Release date - 29th June 2017 Book length - 338 pages Publisher - www.bookpublishing.co.uk ABOUT THE BOOK When retired architect Arthur Howard receives an unexpected invitation from the elegant businesswoman he has just met, her promise of two weeks of incredible sex is enough to persuade him to forget his stale marriage and follow her to India. Leaving thoughts of his younger wife Ester far behind, Rani leads Arthur into paradise; her home lies in a beautiful valley filled with quiet villages, tranquil lakes, tea plantations and crocus fields, a place where his every need is catered for and his attention sought wherever he goes. But danger lies hidden here. Arthur discovers that Rani and the other villagers he meets in this rural Indian idyll are the descendents of an ancient civilization, thought to be merely mythical. From his contact with them, he succumbs to a mysterious illness that keeps him bedridden for a long period in a darkened room. Confused and stricken, Arthur’s days and nights are haunted by wild dreams; when he is unable to sleep, he reminisces about early love affairs and fears for his failing relationship with Ester until he is unable to distinguish dreams from reality. BUY LINKS: Amazon UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Molly-Fish-Jack-McMasters/dp/1911525697/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497981606&sr=8-1&keywords=molly+fish Barnes and Noble - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/molly-fish-jack-mcmasters/1126392450?ean=9781911525691 AUTHOR BIO: After growing up on a farm in northeast Missouri, McMasters joined the United States Air Force after attending the University of Missouri where he was sent to High Wycombe, England. He currently resides in Norfolk with his wife. While researching Molly Fish, McMasters travelled to India where he competed in the Karma Enduro, a 2,000 kilometer trek through the Western Ghats. He has previously published two short story collections, Iron(ing) Man and The Cucumber Murders and been featured by Škoda Magazine and the Eastern Daily Press. I WANT TO THANK RACHEL FROM www.authoright.com AND THE AUTHOR, JACK MCMASTERS, FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE PART IN THIS BLOG TOUR. READ ON FOR A FASCINATING GUEST POST ABOUT THE ATTRACTION OF 'LOST' CIVILIZATIONS GUESTPOST
The Attraction of 'Lost' Civilizations What attracts us so to tales of ancient worlds, the Egyptians, Mayans, Incas, Aztecs or even Atlantians and why do we find them so entrancing? I can only speculate on behalf of others, but my observations seem to confirm that there is continued interest in them by a wide cross section of the population. I can trace my own interest back to two occurrences. The first was seeing at the cinema, when I was ten years old, a film about a young couple who, after battling through the Amazon jungle, arrive at the lost city of Machu Picchu. Even though the film was in black and white, the grandeur of this ancient city was enough to make a very strong impression on someone growing up in the Midwest of America. The second was a little less impressive. I'd never been particularly keen on history in school; I found fictional stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood exciting, but the ins and outs of the Peninsular Wars, the French Revolution and the Colonization of America seemed little more than a memory test of names and dates. The Greeks and the Romans however were a little more interesting to me and when at nineteen I began living in England and discovered that the Romans had been here for four hundred years, something I'd conveniently forgotten from all those classes, I was suddenly hooked. Thus began my love with history and history is filled with lost civilizations; the Sumerians, the Akkads, the Hittites, the Medes, the Asyrians, the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, but especially intriguing to me are the people of the Indus Valley. Possibly that is because most of those I've named did not mysteriously disappear, but merely evolved into or were assimilated by a later culture, while the Indus people seemed to have flourished successfully for two thousand years in an area that runs the full length of what is now the Pakistan-Indian border, before disappearing completely. Over a thousand town and villages, with a population of five million, have been identified and ninety one have been excavated since first being discovered in the nineteenth century. Unique amongst the other major civilizations of the time, the height of the Indus culture ran from about 3,300 to 1,300 BC coincidentally with the early Egyptians and Mesopotamians, was the lack of fortifications in their towns, indicating a peaceful people. They were also noted for their use of baked brick houses, rather than mud-brick, with elaborate urban planning and complete water supply and drainage systems. Artifacts discovered would indicate that they developed sophisticated techniques for crafts and the use of metals. The demise of such an advanced urban culture is still pondered upon by those who have studied them. If we are to write science fiction, we have to speculate on what might happen in the future; how people live, how events will turn out and what turmoil and political structures will be created. When writing about the past, there is cold hard evidence of these ancient cities and civilizations to intrigue us. There are writers from many of the ancient worlds to tell us their stories, but they only hint at the political intrigue and the complexities of their daily lives. Some are writing from stories generated perhaps hundred of years earlier. My favourite of these authors is the writer Herodotus, often described as the first historian because of his travels and because he wrote in the fifth century BC his stories are of the Aegean and Persian world, but there are others from both the Greek and Roman periods, Homer, Plutarch, Virgil and Suetonius that are no less fascinating. For a writer of fiction, all of these worlds can be a rich source of inspiration and can positively arouse the imagination. I've not yet had the opportunity to visit the, to me, magical sites of Ephesus, Babylon, Petra, Memphis or Ankora, but museums such the British Museum hold so many artifacts from these earlier civilizations that one can only wonder how most of these objects could have been created. So many skills seem to have been lost and it appears unlikely that anyone could today re-create the objects that once appear to have been, if not common, at least widely available to those with great wealth. From what we do know of the past it would seem there has been little evolution in our emotions. The ancients felt anger, love, fear, jealousy, ambition, disappointment and sorrow just as we do today. With this in mind, it is relatively easy to imagine scenarios that could come from our own world, but with the mystery of a setting unlike anything we see around us. As long as we research our subject enough to provide some logic to our stories, we can create plots that are sufficiently different to our own world, yet similarly filled with emotions, dangers and problems to be resolved, to be recognizable. When I am finally able one day to personally visit the places that I long to, I'm sure it will unleash a wave of new stories from my pen.
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WelcomeHi fellow bookworms. My name is Linda and I'm a reviewer & blogger, wife & mother who loves all things books! Currently ReadingUPCOMING BLOG TOURS
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