The Travel Adventures of PJ Mouse ~ 2 Book Reviews, Author Interview, and Giveaway

The Travel Adventures of PJ Mouse series

By Gwyneth Jane Page

Illustrated by Megan Elizabeth

In Canada

PJ Mouse's adventure begins with a tumble from a bag and laying beneath a bench getting dirty and wet.  Luckily Emily finds PJ and brings him home and the two are about to embark on their first adventure to the Rocky Mountains and the length of Canada.

With Emily and her family PJ will travel across Canada discovering the vast and varying beauty found within each providence.  In the Rockies PJ discovers glaciers and the hidden beauty within a crevasse.  Saskatchewan was flat prairies with a salt lake.  Niagara Falls was actually three falls that combined into one large one.  Much to PJ's surprise people in Quebec speak French saying "Bonjour" and "Merci". 

But traveling across Canada is just the beginning of Pj's exciting and adventurous new life...

Traveling adventures with PJ Mouse introduces young readers to new worlds through a funny story with delightful illustrations that children will love.  The illustrations are simple with the appearance of  using either crayon, pastels, or color pencils.  

This book is broken down into chapters so one could read a chapter at night before bed making this an 8 night reading experience.  A perfect group present for the entire family to share and enjoy together. 

I was provided a copy of this book by the author through iRead Book Tours in exchange for my honest review and tour participation.

Book Description for The Travel Adventures of PJ Mouse in Canada (Book One):

PJ Mouse, an adorable little stuffed animal, was lost and alone until young Emily heard his cries for help. Now, along with his new family, PJ gets to travel the world-discovering exciting new places and people along the way!

Come join PJ on his first adventure across Canada as he hikes on a glacier in the Rockies, finds a salt lake in the prairies, and walks on the ocean floor in Nova Scotia.

Buy the book:

Author's Website, Amazon, Amazon.ca , Barnes and Noble

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In Queensland

PJ is about to go on his second major adventure with Emily and her family.  This time PJ's adventure is taking him to Australia and he is going by airplane! And even more amazing he's leaving Canada in winter and arriving in Australia in summer.  

Australia is an amazing land - there is a something called the Great Barrier Reef.  Clear turquoise water filled unusual fish of different sizes and shapes.  And PJ discovers the dangers of a rip tide.  On land he explores Mt. Tamborine - a rain-forest filled with tall trees and colourful birds.

Traveling adventures with PJ Mouse introduce young readers to new worlds through a funny story with delightful illustrations that children will love.  The illustrations are simple with the appearance of  using either crayon, pastels, or color pencils.  

This book is broken down into chapters so one could read a chapter at night before bed making this an 8 night reading experience.  A perfect group present for the entire family to share and enjoy together. 

I was provided a copy of this book by the author through iRead Book Tours in exchange for my honest review and tour participation.

Book Description for The Travel Adventures of PJ Mouse in Queensland (Book Two):

PJ Mouse, an adorable little stuffed animal, was lost and alone until young Emily heard his cries for help. Now, along with his new family, PJ gets to travel the world - discovering exciting new places, people, and animals along the way!

​Come join PJ on this, his second adventure, along the coast of Queensland, as he snorkels at the Great Barrier Reef, chats with a Loggerhead turtle in the midst of a great undertaking, and explores the tropical rainforest- until he has to be rescued by one of the local friendly wildlife.

Buy the book:   Author's Website - Amazon - Amazon.ca - Barnes and Noble

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Brand Products: PJ Mouse Stuffed Toy, Customized Stickers, Passport

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Author's Bio:

Gwyneth Jane Page (Jane), who holds an MBA from Simon Fraser University, has called many countries home. She grew up in such places as England, Peru, the USA, and the Caribbean, and has

also lived in Australia and Canada. She now resides in Victoria, BC with her husband and four children. The PJ Mouse books are based on Jane's family trips with the real stuffed animal, PJ, who was found by Emily, Jane's youngest daughter.

