November has been a difficult month. While my book tour continued with its final few stops, my private life was focused on my mother’s failing health, letting her know in myriad ways how much I love her, and saying goodbye. She passed peacefully in the evening after my tour ended.
Some bloggers may wonder why I continued with a book tour when my time with my mother was running out. Honestly, replying to comments only took minutes, and I needed small breaks to gather myself and step outside my growing grief. But there was another reason…
The kindness of this blogging community meant the world to me when I needed it most. Your comments were about a book, yes, but the repeated visits to my tour, the tireless commitment of your time, and your generous support transcended anything so mundane. Though most of us have never met in person, I felt your real-life friendship as if you stood by my side. I’m so grateful.
Now for a little fun
The two-month-long book tour is over. Yay!
You’re probably sick of me and my book, but I needed to take a little more blog space to say thank you (again) to all my hosts, to all the bloggers who took the time to visit the posts, to all the readers who picked up the book, and the kind souls who shared reviews.
I hope that you also found some new blogs to follow and some amazing new books to read! If I’ve stuffed your new year with books, I’ve done my job.
Free Book Trailer
As a thank you for hosting me, I offered to put my 28 hosts’ names in a drawing for a Diana-made book trailer. And the winner of a free book trailer is:
Every time a visitor left a comment at one of my tour stops, I recorded their name for a drawing for a $50 Amazon Gift Card. Anyone who commented on multiple posts earned multiple entries.
In total, there were 794 visitors who left 4,133 comments on my hosts’ 28 posts. Phew!
I collected all the names in Excel, snipped them into tiny slips of paper (for two hours), and crumpled them into a jar. For a $50 Amazon gift card, the winner is:
My release of The Necromancer’s Daughter later this month is creeping ever closer. I love creating images for my books and then turning them into trailers. It’s a bit of procrastination that feels productive.
The trailer is complete, and it’s time to let it fly.
I hope you enjoy the show.
(If you give it a view, I recommend “full screen” so it isn’t so tiny.)
And …the book is officially available for preorder for an August 25th release (right around the corner)! Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords, and Apple.
The Necromancer’s Daughter will be $.99 for a few months as a thank you to all my blogging buddies and the readers, old and new, who’ve supported me along the way.
Jacqui Murray has a new book on the shelves. I’m a huge fan of her Prehistoric fiction, and my review is below. You did it again, Jacqui, transported me back in time 1.8 million years.
A boy blinded by fire. A woman raised by wolves. An avowed enemy offers help.
Summary
In this second of the Dawn of Humanity trilogy, the first trilogy in the Man vs. Nature saga, Lucy and her eclectic group escape the treacherous tribe that has been hunting them and find a safe haven in the famous Wonderwerk caves in South Africa. Though they don’t know it, they will be the oldest known occupation of caves by humans. They don’t have clothing, fire, or weapons, but the caves keep them warm and food is plentiful. But they can’t stay, not with the rest of the tribe enslaved by an enemy. To free them requires not only the prodigious skills of Lucy’s unique group–which includes a proto-wolf and a female raised by the pack–but others who have no reason to assist her and instinct tells Lucy she shouldn’t trust.
Set 1.8 million years ago in Africa, Lucy and her tribe struggle against the harsh reality of a world ruled by nature, where predators stalk them and a violent new species of man threatens to destroy their world. Only by changing can they prevail. If you ever wondered how earliest man survived but couldn’t get through the academic discussions, this book is for you. Prepare to see this violent and beautiful world in a way you never imagined.
A perfect book for fans of Jean Auel and the Gears!
My Review
I read the first book in this series a while ago, and it was great to travel back in time again (1.8 million years to be exact) and catch up with Lucy and her group of primitive humans. This book starts where the last left off, so I’d recommend beginning the series with book one, Born in a Treacherous Time, which blew me away, btw.
What I’ve enjoyed most about Murray’s prehistoric fiction has been consistent across her trilogies—the way she brings the time period to life with some meticulous research and well-educated guessing. The characters and their lives are fictional, but the primordial setting, the prehistoric human and animal species, migration patterns, and anthropological details about life had me fascinated.
The plot of this installment isn’t complicated. Lucy and her small group of “Man-who-makes-tools” are searching for a home-base after their larger group was attacked by “Man-who-preys.” They face natures challenges in a number of forms: freezing tempertures, seismic Earth changes, treacherous landscapes, animal predators, aggressive tribes, and hunger. Survival is a daily struggle.
The story is primarily in Lucy’s point of view, but there are two parallel tracks told by other characters: Ahnda, a subadult from Lucy’s original group who has escaped captivity, and Xha, one of the “Man-who-preys” who is tracking Lucy as she searches for a safe home. A later addition to the pov characters is a female named Wild who was raised by the large canines (Canus) of the time.
One of the clever aspects of the storytelling is the way Murray’s characters view, think about, and describe their world without a scientific and conceptual understanding of what they’re seeing. Naming, as you might have noticed in this review, is descriptive based on what is observed and learned through experience. Details such as these are immersive.
Book Two comes to a partial conclusion, but the books aren’t standalone reads, and the hunt for a home-base continues. Highly recommended to readers of prehistoric fiction who enjoy man versus nature stories and descriptive details that transport a reader back in time.
Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular prehistoric fiction saga, Man vs. Nature which explores seminal events in man’s evolution one trilogy at a time. She is also the author of the Rowe-Delamagente thrillers and Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. Her non-fiction includes over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, reviews as an Amazon Vine Voice, a columnist for NEA Today, and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. Look for her next prehistoric fiction, Natural Selection, Winter 2022.
I love making book trailers and this time tried to include more video along with my images. If this is too small, you can view a larger-sized version on YouTube.
I hope you enjoy the trailer for The Ferryman and the Sea Witch.
Myths of the Mirror 