Thursday, May 21, 2026

Some Starry Night by Irene Latham




SOMe Starry Night

By Irene Latham


Under the pale glow of a Parisian spring in 1886, two restless souls move toward the same horizon-unaware that their meeting will ignite a love as luminous and fleeting as the stars themselves.


Vincent van Gogh arrives in Paris with little more than paint-stained hands and an aching determination to create something worthy of the world. Living in the cramped apartment of his brother Theo, he struggles against poverty, doubt, and the relentless pull of his own restless mind.


Across the ocean in Amherst, Emily Dickinson receives news that changes everything. Faced with the nearness of death, the reclusive poet does the unthinkable: she leaves the quiet safety of the Homestead and sails for Paris, determined to taste life before it slips beyond her reach.


When Emily agrees to sit for Vincent's portrait, their worlds collide in a blaze of color, poetry, and dangerous intimacy. Through letters, poems, and whispered confessions, the two artists discover in one another a fierce, unguarded understanding-one that will shape their art, their faith, and the fragile hours they have left.


But love between stars is never simple. As time grows short and darkness gathers, Vincent and Emily must decide whether beauty is meant to last...or simply to burn bright enough to change the night forever.


Some Starry Night is a sweeping, lyrical imagining of the hidden story behind Vincent van Gogh's most iconic painting – an unforgettable tale of love, creativity, and the courage to live fiercely, even in the shadow of the end.


Excerpt


[when Emily first sees Vincent at the Louvre]


When she next looked up from her work, a group of three men caught her eye. She could only hear bits of their conversation, but their gestures indicated an intense discussion. One man in particular aroused her curiosity. He wasn’t tall, but he was stocky and solid. Red-haired with a smattering of freckles. He radiated passion and intensity, like a bullfighter ready to dance. His French wasn’t exactly French—he had an accent Emily couldn’t recognize. He brought his face so close to the paintings that the guard warned him back not once, but three times! On the third time, he threw up his arms. “I know what I want to do. I know what I must do.” He tipped his hat. 

“Thank you, Bernard, Henri. I shall go home now and paint.”

Emily watched as the man strode toward the exit, his steps fast and sure. A painter with purpose. The other two men—Bernard and Henri—leaned into one another once their friend was gone. Their heads bobbed together as they whispered to one another, their brows no longer tense and furrowed. They were relieved their friend was gone.


Emily sighed. She suspected that’s the way some people felt about her. Thomas had said in a letter how much she overwhelmed and exhausted him. Well, those weren’t his exact words, but Emily was pretty sure that’s what he meant.



Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link

Historium Press Buy Link


Irene Latham


Irene Latham writes poems and stories from the Purple Horse Poetry Studio & Music Room in Blount County, Alabama. She is the author or co-author of many books for young people, including African Town, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Outstanding Historical Fiction.

This is her first novel for adults.




Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Beyond the Dark Oceans by Alison Huntingford



Beyond the Dark Oceans

By Alison Huntingford


A family united, a family divided…

In 1906, the Huntingford family leaves England for a hopeful new life in Canada, but for eldest son Georgy, the promise of opportunity quickly becomes a test of endurance, responsibility, and fate. As he comes of age amid the hardships of immigrant life, the outbreak of the First World War pulls him back across the ocean and into a world forever changed by loss and sacrifice.

When Georgy’s brother disappears in the chaos of war, grief and uncertainty fracture the family he is fighting to hold together. Reunited with his cousin Nellie, Georgy finds solace in a love as powerful as it is forbidden—one that offers hope in the darkest of times while threatening to tear his family apart.

Based on true events, Beyond the Dark Oceans is a moving story of love, loyalty, and resilience, exploring how ordinary lives are shaped—and divided—by extraordinary moments in history.

Buy Link:
This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited.

Alison Huntingford


Alison Huntingford is a writer with a deep passion for family history and storytelling. With a background rooted in the rich traditions of the Huntingford family, Alison seeks to honour the stories passed down through generations. She is the author of a successful series of works that explore historical and personal narratives. She is an only child of two only children and so has always felt a distinct lack of family. This has inspired her work.