Megan Elizabeth, Jane's second oldest daughter, has lived in Canada and Australia and travelled extensively with her family-and PJ. Having been artistic since she was a little girl, illustrating the PJ Mouse books has enabled her to combine her love of travel with her love of art. Megan completed her studies at VanArts and is now building her career as a professional photographer as well as an illustrator. She currently resides in Victoria, BC with her family.

Connect with the author:  Website   Twitter   Facebook

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Author Interview:

Do you have a day job?

I do not have a day job anymore, I gave that up when I started writing, but I do have 4 kids. That alone could almost be considered a full time job I would think. I also have all the normal daily things that most of us have to cope with such as cooking and cleaning, etc.

How do you find time to write?

I have times where I write and then times where I do not write for a bit. It is the promotion of the book that takes up a lot of time.

I have Facebook, my own website www.pjmouse.com, Etsy, Amazon, Instagram and have to keep all these updated. I also have to keep in touch with stores to see if they need more stock.

Not only have I written the books, but I have also had PJ Mouse toy created along with his passport and stickers. I recently started having PJ's pajamas made. It took a while to create all these things. The idea: to make it appealing for kids to want to curl up with a book and read.

So I go in cycles, doing what is necessary at the time. Sometimes it is the writing and then, once a book has just come out, it is the promotion.

What is your favorite thing about the writing process?

I think I like creating the characters. I like PJ, he is so adorable. I also like the slight friendly rivalry between PJ and Star Bear. I also like trying to make things funny and entertaining for kids. I want kids to learn from the books but to have a good time as they do.

What is your next project?

My next book is on England 'The Travel Adventures of PJ Mouse - In a Small Corner of England'. It will be available in November. The next one is on New Zealand. The first draft of the manuscript is complete but Megan has not yet started the artwork for the book. I expect it will be published some time in the middle of 2016. The 5th book in the series will most likely be on Italy. I have just started writing the manuscript.

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Giveaway:​

Prizes: ​

Win 
Book One (Canada) of The Adventures of PJ Mouse 
+ PJ Mouse Stuffed Toy

+ Passport Sticker Book (Open to USA and Canada)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bach, Casals & The Six Suites for 'Cello Solo: Volumes 1-4 by Steven Hancoff Spotlight and Interview with CD Review

ENTER THE CREATIVE WORLD OF J.S. BACH IN INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED GUITARIST STEVEN HANCOFF’S GROUNDBREAKING FOUR-VOLUME E-BOOK

Book Details:

Book Title: Bach, Casals and; The Six Suites for 'Cello Solo: Volumes 1-4 by Steven Hancoff
Category: Adult non-fiction, 1189 pages
Genre: Biography / Music
Publisher: iTunes
Release date: June 2015
Tour dates: Nov 30 - Dec 18, 2015
Content Rating: G

Book Description:

FROM TRAGEDY TO TRANSCENDENCE

A Totally Immersive Multimedia Experience

Richly Detailed Text Embedded with More Than 1,000 Illustrations Illuminating Bach’s Masterpiece, from Its Creation to Its Legacy

Bach, Casals and the Six Suites for ’Cello Solo and 3-CD set Audio Recording of ’Cello Suites to be Released June 23rd

Exclusively on iTunes and CD Baby

Includes Hancoff’s Complete Recording Of His Acoustic Guitar Transcription of Bach’s ’Cello Suites

From tragedy to transcendence is the theme that embodies the essence of the life and work of Johann Sebastian Bach. “This man, ‘the miracle of Bach,’ as Pablo Casals once put it, led a life of unfathomable creativity and giftedness on the one hand and neglect and immense tragedy on the other,” says Hancoff.

Bach’s life was rife with hardship and tragedy from the start. By the time he was nine years old, he had witnessed the deaths of three siblings and then, within a year, his father and mother also passed away.

