Monday, November 10, 2014

Monday's Montage Mantlepiece: No Man's Land: Fiction from a World at War





To honor Veteran's Day and the 100th Anniversary of WW1, today's anthology is a collection of WW1 fiction.


Summary:
From the trenches to the home front, the most profound fiction inspired by World War I—and a moving memorial to the twentieth century's most cataclysmic event.

The Great War gave birth to some of the twentieth century s most celebrated writing; from D. H. Lawrence to Siegfried Sassoon, the literature generated by the war is etched into collective memory. But it is in fiction that we find some of the most profound insights into the war s individual and communal tragedies, the horror of life in the trenches, and the grand farce of the first industrial war. Featuring forty-seven writers from twenty different nations, representing all the main participants in the conflict, No Man s Land is a truly international anthology of World War I fiction. Work by Erich Maria Remarque, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, and Rose Macaulay sits alongside forgotten masterpieces such as Stratis Myrivilis s Life in the Tomb, Raymond Escholier s Mahmadou Fofana, and Mary Borden s The ForbiddenZone. No Man s Land is a brilliant memorial to the twentieth century s most cataclysmic event."



Authors & Titles
Pete Ayrton   Introduction
Henri Barbusse • ‘The Vision’, from Under Fire, translated by Robin Buss
Mulk Raj Anand • ‘Marseille’, from Across the Black Waters
Ernst Jünger • ‘Rajputs’, from War Diary 1914–1918, translated by Martin Chalmers
D. H. Lawrence • ‘The Nightmare’, from Kangaroo
Siegfried Sassoon • ‘Done All That was Expected of It’ and ‘That Necessary Faculty for Trench Warfare’, from Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
Vera Brittain • ‘Destiny was Not Willing’ and ‘I Thank You, Sister’, from Testament of Youth
Helen Zenna Smith • ‘Liquid Fire’ and ‘The Beauty of Men Who are Whole’, from Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War
William Baylebridge • ‘The Apocalypse of Pat McCullough: The Sergeant’s Tale’, from An Anzac Muster
Robin Hyde • ‘Dawn’s Angel’, from Passport to Hell
W. N. P. Barbellion • ‘Before the War I was an Interesting Invalid’, from The Journal of a Disappointed Man
Mary Borden • ‘The Square’, ‘The Beach’, ‘Conspiracy’ and ‘In the Operating Room’, from The Forbidden Zone
Emilio Lussu • ‘A Real Hero’, ‘You Should Have Done Nothing’ and ‘The Austrian Officer Lit a Cigarette’, from A Soldier on the Southern Front, translated by Gregory Conti
Carlo Emilio Gadda • ‘The Battle of the Isonzo’, from Journals of War & Prison, translated by Cristina Viti
Prežihov Voranc • ‘At Doberdob’, from Doberdob, translated by Ana Jelnikar and Stephen Watts
Wyndham Lewis • ‘The Romance of War’ and ‘Political Education under Fire’, from Blasting and Bombardiering
Richard Aldington • ‘Cannon-fodder’ and ‘A Timeless Confusion’, from Death of a Hero
A. T. Fitzroy • ‘Beethoven and Bach’, from Despised and Rejected
William Faulkner • ‘Crevasse’, from These 13
Frederic Manning • ‘Cushy avec Mademoiselle’, from Her Privates We
Stratis Myrivilis • ‘Animals’, ‘Anchorites of Lust’, ‘How Zafiriou Died’, ‘Alimberis Conquers His Fear of Shells’ and ‘Gas’, from Life in the Tomb, translated by Peter Bien
Raymond Escholier • ‘Sheep’, from Mahmadou Fofana, translated by Malcolm Imrie
Robert Musil • ‘The Blackbird’, from Posthumous Papers of a Living Author, translated by Peter Wortsman
Liviu Rebreanu • ‘To the Romanian Front’ and ‘We’ll See What You Do There…’, from The Forest of the Hanged, translated by A. V. Wise
Jaroslav Hašek • ‘Švejk Goes to the War’ and ‘From Hatvan towards the Galician Frontier’, from The Good Soldier Švejk, translated by Cecil Parrott
Miroslav Krleža • ‘Hut 5B’, from The Croatian God Mars, translated by Celia Hawkesworth
Miloš Crnjanski • ‘My Good Galician Forests’, from Diary about Čarnojević, translated by Celia Hawkesworth
Viktor Shklovsky • ‘The Democratic Principle of Discussion’, from A Sentimental Journey, translated by Richard Sheldon
Gabriel Chevallier • ‘I Was Afraid’, from Fear, translated by Malcolm Imrie
Jules Romains • ‘Jerphanion Writes to His Wife’, from The Prelude to Verdun, translated by Warre B. Wells
Jean Giono • ‘Julia Remembers’, ‘The Salt of the Earth’, ‘News from Joseph’ and ‘Joseph’s Left Hand’, from To the Slaughterhouse, translated by Norman Glass
Louis-Ferdinand Céline • ‘In Ten Thousand Years, This War will be Utterly Forgotten’, from Journey to the End of the Night, translated by Ralph Manheim
Isaac Babel • ‘Papa Marescot’s Family’, from On the Field of Honour, translated by Peter Constantine
Dalton Trumbo • ‘A Date with the Shell’, from Johnny Got His Gun
Willa Cather • ‘Manger, Aimer, Payer’, from One of Ours
Irene Rathbone • ‘Who Dies if England Lives?’, from We That Were Young
Rose Macaulay • ‘Evening at Violette’, from Non-Combatants and Others
Josep Pla • ‘Veritable Equine Items of Dentistry’, from The Grey Notebook, translated by Peter Bush
A. P. Herbert • ‘One of the Bravest Men I Ever Knew’, from The Secret Battle
Vahan Totovents • ‘Infidels and Curs’, from Scenes from an Armenian Childhood, translated by Mischa Kudian
Ömer Seyfettin • ‘Why Didn’t He Get Rich?’, translated by Izzy Finkel
James Hanley • ‘I Surrender, Camerade’, from The German Prisoner
Theodor Plievier • ‘Mutiny!’, from The Kaiser’s Coolies, translated by Martin Chalmers
Arnold Zweig • ‘Snow’, from The Case of Sergeant Grischa, translated by Eric Sutton
Edlef Köppen • ‘Cavalry Charge’, from Military Communiqué, translated by Martin Chalmers
Joseph Roth • ‘My Son is Dead!’, from The Radetzky March, translated by Michael Hofmann
John Galsworthy • ‘The Gibbet’, from Forsytes, Pendyces and Others
Erich Maria Remarque • ‘Sweet Dreams Though the Guns are Booming’, ‘The Dead Man’s Room’ and ‘He Fell in October’, from All Quiet on the Western Front, translated by Brian Murdoch



