Join us Across the Globe in this
Christmas Around the World Giveaway.
Enter to Win 1 Grand Prize of These Five-Star
Dramatic Books from Around the World
Plus 6 additional winners of each book from me, Gloria Casale, Suzanne Kelman, Seumas Gallacher, KJ Waters, David P. Perlmutter, and Thomas J. Nichols.
Happy St. Nicklaus Eve
I'm excited to be a part of this giveaway and would like to share with you my Christmas traditions and introduce you to a few I incorporate in my book, Bioterror: The Essential Threat. Please take a few minutes to watch my video where I talk more about this an please enter the book giveaway for a chance to win my book and five others. You can also win a glass and silver necklace worth $150 for sharing my facebook post below.
Through December I will be sharing more on this blog about my traditions and more, so stay tuned.
Join the giveaway below or click here to enter on the landing page.
The blog tour started on December 2, 2019, and will continue until December 16. See below to find links to the other blogs in the tour.
My Christmas Traditions
I grew up in a small New Jersey town filled with families who immigrated from Europe to the United States at the turn of the last century and brought their traditions with them. I had the good fortune to experience these celebrations with my friends and family as I was growing up.
Today is the Eve of St. Nicklaus. On December 5th, in Germany, Austria, and several Eastern European countries, children leave their shoes out at bedtime for St. Nicklaus to fill with small gifts and sweet treats.
In other towns in Central and Eastern Europe, St. Nicklaus and his pesky sidekick Krampus, go from house to house on December 6, the Feast of St. Nicklaus.
St. Nicklaus is dressed like a fifteenth-century bishop. He wears a tall mitered headpiece and a red robe and he carries a strong hooked wooden staff.
St. Nicklaus asks the children to kneel and say a prayer. If they can recite the prayer without error, he will give them small treats.
Krampus, the spirit of naughtiness, is not allowed into the house. He tries to distract and frighten the children by rattling the doorknob and knocking on the windows.
My award winning novel, BIOTERROR: The Essential Threat, is a work of fiction, but is based on the very real possibility of a bioterror attack.
The story features Yuri Bushinikov, a desperate Russian scientist, who succumbs to a bribe to help his impoverished family during the holidays.
Yuri and his wife, Iveta Bushinikov, live in western Russia with their sons, Ondrek and Josef. Yuri, the lead microbiologist in a laboratory in Novosibirsk, Russia, has not gotten paid in months. He and his family are starving. Yuri sends his family to his mother-in-law's farm close to the Latvian border.
Iveta thinks they will spend the winter months with her mother and return to Zagorsk in the spring. However, Yuri and Olga have another plan. Yuri has accepted a bribe that he hopes will bring them to freedom.
Their adventures on New Year’s Eve (the feast of St. Silvester) and the Twelfth day of Christmas (Epiphany, January 6) will keep you turning pages until you learn not only their fate, but the fate of the world. You can read a sample of my book on Amazon here: https://geni.us/NewBioterrorGleam.
Additional Giveaway -
Win a Fused Glass Pendant and Earring Set
Share this giveaway on Facebook from my page and I will enter you in this bonus #Giveaway to win this fused glass pendant and earring set. The set is my creation. The pendant hangs on a seven-strand sterling silver neck ring. Go to my Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/GloriaWritesBooks/posts/2566747463379003
Visit the Other Authors in the Blog Tour
Join the rest of the authors on their blogs for an incredible journey around the world through the eyes of our authors and their protagonists starting in WWII Holland and continuing from to the Middle East over to Hong Kong, through the hills of Pennsylvania and deserts of Mexico, ending back in time in eighteenth-century London. We are excited to share with you our own holiday traditions and what life was like for the characters featured in our books.
On Monday December 2 we will begin our journey in 1941, Nazi-occupied Amsterdam with Suzanne Kelman in her international best-seller A View Across the Rooftops. Suzanne is a British author who lives in Seattle and delights in her English Christmas traditions every year. Please visit Suzanne’s video and blog post here: http://suzannekelmanauthor.blogspot.com/2019/12/december-book-giveaway-books-from.html.
