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Julie Cross never considered becoming a published author until 2009 but ever since she has written everyday. She works as a YMCA Gymnastics Program Director and lives in central Illinois with her husband and three children. Tempest is her debut novel and will be released on 17 January 2012. Tomorrow is Today, is currently available. 

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Julie Cross never considered becoming a published author until 2009 but ever since she has written everyday. She works as a YMCA Gymnastics Program Director and lives in central Illinois with her husband and three children. Tempest is her debut novel and will be released on 17 January 2012. Her short story prequel, Tomorrow is Today, is currently available. 

The Bronze and the Brimstone picks up right where the first book left off. Hansum, Shamira, Lincoln (known to the fourteenth century crowd as Romero, Carmella, and Maruccio), and the della Cappas have just survived a grave ordeal and now everyone is resting and healing before getting back to work. Exhausted from the ordeal, Hansum dreams that he is back home in the twenty-fourth century with his parents and A.I. Charlene, except that Pan the genie is also there as well as Guilietta. He finds this strange but he is also happy that he gets introduce Guilietta to his parents, since they plan to marry. But then Hansum is woken up by Agistino della Cappa, his master, and he is quickly brought back to his new reality.

The della Cappa lens and looker business has taken off in the meantime. Anyone with means can buy the “discs for the eyes” but no one is allowed to buy the lookers per an agreement made with the Podesta, Mastino della Scalla. The Podesta and his cousin, the Baron da Pontremoli, have recognized Hansum’s talent for inventions (except he receives all of his information from the A.I. genie, Pan). They decide to recruit him to oversee all of the various operations that involve making the new black powder and accompanying cannons while the others remain at the della Cappas to make the lookers. There is also a hitch when the Podesta hints that he would like Hansum to marry his daughter, Lady Beatrice, when he is already involved with Guilietta.

Everyone’s fortunes have been looking up ever since the three teens from the future arrived. But what happens when technologies are introduced hundreds of years in advance? Will their fortunes continue to rise or will they fall?

As I have previously stated, it took me awhile to get into the first book in this trilogy. Not so for this second installment. It picked up where the first one left off which meant I was immediately thrown back into the story. Again, it was full of action and adventure. For two-thirds of the book, everything was great overall. The della Cappas were successful and Hansum continued to prove his worth to the Podesta, but I had a nagging uneasy feeling. I mean, not only did the teens improve lens making and introduces telescopes way ahead of time, but now they were creating efficient black powder and cannons, which were a lot more dangerous. I had to wonder, where would it end? What would all of these changes do to the timeline and what would happen to the world? Then, in the last third of the book, I knew. All I can say is, wow.

The Bronze and the Brimstone is a fantastic follow-up. I really got sucked into this one and the last third of the book was both eye-opening and fast. Both the beginning and the end of the book have a dreamlike quality. Kaufman hit the mark with this one and I am definitely hooked now. The Bronze and the Brimstone is an emotional rollercoaster and a beautiful example of how the wheel of Fortune really works.

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 Lory S. Kaufman is a self-proclaimed writer of post-dystopian fiction. The Lens and the Looker is his first novel and the second book in the trilogy, The Bronze and the Brimstone was released on 7 June 2011. Lory has three grown children and lives in Kingston, Canada.

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The Lens and the Looker

It is the twenty-fourth century and human society has reached a new level. Everyone speaks Earth Common and countries do not really exist anymore. Everyone has their own Artificial Intelligence that can look like anything from a balloon with a face to an animal, but which can never look like a human. 

This world refuses to forget its history and so there are places called History Camps all over the place where people reenact and live like those from the past. The History Camps help children to learn valuable lessons…especially those known as “hard cases” who cause undue mischief and who do not appreciate what they have around them.

Three such hard cases are thrown together at a History Camp that emulates Verona, Italy in the fourteenth century. Hansum, Shamira, and Lincoln are given new identities and roles in this pre-Renaissance society. With the help of a holographic genie, however, they still aim to cause mischief and ruin the History Camp Elders’ plans. But their mischief attracts a History-Camp-Elder-turned-time-traveler from the future who sends the three teens to the actual fourteenth century Verona. It turns out that History Camp is a far cry from the real thing. 

The teens begin introducing future technology into fourteenth century Verona with the help of Pan, the genie, and their antics may change everything. They may even change the future.

I had a hard time getting into this story at first. It may have taken me about one hundred or one hundred and fifty pages before I started connecting with the characters. Maybe it was the very different twenty-fourth century world that kept me disconnected for so long, but I think the characters played a part in that as well. Maybe it was because of how spoiled they were at the beginning and how they were so unwilling to learn. I am not sure. But as I kept reading, I started to connect with the characters slowly, but surely, and the story steadily became more interesting.

I enjoyed the differences between the twenty-fourth century, the fake fourteenth century, and the real fourteenth century. All three “worlds” were unique and gave Hansum, Shamira, and Lincoln different things to think about. 

The main character is Hansum who looks like how his name sounds. The reader learns quite a lot about him, but the story is told from different third-person points-of-view so the reader gets to know all of the characters. He, Shamira, and Lincoln become like family throughout their ordeal and they also become close to the medieval family they lodge with. Hansum and his new Master’s daughter, especially, become close, giving Hansum an extra incentive to make things work in this century.

