Blog Tour: ARABESQUE by MG da Mota

 

ARABESQUE

by M G da Mota

 

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GENRE: historical psychological drama

 

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BLURB:

 

A woman living alone in a coastal Sussex town in 1998 plants a copper beech sapling at 3 a.m. on a dark, cold night. Why?

 

A ballet dancer in 1960s East Germany is oppressed, longs for escaping with his little daughter but not his wife. Why? Will he make it?

 

In 2022 Karsten von Stein, widower and principal of the Royal Ballet, with two young children, meets Ivone Benjamim, a Portuguese, newly-arrived principal dancer. They discover a magical chemistry when dancing and soon it transfers to their private lives.

 

Against the background of ballet and its dancers, a woman called Grace tells her story from a rehab centre. Obsessive, delusional she begins believing Ivone robbed her of the man of her dreams—Karsten. And then a skeleton is found in a garden...What connects all these people and their stories?

 

You’ll be the audience facing the stage of this balletic novel.

 

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EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT

 

She looks out of the window. Dark night. Black but clear. Twinkling dots punctuate the raven velvet of the sky. Stars shimmer cold and icy. Their light slightly wavering. She knows it is the Earth’s atmosphere. But that’s neither here nor there. It doesn’t matter a jot. Not at this moment anyway.

 

Darkness is the important thing. No moon. New moon. Why do people refer to a new moon when there is no moon or when one cannot see the moon from our revolving, ever turning blue dot? The moon is still up there in the sky. It’s just that at some point during its orbit its farther side from us is facing the sun. So the side facing us is dark and we can’t see it. As simple as that.

 

Tonight is new moon. An ideal night. She opens the window quietly and glances at the houses to her right first, then to her left. Like hers they are all immersed in silent darkness. People sleep. She looks at the luminous hands of her alarm clock on the side table. The shorter hand points at the number three, or close to it, and the long hand at somewhere between ten and fifteen. Probably around 3:12 in the morning.

 

Her house stands almost but not quite alone on top of the hill. To her right, looking from her bedroom window that faces the back garden, there are two houses. The one closest to hers is empty. No one lives there but it is up for sale. The old man who owned it died seven weeks ago. His son and daughter came down from London, cleared up and cleaned. Three days later the sign FOR SALE appeared in the front garden. It has been there for the last eighteen days but so far no one appears to want it. The owners of the next house are a couple with two young children. They are always exhausted, so nothing and no one will wake them once they hit the hay.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

M G da Mota is Margarida Mota-Bull’s pen name for fiction. She is a Portuguese-British novelist with a love for classical music, ballet and opera. Under her real name she also writes reviews of live concerts, CDs, DVDs and books for two classical music magazines on the web: MusicWeb International and Seen and Heard International. She is a member of the UK Society of Authors, speaks four languages and lives in Sussex with her husband. Her website, called flowingprose.com, contains photos and information.

 

 

LINK WHERE BOOK IS SOLD:

 

Amazon UK : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arabesque-M-G-Mota-ebook/dp/B0D7CMSD5F/

Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Arabesque-M-G-Mota-ebook/dp/B0D7CMSD5F/

 

 

Website: https://www.flowingprose.com/

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/m.g.da.mota

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mgdamota/

 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margarida-mota-bull/

 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and CODE

The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

Blog Tour: BORN LIKE THIS by Maggie Blackbird

 

She went back in time to rescue him.

She never counted on falling in love…

Born Like This

Maizemerized Book 2

by Maggie Blackbird

Genre: Historical Paranormal Time-Travel Romance

She went back in time to rescue him.  She never counted on falling in love…

Alma Whitecrow prefers hunting and fishing with men, not romancing them. But hearing about the roguishly handsome coureur de bois, who saved her sister from the Dakota, haunts her thoughts and dreams. Well-versed in surviving the wilds, Alma resolves to travel to the mid-eighteenth century, as her sister once did, to save the man from impending death.

Charlot Baudelaire thumbs his nose at society’s expectations, content living as a loner, trading with people he calls the Saulters. If he needs a woman for the night, there is always a willing maiden. What he doesn’t expect is a spunky and stubborn female warrior to challenge him.

Charlot is not the man Alma dreamed about, and Alma is not the kind of woman Charlot pursues. But the longer they are together, the more drawn to each other they become, until Alma faces the biggest decision of her life. Stay with a man who may never reciprocate her love, or return to her Ojibway home and bland existence.

