An Eyre of Mystery - A Review

 Review

AN EYRE OF MYSTERY by G. Leeson
The First Literati Novel

When Gia accepted a position as a library archivist in North Carolina, she never realized just how involved the work would be. Without warning she finds herself thrust into the novel Jane Eyre. In fact, she has taken over the role of Jane. Not everything is as it should be, however. Characters are behaving differently and Mr. Rochester is in jail for the murder of his wife! With a brief message from her supervisor, Gia learns that she must solve Bertha's murder in order to put the book to rights, otherwise Jane Eyre will be lost forever-and so will Gia. 

Have you ever dreamed of inhabiting the books you read? I have and in the Literati series Gia gets her chance, however unexpected. The author takes concept of going into classics of literature one step further. Dark forces want to rid the world of these classics, the books themselves are changing, and it's up to a select few to save them. What a wonderful and exciting idea and it's realized beautifully.

Although a tad confusing at first, like Gia, readers are thrust into a new world with no explanation, things soon get sorted and the mission is revealed. I enjoyed the mystery, seeing the changes to the original, and seeing how modern day Gia as Jane tries to fix things. 

One of the things I liked best was witnessing the unpleasant commonplace realities of the past. The past isn't idyllic, even in the pages of a novel. Bad smells permeate the air, be it the waste from horses on the street or a person's breath! While we often read to escape reality, the best books encapsulate reality even in fantasy.

Mystery, a dash of romance, and an otherworldly threat make AN EYRE OF MYSTERY a great start to a unique new series.

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 An Eyre of Mystery by G. Leeson

About An Eyre of Mystery

An Eyre of Mystery
Fantasy Portal/Mystery
Grace Abraham Publishing (July 12, 2022)
Print length: ‎ 177 pages

Classic literature is at risk of disappearing from the world…

When Gia accepts a job as a library archivist at a manor house in North Carolina, she has no idea what she’s in for. On day one, she finds herself outside her comfort zone when she accidentally travels through a magical portal to the world of Jane Eyre. She finds Edward Rochester imprisoned as he awaits his death sentence for killing his wife. But Gia has read the book, and she knows Edward is innocent of murder.

Soon, she realizes that there are sinister mystical forces working to rewrite the narrative, hoping to destroy the manuscript altogether. To restore order and reset the book to its original state, Gia must discover who actually killed Bertha Rochester and framed her husband for the crime.

But few of the people she meets are who they claim to be and they all have secrets...including Edward.

About G. Leeson

 

Gayle [G. Leeson, for this book] has taken a real leap of faith with An Eyre of Mystery and the world of Literatia. She decided to explore what would happen if a reader--or in this case, an archivist--actually got lost in a great book. But when she travels through the portal into the world Jane Eyre, she finds it to be a topsy-turvy mess. Edward Rochester is facing a death sentence, and Gia has been tasked with finding out who really killed his wife so that Edward can go free, the book will reset to its original form, and Gia may return home. If you'd like to get a sample of the book, please check out this extended sneak peek (first five chapters) at https://BookHip.com/SFPWRLD.  

Author Links: 

Gayle Leeson: https://www.gayleleeson.com/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GayleLeeson/ 

FB Reader Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2295294234027608  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GayleTrent  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gayletrentleeson/?hl=en

Currently Reading..

I just finished reading An Eyre of Mystery by G. Leeson.  This book is the first in the Literatia series and was released two weeks ago.

When Gia accepted a position as a library archivist in North Carolina, she never realized just how involved the work would be. Without warning she finds herself thrust into the novel Jane Eyre. In fact, she has taken over the role of Jane. Not everything is as it should be, however. Characters are behaving differently and Mr. Rochester is in jail for the murder of his wife. With a brief message from her supervisor, Gia learns that she must solve Bertha's murder in order to put the book to rights, otherwise Jane Eyre will be lost forever-and so will Gia.

An Eyre of Mystery - A Spotlight

Today I'd like to shine a spotlight on an upcoming release. An Eyre of Mystery by G. Leeson.

An Eyre of Mystery
Fantasy Portal/Mystery
Grace Abraham Publishing (July 12, 2022)
Print length‏: ‎ 177 pages

Classic literature is at risk of disappearing from the world…

When Gia accepts a job as a library archivist at a manor house in North Carolina, she has no idea what she’s in for. On day one, she finds herself outside her comfort zone when she accidentally travels through a magical portal to the world of Jane Eyre. She finds Edward Rochester imprisoned as he awaits his death sentence for killing his wife. But Gia has read the book, and she knows Edward is innocent of murder.

Soon, she realizes that there are sinister mystical forces working to rewrite the narrative, hoping to destroy the manuscript altogether. To restore order and reset the book to its original state, Gia must discover who actually killed Bertha Rochester and framed her husband for the crime.

But few of the people she meets are who they claim to be and they all have secrets...including Edward.

About G. Leeson

 

Gayle [G. Leeson, for this book] has taken a real leap of faith with An Eyre of Mystery and the world of Literatia. She decided to explore what would happen if a reader--or in this case, an archivist--actually got lost in a great book. But when she travels through the portal into the world Jane Eyre, she finds it to be a topsy-turvy mess. Edward Rochester is facing a death sentence, and Gia has been tasked with finding out who really killed his wife so that Edward can go free, the book will reset to its original form, and Gia may return home. If you'd like to get a sample of the book, please check out this extended sneak peek (first five chapters) at https://BookHip.com/SFPWRLD.  

