Smashwords – Rosepoint Publishing

Come Marching Home by Hazel West – #fantasy #giveaway – #bookreview

Come Marching Home Blog Tour

Synopsis:

After being away for over a year, Alfonse Keller has returned from the trenches on Teuton’s western front, fighting in the war that’s broken out against the Steppes. He should feel relieved now that’s he’s back in his own village in the care of his brother Ernst, but he’s not. It seems like nothing has changed except for him, like he’s a traveler from a different world.

When Alfonse left to join the army, he was a natural magician making a name for himself, but after a tragic incident resulting in the death of his friend, and his own crippling injury, he no longer has the ability to use magic.

Suffering from constant nightmares and revisited trauma, Alfonse can’t get the trenches out of his head. Ernst tries to help, but he doesn’t really understand either. How can he, when Alfonse doesn’t really understand himself? He feels like a phantom, standing on the outskirts of a life he’ll never live again.

As Ernst tries to do everything he can for his brother, he can’t help but feel like Alfonse is slipping away, that maybe part of him never left the trenches at all. But how can he save his brother when Alf refuses to let anyone in?

My Thoughts

I definitely went into this one without remembering that it is a fantasy-history fantasy. Sergeant Major Alphonse Keller has returned to Coldbrooke from the Teutonic-Steppes war a different man than the boy who left home and his older brother, Ernst, a healer. It was deemed that Ernst was of more service in the little village than at the western front.

It’s a bewildering and confusing time and Alfonse has returned with a horrendous case of PTSD before it was truly given a name and understood and guilt over having lived (albeit with serious injuries of his own) when his childhood friend and war buddy died.

He is still beset with ugly nightmares, terrors, and sweats and is a greater problem to heal than his brother has confronted prior. Ernst cannot get a handle on how to treat him, care for him, or get him over this to once again return to a normal, or near normal, life. Alphonse rescues a dog, more savagely wounded than he, and he finds a temporary respite in caring for the dog.

Alphonse used to be a magician and he wielded his magic against his enemies until that fateful skirmish in the tunnel. Even after a truce is declared and the remaining men of the village return, it seems Alphonse continues to revisit the trenches and the tunnel incident that sent him home. Each man has compartmentalized their experience in their own way–some better–several as bad.

Regardless the age, the country, or the century, war is hell. And war, no matter when, exacts the same terrible price on those who would fight. Has Alphonse forever lost his way back to his brother and those who would heal him?

Pre-Order Info

If you pre-order Come Marching Home or just order a copy of it by the end of October (extending because the paperback won’t be available for preorder) You can email the receipt of your purchase to sirwilliamssquire@gmail.com with your address and Hazel will send you a goodie pack!

Link to Amazon

Goodies

-A bookmark
-A sticker with art by H.S.J. Williams @h.s.j._williams
-A playlist curated by Hazel
-And if you order the paperback, you will get a signed bookplate

Social Links

Blog: http://hazelwest.blogspot.com
Come Marching Home on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54493656-come-marching-home
Goodreads Author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5289626.Hazel_B_West
Twitter: https://twitter.com/artfulscribbler
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/modern_bard67/
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/hazelwest

Purchase links

Smashwords
Kindle

Giveaway

Click for your chance to win one of two signed copies of the book plus swag packs in this Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Details

Genre: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Publisher:

ASIN : B08K8SNKD8

Print Length: 279 pages
Publication Date: October 13, 2020

About the Author

Hazel B. West is the author of several novels including historical titles like On a Foreign Field, By Blood or By Bond; Wolfsblood, a book about werewolves in Roman Britain and the Modern Tales of Na Fianna series, which feature modern Irish warriors with swords and fast sports cars and lots of faeries.

Hailing from Purgatory (aka, Florida) Hazel is an indie author, book wyrm, and coffee connoisseur. She typically enjoys writing books with an unconventional flair, probably with a bit of folklore and mythology, most definitely with a lot of siblings or brothers-in-arms. When she’s not writing, she manages an Etsy shop, drinks a lot of coffee, listens to music, haunts conventions, or just holes up like an eldritch horror and binges her favorite shows—for inspiration. If you meet this rare creature on the street, she has been known to respond to the offer of coffee and old bookstores. But it’s probably best you try to contact her online first.