For all his education and talent, however, his first job was serving as a lackey for a drunkard duke. Subsequently, he spent the next fifteen years in the employ of Weimar’s harshly ascetic Duke Wilhelm Ernst, who cared little for music. When he was twenty-two, he married the love of his live, his distant cousin, Maria Barbara Bach. During the thirteen years they were married, she bore him seven children, three of whom died at birth.

In 1717, Prince Leopold of Cöthen offered Bach a position as the musical director for Cöthen. Bach jumped at the chance. The officials of Weimar, however, threw him in jail for “the crime” of daring to resign his present position. Still, Bach was on the verge of a career breakthrough.

Three years into his happy and contented tenure in Cothen, Prince Leopold and Bach visited the spa town of Carlsbad for a month of vacationing and music-making. Unfortunately, upon his return Bach learned of the death of his wife and then only when he entered into his home. Imagine the shock, the impact. He never even discovered the cause of death.

Yet this tragic setback in Bach’s life was a major turning point because he came to grips with his personal tragedy by unleashing a flood of masterpieces for which he is and will be forever revered. First came the Six Violin Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo and then the Six Suites for ’Cello Solo.

In the ’Cello Suites we hear Bach expressing his own seeking, yearning, love, loss, sorrow, grief and determination and their overtones of surrender, resolution affirmation and transcendence. He aspired to articulate an ultimate personal confession, a revelation, entirely unique, entirely sublime, as an ultimate act of artistic and creative testimony, a heavenly statement about his own life and even of life itself—as a final gift and an enduring, heavenly send-off for his beloved wife.

Bach, Casals and the Six Suites for ’Cello Solo invites readers and music lovers into a unique experience, contained in an immersive four-volume e-book from Steven Hancoff – a virtuoso musician’s restless, passionate, multimedia exploration of a musical masterpiece that only grows in stature almost three centuries after it was written.

The many fascinating and inspiring aspects of the book include:

• How Bach struggled and overcame adversity and the lessons his example offer us today.

• The ultimate meaning of the Six Suites for ’Cello.

• How almost all of Bach’s works would have nearly sunk into oblivion were it not for the extraordinary efforts of Sara Levy, the great aunt of Felix Mendelssohn, to rescue them.

• How Felix Mendelssohn single-handedly created with the performance of the St. Matthew Passion a Bach renaissance and a legacy that continues to be enjoyed to the present day.

• The miraculous discovery of the six ’Cello Suites by Pablo Casals in a Barcelona thrift shop and why he studied them for twelve years before performing them in public.

• What Pablo Casals meant when he spoke of “the miracle of Bach.” Bach, Casals and the Six Suites for ’Cello Solo promises to be an adventure for anyone fascinated by the enduring power of music, art and why they matter.

Buy the music and ebooks: iTunes

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Meet the author:

Steve Hancoff began playing guitar when he was 13 years old, captivated by the folk music craze of the 1960s. Within a year he was performing in coffeehouses around Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

For nearly 15 years, he toured the world—about 50 countries—as an official Artistic Ambassador representing the United States of America. His recordings include Steel String Guitar, New Orleans Guitar Solos, Duke Ellington for Solo Guitar, and The Single Petal of A Rose. He is also the author of Acoustic Masters: Duke Ellington for Fingerstyle Guitar and New Orleans Jazz for Fingerstyle Guitar. He is a graduate of St. John’s College, home of the “100 Great Books of the Western World” program and has a Masters degree in clinical social work. He is a psychotherapist, a Rolfer, and a practitioner of Tai Chi. An avid hiker, he is also a member of the Grand Canyon River Guides Associations.

Connect with the author: Website   ~  Twitter  ~   Facebook

Subscribe to Steven's Hancoff's work on YouTube

Enter the Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Interview with Steven Hancoff

Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp?

Yes: Life is a gift. No matter the adversity, the damage, the obstacles, feel gratitude for having been given life… the opportunity to experience the wonder and magnitude of all that which is. Maybe in the end, that’s really what writers are trying to express.

