Happy February, Munich Girl

KINDLE  0.99 special

for WWII fiction THE MUNICH GIRL

through Feb. 10

 

February is the month when the two friends in my novel, The Munich Girl, each have a birthday.

To celebrate, the novel’s Kindle version is currently offered at its biggest discount ever for a short time across most worldwide Amazon markets.

And, on February 10, I’ll draw a winner for a signed print copy of the book and a silver butterfly bracelet designed by artist Diane Kirkup.

Image: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DKirkupDesigns

Those who’ve read the book know that a variety of objects help unfold the trail of the story. One of these is the image of a butterfly.

To enter the drawing, send an email to: info[at]phyllisring[dot]com

with “Butterfly” in the subject line.

All three women in The Munich Girl have strong connections with Germany, where two of them meet just before World War II.

Peggy, is a Leap-year baby with “29 February” on her birth certificate. That kind of thing can make you feel like a fictional character right out of the starting gate.

Eva Braun, always wanted to live the life of a character in a movie or novel. However, as many women have, and still do, she gives her life away to someone who hasn’t the capacity to value it, or, it would seem, to care for humanity at all.

“Did she really love him? How could she ever love him?” are questions I hear frequently about the woman who became “Mrs. Hitler” for the last day and a half of her life.

Anna, the story’s narrator grew up eating dinner under her father’s war-trophy portrait of Eva Braun.

Fifty years after the war, she discovers what he never did—that her mother, Peggy, and Hitler’s mistress were friends.

The secret surfaces with a mysterious monogrammed handkerchief and a man named Hannes Ritter, whose Third-Reich family history is entwined with her own.

The pathway of this novel’s story dropped many clues in front of me, two of the biggest, a handkerchief just like the one Anna finds — and the portrait of Eva Braun, which, somehow, found me, too.

Find more about The Munich Girl: A Novel of the Legacies that Outlast War here:

http://www.amazon.com/Munich-Girl-Novel-Legacies-Outlast/dp/B01AC4FHI8

Goodreads Giveaway for The Munich Girl

With fellow author, Kelly DuMar at the annual summer conference of the International Women’s Writing Guild.

Enter to win —  Goodreads Giveaway:

About the book: The Munich Girl

About the author: Phyllis Edgerly Ring

 

 Giveaway details »

 

Runs August 22 through September 14.

The journeys of writing, and history

Oh, the gift, for a writer, of receiving response to the work you set out into the world.

Over this last week, I’ve encountered heartening and thoughtful words about The Munich Girl both in person and in print.

In reflecting on the story’s historical time frame, reviewer Steve Pulley voices almost the exact feelings I’ve had myself lately, as I observe our world:

“What went on in the world in the 1930s and ’40s sound disturbingly similar to what we are currently going through today, and cannot but give one pause.”

Reviewer aaward kindly sums up the novel as:

“intricately woven historical fiction. The tale of two friends starts before the beginning of World War II and encompasses all the situations and emotions that the war brought into their individual lives as well as into their continuing friendship.”

It’s extra-meaningful when readers make that connection with the themes of the power of spiritual friendship and shared emotional intimacy that each help human beings transcend even the most painful, destructive, or confusing circumstances life brings.

Those are a big part of the reason why this book was written at all.

At her Beach Bound Books blog, reviewer Stacie Theis kindly calls the book:

“an absolutely consuming story that takes readers on a journey into history … secrets of the past.”

Stacie took her copy of The Munich Girl to a beach about as far as you can go from my own home in coastal New England—Kauai—and “couldn’t put it down. I got a little sunburned to say the least!”

You can find Stacie’s review, PLUS a chance to win a copy of The Munich Girl, at:

http://www.beachboundbooks.com/blogging-about-books/the-munich-girl-by-phyllis-edgerly-ring-book-review-giveaway

 

 

Books, birthdays and butterflies

Enter by Feb. 6 to win.

As my novel, The Munich Girl, reaches more readers, I’m continually moved and surprised by the level of response that the book is bringing.

It’s a privilege to receive readers’ impressions about themes that weave through the story.

Gayle Hoover notes,  “It’s the women in this story who have the real strength, even in instances when they easily could have been seen as only victims.”

At the heart of it all, the story’s goal is to encourage discussion at levels that will take another look at many things, including our very own selves.

Albert Marquet, Jardin du Luxembourg, 1898. Oil on canvas, Sotheby’s Images, London

Those who’ve made the way through the novel know that many objects and events in it invite the way toward looking at things anew. One image in particular that does this is a butterfly.

February is the month when the two friends in this story each have a birthday, each born in a Leap Year like this one.

