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The Book Bag
So many books ..... so little time!
Saturday, December 9, 2023
This OR That #Giveaway № 131 ~ The Promise of Stardust by Priscille Sibley OR Little Girl Gone by Drusilla Campbell #ThePromiseOfStardust #LittleGirlGone
Friday, December 8, 2023
The Intern by Michele Campbell ~ My Thoughts #TheIntern @MicheleCampbellBooks @StMartinsPress
Thursday, December 7, 2023
Book Blitz! Rome’s Last Noble Palace by Kimberly Sullivan ~ Excerpt & #Giveaway #RomesLastNoblePalace @KimberlyinRome @XpressoTours

Rome’s Last Noble Palace by Kimberly Sullivan
Publication date: December 6th 2023
Genres: Adult, Historical, Paranormal, Women’s Fiction
Two women. Two different centuries. One attic room
American Isabelle Field has been shipped off to Rome to live with her aunt, Princess Elizabeth Brancaccio. Isabelle’s aunt and mother share a common goal – replicating Elizabeth’s success by marrying Isabelle off to a European nobleman.
But Rome in 1896 is on the cusp of a new century and Isabelle longs for more than a titled husband. She secretly designs costumes for Rome’s burgeoning theatre environment and dreams of opening a fashion atelier. Can she gather the courage to forge a life for herself, even if it means going against expectations?
Over a century later, doctoral candidate Sophie Nouri can’t believe her good fortune when she is selected to intern in Rome’s Near Eastern Art Museum. Even better, the position includes an attic apartment in the spectacular museum property, the Palazzo Brancaccio.
Overseeing a major exhibition is stressful, but tension alone can’t explain the disturbing nighttime presence in the deserted hallways of the grand palace – especially one no one else can sense. Almost as if a spectral being is trying to communicate with Sophie directly. Or warn her.
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EXCERPT
Rome, 2018
Sunlight streamed through the high windows, coaxing Sophie from her dreams. She cracked one eye open, groaning at the early hour on the travel alarm clock. How had she forgotten to close the shutters last night? Blame it on the jet lag of someone no longer used to international travel.
She turned her head to observe Matt’s sleeping form. His chest rose and fell in a calm, steady rhythm. A little sunlight seeping through the windows would never wake him this early. He was made of stronger stuff.
She turned back to the window, struck again by golden Roman light she’d forgotten after so many years away. Not at all like the diffused light back home. Sparrows swooped in graceful arcs across the cloudless, cerulean sky. As the sleepiness seeped from her eyes and her gaze sharpened, the bright, white blocks began to take shape. Her heart beat faster. The familiar but long-dormant sense of fear coursed through her body. She hadn’t been expecting to feel it so deeply after all these years away.
Closing her eyes, she took a calming breath and formed images of waking in her bedroom at home. The branch of the oak tree scraping the bedroom window, the twittering of the birds, the bold squirrel that peeked in her window most mornings, the creaks and groans of the old, converted farmhouse. Gradually, her heartbeat slowed, the fear seeped away. She inhaled deeply, counted to ten and exhaled.
She could do this.
She fixed a determined gaze on the grand palazzo, glittering white in the strong Mediterranean sunlight. Some of its brown shutters were open, others closed like sleepy eyes reluctant to yield to the morning light. She remembered all those useless afternoon battles against the Roman sunlight filtering heat and blinding rays into those great rooms.
At the palazzo’s upper edge, lithe young angels kneeled in rows, their flowing curls cascading down to their shoulders. Their pointed wings punctuated the cornice above, curving vines sprouted from their bodies in a riot of intricate swirls. The young angels were separated from one another by lush greenery, unrolling in a seemingly endless, elegant row. She’d always known the carving was there, but she’d never observed the details from this angle. Everything had been different from within. Despite the warmth of the early morning sun, she shivered.
Ignoring a mounting sense of dread, Sophie pushed herself up gently, careful not to rouse Matt. Sliding bare feet into beckoning slippers, she padded softly to the door, her back decisively turned to the noble home.
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About the author

