Mandy Eve-Barnett's Blog for Readers & Writers

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Bibliophile’s Collective Tuesday – Romance Novel Giveaway

June 6, 2023
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I am excited to be included in this giveaway. My romance/reincarnation novel, The Twesome Loop is on the list.
To enter go to https://lnkd.in/gb5yEnvv and do all of the
things! There will be 5 winners!
All books included are steamy Contemporary romances!
The last day to enter is June 30th, 2023.
Must be 18+ to enter (@romancemewithbooks will check with all winners prior to sending)
Please be advised that if you entered, you will be added to all participating authors and RMWB newsletters.

Summary – Twesome Loop

A picturesque Italian villa holds a hidden past of a pact that cannot be broken, a secret untold. Passion, pleasure, and pain play their part as seemingly chance meetings reveal secrets and hidden agendas. One dark secret is coupled with a burning desire to extract revenge. It will see four guests re-living their past lives. Who will win and who will lose? Is it possible to change our destiny?

The Twesome Loop is an erotic romance novel with a re-incarnation twist. The narrative starts its journey in the late 1990’s English countryside, where several characters make seemingly unrelated choices to travel to Italy. Melissa is fleeing a loveless marriage, Gerald wants to find his soul mate, Brett is motivated by greed and Nancy’s insatiable lust drives her. They are drawn not only by the beauty and life of Italy, but by an unexplained inner longing. Each is unaware that a pact made generations before, links their souls to each other and the beautiful villa they will stay in.

A parallel story takes the reader to 1874, where a young woman’s happiness is sacrificed for her father’s ambition. Unable to resist she suffers at her older husbands’ hands until his brother offers a way to escape.

The villa’s history has become local folklore and the mystery is perpetuated among the village elders. The sudden disappearance of Lord William and the subsequent low-key marriage of his widow, Gabriella and his younger brother, Arthur, fueled speculations as to the Lord’s fate. However, the young couple embraced the village and its inhabitants becoming well liked benefactors in complete contrast to William’s cruel domination. Arthur and Gabriella’s love is all consuming but unable to contemplate life without each other, Arthur seeks a way for them to love beyond the grave.

Once the modern-day characters converge on the villa, passions and memories rise and the pact’s legacy becomes known. Melissa falls completely for Gerald, a stranger but very familiar at the same time, Gerald is convinced Melissa is the one he has searched for and will not let her husband, Brett take her away, ever again. Nancy finds in Brett the one person, who can sate her lustful appetites and although Brett’s greed was the motivation to chase Melissa, he finds in Nancy the answer to his innermost desires.

The Twesome Loop incorporates several aspects to the romance genre of time slip, travel and past lives.

Similar works include Ferney by James Long, Again by Sharon Cullars and Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine. Reincarnation by Suzanne Weyn, Maybe This Life by J.P. Grider, Across Eternity by Aris Whittier and Her Past’s Present by Micheal Poeltl.

Bibliophile’s Collective Tuesday – Sunday Spotlight with Kate DeGross

May 30, 2023
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I was delighted to be invited to be highlighted on Kate’s Instagram’s Sunday Spotlight. If you missed it here is the link. https://www.instagram.com/farawayinalovestory/ Flick through the pages and read the interview.

The prequel to this series will be published later this year. Malgraf’s Dawning follows the life (and creation) of the evil witch in the series.

Bibliophile Collective Tuesday – Actors Reading Books in Movies

May 23, 2023
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Photo by Martin Lopez on Pexels.com

I watched Book Club – The Next Chapter again with a friend over this long weekend. Yes, it’s the second time but a)it was a nice outing with a friend, b) I languished in the Italian landscape and c) what not?

The actors read three books in the movie for their online book club during the COVID scenes and it got me thinking how many other movies have books in them just as props? Well I found a list and have chosen a few to reply.