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Cover Reveal: Run to You by Kandice Michelle Young

Title: Run To You
Author: Kandice Michelle Young
Series: Run #1
Release Date: February 10, 2015


Summary:
I moved to New York for a fresh start.  I did not move here to fall for a man like Sebastian.

Sebastian Black came into my life like a storm in the peak of the night…dark, raging, all-consuming, and guaranteed to leave destruction in his wake. From the moment our eyes met, he had a hold on me. I wanted, craved, and needed him like nothing I had ever desired before.

The problem was he needed total submission. From the moment he handed me the contract, I knew what he was proposing would destroy me. What I had not planned was his ability to make me crave destruction. I would lose myself in him. Sebastian knew how to take me over the edge, and before I even knew it, I wanted to go freefalling.

It was evident that my past had the ability to destroy us. What I had not calculated was the power of his to do the same. My dark, brooding, impeccably sexual, alpha-male had his own crosses to bear. I was not sure I was strong enough to handle them, or the woman who helped chain him there.



“You were special ordered by Black himself.” He takes my elbow and guides me into the room.

My heart is racing with anticipation. This is it, my moment of truth. I walk on shaky legs as I try to keep up with his pace. In just minutes, I will be face-to-face with Sebastian for the first time since our short-lived intimate encounter a week ago. A crowd by the bar lets out a loud cheer and I glance over to see the bartender balancing a shaker on his head and juggling three more around him, catching liquids from each one, and mixing them into the contents of the other.

We walk up a flight of metal stairs and he knocks on the door, which is camouflaged into the black wall surrounding it. It opens and Robin greets us. She smiles at me. “It’s nice to see you again, Dani, Mr. Black is expecting you. Mr. Princeton if you could please come with me. We need to speak with the press.”

“Of course,” Paul replies. He turns to me with a focused brow. “You’ll be ok here?”

“Yep, I’ve got it covered.” I wink.

I watch as Robin and Paul exit the room chatting animatedly as they go. My stomach does a flip-flop, and I focus on my surroundings to regain my composure. The room isn’t much different from the lobby where my desk sits at PES, dark wood and leather furniture. Two couches face each other with a mahogany coffee table between them. Unlike the apartment he took me to the last time, I see him in this room. It’s decorated with urban art, dark, and mysterious.

