The Bulls of War by E.M. Thomas - Book Tour - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!

Hello lovelies! It gives me great pleasure today to host E.M. Thomas and his new book, “The Bulls of War”!  For other stops on his Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above.

Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $25 Amazon or Barnes & Noble Gift Card.  Also, come back daily to interact with E.M. and to increase your chances of winning! 

Thanks for stopping by!  Wishing you lots of luck in this exciting giveaway!

The Bulls of War

by E.M. Thomas

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GENRE: Fantasy

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BLURB:

As clouds of civil war gather over a dying empire, two friends and generals find themselves on opposite sides of the factional divide.  Now, they must sacrifice everything to save themselves from their realm and their realm from itself.

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EXCERPT ONE:

Ten years, two months and this morning, Kyrus thought, blinking away drops of sweat.   Yet still… still it’s not any easier.

For the thousandth time, his hand slid to a blade’s hilt, body braced against a gust ripping through the sweltering berry thicket.  Wide eyes scanned the crush of steamy greenery all around him, ears hearing only his own short breaths and a heart that pounded like a drum.  Even as the wind petered out, his anxiety held firm, held him frozen in place.

Ten bloody years of this… a wonder I’ve any wits left about me at all.  He grunted.  Or do I have any?

He’d grayed since then, since his first days in Valogar.  Wrinkled too.  Bones ached from the constant marching, mind frayed from the perpetual fear of knowing they were out there, somewhere, always itching to add another Rokhish scalp to their belts…

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GUEST POST:

When I put pen to paper (or keys to screen?) on The Bulls of War, whether I was aware of it or not, the images of the many places I’ve had the privilege to visit over the years came to the fore.  The grounds of the Colosseum.  The Palatine Hill.  The ghostly streets of Pompeii.  The sanctuary of Delphi.  The castle of Corinth, of Great Britain.  All magical in their own way. 

Those magical places stood in for much of Andervold, the world in which Bulls takes place.  So too did the constant political intrigue and turmoil of the Late Roman Empire provide inspiration for the frenzied state of Andervold in the 383rd year Post Cataclysm.  Plenty more would have looked familiar to a Roman of noble birth in the second or third century A.D., be it the soldiery, the breadth of the realm, the military acting as a literal and figurative backbone of the Empire, etc.

With fantasy, of course, one isn't bound or confined by actual events, nor does the reader run the risk of already knowing "what actually happened."  Characters are free to walk along roads familiar to history just as much as they may take the nearest detour and even descend into the directly counterfactual.  The story can move out of one source of inspiration, pull from another, or perhaps deviate entirely.  It's that freedom, I found, that marks the biggest distinction between writing historical fiction and fantasy.  Well, that and the staggering hours of research required for historical fiction, a reality that hit me within a few paragraphs into the outline of Fortress of the Sun, my novel of Ancient Greece.

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AUTHOR BIO:

E.M. Thomas is the author of two novels - an epic fantasy (The Bulls of War) and a historical fiction set in Ancient Greece (Fortress of the Sun).

E.M. Thomas was born and raised on the East Coast of the United States but is a world traveler at heart. He caught the writing bug early on and has a passion for all good fiction, but especially that of the fantasy and historical variety. One of his favorite moments thus far in his young career was writing a chapter of his latest book about the great battle of Corinth - while sitting amidst the ruins of ancient Corinth.

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CONNECT WITH E.M.:

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/EMThomas1

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/EMTHOMASAUTHOR1

Google+:

https://plus.google.com/109634057185323716008

Amazon Author Page:

www.amazon.com/author/emthomas

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AMAZON BUY LINK:

http://amzn.to/2fGu9Ep

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

E.M. Thomas will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions.  Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are solely responsible for the giveaway prize.