A Fish Called Wanda

Character: Otto West (Kevin Kline)

Book:Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

Apocalypse Now

Character: Walter E Kurtz

Book:The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot

Bad Teacher

Character: Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz)

Book:To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Donnie Darko

Character: Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal)

Book:Twenty-One Stories by Graham Greene

Friends with Kids

Character: Kurt (Jon Hamm)

Book:Cod by Mark Kurlansky

When Harry met Sally

Character: Harry Burns (Billy Crystal)

Book:The Icarus Agenda by Robert Ludlum

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Character: Leaky Cauldron Customer (Ian Brown)

Book:A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking

Hot Fuzz

Character: Sergeant Turner

Book:Complicity by Iain Banks

Hot Shots Part Deux

Character: Topper Harley

Book:Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Inglourious Basterds

Character: Shoshanna Dreyfus

Book:The Saint In New York by Leslie Charteris

It’s a Wonderful Life

Character: George Bailey (James Stewart)

Book:The Adventures Of Tom Swayer by Mark Twain

King Kong

Character: Jimmy

Book:Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Little Miss Sunshine

Character: Dwayne Hoover (Paul Dano)

Book:Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

Matilda

Character: Matilda Wormwood (Mara Wilson)

Book: Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Natural Born Killers

Character: Mallory Knox (Juliette Lewis)

Book:The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Notting Hill

Character: William Thacker (Hugh Grant)

Book:Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Bernières

Poltergeist

Character: Steve Freeling (Craig T Nelson)

Book:Reagan: The Man, The President by Various

Pulp Fiction

Character: Vincent Vega (John Travolta)

Book:Modesty Blaise by Peter O’Donnell

Serendipity

Character: Sarah Thomas (Kate Beckinsale)

Book:Love In the Time Of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

Addams Family Values

Character: Morticia Addams (Anjelica Huston)

Book:The Cat In The Hat by Dr Seuss

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Character: Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt)

Book:Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

The Hours

Character: Laura Brown (Julianne Moore)

Book:Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Reader

Character: Michael Berg (David Kross)

Book:War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Wedding Crashers

Character: John Beckwith (Owen Wilson)

Book:Don’t Jump: The Northwest Winter Blues Survival Guide by Traci Vogel

The Shining

Character: Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall)

Book:The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger

You’ve Got Mail

Character: Kathleen Kelly

Book:Pride And Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Crow

Character: T-Bird (David Patrick Kelly)

Book:Paradise Lost by John Milton

Gone With the Wind

Character: Melanie Hamilton Wilkes (Olivia de Havilland)

Book:David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

It was an eye opener seeing so many.

Can you think of any others?

Bibliophile Collective Tuesday – Similar Story Threads – Queen Charlotte and Gabriella in The Twesome Loop

May 9, 2023
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I binge watched Queen Charlotte over the weekend – it was an enjoyable diversion from my current editing. I noticed echoes of one of my own romance novels in the series. Charlotte’s marriage was arranged and she had to come to terms with her place within the arrangement and forge her own life. It was not without it’s difficulties.

In my novel, The Twesome Loop, my character Gabriella is not so fortunate in the marriage her father arranges for her. It is merely to enable her father to further his status in society and is money driven. Her wants and needs are of no consequence and she is ‘given’ to an disgusting old man. The relationship is far from happy, but her fates change when an unexpected visitor appears.

This reincarnation romance can be purchased on all online sites in print or e-book form. If I may ask, please leave a review and let me know which couple you identified with the most.

Creative Edge Press Release – Ben Monroe

March 23, 2023
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The Seething

The episode of horror by critically acclaimed author, Ben Monroe

Released and published by Brigids Gate Press

The book is available worldwide in e-format

Listed by Read by Dusk as one of the 60 most anticipated horror books of 2023

One by one, as people begin to disappear, the once quiet town is soon in the grips of a waking nightmare. An unimaginable horror consuming everything before it.

Hungry…

All while echoes of an ancient evil spread out like malignant spider webs, like dead hands reaching, grasping…

SEETHING…

The Seething eBook : Monroe, Ben, Leggett, Elizabeth, Pankey, MJ: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store

Amazon.com: The Seething eBook : Monroe, Ben, Leggett, Elizabeth, Pankey, MJ: Books

About Ben Monroe:

Ben Monroe has spent most of his life in Northern California, where he lives in the East Bay Area with his wife and two children. He is the author of In the Belly of the Beast and Other Tales of Cthulhu Wars, the Seething, the graphic novel Planet Apocalypse, and short stories in several anthologies. 

You can find more information about him and his work at www.benmonroe.com

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