 

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Alma had expected to step into a battle. Reality set in. The only killing she’d done was animals when hunting with Grandpa. But if she didn’t shoot, she risked her own life and Theodore’s as she faced six Dakota sporting arrows.

 

Theodore growled, waiting for her command.

 

The Dakota didn’t fire at her, though. They seemed to fire everywhere else, hollering in a language she couldn’t comprehend. The fear in their eyes indicated she’d terrified them.

 

Maybe they assumed she was a ghost when she’d emerged through the flickering flames.

 

As the Dakota scattered, she tracked their moccasin footprints, but one set stood out. Grandpa had told her about the spread of the toes, and these toes weren’t spread. They came from a person who walked in shoes or boots. Someone who later in life had switched to the footwear of the Indigenous people.

 

She followed the footprints with Theodore beside her, sniffing. She used the end of her rifle to move aside the thick brush, which was why her homeland was called the bush at her reserve. There was nothing to call a forest or woods about Northwestern Ontario.

 

The thick underbrush kept trying to snag her clothing. Clothing she longed to remove. When she left home, she’d donned an outfit for a cold Halloween night. But summer bloomed here. She could remove her jacket since she had a sweater underneath, and beneath that a tank top.

 

A groan came about ten feet from her, and she aimed her rifle in the direction of the sound. She moved through the many twigs and branches but didn’t spot a blood trail. Whatever lay beneath the berry bush had been hit there.

 

Another groan.

 

Whoever was hurt wasn’t an animal. That was the sound of a human being. Maybe one of the Dakota?

 

She edged in closer until she caught the moccasins sticking out, along with breeches. This wasn’t a Dakota or warrior from the village under attack.

 

Her heart held its beat.

 

Had she found Charlot?

Born For This

Maizemerized Book 1

She’s always been obsessed with her ancestors, and now he’s offering her a chance to live with them... forever.

Second-year university student Edie Whitecrow gobbles up each course on Indigenous studies. If only she could experience the lives of her Anishinaabe ancestors instead of reading about them. On her way to a Halloween party decked out as a historical Ojibway maiden, she spies a corn maze in a spot known to be barren.

A scarecrow figure beckons Edie to enter with the enticing offer of making her biggest wish come true. She jumps at the chance and finds herself in the past, face to face with the man who haunts her dreams—the handsome brave Thunder Bear. He claims he’s spent twelve years waiting for Gitche Manidoo to send her to him.

Life in the eighteenth century isn’t what Edie romanticized about, though. When her conscience is tested, she must choose between the modern day or the world of her descendants—where the man she was born for resides.

 

What readers are saying:

“This novel is true to history while still spinning a lovely tale of love. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves historical and time travel romances.” –Goodreads Reviewer

“The story had me glued to the pages from start to finish. Loved and recommend this book.” –B&N Reviewer

“Based on prior reading from the author, I knew this would be a great book. I had no idea just how much I’d love it.” –BookBub Reviewer

“Once I started reading, I was not putting this book down.” –Goodreads Reviewer

 

This is one of the best romance novels I’ve ever read in my entire life. This book will pull you in full force and make you feel so many different emotions.” –Goodreads Reviewer

 

 

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Thunder Bear nodded. “Fire Woman. Is it not an appropriate name? The flames did not burn you. Fire is your friend. Your spirit guide.”

 

“I want to be honest.” She wet her plush mouth with the color riper than raspberries. “I have been educated in the ways of the white men. Where I come from, we live like white men.”

 

“I know you do. It is in your speech, your movement, your behavior.” He reached out and touched her bare arm that possessed delicate strength beneath the smooth flesh he palmed. “You are here to become what you are meant to truly be. We will teach you, if you are willing.”

 

“I am more than willing. In the white man’s world, I am learning everything about the People. I have studied the People ever since I was a little girl.”

 

“I know you have. It is why you came.” He could not resist letting his palm move along her arm. Beneath the skin he stroked, her slight muscle flexed.

 

She wet her lips.

 

The urge to claim her mouth was a test of his restraint. They’d only met this morning, and he must go slow. To slide his mouth over hers after just meeting was not how a warrior conducted himself. Yet, the way she’d drew her tongue along her lower lip was caressing and licking him beneath his breechclout. Her innocent gesture might as well have been her nails raking his backside, her hands boldly exploring his arms, and her breasts melting against his chest.

 

She was aptly named, because a fire danced in her sparkling dark eyes. A fire of desire. A fire of need. A fire flickering with mesmerization in her gaze touching his face.