I feel a charge of electricity cut through the air, and turn to see Sebastian standing in the doorframe. He’s wearing an expensive tailor-made suit like he was the day we met. This one is also black. His tie, however, is gray just like those smoldering eyes. I meet his gaze and my mouth opens instinctively to allow me to intake more breath. He leans on the doorframe, holding my gaze, and I feel a heaviness building in the pit of my stomach. We stand there for what seems like an eternity taking each other in.

“Well,” he says. His voice is calm, collected, and poised, but I can see the storm brewing in his eyes. “Step into my office. As I understand it we still have much to discuss.”

I try to steady my shaking limbs as I place my hand in his. He smells delicious. It’s not cologne or body wash, it’s him. Rugged, manly, and sensual. He leads me to a soft leather chair that sits opposite his and makes his way around the wide mahogany desk that separates us.

From the moment his touch leaves my skin, I’m thirsty for it, needing it like lungs need oxygen. He sits in his executive chair, looking much like a mid-15th-century king on his throne. He looks expectantly at me and I shift in my seat, trying desperately not to meet his gaze.

“Would you care for a drink, Miss Stevens?” He offers.

“No, Mr. Black, I would not. I need to keep a level head in order to proceed with our business negotiations.”

A smirk threatens his lips as he takes a sip of what I can only presume to be scotch based on the amber coloring. “Very well, let’s get to the business shall we.”

I timidly raise my eyes to meet his. “I think the event is going well, don’t you?”

He sets his drink down on a marble coaster without taking his eyes off me. “Quite, but I never doubted your capabilities, Miss Stevens.”

“Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves and there’s a crowd lining the street.  We’ve had to turn people away,” I inform him.

“My accountant will be very happy to hear that.”

I smile and look down at my hands, which I’ve been inadvertently twisting into knots in my lap. He follows my gaze. “Are you nervous, Miss Stevens?”

I inhale and fold my hands in between my knees, crossing my legs. “Perhaps a little.”

He picks up his crystal tumbler and stands. My skin breaks out in goosebumps as he walks toward me and leans against the desk. He removes his jacket and places it around my shoulders. As he does so, he expertly removes the hair from my neck and gently caresses it at the same time. The jacket is warm and smells of him, increasing the desire growing in my belly.

“There’s no need for you to be nervous, Danielle, we are two consenting adults coming to an agreement. We are doing nothing wrong.” He loosens his tie and I note his expensive looking jade and platinum cufflinks.

I clear my throat. “On second thought, I think I will have that drink. Nothing heavy though, red wine if you’ve got it.”

He walks toward a cocktail cart on the adjacent wall and I watch his sculpted ass, thinking of how it would feel to dig my nails into it. He returns and hands me a glass of a delicious smelling wine. I smile and take it from him, carefully sipping at it as he leans back onto his desk.

“So, have you given my proposition any thought?”

I lower the glass and stare into the dark red liquid. “I have.”

“And?”

I shrug. “It’s interesting.”

“Interesting as in you agree, or interesting as in I should be locked up in a padded cell,” he prods.

I consider his words carefully before raising my eyes to meet his. His stare burns with anticipation, although the rest of his face is stoic, his chiseled jaw set in a way that would break Michelangelo’s Heart. I lightly caress my lips with my tongue struggling to find my voice.

“A little of both,” I say.

His eyes stare into mine, burning a hole straight to the center of my core. My knees weaken and my sex tingles with delight as I imagine what comes next.

“Does that mean you are saying yes, Miss Stevens?”

I smile sweetly at him and nod. “Yes, Mr. Black, I agree to the renegotiated terms of your contract.”

In one swift motion, he lunges at me and wraps my mouth with his as he lifts me on top of his desk. His hands run under the jacket and along my back, pushing it off me. I reciprocate by wrapping my legs around his waist and placing my hands on his firm, strong back kissing him back with fervor.



Author Bio:
Kandice is … a serial lover of all things pink, self-proclaimed chocoholic, home-schooling mother, and wannabe yogi.
Her debut erotica novel, Run to You, the first in the series Run, is coming soon.
Kandi’s love of storytelling can be traced back to her fourth grade year, when a history lesson on Native Americans became too unimaginative for her liking.  She took it upon herself to liven things up by creating a story that was based on half-truths about a self-named Indian Princess. Kandice is in fact of Native American heritage (her great-grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee) and in her own mind a princess, so you can see where her inspiration came from.  Her story was a huge hit with friends, and an author was born.
Kandice was born and raised in rural Arkansas, where she currently lives with her husband and three children. Though, if you ask her she’ll confirm that her soul is lost somewhere on the west coast waiting for the day that her body can rejoin it.