After an upheaval in her personal life, Alison achieved a degree in humanities with literature through the Open University which helped to give her a new start. A teaching career followed which then led naturally to writing. She is now retired from full-time work, but busier than ever.

In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their pets, listening to music, going to the cinema, and gardening on her allotment. She also runs the South Hams Authors Network, a local writers collective based in South Devon.




Monday, May 18, 2026

No Ordinary June by L. N. Jacobs




No Ordinary June
By L. N. Jacobs


Publication Date: 11th June 2026
Publisher: ‎ Sweet Love Press
Print Length: 369 Pages
Genre: Regency Historical Romance

Miss June Fairmont, second daughter to Baronet Fairmont, believes in true love. Gregory Kendall, Earl of Kendall, believes in practical arrangements.

One dance. That's all it took for Gregory to decide June would make an adequate Countess of Kendall. The next morning, she overhears him presenting her father with a marriage proposal—complete with a list evaluating her suitability. When she bursts into her father's study, fury barely contained, Gregory has the audacity to look amused. Worse, he offers a wager. He'll give her one Season to find her perfect romantic match. When she inevitably fails to find this "true love"—and he's clearly certain she will—she'll accept his practical proposal.

June agrees instantly—let him watch her prove that love conquers logic. But Gregory proves an insufferable shadow throughout her Season, offering his pragmatic assessment of every swooning poet and debt-ridden rake. Somewhere between his dry observations and brutal honesty, June makes a horrifying discovery: she's starting to enjoy his company. His wit makes her laugh. That insufferable smirk becomes almost... attractive.

One Season. One wager. And a growing suspicion that the real danger isn't losing the bet—it's winning it.

Filled with sharp banter, a wager that changes everything, swoony kisses, and one insufferably pragmatic earl, "No Ordinary June" is the witty Regency romance you've been waiting for. A closed-door enemies-to-lovers where the tension is in every glance, and the slow burn will leave you breathless.


Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link


L. N. Jacobs


L. N. Jacobs is an Italian paediatrician living in Sweden, where she's perfected the art of balancing hospital shifts, family chaos, and an unhealthy obsession with happy endings.

By day, she wrangles tiny patients and their worried parents. By night (and early mornings, and lunch breaks), she writes emotional romances about imperfect people finding love in the messiest, most unexpected ways.

Her stories blend the high-stakes drama of medical life with sizzling chemistry, sharp banter, and characters who feel like friends you'd text at 2 AM. Think ER meets happily-ever-after, with a hefty dose of wit and a side of Swedish fika.

When she's not writing or saving lives, you'll find her devouring romance novels, hoarding chocolate like it's currency, plotting her next adventure, or convincing her family that "just one more chapter" is a valid excuse for everything.

L. N. Jacobs writes the kind of love stories that make you laugh, swoon, and believe that even the most guarded hearts can find their home.

Social Media Links:




Sunday, May 17, 2026

Book Review: Escape of the Grand Duchess by Susan Appleyard

 


Escape of the Grand Duchess
By Susan Appleyard


Publication Date: 27th July 2025
Publisher: Ingenium Books Publishing Inc.
Page Length: 412
Genre: Biographical Historical Fiction 

Escape of the Grand Duchess by Susan Appleyard is a gripping historical novel that shatters the notion that royalty is synonymous with privilege and ease. At its heart is Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the youngest sister of Tsar Nicholas II—a Romanov who defied a doomed destiny and survived.

Unlike her ill-fated brother and his family, Olga’s story is one of resilience, sacrifice, and daring escape. Trapped in a loveless marriage to a reckless gambler—who harbours secrets of his own—she finds hope in the arms of a dashing army lieutenant. But before she can claim her own happiness, she must first endure the brutal realities of World War I, where she serves as a nurse on the frontlines.

As the Russian Empire teeters on the brink of collapse, the infamous Siberian mystic Rasputin tightens his grip on the imperial court, setting the stage for revolution. With the Bolsheviks seizing power and the Romanovs marked for death, Olga faces an impossible choice: risk everything to stay or flee into the unknown with her true love and their children.

