Monday, October 5, 2009

Blog tour for Behold the Dawn

A couple of months back I had the pleasure of interviewing author KM Weiland about her book A Man Called Outlaw. Katie shared openly and honestly about her path to publication and the joys and tears of this thing we do called writing. Today I am pleased to announce the release of Behold the Dawn.
Katie has wonderfully agreed to give away one free copy of her book to a reader of this blog. To win a free copy of her book simply read the excerpt below a leave a comment in the comment section.
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All day she had stood near the boundary of the prisoner camp, watching the dust of the distant battle beneath Acre’s walls, listening to the muted cries of the combatants.
But now it was growing too dark to see, and as Lady Mairead drifted back toward the tent that had been set apart for her husband, William of Keaton, she watched the Mohammedans usher their latest prisoners through the cordon of guards.
They had brought back only a few today. In the long, sultry weeks since the capture of Lord William’s ship by the infidel blockade, Mairead had watched countless prisoners dragged or shoved into the camp. Thousands of people were confined here already: men, women, and children—mostly Frankish Syrians, the European natives of Jerusalem. By the count of one of Lord William’s servants, Saladin had 2,500 prisoners in this camp alone.
Holding the folds of her shawl to her breast with one hand, she crossed the dust of the camp to where the Moslems had dumped their score of prisoners in the midst of the growing crowd.
A Frank stepped aside and allowed her to stand at his shoulder. “If that is the extent of their prisoners, God be praised. The Christians will take Acre.”
“It is already taken,” said another. “You can hear that the battle is over.”
She scanned the bloodied faces. Most were French, most were wounded. The Turks threw the last of them into the group, then shouldered their way back through the crowd, shouting to one another in their own tongue. Immediately, the prisoners began their call for water.
Mairead sighed. It was always thus.
Pulling her linen shawl free, she went forward to bind the arm of a man—an archer by his livery—who held his hand to a shoulder wound. His arm was red down to his fingertips, and he swayed where he stood. His face had the blanched look of one who was slowly bleeding to death.
He stared ahead, unseeing, as she knotted the shawl over the wound. “God be with you.” She placed a hand on his grimy cheek, then moved aside to allow a Knight Hospitaler to take over.
She stood still, one hand trying to hold her long dark hair from her face, watching as the prisoners ministered to the wounded among the new captives. So many wounded, so many dying. The priests decreed that a Crusader’s death was only the unhindered passage of a redeemed soul into blessed Paradise and should be cause for rejoicing. But all she could see were the falling tears of faraway loved ones and the contorting pains of those who had not yet made it quite across Death’s threshold.
She did not often come to this part of the camp. Lord William, grievously wounded during their capture, preferred her to remain with him, sequestered from the heat and the throngs of strangers. Whenever the infidels brought forth their prisoners, she always watched from afar as other women tended their wounds.
But she had ached to be here, to staunch the endless flow of blood, to hold in her lap the head of a soldier whose wounds she might heal, unlike those of Lord William, who the monks whispered would never recover.
She drew in a deep breath, biting her lip to forestall the tears, and turned away. She had come to the Holy Land to escape her fears. But she should have known better. They had followed her here. They would always follow her.
She started forward, but trudged only a few paces before the sight of another knight arrested her. He lay on his back in the trampled sand, while two brethren of the Hospital struggled to remove his blood-crusted armor.
He was a giant of a man, easily head and shoulders above most in the camp, and the breadth and depth of his chest and arms bespoke a terrible strength. He had a strong, square chin, barely cleft, and a set to his mouth, even in sleep, that revealed an iron will. A white scar rived his right cheekbone and disappeared into the fair hair above his ear.
The blood-blackened hole in the mail above his left breast showed what it had taken to bring him down. The bodkin that had inflicted the wound was gone, pulled from his flesh by his Moslem captor or perhaps by his own hand. His face was pale, his breathing shallow, his body still.
She drew nearer and stopped at his feet. “He lives?”
The Knights Hospitalers turned to look at her. The one on the left inclined his head. “He lives, Lady.” His accent was unfamiliar, possibly from the southern regions of France.
The other, undoubtedly English, laid a knife to the knight’s tunic and slit it up the middle. “For now, he lives. He’s lost much blood.”
“That is why he sleeps?”
“Aye.”
“He is English?”
“I know not. His surcoat bears no symbol, not even a cross.”
She watched their ministrations in silence, feeling once more the bitter cold of anguish rise in the pit of her stomach. They tended so many! Why could they not save Lord William?
As the moon rose full and bright against the murky sky, she knelt and reached out her arms to the Hospitalers. “Please—let me help.”

