Welcome to the Historical Fiction Online forums: a friendly place to discuss, review and discover historical fiction.
If this is your first visit, please be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above.
You will have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed.
To start viewing posts, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Gambler, gaoler, soldier, sailor, smuggler, spyman, traitor, thief...

Please read "A Note to Authors" in the Board Rules before posting here.
Forum rules
Please read "A Note to Authors" in the Board Rules before posting here. This is the place for actively participating forum members who are also authors to post news about newly released books, book deals, book tours, blog tours, public appearances, awards, etc. Author members who are active in other areas of the forum, other than in self-promotion, are welcome to post here; those who post only here or who post only self-promotional material on the forum will be considered for deletion as spammers. Please reserve this forum for truly newsworthy items; reviews of your books or notifications of new blog posts you make, for example, are not considered newsworthy for purposes of this forum.
Post Reply
User avatar
Diiarts
Scribbler
Posts: 28
Joined: August 2010
Location: I'm based in Hampshire (UK) but we also have a partner based in Kentucky, USA
Contact:

Gambler, gaoler, soldier, sailor, smuggler, spyman, traitor, thief...

Post by Diiarts » Sun September 26th, 2010, 11:07 pm

Diiarts is very pleased to announce the publication of M.M. Bennetts's new novel, OF HONEST FAME - a gripping account of a battle of wits against the brutal forces of Napoleon’s tyranny over Europe.

On a summer night in 1812, a boy sets fire to a house in Paris before escaping over the rooftops. Carrying vital intelligence about Napoleon’s Russian campaign, he heads for England. But landing in Kent, he is beaten almost to death.

The Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, is desperate for the boy’s information. He is even more desperate, however, to track down the boy’s assailant – a sadistic French agent who knows far too much about Castlereagh’s intelligence network.

Captain George Shuster is a veteran of the Peninsula, an aide-de-camp to Wellington, now recalled from the continent and struggling to adjust to civilian life. Thomas Jesuadon is a dissolute, living on the fringes of society, but with an unrivalled knowledge of the seamy underside of the capital. Setting out to trace the boy’s attacker, they journey from the slums of London to the Scottish coast, following a trail of havoc, betrayal, official incompetence and murder. It takes an unlikely encounter with a frightened young woman to give them the breakthrough that will turn the hunter into the hunted.

Meanwhile, the boy travels the breadth of Europe in the wake of the Grande Armée, witnessing at first hand the ruination they leave behind and the awful price of Napoleon’s ambition.

This companion to M.M. Bennetts’s brilliant debut, May 1812, is a gripping account of deception, daring and determination, of intelligence and guile pitted against brutality. Bennetts brings to vivid life the harrowing devastation wrought on the civilian populations of Europe by Napoleon’s men, and the grit, courage and tenacity of those who stood against them.

You can read the opening online, and we'd be delighted to welcome any HFO members at either of our launch events - in Winchester on 14th October and in London on 21st October.

Image
Last edited by Diiarts on Mon September 27th, 2010, 10:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: to add image
www.diiarts.com - books for people who love books

User avatar
cw gortner
Bibliophile
Posts: 1288
Joined: September 2008
Location: San Francisco,CA
Contact:

Post by cw gortner » Tue September 28th, 2010, 8:49 pm

Congratulations to M.M. Bennetts! The book looks great, and I love this era. Wish I could attend one of the events.
THE QUEEN'S VOW available on June 12, 2012!
THE TUDOR SECRET, Book I in the Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles
THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI
THE LAST QUEEN


www.cwgortner.com

User avatar
Diiarts
Scribbler
Posts: 28
Joined: August 2010
Location: I'm based in Hampshire (UK) but we also have a partner based in Kentucky, USA
Contact:

Post by Diiarts » Tue September 28th, 2010, 10:33 pm

Thanks, CW - will pass it on. Bennetts will be doing a virtual book tour in November and December 2010 - the book comes out in the US on December 1st.
www.diiarts.com - books for people who love books

User avatar
parthianbow
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 856
Joined: April 2009
Location: Nr. Bristol, SW England
Contact:

Post by parthianbow » Mon October 11th, 2010, 7:42 pm

I hadn't spotted this post until just now - a belated good luck with the events, and the book launch in general, M.M.. May your book sell in thousands! :)
Ben Kane
Bestselling author of Roman military fiction.
Spartacus - UK release 19 Jan. 2012. US release June 2012.

http://www.benkane.net
Twitter: @benkaneauthor

M.M. Bennetts

Post by M.M. Bennetts » Tue October 12th, 2010, 8:13 am

[quote=""parthianbow""]I hadn't spotted this post until just now - a belated good luck with the events, and the book launch in general, M.M.. May your book sell in thousands! :) [/quote]

Thank you. Most sincerely.

Though frankly, I'm in the post-finishing-a-book stupor still. (Yes, I have to snap out of it soon.) You know, the "I can sit like an empty can on a rubbish heap for hours" thing.

I trust someone will administer a twap to the back of the head to nudge me out of it at the appropriate moment.

Pity you can't join us in either Winchester or London. They look to be good nights.

User avatar
parthianbow
Compulsive Reader
Posts: 856
Joined: April 2009
Location: Nr. Bristol, SW England
Contact:

Post by parthianbow » Tue October 12th, 2010, 12:56 pm

[quote=""M.M. Bennetts""]Thank you. Most sincerely.

Though frankly, I'm in the post-finishing-a-book stupor still. (Yes, I have to snap out of it soon.) You know, the "I can sit like an empty can on a rubbish heap for hours" thing.

I trust someone will administer a twap to the back of the head to nudge me out of it at the appropriate moment.

Pity you can't join us in either Winchester or London. They look to be good nights.[/quote]

Arf, arf! I know exactly what you mean. I'm rapidly approaching that feeling (as long as my editor gives the ms. a thumbs up, of course). I can sense the host of DIY tasks that have needed doing for months might actually get done now.

It is a shame I can't come to the London event, as I will be oop in the big smoke on one of my rare visits on the 26th. Never mind. I'm sure that they will both go down swimmingly.
Ben Kane
Bestselling author of Roman military fiction.
Spartacus - UK release 19 Jan. 2012. US release June 2012.

http://www.benkane.net
Twitter: @benkaneauthor

M.M. Bennetts

Post by M.M. Bennetts » Tue October 12th, 2010, 6:31 pm

I'll think of you then.

It's funny because I was reading the definitions of odd UK place names recently and Auld Reekie is Scots for the Old Smoke because of the coal that they burned to heat the houses...and I was just reading about it as I search for suitable 'reading' passages for the launch, because I have a few chapters set up there...

Sorry, this is entirely off-topic. My apologies. Best-MM

Post Reply

Return to “Author Announcements”