 

He stifled the groan aching to leave his throat.

 

She seemed to drag her gaze to the dark water. If where they stood was better lit, he’d probably witness redness on her cheeks.

 

“What is it?”

 

Again, she wet her lips. “I… Maybe I should go back?”

 

A punch seemed to knock his gut. “Return? Now?”

 

“No.” She shook her head. “I mean the wigwam. Not the…the…”

 

“The dancing flames?”

 

She nodded.

 

Relief loosened the knots of his shoulder muscles. He didn’t believe in restraining any maiden, but if she had dared to run for where she had come from, he probably would have tossed her over his shoulder and carted her back to the camp. Now that he had found what he’d waited twelve years to capture, he wasn’t letting her go.

 

Somehow, he had to help her find her courage to survive with them. She was destined to be here.

An Ojibway from Northwestern Ontario, Maggie resides in the country with her husband and their fur babies, two beautiful Alaskan Malamutes.  When she’s not writing, she can be found pulling weeds in the flower beds, mowing the huge lawn, walking the Mals deep in the bush, teeing up a ball at the golf course, fishing in the boat for walleye, or sitting on the deck at her sister’s house, making more wonderful memories with the people she loves most.

 

Website * Facebook * X * Instagram * Bluesky * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads

 

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a $20 giveaway!

Enter the Born Like This Giveaway Here

Spotlight: THIRD PARTY: MERRY WITH THE MILLIONAIRE by Danika Bloom

 

She’s the one that got away. This Christmas, with my eighty-year-old grandmother as my wingman, I'm getting her back.

★★★★★

“Wow! I ended up reading this book in one sitting—I could not put it down. … Danika Bloom books have now hit "don't need to know about the book, just need to get it" status in my TBR lists.” ~Amazon reviewer

PAIGE

I’m a dog trainer. I can teach any unruly pup to sit, stay, and not eat the furniture. My ex-boyfriend, however, is a whole other breed.

A year ago, Josh became a millionaire after creating a wildly popular video game... about dogs. My idea, by the way. I took one look at his new bank account and ran—all the way to another continent.

Now I’m home for Christmas, and his matchmaking Nana has decided it's time for a reunion. She’s deploying her secret weapon (a guilt-inducing collie) and hiding cookies in the frozen vegetable bag. She's nuts. But the way Josh still looks at me—like he remembers every stupid word I ever made up—makes me wonder if I'm the crazy one for ever leaving.

JOSH

My girlfriend—the only woman who truly understands that dogs are better than people—gave me the idea for a game that made me millions. And then she left me. Says I can’t use my money to take care of her.

Now she's back, and my eighty-year-old grandmother is playing puppet master with our lives. Paige says she’s leaving after the holidays, but I see through her tough-girl act. She’s the one who got away, and I was a fool to let her go. Nana's methods may be chaotic, but she's right about one thing: Paige belongs with me. And this time, I’m not taking no for an answer.

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This holiday season, a meddling grandma, a virtual-reality dog, and two stubborn exes are about to learn that a second chance at love isn't about chasing or running—it's about finally finding the courage to stay. Get ready for a story that's steamy, hilarious, and full of heart.

Purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Third-Party-second-romance-Six-Pack-ebook/dp/B08MQBS4XQ/

Review: MEET THE PARENTS by Emily Shiner

 

A girlfriend meets her boyfriend’s parents, and the mother takes an instant dislike to her. Right away, there’s a secret between Gina and Marta. They knew each other before? Mmm…what happened? Why did they hate each other so much? So many secrets to find out. There was something sinister about the mother. What did she have planned? Story right away grabs you with all these secrets. What did the parents do in the past? Evidently, this was all about revenge for a murdered aunt. Will everything go according to plan? How will this all end?

 

A good read ‘til the end…and what a surprising ending it was! I’ll definitely check out the next book by this author.

 

Rating: 5 stars

Review: GOOSEBUMPS: ESCAPE FROM SHUDDER MANSION by R.L. Stine

 

The scary stories of Shudder Mansion were just that: stories. Right? 12-year-old Riley didn’t really think so. Riley couldn’t explain the weird things he was seeing.

 

A class assignment sends 5 kids spending the night at Shudder Mansion. Will they all come out alive? The kids were in for quite a scare in that mansion. Giant rats. A mean, hungry beast. The horrors of Shudder Mansion were real. And there was no escape. A chilling read!

 

Rating: 4 stars