About the Author: K.M. Weiland (http://www.kmweiland.com) writes historical and speculative fiction from her home in the sandhills of western Nebraska. She is the author of A Man Called Outlaw and the recently released Behold the Dawn . She blogs atWordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors (http://wordplay-kmweiland.blogspot.com) and AuthorCulture(http://authorculture.blogspot.com).

We wish you all the best with the new book Katie :)

28 comments:

  1. I am thrilled about this release and can't wait to get my hands on a copy! I love the cover and I must say the excerpt was excellent! I'd love to be entered into the contest.

    sherrinda(at)gmail(dot)com

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  2. Wow, that was really good! I'd be very interested in reading that! Please enter me Tabitha. Thanks for the sneak peak! :-)

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  3. Sounds great! Best of success to Katie!

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  4. Excellent review! Great stuff, Tabitha! And best wishes for your book, Katie.

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  5. So great! Thanks for entering me.
    Marissa
    smrogi(at)att(dot)net

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  6. Thanks so much for hosting me today, Tabitha!

    And thank you all for the comments! Best of luck on the contest. :D

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  7. I can't wait to read this book!!!! You don't ned to enter me I'm doing the tour as well. Again, can't wait to dig into this one, sounds superbly written!

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  8. Wow! This is so awesome... especially having seen the progression to a published book (and being part of some of it!) :-D :-D I wish you the best! Hey...I'd like a free copy. :-D :-D ;-)

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  9. @T. Anne: Looking forward to stopping by your blog in a few weeks!

    @Joanna: I'm so glad you were able to be a part of it! Your map was splendid.

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  10. Makes me so curious about the whole story. Great!

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  11. Curiosity killed the cat - but, fortunately, it's pretty kind to readers, most of the time. ;) Thanks for stopping by!

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  12. Thanks for sharing the excerpt. I can't wait to read the whole book. And, Katie, I'm looking forward to your stop at my blog.

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  13. Can't wait, Susan! Thanks for dropping by.

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  14. Tabitha thanks for sharing! This excerpt was all the tease I needed to want to read from cover to cover!

    Blessings to you...

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  15. Glad it caught your attention, Tamika. :) Good luck in the drawing!

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  16. Thank you Tabitha, for sharing. I love your blog and look forward to your reviews. I can't wait to get into this book.

    Katie, I love the way you write. It pulls me in and I feel like I am soaring over the pages, as if being led by the hand. Thank you for your expertise and I wish you the best .

    Warm Regards, Cynthia

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  17. Cynthia, thank you so much. You know how to make a girl's day, don't you? ;)

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  18. Katie, you are a terrific writer! God sure can use you in awesome ways! Others have said a lot of what I'd like to say so let me just say this - you are amazing! God be praised for everything you do! You have great talent! Keep up the good work!

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  19. Thank you, Rachel! God definitely gets any glory. Whatever gifts I have are from Him.

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  20. Loved the excerpt--can't wait to read more. Best of luck Katie!

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  21. great read, will love to read the complete book.

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  22. In this short section, you can feel her - her voice, her character, her longings, her status. Never once did you describe her, yet we know her.

    Excellent job.

    Helen
    Straight From Hel

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  23. @Shelley: I hope you enjoy it!

    @Helen: Thanks. I appreciate that so much. It's always a wonderful feeling when reader "gets" a scene and a character!

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  24. superb read. just finished it myself. katie did a tremendous job!

    tabitha, i wanted to let you know about my blog address change. *sigh* If you're following me, my posts now won't show up in your feed, dashboard, sidebar, whatever. So please forgive me, but you'll have to change the address for my main writing blog, Where Romance Meets Therapy, to http://jeanniecampbell.blogspot.com. To do this, you have to "unfollow" me and follow me again. Sorry for the confusion!

    Jeannie
    The Character Therapist

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  25. Tickled pink that you enjoyed the book, Jeannie! Can't wait to read your analysis of them during my tour stop on your blog.

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  26. Thank you all for visiting and for your heartfelt encouragement for Katie and her new book. we wish you all the best Katie. And thank you for coming on the blog today to host the conversations too :)

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  27. Thank *you* so much for having, Tabitha! It's been a ton of fun. :)

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