#ThrowbackThursday – author Melissa Stevens – Book Review

#ThrowbackThursday

Renee began the Throwback Thursday meme on her blog, “It’s Book Talk“ to share some of her old favorites as well as sharing books published over a year ago. Sounded like a good reason to join! Hopefully, you’ll find either a story or author that interests you and you’ll check them out. And, if you’d like to join the fun, you’re welcome to use Renee’s pic from her website. Just provide the link back to her please).

Change by Melissa Stevens This week I am highlighting author Melissa Stevens and stepping considerably beyond my comfort zone in genres (shape-shifting, fantasy). I met Melissa when I also had a table at the craft fair in Yuma at the Country Roads RV Park, probably my favorite of the delightful RV parks where I sold my grandfather’s books during the winters of 2013/14 and 2014/15. Melissa published Change, the first in the Kitsune series in January 2012 (which I reviewed on Goodreads), and was light years ahead of me in promotion. She obviously had a solid marketing plan and knew how to manipulate the ins and outs of Kindle and Smashwords. Change was newly revised in 2017. She is a prolific author who has gone on to writing stand alones, another series, as well as collaborating with another author. She was part of Wicked After Dark, a paranormal romance anthology that hit #13 on the New York Times Bestseller’s list in October of 2015. It would appear she is progressing nicely!

Originally posted April 1, 2014 Continue reading “#ThrowbackThursday – author Melissa Stevens – Book Review”

Is It Time To Dump Smashwords For Kindle?

I gave up on Smashwords this week.

Their Wide Variety of Formats

I’ve monitored my stats almost every day since I downloaded the first manuscript for my grandfather back in 2012–and the stats are dismal. At the time, Smashwords seemed like a good addition to my marketing plan when I published with Amazon and their Kindle site. If you aren’t already aware of Smashwords, they publish and make available ebooks bestowing freedom to authors to set their own prices. Smashwords further makes available your digital downloads to Nook (Barnes & Noble), Apple IBooks, Scribd, Oyster, and Kobo, and allows downloads in EPUB, PDF, and MOBI formats.

It’s not as if they aren’t busy trying to help promote their authors and introduce them to new readers. When writing this post, they were currently running (July 1 – July 31) their annual Summer/Winter Sale. In view of the complete lack of activity (probably not their fault) on any of my listings, I declined to join the sale. They keep up dialog in their “Site Updates” as well as “Press Releases” in which they recently noted Smashwords and Publishers Weekly joined to launch an ebook best seller’s list.

Free Downloads

I have to hand it to Mark Coker. It is not as if he hasn’t tried getting some of us off the sidelines. His free downloads, “Smashwords Style Guide” and “The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success” are comprehensive and indispensable for an Indie author as the publishing format on Smashwords is neither as easy nor forgiving as Kindle.

Spoiler Alert: You have to sell at least $10.00 in royalties to warrant payment. After the first blush of sales were over, I was still under that amount and will apparently carry the embarrassing sale record to infinity. This is no small entity. They are dynamic; have published over 416,638 books in all genres with over 65,000 of those books free.

So, what’s a mother to do? Guess it’s time to begin a new campaign!

Editorial Reviews

It all began this week with a review for a new author buddy of mine who introduced me to a couple nifty little Amazon website author page opt-ins I hadn’t previously noticed. Sometimes, you just have to hit me upside the head! Carlyle Clark, author of Children From Dark Houses, immediately included in his “Editorial Reviews” a couple sentences from my recent review of his book. Those Editorial Reviews show up prominently near the top of the book information. It succinctly brings to the surfer’s attention pertinent blurbs from your reviews. I loved it!

Reviewers Information

Also, I got to looking at (Amazon) Reviewers information. As I mentioned before, I’ve been receiving many requests for reviews. Therefore, the time came for me to expand my reviewer information and add a link to connect me from Amazon. Learning new stuff is exciting, isn’t it? Ah, but as seniors sometimes tend to do, I digress.

So then, what was the whole point of “unpublishing” my books from Smashwords? Have I succumbed to KDP? It’s just easier. Smashwords didn’t make sense for my little books and having that link also limited some promotional abilities from Amazon. I needed Amazon more.