Then we pop over to Seumas Gallacher’s blog on Tuesday, December 3 featuring is international crime novel The Violin Man’s Legacy. Seumas was born in Scotland and lives in Abu Dhabi. His main character, Jack Calder, investigates a murderous diamond heist in Holland that leads him to Hong Kong and South America. You can visit his video and blog here: https://seumasgallacher.com/2019/12/03/christmas-joint-blog-tour-and-giveaways-o-come-all-ye-faithful-readers/
David P. Perlmutter takes over on Wednesday, December 4 sharing his Jewish upbringing in London, and will detail the true life and nearly deadly adventure in the hills of Pennsylvania where he spends Christmas with his boss in his book Five Weeks. David spends a decent amount of time in the #1 spot on Amazon with his soon to be movie, Wrong Place Wrong Time. You can visit his blog and video here: http://thewrongplaceatthewrongtime.blogspot.com/.
Chief Thomas J. Nichols is featured on Friday, December 6, where he will talk about his poor upbringing in Missouri, some of which was spent in an orphanage. As a former police chief, he writes crime fiction with teeth and will detail what Christmas is like for his characters in the dry dusty backdrop of Mexico. His book, Color of the Prism, follows an undercover agent who spearheads an investigation into a violent Mexican drug cartel. You can find Tom’s blog and video here: https://thomasjnichols.blogspot.com/.
Finally, on Monday, December 2, we end the blog tour back in time with KJ Waters and her time travel novel to 1752 London, Stealing Time. What was lifelike in England in the year they skipped 9 days to jive with Europe’s Gregorian calendar? KJ grew up in Maryland and will talk about her Christmas family traditions in the south based on her Grandmother’s love of the holiday and overabundance of gifts and family fun in a split family. You can see KJ’s blog post here: https://kjwatersauthor.blogspot.com/
More on the books you can win.
Bioterror: The Essential Threat by Gloria Casale
A desperate Russian scientist is bribed by terrorist to release a plague upon the world. Dr. Anne Damiano teams up with a former love interest to avert an international pandemic of the world’s most feared disease.
Yuri Bushinikov, a renowned Russian genetics engineer, has gone missing, along with two vials from the Russian smallpox stockpile. Dr. Anne Damiano has feared this scenario for many years. Her warnings have been ignored by other, more powerful Public Health officials. They adamantly deny the possibility of a bioterror attack.
Bushinikov, fueled by his concern for his young family, succumbs to an offer from Al Halbi, the director of the Syrian Institute for Science and International Security. Huge amounts of money, and multiple false IDs for the biologist and each member of his family will insure their dramatic escape from Russia. As directed, Bushinikov delivers the virus to an intermediary in Jakarta. Al Halbi plans to process the virus into a bioterror weapon that will destroy the Great Satan. Anne's fear is rapidly becoming reality.
Death and mayhem aren't Anne's ideas of romance. Yet, when the Director of the CIA teams her up with her long-lost love, Connor Quinlan, sparks as well as bullets fly. Anne and Connor must collaborate to stop Al Halbi's plan to inflict disease, mass terror, and death. Will they be too late to avert an international disaster?
A View Across the Rooftops by Suzanne Kelman
An epic, heart-wrenching and gripping World War Two historical novel
‘Heart wrenching… I really struggled to put this book down, particularly the end of the book which I sat up until 2am reading and trying hard not to wake my husband with my crying!’ Goodreads Reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
1941, Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. An unforgettable story of love, hope and betrayal, and a testament to the courage of humanity in history’s darkest days.
As Nazis occupy his beloved city, Professor Josef Held feels helpless. So, when he discovers his former pupil Michael Blum is trying to escape the Gestapo, he offers Michael a place to hide in his attic.
In the quiet gloom of the secret room, Michael talks of his beautiful, fearless girlfriend, Elke. Michael insists that not even the Nazis will come between them. But Elke is a non-Jewish Dutch girl, and their relationship is strictly forbidden.
Josef sees the passionate determination in his young friend’s eyes. Furious with the rules of the cruel German soldiers and remembering his own heartbreak, Josef feels desperate to give Michael and Elke’s love a chance. But then tragedy strikes, and Josef is faced with an impossible choice.