Kimberly grew up in the suburbs of Boston and in Saratoga Springs, New York, although she now calls the Harlem neighborhood of New York City home when she’s back in the US. She studied political science and history at Cornell University and earned her MBA, with a concentration in strategy and marketing, from Bocconi University in Milan.
Afflicted with a severe case of Wanderlust, she worked in journalism and government in the US, Czech Republic and Austria, before settling down in Rome, where she works in international development, and writes fiction any chance she gets.
She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA) and The Historical Novel Society and has published several short stories and three novels: Three Coins, Dark Blue Waves and In The Shadow of The Apennines.
After years spent living in Italy with her Italian husband and sons, she’s fluent in speaking with her hands, and she loves setting her stories in her beautiful, adoptive country.
Connect with Kimberly
Website | Goodreads | Twitter | Bookbub | Instagram
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Be sure to check the sidebar for all of my current giveaways!
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Book Blitz! When All is Said and Done by Christy Hayes ~ Excerpt & #Giveaway #WhenAllSaidAndDone @SeaHayes @XpressoTours

When All is Said and Done by Christy Hayes
Publication date: December 5th 2023
Genres: Women’s Fiction
A heartbreaking novel about the sacrifices we make for love.
After an unstable childhood, marriage isn’t just a promise to Dustin Carver, it’s his lifeline. He and Tegan grew up together, fell in love, and planned their perfect life. When the future they imagined gets derailed by her demanding law career, their marriage slowly slides off the rails.
Tegan can’t believe her husband took her threat of a separation seriously and walked away without a backward glance. Heartbroken and embarrassed, she covers for his absence with lies. Lies she tells herself about her career. Lies she tells her family about her marriage. And lies she’s yet to confess to her husband about a secret she kept while he was away. When Dustin finally returns, she’s running on fumes and her lies are about to be exposed.
Seven weeks in Key West licking his wounds and watching his best friend fall in love is enough to convince Dustin to come home and fight for his marriage. Saving their relationship means returning to therapy and facing a bitter truth neither wants to address. What if their childhood romance doesn’t have a happy-ever-after ending?
This emotional read told with brutal honesty begs the ultimate question for marriages far and wide. At the end of the day-at the end of our lives-what is worth fighting for, and when, if ever, should we walk away?
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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EXCERPT
Dustin’s POV
He heard a noise from the kitchen, and his pulse picked up the beat. Was that the side door closing or the echoed rumble from his rebellious stomach? He stilled the strings with his palm and recognized the familiar sound of Tegan hanging her keys on the hook and shucking her shoes by the door. His heart lurched into his throat.
Dustin cursed himself for getting lost in the music and not preparing for her return. He should have been rehearsing speeches in his head or making dinner instead of mowing the lawn, adding a couple of towels to her burgeoning laundry pile, and playing around on the guitar. He propped the instrument against the couch and stood on unsteady legs.
A surging swell of love, swift and savage, swept over him as he looked at her, sent his heart thrashing against his chest. There she is—my center, my orbit—in living, breathing color. Tegan had her back turned and was flipping through the mail on the counter. Her hair was longer than normal, a dark curtain falling well past her sagging shoulders.
“Hi.”
She gasped and spun, clutching her chest with both hands, her eyes blinking furiously. Frozen in that position like a still photograph captured on film, she looked thin—too thin—and fragile as blown glass. “Dusty.”
His name from her lips, soft and scratchy, scorched his eviscerated heart. “Sorry to startle you. I … I figured you’d see my car.”
She seemed confused, shaking her head, squinting her eyes. “Your car?”
“In the garage …” He tried and failed to keep the exasperation out of his voice. He’d been gone for weeks, and she hadn’t moved a muscle in his direction. Hadn’t flashed a smile or inclined her head or opened her arms to make him feel welcome. And after everything they had to say to one another, they were talking about his car?
“I parked in the driveway,” she said.
Her guilty tone and the way she tucked her chin to her chest were another lash to his pride. How many times had he begged her to park her car in the garage? They lived in a nice neighborhood, but why invite crime by leaving her car parked out in the open and alert everyone to her patterns of coming and going?
She read the look on his face and offered a muttered, “I was tired, and the garage door has been giving me fits. I think it needs grease or something.”
Stop talking about the stupid garage! He wanted to scream at her, grab her arms and shake her, invade the personal space she protected with her arms crossed tightly against her chest. He wanted to do something, anything, to get a rise out of her and stop the inane garage discussion.

Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Release Day! Emerald Heart by Grace Greene ~ My Thoughts #EmeraldHeart @Grace_Greene @KerseyCreekBks
Happy Release Day!
Emerald Heart: An Emerald Isle, NC Single Title Novel by Grace Greene
Women's Fiction, 328 pages
Published December 5, 2023 by Kersey Creek Books
