day of his death (which may fetch between 3 000 and 5 000 euros), bandages and two handkerchiefs. The items were collected by the emperor's servant, Achille Archambault, but their ownership is now disputed and the auction was postponed in order to enable the courts to establish the identity of the rightful owner.

I always find it fascinating - if a little macabre - to be able to see for myself personal items which have belonged to a historical figure, writer or actor, but I'm really not sure I would ever put a bid in for any of them, even if I had the money. I think they should really belong in a museum, not in the hands of a private collector. 

Napoleon died at Longwood on the island of St Helena on May 5th 1821 after a six year long exile. A striking, desolate mass of rugged rocks St Helena is located in the middle of the South Atlantic ocean with the nearest land six hundred miles away. 

Wathen, T.E. A Series of Views Illustrative of the Island of St. Helena. Clay, London, 1821. 

Napoleon first stayed at Briars Pavillion on the island then moved into Longwood, a two-stories house in a cold, windy and damp part of the island. Although the British government recognised the inadequacy of Longwood as the former emperor's residence, it was deemed the safest place for him. Sir Hudson Lowe, the island's governor, was indeed haunted by the fear that Napoleon should escape and behaved like a jailer toward him, ordering that his correspondence and newspapers be censured, and even forbidding the former emperor any news from his wife Marie-Louise and their son. In fact relationships between Napoleon and Lowe were so bad they only met six times during Napoleon's exile and the former French emperor is said to have complained to his physician O'Meara that Lowe has such a 'horrid countenance' he feared he had the evil eye and had poisoned his cup of coffee just by looking at it!

Wathen, T.E. A Series of Views Illustrative of the Island of St. Helena. Clay, London, 1821. 

Longwood was designed in a cottage style and contained twenty-four rooms, with Bonaparte occupying the right wing. In an illustrated book published in 1821, T.E. Wathen gives a striking description of the desolate, rocky island and of Longwood House and the rooms allocated to the defeated French emperor. 

The drawing-room was coloured 'various shades of green and arabesque gold panels, with curtains of light silk taboret, of Pomona green, and velvet borders edged with gold coloured silk twist'. Wathen even describes some of the furnishing: a carpet of 'various shades of brown, olive, and amber; an elegant oak centre table; pier table, inlaid with a slab of Verd Antique Mona marble; splendid pier glass, with a frame of Buhl and ebony; chairs of British oak; two Greek sofas and footstools ornamented with Or Moulu; a piano forte; and chandeliers and candelabri to light the apartment.'

Thanks to Wathen we know that next to the dining-room was a library, which was 'furnished in the Etruscan style, with several dwarf book-cases' and desks and that the sitting-room was 'ornamented with an ethereal blue carpet shaded with black, and several ebony cabinets inlaid with brass'. The emperor's bedroom featured a high canopy 'bedstead, enclosing a silken mosquito net, and hung with furniture of lilac Persian edged with gold coloured fringe.' 

In the bathroom was a tub was lined with marble 'made to admit hot or cold water'. 

The other wing of Longwood House contained spacious apartments for Bonaparte's suite, with servant's offices and store-rooms in the rear and the kitchen was located in a separate building.

Before Napoleon's funeral, which took place on May 9 1821, one hundred men were made to cut a path directly to the burial site the emperor himself had chosen shortly after his arrival on the island for its proximity to willow trees and a spring - a place called Devil's Punch Bowl. At the time of Wathen's visit to St Helena, a sentinel constantly guarded the grave. 

Wathen, T.E. A Series of Views Illustrative of the Island of St. Helena. Clay, London, 1821. 

Napoleon's remains were removed in 1840 and shipped to Paris where they were buried with full military honours in a marble casket in the Hotel des Invalides on December 15 1840. Despite the biting cold the crowds were huge along the avenues where the military cortege passed, so much so that the government feared a revolutionary outbreak. 

Victor Hugo wrote about that memorable day
 'O frozen sky! and sunlight pure! shining bright in history!

Funereal triumph, imperial torch!

Let the people's memory hold you forever, 

Day beautiful as glory,

Cold as the tomb'

  ("Ciel glacé ! soleil pur ! Oh ! brille dans l’histoire ! / Du funèbre triomphe, impérial flambeau ! / Que le peuple à jamais te garde en sa mémoire / Jour beau comme la gloire, / Froid comme le tombeau." - Victor Hugo, Les Rayons et les Ombres, 1840.)

Only government officials and military personnel were allowed at the ceremony itself, and many French were angry that they had not been able to pay their respects properly to the man they had come to consider as a martyr. Worse still for the government, many people still believed that Napoleon had not died on St Helena, that the commission sent to retrieve his remains had found only an empty coffin and rumour spread that the tomb at Les Invalides was only a cenotaph.

Napoleon's remains repose today beneath the dome in the Invalides, in a monument designed by architect Louis Visconti in 1842, but which was only completed in 1861.

