Cover Reveal: Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War

Top voices in historical fiction deliver an intensely moving collection of short stories about loss, longing, and hope in the aftermath of World War I—featuring bestselling authors such as Hazel Gaynor, Jennifer Robson, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig and edited by Heather Webb.

A squadron commander searches for meaning in the tattered photo of a girl he’s never met…

A Belgian rebel hides from the world, only to find herself nursing the enemy…

A young airman marries a stranger to save her honor—and prays to survive long enough to love her…The peace treaty signed on November 11, 1918, may herald the end of the Great War but for its survivors, the smoke is only beginning to clear. Picking up the pieces of shattered lives will take courage, resilience, and trust.

Within crumbled city walls and scarred souls, war’s echoes linger. But when the fighting ceases, renewal begins…and hope takes root in a fall of poppies.


Excerpt from “Hour of the Bells”  A short story included in Fall of Poppies
Beatrix whisked around the showroom, feather duster in hand. Not a speck of dirt could remain or Joseph would be disappointed. The hour struck noon. A chorus of clocks whirred, their birds popping out from hiding to announce midday. Maidens twirled in their frocks with braids down their backs, woodcutters clacked their axes against pine, and the odd sawmill wheel spun in tune to the melody of a nursery rhyme. Two dozen cuckoos warbled and dinged, each crafted with loving detail by the same pair of hands—those with thick fingers and a steady grip. 
Beatrix paused in her cleaning. One clock chimed to its own rhythm, apart from the others. 
She could turn them off—the tinkling melodies, the incessant clatter of pendulums, wheels, and cogs, with the levers located near the weights—just as their creator had done before bed each evening, but she could not bring herself to do the same. To silence their music was to silence him, her husband, Joseph. The Great War had already done that; ravaged his gentle nature, stolen his final breath, and silenced him forever. 

Guest Book Review: Jessica Brockmole - Letters from Skye

Reviewed by Lisa Redmond

UNITED BY LETTERS. SEPARATED BY AN OCEAN. DEVASTATED BY WAR.

A letter isn't always just a letter. Words on the page can drench the soul.

Elspeth Dunn, a published poet living on the Isle of Skye, answers her first fan letter from Davey Graham, an impetuous young man in Illinois. Without having to worry about appearances or expectations, Elspeth and Davey confess their hopes, dreams and fears, things they've never told another soul. Even without meeting, they know one another. But as World War I engulfs Europe and Davey volunteers as an ambulance driver on the Western front, Elspeth can only wait on Skye, anxious for his return; wondering if they'll ever get a chance to meet.

Amazon links: Kindle or Paperback

Debut Spotlight: Jessica Brockmole

Today I'm taking part in the the Letters from Skye blog tour with a debut spotlight feature for Jessica Brockmole and her novel which includes a short piece Jessica wrote about the inspiration behind the book.

Jessica Brockmole grew up in the Midwest but began writing Letters from Skye while she was living in Edinburgh. After her second child was born, she and her husband escaped the city and spent a week on the Isle of Skye. The story came to her on the journey home and she started scribbling notes in the car. 

To begin with, the outpouring was less a novel than an extended letter to herself, written late at night when everyone else had gone to bed. A letter reminding her not to lose touch with the people she loved, and reassuring her that she would be stronger for overcoming her fears. Jessica now lives in Indiana with her husband and two children. Letters from Skye is her first novel.

I was living in Edinburgh, Scotland some years ago. My son was brand new, my daughter three and restless, my husband busy with a new job. I was entranced by the history of the city—by the whole country's, really. So much longer and windier than the American history I’d grown up with—and I was sifting through ideas for a new novel. So far from family and friends, so dependent on those postcards, emails, scribbled notes tucked into packages, I thought about writing an epistolary novel. Something that explored relationships held together with envelopes and stamps, with words and wishes. Something that dipped back into history to some time when people loved and fought and dreamed via letters.