The Master is a lens maker who makes “discs for the eyes”. Hansum and Lincoln are his apprentices and Shamira is the house girl. With Pan’s help and Shamira’s artistic eye, however, they all become almost expert in lens making and even introduce the telescope ahead of time. Over one hundred years ahead of time. Introducing technology into the past can be tricky business and it really changes the lives of the teens.

I ended up enjoying this book. I was disappointed that it was slow for me to get into, but I am sure that is just personal preference rather than any fault of the author or story. There is a lot of adventure in the book as well as a bit of romance and things heat up in both areas towards the end and really peaked my interest. The Lens and the Looker is the first in the History Camp Verona Trilogy and I do look forward to reading the next installment.

 Lory S. Kaufman is a self-proclaimed writer of post-dystopian fiction. The Lens and the Looker is his first novel and the second book in the trilogy, The Bronze and the Brimstone will be released on 7 June 2011. Lory has three grown children and lives in Kingston, Canada.

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The Noble Pirates by R.L. Jean

How I got my hands on this book: Won a Smashwords.com coupon code from the author’s Spooktacular Book Blog Giveaway Hop giveaway.

Genre: Historical fiction, Time travel

First Sentence:

My first conscious thought was: I hate boats.

What would you do if you went on a booze cruise in the Caribbean in 2009 and your last memory was an unearthly storm before you woke up floating in the middle of the ocean only to be discovered by a ship full of what appeared to be eighteenth century pirates?

Sabrina Granger does the only thing she can at this point…let them rescue her. She is disoriented, waterlogged, and nauseous. About the only things that save her at this point are that she had the luck to be picked up by Captain Edward England, known as the “merciful pirate”, and that her speech and mannerisms confuse the hell out of him.  Once Sabrina recovers, she quickly realizes that she needs to play along with these guys, eighteenth century pirates or no, in order to survive. When she reaches Nassau, it starts to sink in further that she really might be in another time.

She is taken to Nassau by Edward England who was a real eighteenth century pirate and stays in his house while he figures out his next move. As long as she is under his protection, she should be safe. He knows something is odd about her because he looked through her backpack and saw things that had to confuse the hell out of him, like her iPod and her cell phone. Even so, it is still hard for him to believe that she is from another time. 

Eventually, Sabrina is back on a ship, disguised as a boy, with Edward England and his crew. Soon, she becomes a burden to him and he leaves her with the sailor Howel Davis, to see her safe to Nassau. He does not yet know she is a woman and promises to take her to the island, but Sabrina has other plans. She also finds herself drawn to the charismatic Howel Davis, who eventually turns pirate (and is also a real historical figure). Sabrina falls for him and then realizes that the non-fiction pirate book in her backpack lists Edward England’s fate, as well as the fates of Howel Davis and other pirates. She lets Howel in on her secret in the hopes of saving him from his fate. But will it work? 

The Noble Pirates was a bit hard to get into at first. I thought Sabrina’s knowledge of the types of ships was too specific for someone who had only gone sailing as a kid. I also thought her knowledge of eighteenth century fashion was initially unrealistic. I love history, especially a certain period, and I cannot correctly name the various garments that make up an ensemble. I can also understand recognizing an Irish or a British accent, but as an American, it seemed unrealistic that she was able to identify local accents such as Cockney. However, this was all at the beginning. Later, it makes more sense for Sabrina to recognize certain things because she has been living with mostly British pirates. 

In 2009, Sabrina is still married to her husband, Jake, although all is not well in the marriage. Either he made some kind of mistake or the relationship suffered because Sabrina was a workaholic and did not spend much time with her family. Her daughter, Sophie, prefers dad’s company. All of this would explain why Sabrina was a on a booze cruise with her friends before ending up in 1718.

I appreciate her lamentation of her lack of modern amenities such as hygiene products, technology, and medicine. I like that Sabrina describes the stench of the people and the overall uncleanliness, no matter how gross it sounds. It definitely makes the story more realistic. People who work all day and party all night without ever bathing are going to reek.

What I really like about The Noble Pirates, is that it reminds us that these were real people who really lived this way. It never ceases to amaze me each time I really think about it. Like, last week with the lunar eclipse. I watched a few minutes of it and thought how amazing it was that hundreds of years ago this happened and those people witnessed the same thing. It got me thinking of my favorite historical figures and how I can talk or read about them with some semblance of nonchalance, but that if I really meditate on it, it just hits me each and every time that these people really lived and really experienced some wonderful and horrible things. This hit me again many times throughout this book, especially when Sabrina discovers that one of the books left in her back pack by her friend is a non-fiction book about pirates and includes information on the lives and fates of the pirates she has encountered and gotten to know as real people. 

Overall, this book was outstanding. There is action, adventure, romance, and elements of magic throughout the novel. It really sucked me in. Time travel to previous centuries is a really interesting subject to me and pirates are just cool to read about. It is even cooler when they are pirates who actually lived. R.L. Jean did a fantastic job of giving a voice to Edward England and Howel Davis. They were just really believable and if you do a little bit of preliminary Internet research, it turns out they really were the exceptions to the rule of piracy.

Will Sabrina be stuck in the eighteenth century or will she make it back to the twenty-first? Will her actions in the past affect the future? Will she be able to save Howel Davis? You’ll just have to pick up this read to find out. I highly recommend it! And don’t worry, there will be a sequel!

 R.L. Jean is an unpublished author. She wrote The Noble Pirates as an online serialized novel and is currently doing the same with the sequel, Liberi. In the meantime, she is building up support for her book and trying to get published while performing her motherly and wifely duties.

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