Kregel: Death Be Not Proud by C.F.Dunn

Song Stuck on the Brain: Inspector Gadget theme song. (nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah Inspector Gadget....)


Today I'm touring on behalf of Kregel Publications:

 

Death Be Not Proud

The Secret of the Journal #2

 

by

 

C.F. Dunn

 

 

MY TAKE:

 

It's finally here! I've been waiting on pins and needles for Professor Emma D'Eresby to return with her journal. Just last September, I reviewed Mortal Fire, the first in the series. If you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for?!? Hurry up, go read it.... Okay, now that you're ready for book two, here goes.

 

Emma is in London healing from her attack and struggling with knowing what is really going on with Matthew. She's recovering from what I would call PTSD like symptoms and just plain heartbreak. But the opportunity also arises for her to finally research the journal, and the answers she's been looking for with Matthew are surprisingly attached to what she finds inside. The story may seem old, but it's more present than expected. 

 

It's so tempting to give it all away! What I'd love to do, is sit down with a cup of coffee and examine all the Ins and outs of the plot with you, but I can't bear to give away any of the great little surprises. It's what makes it so much fun to read. I called this an intellectual's spin on Twilight the first time around with all respect for both author's. I still stand by that, but it is a very distant comparison. This time around the story does center more around Emma and her personal state and the decisions she needs to make, but it also brings so many of the answers we were searching for in Mortal Fire. Kudos to the author for not dragging that out too long. :)  And although the end does leave you with a hefty amount of "I want to know more-itis", it wraps up in a very satisfactory way.

 

Believe me, it's a can't-put-the-book-down-until-four-am kind of read. Can't wait for book three.

 

ABOUT THE BOOK:

 

Following the vicious attack by a psychotic colleague, and reeling from the suspicion that Matthew Lynes is not all that he seems, Professor Emma D'Eresby flees her college teaching position in Maine to her hometown in England--taking the mysterious seventeenth--century journal she stole from the college's archives with her.

Broken physically and emotionally, Emma drifts until, fearing for their daughter's sanity, her parents invite a family friend to assess her. In the course of their conversation, Emma discovers that he spoke to Matthew over thirty years before.

This finally spurs her into action and soon, when she finds what certainly must be a reference to Matthew in the journal, she begins to understand Matthew's profound secret.

But when Matthew arrives to confess his love for her, she must decide if she can trust him--and he must decide if he can share his extraordinary secret with her. Drawn by a deep connection that both feel but don't quite understand they find they must set aside their doubts and trust each other.

Readers will be thrilled by the second installment in The Secret of the Journal from British author C. F. Dunn. Mixing suspense, romance, and the supernatural, Death Be Not Proud explores the profound moral implications of a life seemingly invulnerable to time.

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

 

C. F. Dunn creates romantic thrillers with a historical twist, drawing on a degree in history and a career in literacy development. She is blessed with a historian husband, two creative daughters and a quirky Corgi called Stig and she divides her time between running her specialist school for dyslexia and autism in Kent, and writing in Cornwall. Visit the author at her site: http://www.cfdunn.co.uk/, and on Goodreads, Twitter and Facebook.
 



Kregel's Mortal Fire by C.F. Dunn

Today I'm touring a book on behalf of Kregel Publishing:

Mortal Fire

 

by

 

C.F. Dunn

 

MY TAKE:

Author C.F. Dunn

I am so excited about this new series! Mortal Fire is kind of the intellectuals' turn at Twilight. I say that with all respect for Stephanie Meyers' series, I love Twilight. It's not that Twilight isn't intelligent, but the setting and characters for this series are older and more academic.

Emma is quiet, private and obsessed with a a very unusual part of history - torture, all kinds throughout history and how it's affects have touched humanity. Although a gruesome subject, Emma sees it differently and her unique research has led her to the states to teach and study a diary. Emma's sheltered academic walls of safety begin to crumble when the evil she studies intellectually becomes real on the campus.

Then there is the handsome doctor Matthew Lyons. She's drawn to him despite her efforts to avoid romantic entanglements. He's unexplainable and always there to protect her. In fact he begins to seem more than human.

I love the mix of academia, mystery, faith and dare I say, possibly a little of the supernatural? I was hooked from the start and couldn't put it down. I read half the night and couldn't wait to pick it up the next morning. C.F. Dunn has you speeding through the pages all the way to the ending that makes you say, "WHAT?!"

Don't worry, there's a second book coming and there is a preview in the back of the book, which may have just saved my sanity. Fantastic start for a very promising author.


ABOUT THE BOOK:

First book in a new series from an author to watch.

Twenty-nine-year-old, independent, and self-assured Cambridge history professor Emma D'Eresby has one obsession in life: the curious journal of a seventeenth-century Englishman, a portion of which was left to her by her late grandfather.

When an unexpected opportunity to study the journal in its entirety presents itself, Emma finds herself leaving Cambridge to take up a year-long position at a prestigious university in Maine. Anticipating a quiet year of research, Emma quickly discovers her work impeded by a range of unforeseen complications. From the start, there is the well-intentioned matchmaking of her vivacious Russian colleague, Elena Smalova, and the unexpected jailing of one of her post-graduate students. More troublesome, however, are the unsolved, brutal night attacks on women near the university and Emma's suspicion that they might be linked to the sinister English professor, Kort Staahl. But, most diverting and disconcerting of all, is Emma's growing attraction to the strikingly handsome Dr. Matthew Lyons, whose kind but deliberately distant demeanor puzzles her.

Suspense and dread mount when Kort begins to take a persistent and unsettling interest in Emma. What are Kort's intentions, and what is he capable of? And the mystery surrounding Matthew only deepens when Emma discovers a link between him and the journal. What is Matthew trying to hide?

Check out C.F. Dunn on Facebook at Mortal Fire Secret of the Journal

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

C. F. Dunn creates romantic thrillers with a historical twist, drawing on a degree in history and a career in literacy development. She is blessed with a historian husband, two creative daughters and a quirky Corgi called Stig and she divides her time between running her specialist school in Kent, and writing in Cornwall. Her books can be found at www.kregel.com and http://www.cfdunn.co.uk/.


I recieved this book free from Kregel ( lucky ME!) in return for my honest opinion.