Diiarts.com – Books for people who love books

Sir Stirling Rehm (yes, that's what my birth certificate says so hush up)

Hello, Stirling Readers! Thought I should pass along some exciting news from our friends at Diiarts. They’ve got new titles, upcoming Kindle editions, and free shipping! Awesome, right? Yes. It is.

www.diiarts.com

Books for people who love books


News from Diiarts – February 2010

Two new titles for April

Firstly, a warm welcome to our two newest titles, to be published on 12th April.

Tulagi Hotel is the debut novel of Finnish author Heikki Hietala—and is the first book written in English by a Finn to be published outside Finland.  It is the tale of ace US Marine pilot Jack McGuire, who returns to his former combat zone in the Pacific after World War II, and founds a hotel in the island paradise he once defended from the Japanese.

A very different face of the ocean is seen in Die a Dry Death, by Greta van der Rol, which tells the harrowing story of the Batavia.  A flagship of the Dutch East India Company’s fleet, the treasure-laden Batavia was wrecked off the Australian coast on her maiden voyage in 1629.  The survivors—sailors, soldiers, merchants, women and children—were stranded on a group of uninhabited, hostile islands, with little food or fresh water.  Seeking help, the ship’s officers set out in an open boat on a two-thousand-mile journey.  But while they were gone,  from the struggle for survival on the islands emerged a tyrant whose brutal lust for power was even deadlier than the reef which destroyed the Batavia.

Watch this space for more details of events (all in London and SE England at this stage) around the time of the launch.

News about our first four books

Click on the cover images below to see the latest on Harbour (Paul House), May 1812 (M.M. Bennetts), Pistols for Two—Breakfast for One (Matthew J. Dick) and Whom Must I Kill to Get Published? (Jason Horger).  There are links to reviews, author interviews and other news.  You can also read the opening of each book online.

Coming soon for Kindle

April will also see all Diiarts’ titles released as e-books for the Kindle Reader.  We’ve been getting requests for e-books ever since we launched our first four titles last November, and we’re thrilled to be able to meet this demand.

Review our books online and win free signed copies!

Have you enjoyed one or more of our books?  If so, post a review online—on Amazon, The Book Depository (our recommended distributor, with free postage to most countries worldwide), Facebook, or anywhere else you think people will read it.  Send us a link to the review by Friday 12th March, and to the authors of the five most insightful reviews, we’ll offer a free copy (hardback or paperback) of the Diiarts title of their choice.

A word about ordering…

In the weeks after our November launch, several people said they were having difficulty ordering our titles through their local bookshops.  Thanks to our new arrangements with Central Books and The Book Depository, these problems should now be a thing of the past, and any UK bookshop ought to be able to order our titles.

Equally good news is that The Book Depository accepts payment in most local currencies and offers free postage to most countries worldwide.

Happy reading!

The Diiarts Team

Published in:  on February 22, 2010 at 10:59 am Leave a Comment
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Multiple Book Launch Tonight!

Just wanted to share the news that my friends, M.M. Bennetts, Matthew Dick, and Paul House all had a multiple book launch in England tonight. Those in the U.S. can now order their books–both hardback and paperback–from this page here: http://diiarts-files.diiarts.fastmail.fm/us-orders.htm.

Want to read jacket copy or an excerpt? Check them out at the links below.

May 1812 by M.M. Bennetts

Harbour by Paul House

Pistols for Two — Breakfast for One by Matthew Dick

Published in:  on November 14, 2009 at 6:35 pm Leave a Comment
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May 1812 – The best Historical Fiction you’ll read this year.

A Christian Science Monitor book reviewer, a concert pianist, a brilliant writer, and a wonderful friend. All these terms describe M.M. Bennetts, but it is only the tip of the iceberg really. His brain is about the size of Texas, so he’s really hard to encapsulate in one paragraph, you see… He also just landed a book deal for May 1812, my favorite novel of 2008. And yes, I was privileged enough to read it in full on Authonomy.com before a publisher snatched it up.

Here’s a sneak peek of the book cover and a snippet about the book:

In the war against Napoleon, there are no easy victories.

1812.  Europe has been at war for twenty years. Britain stands alone against the greatest threat to peace the world has ever known, at daily risk of a French invasion and revolution.  In London, a handful of men struggle to protect their country and maintain the war effort.  Among them, the Earl of Myddelton, code-breaker to the Foreign Office, strives to crack the most difficult French code yet—the Grand Chiffre—before still more men die on the battlefields of Europe.

Then, on 11 May 1812, the unthinkable happens—the Prime Minister is assassinated.  Amid widespread panic and fear of a French conspiracy, the government falls.

From the ballrooms of London, to the backstreets of power, to the death-in-waiting coast of enemy France, Myddelton is drawn inexorably into the deepening crisis—his private life unravelling all the while, as misunderstandings, gossip and spite mar his marriage and threaten to destroy his career.

MAY 1812

Intrigued yet? Check out an excerpt here: May 1812 opening

For me, this book was like music in words. The prose style is like nothing else I’ve ever read or will ever read again. Stunning. And worthy of study. Oh, but why would you want to? This is a love story for the ages, a delicious bit of yummy to sink your eyes into on a rainy afternoon in winter. And a tale of intrigue and courage. And a showcase of a fascinating time in British history. But, my God, the authenticity of language, the level of research involved–utterly brilliant! Get to know this writer. He’s on his way to being one of the greats of our time. I have no doubt of that.

Lucky for us all, his next novel (set in the same time period with many of the same characters), Of Honest Fame, is to be published next year. Once you’ve finished May 1812, you won’t want to leave the heady world M.M. has created with that golden pen of his. Want to take a peek at that one? Here are a few chapters up at Authonomy.com: Of Honest Fame.

Want to pre-order a signed copy of May 1812? Here is the order page (for U.S. buyers): Snap it up here!

Published in:  on October 27, 2009 at 7:47 pm Comments (2)
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