Contribute to the world so that by virtue of your participation in it, you leave the world a better place. Make the most of the time you have here. Let what you do and how you live, glorify not yourself, but life itself and whatever you imagine the source to that life to be. Dig deeper and more honestly, forthrightly and open-eyedly.

How much of the book is realistic?

All of it, even though none of us possess the inherent gifts of Bach, and few of us the inherent gifts of Pablo Casals.

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

All based on what I can fathom of the lives of Bach and Casals.

What books have most influenced your life most?

Believe it or not, Euclid’s Elements; Homer’s Odyssey; Shakespeare, especially Othello and King Lear; Darwin: On the Origin of Species; Dante’s Inferno; Tolstoy’s War and Peace; Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Rolfing and Ida Rolf Talks about Rolfing and Physical Reality.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

Ida P. Rolf, without doubt.

What book are you reading now?

“Reading through” Bach’s Violin Sonatas and Partitas; and The Loves of Judith by Meir Shalev (who seems to me to be a great genius). I tend to haunt second-hand bookstore. I also love anything by John Updike. I used to always be reading a novel. Nowadays, I wish I had more time to be reading novels.

Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?

Meir Shalev, and Etgar Keret

What are your current projects?

I am creating a concert length, multi-media presentation of the story. The first performances are in Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria at the end of November. I am calling it: From Tragedy to Transcendence –Bach, Casals and the Six Suites for Cello Solo. I notice now that when I tell some people about it, I like to say: “It’s real adult entertainment for real adults!”

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I have not read the book that was spotlighted but I have listened to the 3 CD music set.  The music is beautiful and lovely background accompaniment to dinner or an evening of quiet reading.

Prepare for close to 3 hours of music that will touch you.  Though  written for cello the transition to guitar is delightful.  Those who have a fondness for guitars will fall in love with the instrument again.

I also found the accompanying booklet to enlightening as it described the means by which many of Bach's pieces were saved so that we could and can rediscover them though this presentation by Steven Hancoff.

I was gifted a copy of this CD set but no expectation of a review was expected and these expressed thoughts pertaining to this 3 CD set are my own.

CSFF December Blog Tour Day 3 ~ The Shock of Night

Welcome to the Third and Final Day of CSFF's December Tour!

This month we are examining the newest book from 
Patrick W. Carr ~ The Shock of Night.

The Shock of Night
The Darkwater Saga novella
By Patrick W. Carr

Death and darkness have a starring role in The Shock of Night.  But when you look at the world around us this should not come as a shock, but in no way should this be a cause for despair.  Darkness must eventually give way to light.

Willet Dura has an unusual fascination with the moment of death. He serves as a reeve thus he would be expected to examine death in carrying out the the duties of his job.  But Willet sought something else, he sought to discover what lay just beyond the veil of death.

Map from http://www.patrickwcarr.com/the-backstory/

One has to wonder why he has this fascination with death.  Did he always have it?  Was it a byproduct of the war in which he was forced to take the life of his enemies in defense of his home?  Or was it something else - something that first took hold of him when he was forced into the Darkwater Forest?

And then there is the Darkwater Forest - what is the evil that lives within this forest?  How long has it been there?  The Vigil claim that though there is no visible sign of growth that the Darkwater is indeed growing.  I would be interested in the backstory of this forest - was it always this basic area or was it in fact a smaller land area originally?

One can hope that the second book in this series will offer further glimpses into these questions.  Willet Dura is a damaged man.  His life has not unfolded as he had expected.  He was training to be a priest, but war prevented this.  He had few if any true friends.  He was the least noble among the nobility and the court was not about to embrace him.  And if The Shock of Night is any indication Dura may lose even more with his inheritance of the gift of Domere.