So what will become of Napoleon's last belongings - a shirt, a lock of hair, a couple of handkerchiefs? Time, and the French courts, will tell...

'Angel Heart': Only a few more days before publication!

A mysterious Templar relic.
A web of intrigue and lies.
A woman about to lose her heart.

I am delighted to announce that ‘Angel Heart’ will be published on Friday 19^th October 2012 by MuseItUp Publishing.

Blurb

Devonshire, January 1815.

Marie-Ange, the young widow of an English officer, accepts an inheritance in France only to find that everything in Beauregard is not as it seems. Why is the sinister Malleval so obsessed with her family? And could her darling Christopher still be alive? Marie-Ange finds herself trapped in a dangerous web of lies, intrigue, and mystical possession, and the only person to whom she can turn for help is Capitaine Hugo Saintclair. Yet the enigmatic Hugo represents a danger of a different kind …

Angel Heart is a lavish mix of romance, adventure, and a hint of the supernatural, largely set in France against the turbulent background of Napoleon’s return from Elba.

Here is a mini-excerpt from the beginning of the book.

The cutter was sailing too close to the cliffs, heading straight for the Devil's Tooth. Marie-Ange's cloak billowed in the blustery wind, the hood blew back and her hair swirled like a golden veil around her. From the cliff top, she watched the small French ship dancing wildly on the waves, its tricolour and white ensigns flapping at the top of the mast.  If it carried on its course the ship would be ripped open by the reef… She unfastened her cloak, pulled her black shawl from her shoulders, and waved it above her head in the direction of the Devil's Tooth.

Damn this ship. Damn this weather. And damn Malleval. Hugo Saintclair clapped his hands together a few times and blew on them to keep them warm. Around him, the crew shouted orders and heaved on ropes in order to switch sails and change course before they hit the rocks.  The Angel warned them, the sailors said, heaven was on their side. Shaking his head with impatience, he listened to their nonsensical chatter. Angels didn't exist, but the woman who waved at them from the cliff top had saved them from a certain death.

‘Angel Heart’ is available to pre-order at a special 20% discount. Just click here!

museituppublishing.com

Cover for 'Angel Heart'

I just wanted to share the cover for 'Angel Heart', my historical romance to be published by Muse It Up Publishing in September 2012. I am delighted with it!

Here is an outline of the story:

Marie-Ange, the young widow of an English officer, accepts an inheritance in France only to find that everything in Beauregard is not as it seems. Why is the sinister Malleval so obsessed with her family? And could her darling Christopher still be alive? Marie-Ange finds herself trapped in a dangerous web of lies, intrigue and mystical possession, and the only person to whom she can turn for help is Captain Hugo Saintclair. Yet the enigmatic Hugo represents a danger of a different kind …

‘Angel Heart’ is a lavish mix of romance, adventure and a hint of the supernatural, largely set in France against the turbulent background of Napoleon’s return from Elba.

Having the cover now makes it all real!

Moustaches and Umbrellas...

It’s amazing the bits of information you pick up when you research historical facts for a novel. Moustaches and umbrellas, what can they have in common? The answer is: Napoleon’s great army and Waterloo.

‘Angel Heart’, my soon-to-be-published historical romance with Muse it Up Publishing, takes place in 1815. The hero, Hugo Saintclair, is a French cuirassier officer. I was rather put out to learn that Cuirassiers had to wear a moustache for nine months of the year, between March and December. For the remaining three months, they had to be clean shaven.  I tried, and tried, but I just couldn’t picture my hero with a moustache… So how did I get around it? I decided that my novel would start in January!

Here are a few other facts about France and moustaches.

Did you know that French waiters had to wait until 4^th May 1907 to win the right to wear a moustache? It wasn’t easy. They had to go on strike for it. At the time wearing a moustache was the prerogative of the middle and upper classes and military personnel (the gendarmes were obliged by ministerial decree to wear a moustache until 1933). House staff, coach drivers, delivery boys at the Banque de France, waiters and other men employed in subordinate positions, were all banned from wearing one, which they felt was grossly unfair.


Indeed, ever since Napoleon’s great army, the moustache was a symbol of absolute virility, the mark of the dominant male. At a time of social struggles in France, at the end of the 19^th century and beginning of the 20^th century, ‘garçons de café’ considered therefore that to deny them the right to wear a moustache was both an attack on their masculinity and an attempt at marking them as belonging to the inferior classes. They went on strike, and they won…

So what about umbrellas?

During my research on Napoleonic wars, I learnt that English officers were so often seen sheltering under umbrellas on the battlefield that Wellington, who found the habit 'not only ridiculous but unmilitary', had to give specific orders before Waterloo stating categorically that ‘Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy.’

I must say that I would never have thought officers would carry an umbrella to battle, and even less open it and hide under it!