Rich in historical detail and driven by an unforgettable heroine, Escape of the Grand Duchess is a sweeping riches-to-rags tale of survival, love, and the strength it takes to forge a new life in the face of unimaginable upheaval.



⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I went into Escape of the Grand Duchess expecting a fairly traditional Romanov novel—lavish palaces, doomed royalty, a little romance, a little tragedy, and the inevitable shadow of revolution waiting in the distance.

It turned out to be far more personal than that.

Because while the collapse of imperial Russia forms the backdrop, the novel is much more interested in the emotional cost of living through it. Not the grand political version taught in history books, but the quieter reality of watching your world slowly become unrecognisable while trying to hold your family, your dignity, and yourself together.

At the centre of it all is Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, who very quickly emerges as far more than “the Tsar’s sister.” In fact, one of the best things about the novel is how completely it strips away the untouchable image of royalty.

Olga may live in palaces, but she has very little control over her own life.

Her marriage is unhappy from the beginning, built more around expectation than affection, and there’s a constant sense of emotional loneliness hanging over her story. She spends much of the novel trying to balance what is expected of her with what she actually wants, which turns out to be a far more dangerous thing than it should be.

Naturally, the moment she finds genuine love, history decides to intervene.

Rudely.

The relationship between Olga and the army lieutenant is handled surprisingly well because it never overwhelms the rest of the story. It grows quietly in the middle of chaos rather than existing apart from it. There’s tenderness there, but also uncertainty, because neither of them can pretend the world around them is stable enough to promise a future.

And honestly, that tension makes the romance feel more believable.

What I appreciated most was the way the novel handles the war and revolution. It doesn’t romanticise suffering, and it doesn’t treat royalty as somehow protected from reality. Olga working as a nurse during the war gives the story some of its strongest moments because it forces her directly into the human cost of everything happening around her.

The hospital scenes in particular stay with you. There’s exhaustion, fear, overcrowding, wounded soldiers, endless grief — and through all of it Olga is trying to keep functioning while the entire country begins falling apart outside the walls. Those sections make her feel less like a historical figure and more like an actual woman trying to survive circumstances far bigger than herself.

Meanwhile, Rasputin drifts through the novel like a walking bad decision.

Every appearance from him carries this uncomfortable sense that things are only going to get worse from here. The book captures that growing paranoia inside the imperial family very well, especially as Alexandra becomes more dependent on him and everyone else starts realising the monarchy is losing its grip.

What the novel does especially well is pacing the collapse of Russia itself. Nothing happens all at once. Instead, there’s a gradual tightening of tension—rumours, shortages, political unrest, fear, people disappearing, loyalties shifting. The sense of inevitability becomes heavier with every chapter.

Even knowing the historical outcome, I still found myself hoping Olga might somehow outrun it.

By the final part of the novel, the story becomes less about royalty altogether and more about survival. About what people carry with them when everything familiar has been stripped away. About choosing love and family even when the future is uncertain and safety no longer exists.

I finished the book feeling strangely emotional for someone I previously only knew as a minor historical figure in the Romanov story. Susan Appleyard manages to make Olga feel real in all the ways that matter—flawed, frightened, resilient, loving, and painfully aware that history is closing in around her.

It’s immersive, emotional, and far more human than I expected it to be.


You can pick up your copy of this fabulous book on Amazon - Amazon UK Amazon US

Susan Appleyard



Susan was born in England, which is where she learned to love English history, and now lives in Canada in the summer. In winter she and her husband flee the cold for their second home in Mexico. Susan divides her time between writing and her hobby, oil painting, although writing will always be her first love. She was fortunate in having had two books published traditionally. Since joining the ebook crowd, she has published nine books, some of which have won various awards.

Some Starry Night by Irene Latham

SOMe Starry Night By Irene Latham Under the pale glow of a Parisian spring in 1886, two restless souls move toward the same horizon-unaware ...