To celebrate, I’m having a drawing at the beginning and end of the month. On February 6, which was also Eva Braun’s birthday, I’ll draw the name of two winners for a signed copy of the book and a silver butterfly bracelet designed by artist Diane Kirkup.

To enter, send an email to info@phyllisring.com with “Butterfly” in the subject line. Those who include any thoughts about the book or a photo of themselves with it will receive 3 entries.

And my deepest thanks to each and every one who is connecting with The Munich Girl.

It is readers, and only readers, who give a book its truest life.

 

Find more about The Munich Girl: A Novel of the Legacies that Outlast War here:

The Book’s the Thing is my kind hostess

Erika at The Book’s the Thing Blog has kindly included a Guest Post from me this week:

Coming Full-circle with The Munich Girl

I had the opportunity to spend time in Germany just as my novel, The Munich Girl, came full-circle to publication this year.

In the previous weeks, as I’d reviewed the book’s galleys, the story’s scenes drew me back into settings I will carry with me always. Some of them have been a part of my inner geography from earliest childhood.

Others are actual locations in which the story takes place.

Photo courtesy Penny Sansevieri / Author Marketing Experts – http://www.amarketingexpert.com/penny-sansevieri/

And many of these, from cobblestone alleys to Alpine vistas, tiny villages to city squares filled with symphonies of church bells, are ones in which I did the actual writing.

Much like the book’s protagonist, Anna, I repeatedly experience the many kinds of homecomings, spiritual and material, that life brings to us. Much like her, I often find myself in a kind of unbelieving daze as I sit in the same café I’ve known since childhood. Two years, ago, and maybe also five, I sat there capturing down pieces of a story that has always felt more like finding my way toward a puzzle’s finished image than any kind of strategic plotting.

If the remedy for feeling out-of-sync in life is to reside in the moment, then we are all here today as I type this: my child self, sitting alongside my parents; that story-struck one who aspired to go the distance with wherever the writing process led with this novel’s story (and wondering, at times, whether I truly would); and my self today, blessed to have reached a point of completion.

Read the rest at: http://booksthething.com/2015/12/10/guest-post-giveaway-phyllis-edgerly-ring-author-of-the-munich-girl/comment-page-1/#comment-1660

Summertime, and the reading is — a scavenger hunt

Join Night Owl Reviews’ Find Your Next Great Read Scavenger Hunt in June to discover great new books and authors, and maybe win an Amazon Gift Card: https://www.nightowlreviews.com/v5/Blog/Articles/Find-Your-Next-Great-Read-Scavenger-Hunt-June-2015

Coming Soon –

Summer reading fun at Night Owl Reviews.

Join the Find Your Next Great Read Scavenger Hunt in June to discover great new books and authors — and maybe win an Amazon Gift Card.

100 Amazon Gift Cards are up for grabs, and the grand prize is a $250 Amazon Gift Card.

Snow Fence Road is part of the fun as a June sponsor.

Learn more and enter here:

https://www.nightowlreviews.com/v5/Blog/Articles/Find-Your-Next-Great-Read-Scavenger-Hunt-June-2015

Happy hunting!

Kind words and book discounts

 

Bless reader Susanne Weigand, who lives not far from my German hometown of Wertheim.

First she featured Snow Fence Road on her list of 10 Picks for readers in her Sunday column.

Then she shared the gift of a kind review and – a bonus – left that review (below) at Amazon sites in the U.S. and Germany, both, plus at Goodreads.

Since folks have been asking about ordering signed copies as gifts, between now and November 27, if you purchase a print copy of any of my books from me, you are welcome to buy additional copies of either Life at First Sight or Snow Fence Road at 40 percent off the cover price, and I’ll ship for free.

Just let me know your ordering wishes at: info@phyllisring.com.

 

Here are Susanne’s kind reader-review words:

Photo: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DKirkupDesigns

“I love books with a great sense of place. Snow Fence Road has it all. The Spinacker Inn where I would like to go for a holiday. The town of Knowle where you walk the streets with the characters. Great food you taste while reading about it. Art you can visualize. Blueberry picking in summer and a long harsh winter that makes you shiver even when reading the book in warmer weather.

The characters are real, you will go back to them and talk to them, long after finishing the book. And amidst all the snow and storms of winter there is catharsis like in a greek drama and the main characters are able to face their choices of the past and turn to a better and happier tomorrow.”

Snow Fence giveaway

A reminder that Clean Romance Reviews is offering a giveaway bundle for Snow Fence Road this week (chocolate, too, weather permitting. 🙂 ) Learn more about it in the caption for one of the prizes, pictured below.

And more very welcome words I’m grateful to share:

When a reader and reviewer understands a writer’s deepest intentions for a work, it’s a big gift.