I'm interested to see where this series takes and discovering the truth about the darkness that hides within Dura and why it seemingly hasn't effected he as yet.  And I would love more backstory about the Vigil and why they took on the task of guarding the Darkwater.


I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher Bethany House in conjunction with this blog tour in exchange for my honest review and tour participation.

Thank you for joining me for the CSFF December Tour.  If you haven't already you may want to visit the other tour participants who have been posting throughout this 3-day tour.

Thomas Clayton Booher   Keanan Brand   Beckie Burnham   Carol Bruce Collett 

Carol Gehringer   Victor Gentile   Rani Grant   Rebekah Gyger   Bruce Hennigan 

Janeen Ippolito   Carol Keen   Rebekah Loper   Jennette Mbewe 
Shannon McDermott    Meagan @ Blooming with Books (you're here)
Rebecca LuElla Miller   Joan Nienhuis  Nissa  Audrey Sauble
Chawna Schroeder   Jessica Thomas   Robert Treskillard 

Shane Werlinger   Phyllis Wheeler   Nicole White

About the Book:

When one man is brutally murdered and the priest he works for mortally wounded on the streets of Bunard, Willet Dura is called to investigate. Yet the clues to the crime lead to contradictions and questions without answers. As Willet begins to question the dying priest, the man pulls Willet close and screams in a foreign tongue. Then he dies without another word.

Willet returns to the city, no closer to answers than before, but his senses are skewed. People he touches appear to have a subtle shift, a twist seen at the edge of his vision, and it’s as though he can see their deepest thoughts. In a world divided between haves and have-nots, gifted and common, Willet soon learns he’s been passed the rarest gift of all: a gift that’s not supposed to exist.

Now Willet must pursue the murderer still on the loose in Bunard even as he’s pulled into a much more dangerous and epic conflict that threatens not only his city, but his entire world–a conflict that will force him to come to terms with his own tortured past if he wants to survive.

CSFF December Blog Tour Day 2 ~ The Shock of Night

Welcome to the Second Day of CSFF's December Tour!

This month we are examining the newest book from 
Patrick W. Carr ~ The Shock of Night.

The Shock of Night
The Darkwater Saga novella
By Patrick W. Carr

Something is cutting down the guardians of Darkwater Forest and their numbers are too few to fill their losses.  And someone wants to keep this knowledge from becoming known and they are willing to cut down a elderly priest and his guard in the darkness of night to guard this evil secret.

For centuries evil has lurked within Darkwater Forest - an evil that no one, who has entered the forest, has lived to share.  But somehow Lord Dura has managed to survive his single foray into this dreaded place.  He memories are vague and unreliable - all he knows is that those who entered the forest with him didn't come out.  But why did he survive?  That question and his lost memories haunt his sleep.

Willet Dura, a reeve in service to King Lairdir of Bunard, has a way of sensing death that few others do.  He night-walks, but only on nights in which a murder has been committed.  His sleeping mind somehow senses these murders but how?  He secretly fears that somehow he is involved in these crimes though he has no memory of them.

Following the brutal murder of a priest and his guard, Dura comes to the attention of the four orders of the church.  Somehow Dura has been drawn into an unexpected power struggle between the king and the church.  Determining the truth about the murders of Elwin and Robin may be the answer that both the king and the church seek, but Dura may not be willing to pay the price it will cost. And then there is a strange intuition that Dura now possesses, one that may give him an advantage against an enemy he doesn't know.  But his new "gift" could in truth be a curse that will cost him everything...

I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher Bethany House in conjunction with this blog tour in exchange for my honest review and tour participation.

Please check back tomorrow for the third and final day of the CSFF December Tour.  While you wait check-out the other tour participants who will be posting throughout this 3-day tour.