In the dark days of war, with danger and betrayal at every turn, no-one can be trusted. If Michael is to survive and get back to the woman he loves, it will be down to Josef – to find the hero inside himself and do whatever it takes to keep Michael alive.
Even if it means putting his own life in mortal danger.
A heartbreakingly beautiful story about courage against the odds, perfect for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, All The Light We Cannot See, and The Nightingale.
THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY (Jack Calder Crime Series #1)
Thriller with bloody twists and turns as ruthless killers meet their match in a former SAS hit squad.
Link: https://geni.us/Violin
Jack Calder is an ex-SAS soldier working with former colleagues at ISP, a specialist security firm. He is sent to investigate a murderous diamond heist in Holland, but swiftly learns that there is a very strong Far East connection. He then travels to Hong Kong where he meets the glamorous chief of ISP's local bureau, May-Ling.
Together they begin to unravel a complex web of corruption. The twin spiders at the center of this web are the Chan brothers, leaders of one of Hong Kong's most ruthless and powerful triad gangs.
The trail of death and mayhem coils across Europe, Hong Kong and South America until all the scores are settled.
A Jack Calder Novel
Stealing Time: Book 1 - A Time Travel, Historical Fiction Adventure
A devastating hurricane. A time travel betrayal. Will Ronnie survive the witch hunt or forever be lost in time?
Stealing Time is the first book in the best-selling "Breathtakingly original" time travel series that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
As Hurricane Charley churns a path of destruction towards Orlando, Florida, Ronnie Andrews scrambles to prepare for the storm and seeks shelter at her boyfriend’s weather lab. What she finds there is more terrifying than Mother Nature's destruction.
During the peak of the hurricane, Ronnie is hurtled back in time to eighteenth-century London where she is caught in a web of superstition, deception, and lies in a life and death struggle to return to her own time.
Her best friend Steph is thrust into the middle of the hurricane where it quickly turns into a living nightmare as she is faced with losing everything.
Stealing Time is the first book in the “breathtakingly original” Stealing Time Series of time-travel wrapped in a hurricane. If you like strong-willed modern women and gripping stories that transport you back in time, then you’ll love KJ Water's Books.
Don’t miss the next book in the series, Shattering Time, available now, set during Hurricane Frances tossing Ronnie back to the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island in a fight for her life and for those facing the mysterious disappearance of our first colony in America.
FIVE WEEKS – by David P. Perlmutter
True Story: First I had a gun in my back in London and then I was nearly left for dead in a Pennsylvania wood!
This is another true story and this time set in London, Eastbourne, and America. I worked for a real estate company.
A few months later I'm threatened by the same guys from the party, BUT this time with a gun in my back and told if I'm seen in the area again, they will have no hesitation in using the gun.
So, after resigning from my job, I was invited to spend Christmas in Eastbourne with my girlfriend Jenny at her parents place. We decide to stay and move to Brighton where I was offered a job as a tele-sales manager for an American portrait company, but first must take a trip to Pennsylvania for a five-week training course.
FIVE WEEKS is a story of those weeks in America and where in a remote Pennsylvania woodland, I was nearly left for dead by my cocaine addict boss and his brother!
Color of the Prism by Thomas J. Nichols
Drug Cartels rule the Arizona border. One undercover agent infiltrates the unseemly world and risks everything to destroy the violent kingpin. Will his family pay the ultimate price?
“Color of the Prism,” a contemporary novel is based on true events in the life of the author. This realistic story reflects a blend of fact and fiction into a journey of intrigue, love, betrayal, and tragedy in this police thriller on the Arizona-Sonora border.
The story follows Tucson Police undercover agent Antonio Castenada who spearheads an investigation into the violent cartel of Reynaldo Guzman, a prominent businessman and drug kingpin.
The complexity of Castenada’s work is multiplied exponentially by the conflicts that challenge his personal and professional life as opposed to the unseemly role he plays as a cartel member. Alone in the netherworld of corruption, his decisions will impact his family life forever as he scrambles to out-maneuver Guzman and his hired assassin, Julian Espino Gatica.
“Color of the Prism” and its non-traditional ending illuminate the true world of crime and corruption unseen by most people. Indeed, it is the last color of the prism.