My deepest thanks to Goodreads reviewer Stella for such response:

Stella‘s review
bookshelves: 5-stars, contemporary, favorites, good-message, small-town-romance, standalones, 2014-04

Read in April, 2014

Ms. Phyllis E. Ring I saw what you did there, and I loved it! 😉

Enter to win these vintage-design Swarovski-crystal earrings from NH artist Diane Kirkup and a book/gifts bundle at http://www.cleanromancereviews.com/2014/08/giveaway-snow-fenced-road-and-purple.html. Contest ends Aug. 27.

This story is so good but so good I call it DE-TOX. It reminds me of SWEET GUM TREE, another super cute and heartwarming story. If you’re looking forward to a break from those insta-love/insta-lust bilateral MC’s so common in our favorite ‘modern’ stories – this is YOUR BOOK. I fell in love with all characters Main and Secondary. The writing style is involving, captivating… poetic. I missed reading a story where I would wait a hundred pages for a mere brush of lips between the MC. And I don’t say it in a bad way. Everything in this story is so well-balanced and well-paced that things happen WHEN they are supposed to. Read it in one sit. DEFINITELY RECOMMEND IT.

Snow Fence Road

A village on the coast of Maine holds painful secrets – the kind only the miracle of new love can heal.

More about the book at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DDVB106/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00DDVB106&linkCode=as2&tag=leaofthetre-20″>Snow Fence Road<

Giveaway, with Gratitude

 

Thanks so much to Jennifer at Clean Romance Reviews for hosting a book/gift bundle giveaway for Snow Fence Road that continues through Aug. 27. (Details with photo, below.)

And my big thanks to Nicole of Ariesgirl Book Reviews for her very thoughtful words about the book:

“Snow Fence Road is a short, sweet and power-packing book. Readers will be riding an emotional rollercoaster, while turning each page as they try to figure out each twist and turn. One thing that the author focuses on is that tragedy, while devastating, could lead towards unanticipated opportunities.”

Your can see the entire Aug. 10 review, and more of Nicole’s thoughts on books, at: http://ariesgrlreview.com.

Enter to win these vintage-design Swarovski-crystal earrings from NH artist Diane Kirkup and a book/gifts bundle at http://www.cleanromancereviews.com/2014/08/giveaway-snow-fenced-road-and-purple.html. Contest ends Aug. 27.

Snow Fence Road

A village on the coast of Maine holds painful secrets – the kind only the miracle of new love can heal.

More about the book at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DDVB106/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00DDVB106&linkCode=as2&tag=leaofthetre-20″>Snow Fence Road<

Our daily Brötchen

When life sends you sleeplessness – or any other waiting game — you can churn in frustration, or create an adventure you’d never otherwise know.

That’s what my husband and I did when we last visited Wertheim, my German hometown. At 4:30 on our first jet-lagged morning, rather than continue to toss and turn, we decided to go out for a very early-morning walk around town. The public-works employee we kept encountering as he emptied trash dispensers around this tiny heim only looked surprised the first time, then was friendly each time we met up with him under streetlamps and moonlight.

When an irresistible aroma wafted our way, we followed it to where a column of fragrant, bread-scented steam was rising in the dark in a little alleyway beside a bakery’s kitchen. We stood inside that steamy column and inhaled deeply, as if eating.

In a flash, we had our plan: as we walked around, we’d check the opening times for the bakeries in town and conduct a sort of taste test of Brötchen – those rolls of our childhood like mini loaves of crusty bread with exquisitely soft doughy centers. We’d begin with the bakery that opened the earliest, which turned out to be the one that had been sending out those lovely smells. It was also the hands-down winner – and, it turns out, is right around the corner from an apartment with which we would later begin to fall in love.

The runner-up of the four we sampled was a bakery in the market square that my mother shopped at 50 years ago, owned by the same family for 13 generations. A woman is now its master baker, something highly unusual in Germany when she took the helm there 20 years ago.

As the first train of the day rolled into town, the bridge across the river where we waited at the crossing gate had the sun coming up on one side and the moon setting on the other. It was a little slice of unexpected heaven as we sipped our coffee and nibbled the last of our buttery rolls.

All along one of the bridge’s railings was a sudden gallery exhibit: dozens of intricate spider webs illuminated in the morning sun, dewdrops glittering in them like crystals. It brought to mind those words of Kafka’s: “The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

Of course, preceding those words, he asserts, “You do not need to leave your room” … but only sit solitary and listening. In our adventure, of course, we had to accept what we could not change and then go out and see what we could do with it. Or what it would do with us.

But as with most of life, we had to be in motion for any of it to happen.