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Email: kmyoungbooks@gmail.com

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Broken Course (Wrecked and Ruined #3) by Aly Martinez

Title: Broken Course
Author: Aly Martinez
Series: Wrecked and Ruined #3
Release Date: November 10, 2014
Genre: Contemporary Romance

Summary:
Seven years ago, my life changed forever. One accident and the person I saw in the mirror no longer resembled the woman I used to be. I was lost and confused inside my own body. I felt alone and disconnected from the world, carrying the incredible weight of guilt and loss that wasn't even mine to harbor.

Then fate led me to Leo James. He taught me that crazy could be perfectly normal and it shouldn't hurt to breathe. Don't get me wrong. Leo isn't perfect. He has his own cross to bear, and the truth is, that might be why I fell for him in the first place. But despite everything he does for me, learning to forgive myself is infinitely harder than overlooking the flaws of another.

Now, the secrets and lies of our past have begun to dictate our future—threatening to ruin us before we get the chance to try. Perhaps we were cursed from the start. Or maybe, just maybe, the remnants of our fractured lives will fit together to form one whole, where love isn’t questioned and being happy is…well, easy.

Can a second broken soul be enough to fill the voids of my own? Or will such scarred pasts prove too much for our love alone to overcome?


**Each book in this series can be read as a stand-alone.**






Author Bio:
Born and raised in Savannah, Georgia, Aly Martinez is a stay-at-home mom to four crazy kids under the age of five, including a set of twins. Currently living in Chicago, she passes what little free time she has reading anything and everything she can get her hands on, preferably with a glass of wine at her side.

After some encouragement from her friends, Aly decided to add “Author” to her ever-growing list of job titles. So grab a glass of Chardonnay, or a bottle if you’re hanging out with Aly, and join her aboard the crazy train she calls life.


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Broken Course #3
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Changing Course #1

Stolen Course #2



$50.00 Amazon Gift Card or one of 3 signed Wrecked and Ruined pb sets (Chanimg Course, Stolen Course, and Broken Course.)



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The Syrian Virgin by Zack Love

Title: The Syrian Virgin
Author: Zack Love
Genre: Political Contemporary Romance
Cover Design: Pink Ink Designs by Cassy Roop
Release Date: November 10th 2014

Summary:
Anissa is traumatized by the most brutal conflict of the 21st Century: the Syrian Civil War. In 2012, Islamists in Homs terrorize her Christian community and destroy everything in her life. Narrowly escaping death, Anissa restarts her devastated life as a college student in NY. She is bewildered and lost -- a virgin in every sense.

But despite her inexperience with men and life in the United States, Anissa is quickly drawn to two powerful individuals: Michael, the Syrian-Christian American who leads the political effort to protect his community, and Julien, her college professor who runs a $20 billion hedge fund. Complicating matters, Michael is still attached to his ex-girlfriend and Julien is the most sought after bachelor in Manhattan. Anissa's heart and her communal ties pull her in different directions, as she seeks hope and renewal in a dark world.

LIFE shattered her. LOVE empowered her.

::::DISCLAIMER::::
The Syrian Virgin Series

Subtitle: A Young Woman's Journey From War in Syria to Love in New York

WARNING: This book is about a young woman's difficult journey: her escape from Syria's Civil War, her transition to a new a country, and the relationships that she forms along the way, including her romantic interests in two very different men. The story is set against the backdrop of the Syrian Civil War and makes reference to violent acts, sometimes in detail. There is some occasional profanity and a few scenes that depict sexual intimacy. Accordingly, the recommended minimum age for readers is 16. The novel might be compared to books like The Diary of Anne Frank or The Kite Runner.




Author Bio:
Zack Love graduated from Harvard College, where he studied mostly literature, psychology, philosophy, and film. After college, he moved to New York City and took a corporate consulting job that had absolutely nothing to do with his studies. The attacks of September 11, 2001 inspired him to write a novelette titled The Doorman, and heightened his interest in the Middle East. A decade later, that interest extended to the Syrian Civil war, which provided the backdrop for his latest work. In late 2013, Zack began releasing his unpublished works of fiction and became a full-time author. He has published comedy, psychological and philosophical fiction, and romance. Zack enjoys confining himself to one genre about as much as he likes trying to sum up his existence in one paragraph.


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