Archive for December 16, 2015

Jean-Pierre ALAUX and Noël BALEN

on Tour

November 23-December 23

with

The Winemaker Detective

An Omnibus

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Genre: mystery

Release date: December 5, 2015
at Le French Book

309 pages

ISBN: 9781939474568

Website | Goodreads

SYNOPSIS

The ideal gift for mystery and wine lovers — An immersion in French countryside, gourmet attitude, and light-hearted mystery.

Two amateur sleuths gumshoe around French wine country, where money, deceit, jealousy, inheritance and greed are all the ingredients needed for crime. Master winemaker Benjamin Cooker and his sidekick Virgile Lanssien solve mysteries in vineyards with a dose of Epicurean enjoyment of fine food and beverage. Each story is a homage to wine and winemakers, as well as a mystery.

In Treachery in Bordeaux, barrels at the prestigious grand cru Moniales Haut-Brion wine estate in Bordeaux have been contaminated. Is it negligence or sabotage?

In Grand Cru Heist, Benjamin Cooker’s world gets turned upside down one night in Paris. He retreats to the region around Tours to recover. He and his assistant Virgile turn PI to solve two murders and a very particular heist.

In Nightmare in Burgundy, a dream wine tasting trip to Burgundy turns into a troubling nightmare when Cooker and his assistant stumble upon a mystery revolving around messages from another era.

This made-for-TV series is “difficult to forget and oddly addictive” (ForeWord Reviews).

About The Authors

Alaux-Balen

 

Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen,
wine lover and music lover respectively,
came up with the idea for the Winemaker Detective series
while sharing a meal,
with a bottle of Château Gaudou 1996,
a red wine from Cahors
with smooth tannins and a balanced nose.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATORS

Anne Trager loves France so much she has lived there for 27 years and just can’t seem to leave. What keeps her there is a uniquely French mix of pleasure seeking and creativity. Well, that and the wine. In 2011, she woke up one morning and said, “I just can’t stand it anymore. There are way too many good books being written in France not reaching a broader audience.” That’s when she founded Le French Book to translate some of those books into English. The company’s motto is “If we love it, we translate it,” and Anne loves crime fiction, mysteries and detective novels.
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Sally Pane studied French at State University of New York Oswego and the Sorbonne before receiving her Masters Degree in French Literature from the University of Colorado where she wrote Camus and the Americas: A Thematic Analysis of Three Works Based on His Journaux de Voyage. Her career includes more than twenty years of translating and teaching French and Italian at Berlitz and at University of Colorado Boulder. She has worked in scientific, legal and literary translation; her literary translations include Operatic Arias; Singers Edition, and Reality and the Untheorizable by Clément Rosset, along with a number of titles in the Winemaker Detective series. She also served as the interpreter for the government cabinet of Rwanda and translated for Dian Fossey’s Digit Fund. In addition to her passion for French, she has studied Italian at Colorado University, in Rome and in Siena. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband.

 

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Global giveaway open internationally:
5 participants will each win a copy of this book.

Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook,
for more chances to win

Visit each blogger on the tour:
tweeting about the giveaway everyday
of the Tour will give you 5 extra entries each time!
[just follow the directions on the entry-form]

***

CLICK ON THE BANNER

TO READ OTHER REVIEWS AND EXCERPTS

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Until the next time….

Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew!

For a list of my reviews go HERE

For a list of free eBooks updated daily go HERE

To see all of my giveaways click on the Christmas Flamingos below!

Traitor's Trap

Blog Tour Schedule

traitors trapThe Traitor’s Trap by Brendan Murphy

It’s tough being a thirteen-year old schoolboy, especially when you’re a coward and the big brother who stuck up for you is dead. Oh, and you’ve been thrust into a magical realm you’re expected to save single-handedly. Sebastian Duffy has to learn an awful lot of skills in a hurry if he is to defeat Phobitor by stealing the Spear of Lugh from the peace-loving Tuath. He’s been given some help of course–a mercurial sorceress, an orphaned druidess, a taciturn warrior, a snuff-sniffing leprechaun and a lovelorn poet– an outfit known as the Hibernauts, but can he really overcome a psychopathic, warmongering god when half the realm is bent on his destruction? If he is to have the remotest chance he will have to do deal with aiia, cluricaun, brigands, woodwose, undead warriors, speckled bats, spies, hunkypunks, traitors, skeletons and battle-swine first. And are those Tuath really so peaceable? If only he could find his courage.

