Read the 5* buzz for THE SOLDIER'S RETURN @historicalfiction #series from #BHBW

The Soldier's Return, the second book in our historical fiction series, just concluded a virtual book tour. We'd like to share some of the buzz with you! 

From Donna Maguire of Donna's Book Blog: "This is a great story and a really good historical fiction novel.  I love the setting and I am a fan of that period of history and crave reading anything by new authors to me.

"The plot in the book was well researched and it was historically accurate for the period.  The writing style and pace is spot on for the book and I loved the characters and their interaction.  They work so well together to give an excellent book all round.

"The Soldier’s Return is the second book in the Heaven’s Pond Trilogy, I am yet to read the first book and did not feel at any detriment from this so I would say that the book is fine to read as a stand alone.

"Five stars from me for this one – a really enjoyable read!"

THE SOLDIER'S RETURN is available here:    Kindle Edition     Paperback Edition

The year is 1626. A senseless war rips through parts of Germany. Ongoing animosity between the Catholics and the Protestants has turned into an excuse to destroy much of the landscape situated between France, Italy and Denmark. But religion only plays a minor role in this lucrative business of war.

The young dutchman, Pieter van Diemen, returns to Amsterdam in chains after a period of imprisonment in the Spice Islands. He manages to escape but must leave Amsterdam in a hurry. Soldiers are in demand in Germany and he decides to travel with a regiment until he can desert.

His hope of survival is to reach Sichardtshof, the farm in Franconia, Germany; the farm he left ten years ago. His desire to seek refuge with them lies in his fond memories of the maid Katarina and her master, the humanist patrician Herr Tucher.

But ten years is a long time and the farm has changed. Franconia is not only torn by war but falling victim to a church-driven witch hunt. The Jesuit priest, Ralf, has his sights set on Sichardtshof as well. Ralf believes that ridding the area of evil will be his saving grace. Can Pieter, Katarina and Herr Tucher unite to fight against a senseless war out of control?

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What inspires the setting of a novel? #mondayblogs #amwriting

Sichartshof, eine verschwundene Ortschaft

At the base of the low mountain range Steigerwald, in a fertile little hollow called the Edelgraben, there once stood a sheep farm. The first inkling of this farm appears in the Dachsbach registry in 1450 as ‘Sigartzhoffe’ belonging to a man named Peter Sighart. The good man paid a chicken and some grain to settle his taxes.

Over the years, thorough searches in the archives have produced a few registry entries, a sentence here, a mere crumb of information there, regarding this mysterious farm: Sigartshoff, Sycharczhoff, Sichartshof. According to an undated entry in the Dachsbach registry that is believed to be before the Thirty Years War, around the year 1600, the little farm had grown into an accumulation of acreage of farmed fields, grasslands, and ponds for farming fish.

A patrician from Nuremberg named Sebald Tucher is then documented as having owned Sichartshof in 1629. He bought the farm from the widow Margarethe Hansen and had acquired more land to work. By this time, Sichartshof lay unprotected in the Aisch River Valley, the valley a well-travelled route for mercenary troops involved in the Thirty Years War.

Why would Sebald Tucher leave Nuremberg, a city protected behind massive, impenetrable walls, and move out to a country manor amid this time of agitation? Did he want to hunt? Did he want to drink? Did he need the products that the farm could yield for his family in Nuremberg? How did he live? Who lived there with him?

This forgotten hamlet is the inspiration for the farm named Sichardtshof in the historical novel series Heaven's Pond. For the answer to these questions and more, read the historical novel The Master and the Maid and The Soldier's Return. The forgotten hamlet comes alive again, its story just waiting to be told!