Author Links: 

Gayle Leeson: https://www.gayleleeson.com/  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GayleLeeson/ 

FB Reader Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2295294234027608  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GayleTrent  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gayletrentleeson/?hl=en  

Purchase Links Amazon Books2Read

How Does Writing Fantasy Prepare You to Write Spy Thrillers? - A Guest Post

I'm happy to welcome Jason Maurer to Cozy Up With Kathy today. Jason is working to introduce Danish author Tobias Bukkehave to the English-speaking world. Tobias's first novel, FOR KING AND COUNTRY, has just been translated into English.

How does writing fantasy prepare you to write spy thrillers?
By Jason Maurer

How does writing fantasy prepare you to write spy thrillers?

It’s an odd question, I know, but bear with me. I ask it because it’s the path that an author I’m working with—Tobias Bukkehave, a Danish author and screenwriter—has followed in his writing career. He wrote two fantasy books for children about a boy named Elmer Balthazar and then abruptly changed tack with the gritty but relatable espionage novel FOR KING AND COUNTRY (Kongetro), released earlier this year in Danish and forthcoming (with your help) in English.

I’m a fantasy writer myself—though I’m far from a stranger of the cozy village mysteries of G. K. Chesterton and Agatha Christie—but Bukkehave has converted me to the shadowy hygge of Scandinavian thrillers, where as much time is spent relishing characters’ consumption of coffee and pastries as laying out the insidious plots and personal betrayals so intrinsic to the genre. His cinematic yet distinctly Danish approach to thrillers, coupled with his career, got me thinking—does writing fantasy prepare you for writing about spies?

I’d say so. The twists and hidden connections that wend their way through spy thrillers, which show us that we can’t trust anything or anybody, aren’t so different from the more overt twists to the nature of reality in fantasy. Those are about hidden connections, too. Embodying the corrupting force of power in a golden ring, say, or the melting pot of the United States in a clash between new and old gods. They’re about showing that we can’t trust our perceptions of how things are either.

Characters are another (albeit more obvious) connection. What turns people onto fantasy, in my experience, isn’t the presence of dragons, magic, and the like, but rather having that one character who worms his/her way into their heart, who opens the floodgates of possibilities. Bukkehave’s Tom Cortzen did that for me, made me care about the rules of the game. But with genre fiction, it’s a balancing act, too. You want them to feel real but larger than life, empathetic but odd, familiar but exciting.

That brings me to my final point: escapism. Both fantasy and espionage are about at once taking you away from the familiar and about telling you what that familiar is. By subverting the commonplace—whether it’s by showing us the hidden powers governing our societies or the hidden worlds in our wardrobes—both genres help us dive into somewhere new but familiar, somewhere from which we can safely withdraw anytime but also somewhere that teaches us a little about the place we’re returning to.

Bukkehave’s approach to the spy thriller feels exciting and new, perhaps because he brings to it what I love about fantasy. But it also feels like a world that even veteran thriller lovers would get swept into, one that pushes the hard truths about living in our world even as it teaches us not to trust everything we see…

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Blurb

First Lieutenant Tom Cortzen is back in Denmark, even though he swore he’d never return—not after what happened in Iraq. Even worse, it’s to attend the funeral of his father, Rear Admiral Richard Cortzen, for whom everything began and ended with God, king, and country. But even as he says his goodbyes, Tom receives a tap on the shoulder from an old soldier friend: Denmark needs him. A top Iranian programmer has been murdered and his Danish girlfriend has disappeared. While such a case wouldn’t normally impinge on Denmark’s security, the military intelligence envoy to the Middle East seems to have been murdered by the same shadowy mercenary group—and he just so happened to have been Tom’s old friend. Divided between serving a country that betrayed him and honoring his friend, Tom begins a pulse-pounding adventure that will lead him from the rich sprawl of Dubai back to the regal stonework of Copenhagen. With unmistakable inspiration from writers such as John le Carré, Jan Guillou, and Jens Henrik Jensen, and from TV and film series like Homeland and Jason Bourne, Tobias Bukkehave débuts as a writer for adults with FOR KING AND COUNTRY, a high-octane spy thriller on the abuse of power, international conspiracy, and nationalism in a world where borders are increasingly being tightened.

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Buy Link

We're working hard to get FOR KING AND COUNTRY sold to an English publisher. If you're interested in the book, please let us know by sending an email to forkingandcountrybook@gmail.com, as every little bit helps!
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Tobias Bio

Tobias Bukkehave was born in Svendborg, Denmark, in 1980. He débuted in 2018 with the children’s novels The Journey to Arkadia and The Threat from Kragoria, both about a young boy called Elmer Baltazar. The Journey to Arkadia was nominated for the Orla Children’s Book Prize. Bukkehave also works as a screenwriter for film and television. He lives in Copenhagen with his partner and two children.

 

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Jason Maurer Bio

Jason Maurer was born in New Hampshire, raised in Vermont, educated in Scotland, found love in Finland, and found a life in Sweden. He’s currently completing an MA in media and communications at Malmö University and interning at the Danish marketing company Onlinestrategen.dk. He’s written two short stories and is finishing a novel.