Amazon * Barnes & Noble

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Praise for The Traitor’s Trap

An imaginative epic…an intricate and fully realised fantasy world with a big cast of likeable characters that are charming, well drawn and endearing, with wonderfully apt names. The depth and breadth of the author’s high-voltage imagination, and the richness of the world created is very impressive.
~Sam Mills, author of Blackout, The Boys Who Saved the World, and The Quiddity of Will Self

I cannot say just how much I have enjoyed this book … a very accomplished writer with a wonderfully rich imagination and an incredibly inventive mind. Readers will come to love the many wonderful creations in this novel, it is jam-packed with the most wonderful and inventive characters; new, exciting and beautifully realized. ~Cherry Mosteshar, author of Unveiled: One Woman’s Nightmare in Iran.

Check Out This Exciting Excerpt

Static fizzed in his littlest fingers. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. He turned to Conall and pointed. Sparks flew from the tips, longer and longer ones that raced across the space separating them. Of a sudden, two streaks of light burst from his fingertips upending Conall who fell perilously close to the edge. Irritated at not finishing him off, Sebastian turned to Roisin and Blodwyn, raising his littlest fingers. Thinking better of it, he span back to Conall. Fearless of the slippery rocks, he sauntered over and delivered a fierce kick to Conall’s loins intending to roll him off the edge. The warrior barely moved. Raising his fingers, he pointed them downward, watching with satisfaction as the sparks crackled and kindled, building up to the killer crescendo. He playfully sent Conall’s prostate body this way and that, edging him ever closer to the precipice. It felt so good to be killing this insect. 

 

A renewed roar arose as the host of knights poured onto the battlefield. Sebastian let his spyglass fall, transfixed. A dreamlike veil began billowing at the edge of his vision, yet it dissolved rapidly and the scene sharpened into crystal clarity. Countless souls were being murdered before his eyes. His defenses breached, harrowing screams flooded his ears; an awful sound he could not bear. He forced his gaze upwards. 
Gobbleratches had arrived in droves and the sky was filled with twisting, plummeting forms. He sank to his knees. 
“I could have prevented this,” he wailed, curling into a ball. “Why did they do this to me? How could they expect me to kill thousands to save more? I’m just a boy.” 
He screwed his eyes shut and pressed his palms against his ears, trying to zone out. It did no good. The battle consumed his senses. He could taste it. 
“Are you alright?” asked Blodwyn, her voice appearing to come at him down a tunnel. 
“Why did you bring me here?” he cried angrily, his hands trembling uncontrollably. 
“I’m so sorry,” sobbed Blodwyn, dropping beside him. “I’m so, so sorry.” 
“I can’t get away,” he screamed. “I’m scared. I want to go away. I want to go home.” 
Feeling her hands on him, he pushed her roughly away, but when she persisted he found he had no fight left and he let her fold herself around him, opening his eyes to her hypnotic gaze. He saw her raise her arm and bring it toward him, felt the branch touch his brow, and as her lips brushed his lobes and her tears kissed his face, heard the words she whispered in his ear, knew, even as he dissolved into sleep, that he had never heard anything so wonderful in all his life. 
“Child of my heart,” she murmured. “Child of my heart.” 

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BrendanAuthor Brendan Murphy

Brendan Murphy was raised in Sheffield, England, with dreams of becoming a writer, and has written every day since he was nine years old. After reading medicine in London and psychiatry in Manchester, he moved to Australia in 1999. He is an Associate Professor at Monash University and has written widely on youth mental health. His nonfiction work on the development of football in Victorian society, From Sheffield with Love, was published in 2007. He is contracted to Assent Publishing for his six-book fantasy series, Sebastian and the Hibernauts. The first adventure, Beyond the Gloaming was published in 2014 and the sequel, The Traitor’s Trap, in 2015. He is a columnist for Aontacht magazine. He lives with his wife, Katrina, and their children, Sebastian and Violette, in a sprawling property built for the composer, Dorian Le Gallienne. They share their garden with a mob of kangaroos, a wombat, two possums, any number of creepy crawlies, and some very feisty kookaburras.

Website * Twitter * Facebook

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Blog Tour $25 Giveaway

$25 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash

Ends 12/28/15

Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader and sponsored by the author. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

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Until the next time….

Thanks so much for visiting fuonlyknew!

For a list of my reviews go HERE

For a list of free eBooks updated daily go HERE

To see all of my giveaways click on the Christmas Flamingos below!