Thomas Clayton Booher   Keanan Brand   Beckie Burnham   Carol Bruce Collett 

Carol Gehringer   Victor Gentile   Rani Grant   Rebekah Gyger   Bruce Hennigan 

Janeen Ippolito   Carol Keen   Rebekah Loper   Jennette Mbewe   Shannon McDermott 

Meagan @ Blooming with Books (you're here)  Rebecca LuElla Miller   Joan Nienhuis  

Nissa  Audrey Sauble   Chawna Schroeder   Jessica Thomas   Robert Treskillard 

Shane Werlinger   Phyllis Wheeler   Nicole White

About the Book:

When one man is brutally murdered and the priest he works for mortally wounded on the streets of Bunard, Willet Dura is called to investigate. Yet the clues to the crime lead to contradictions and questions without answers. As Willet begins to question the dying priest, the man pulls Willet close and screams in a foreign tongue. Then he dies without another word.

Willet returns to the city, no closer to answers than before, but his senses are skewed. People he touches appear to have a subtle shift, a twist seen at the edge of his vision, and it’s as though he can see their deepest thoughts. In a world divided between haves and have-nots, gifted and common, Willet soon learns he’s been passed the rarest gift of all: a gift that’s not supposed to exist.

Now Willet must pursue the murderer still on the loose in Bunard even as he’s pulled into a much more dangerous and epic conflict that threatens not only his city, but his entire world–a conflict that will force him to come to terms with his own tortured past if he wants to survive.

CSFF Blog Tour December Day 1 ~ The Shock of Night

Welcome to the First Day of CSFF's December Tour!

This month we are examining the newest book from 
Patrick W. Carr ~ The Shock of Night.

But, before delving into The Shock of Night, I want to examine the prequel novella that offers us a glimpse at Willet Dura before he becomes a lord within Collum.

By Divine Right
The Darkwater Saga novella
By Patrick W. Carr

Willet Dura is an assistant reeve in service to King Lairdir of Bunard.  But there is something unusual about Dura he night-walks, but only on nights a murder has been committed.  What causes these night-walks is known - service during the war damaged him in some way.  Many who saw the horrors of war also night-walk, but Dura alone walks the nights when murder in committed.

His walks trouble him as he has no recollection of them - though he awakes fully clothed - he knows not whether he is the murderer or merely a wanderer of the night.

When Dura suspects that the death of a gifted man is instead murder he stumbles upon a plot that threatens the king and the gifted of the kingdom.  But proving his suspicions and warning the king of the potential threat won't be easy.  But Dura is determined to do his duty and even go beyond what his duties require of him.

What follows sets the scene for The Shock of Night and dangers that Dura faces at the beginning.

By Divine Right is available in digital format only but is free if you are interested in getting a deeper understanding of Dura and his place within the kingdom at the beginning of The Shock of Night.  This is a delightful introduction to Patrick Carr's newest series The Darkwater Saga.  The very mention of this is worthy of a shiver!  What lies within this feared forest?  This is what I want to know, but from reading his previous series The Staff and the Sword I'm anticipating tidbits and clues to be scattered throughout with the payoff coming with the last book.  I love anticipating the next book.

Please check back tomorrow for the second day of the CSFF December Tour.  While you wait check-out the other tour participants who will be posting throughout this 3-day tour.

Thomas Clayton Booher   Keanan Brand   Beckie Burnham   Carol Bruce Collett 

Carol Gehringer   Victor Gentile   Rani Grant   Rebekah Gyger   Bruce Hennigan 

Janeen Ippolito   Carol Keen   Rebekah Loper   Jennette Mbewe   Shannon McDermott 

Meagan @ Blooming with Books (you're here)  Rebecca LuElla Miller   Joan Nienhuis  

Nissa  Audrey Sauble   Chawna Schroeder   Jessica Thomas   Robert Treskillard 

Shane Werlinger   Phyllis Wheeler   Nicole White 

About the Book:

Willet Dura ekes out a living as an assistant reeve in the city of Bunard, the royal city, investigating minor and not-so-minor crimes in the poor quarter. Ever since a terrible battle, Willet's been drawn to the dead, and has an uncanny ability not only to solve their crimes, but even to know when one has been committed. 

When a gifted musician is found dead in the merchants' quarter of the city, everyone assumes by the signs that the old man simply died of a stroke, but Willet's intuition tells him better. When he learns that this is the second death within the last month of one of the gifted, those with a rare inherited ability, he begins to suspect that something more is afoot, and he soon finds himself chasing a mystery that could bring down the very kingdom of Collum.

Available from Amazon to download for free at this time.

The Midnight Visitors ~ Review

The Midnight Visitors
By Juliet David 
Illustrated by Jo Parry

It was a ordinary night, cold and dark and quiet...

At least it was quiet until visitors started arriving in Miriam's cowshed.  First a family of rabbits arrived seeking the warmth of the hay and the shed.  They were soon joined by a fox and an owl.

Then a couple of people with a donkey arrived - seeking shelter with the menagerie already within. But these people were weary with travel.  And the woman was expecting a child - and soon from the look of her.

Before too long the family of travelers had a baby and visitors of their own!  Shepherds had heard of this little baby's birth and had to come see him.

What had started out as ordinary, cold night soon became one never to be forgotten by those who visited it that night.  The Midnight Visitors is a sweet story and a delightful recounting of the Nativity for young children.  This is in no way an in-depth story, but rather one that can lead into the full Biblical account.  After reading the story parents could ask young listeners if they know who the strangers who came into the barn were.  Who the baby was?  What was the distant singing that Miriam heard?

The illustrations are delightful - I have a particular fondness for Freddy Fox as he reminds me of one of my doxies.  In fact Freddy's picture on the cover is what made me really want to review this book when Kregel offered me the opportunity.

I was provided a copy of this book through Kregel's blogger program in exchange for my honest review and tour participation.

Darkness Reigns ~ Review

Darkness Reigns
The Kinsman Chronicles Part 1
By Jill Williamson

Darkness has covered the land in which the Five Realms dwell and the long foretold Five Woes seem to be coming forth as if in response to the evil brought forth by the King of Armania.

Within Armania, King Echad rules with a cruel glee - no one is safe from his whims or his worship of Barthos, even his own children.  Prince Wilek, eldest son of Echad, longs to be named Heir, to bring about an end to the sacrifices that his father insists upon.

A series of disasters is throwing the Realm of Armania into chaos. A quake has brought Cape Waldemar into the sea.  An entire city has been lost to the Lowerworld. 

Mielle finds herself newly installed within the court of Armania.  Serving as an honor maiden to Lady Zeroah is her best hope of bringing help to the those living within the Sink.  But court corruption and politics is more dangerous than Mielle had anticipated or expected.  Mielle is dedicated to helping Lady Zeroah with her upcoming marriage to Prince Wilek and to do this she must ferret out information about the prince.  Information that will help Zeroah win his heart.  But who do you trust in a court where no one trusts anyone and everyone seeks only their own advancement. 

This is the first part of the first book of the Kinsman Chronicles and I am totally hooked eagerly awaiting the second part.  There is nothing more satisfying than a book that leaves the reader waiting for the next part. This book introduces to a vast cast of characters who seem to be on a course that will bring them together - how and in what matter remains to be seen.  

Bring on part 2 and The Heir War...

I was provided an advanced pre-released copy of this book, but have also since purchased it. Darkness Reigns released today - December 1, 2015, and you can get it for a fantastic price free!

About the Book:

The god of the soil is furious. Volcanic eruptions, sinkholes, earthquakes--everything points to his unhappiness. At least this is what the people of Armania in the Five Realms believe. Amidst the unsettling state of the world around them, the princes of Armania live their lives focused more on who will claim the throne after their sickly father, King Echad, dies. That is until Prince Wilek's concubine turns up dead--beside her, a bloodied message that seems to have come from the mother realms. - See more at: http://jillwilliamson.com/