Where Your Treasure Is by M.C. Bunn - Book Tour - Guest Post - Giveaway - Enter Daily!

Hi, lovelies!  It gives me great pleasure today to host M.C. Bunn and her new book, “Where Your Treasure Is”!  For other stops on her Goddess Fish Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.

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

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

Where Your Treasure Is

by M.C. Bunn

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GENRE: Historical Romance, Victorian Romance

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BLURB:

Feisty, independent heiress Winifred de la Coeur has never wanted to live according to someone else’s rules—but even she didn’t plan on falling in love with a bank robber.

Winifred is a wealthy, nontraditional beauty who bridles against the strict rules and conventions of Victorian London society. When she gets caught up in the chaos of a bungled bank robbery, she is thrust unwillingly into an encounter with Court Furor, a reluctant getaway driver and prizefighter.  In the bitter cold of a bleak London winter, sparks fly.

Winifred and Court are two misfits in their own circumscribed worlds—the fashionable beau monde with its rigorously upheld rules, and the gritty demimonde, where survival often means life-or-death choices.

Despite their conflicting backgrounds, they fall desperately in love while acknowledging the impossibility of remaining together. Returning to their own worlds, they try to make peace with their lives until a moment of unrestrained honesty and defiance threatens to topple the deceptions they have carefully constructed to protect each other.

A story of the overlapping entanglements of Victorian London’s social classes, the strength of family bonds and true friendship, and the power of love to heal a broken spirit.

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EXCERPT ONE:

Chapter I

A Spinster Reflects

Winifred de la Coeur was not a traditional beauty, but she was one of a kind. Or so George had whispered while they played cards. He had won the hand and taken hers in his. After all these years, she ought to know better than to trust him.

********

On the day before she came up to London, she rode her horse Tulip across the fields to inspect the wood. Beyond it lay Hereford Hall’s brick towers, graceful lawns, and chestnut-lined drive. She had given Tulip a smart kick and galloped down the sandy lane that led to the sea. In spite of her elder cousins’ warnings, she and George had raced one another on it many times. She bent over her mare’s neck, urged her to go faster, and pretended to outdistance her neighbor. She was Queen Bess, who ruled a kingdom of her own. No need of any man!

Her pride could not bear that George, or even her family, might suspect that while she had won the battle against her suitors, she had lost the war. At summer’s end, once the field cleared and the dust settled, she discovered she was tired of holding up the increasingly heavy standard of her virginity. The other debutantes of her year had long retired from the lists on their fiancés’ arms or were preoccupied by their confinements. She had attended so many weddings she lost track of the sprays of orange blossom Bettina cleared from her dressing table or the number of silver rattles that she and Amelie had wrapped. Her freedom was not the triumph she had imagined it would be.

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The hackney she’d seen earlier pulled alongside them at the curb. A bright spot of purple in the cabby’s hatband, the flower girl’s bunch of violets, caught her eye. Bunched beneath his dark chin was a plum-colored neckerchief, gaudily spotted. His profile was partly hidden under his hat’s brim, and his long, dark hair was pulled back in an old-fashioned queue…. His deep voice and Cockney accent were audible when he spoke to his horse. He was not the sort one would want to meet in a dark alley.

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GUEST POST:

Soundtrack of Where Your Treasure Is:

Music is a huge part of my life. I sing, write songs, and am in a band. My favorite group is the Beatles, and I love Barry Gibb’s tunes. A short list of current favorites includes Rosanne Cash, Django Reinhardt, Beck, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops. I’m a longtime fan of Renaissance Fare, hosted by George Douglas on WCPE, our local classical station, and Satie and Chopin. No type of music is off-limits if it moves me. Creativity and what it takes to perform and get a song out there are what I admire. Music has a very important role in Where Your Treasure Is and all my stories. This is a soundtrack for the book, and I hope you enjoy it.

“The Dance,” Tangerine Dream

(Legend soundtrack, 1986)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH8te9Wvi-c

When I first wrote Where Your Treasure Is, I made a trailer for it, accompanied by “The Dance.” I love Legend’s soundtrack and this song in particular. I’ve included an adaptation for piano by Rhaeide because Winifred plays the piano. The original version is very ominous (Don’t be put off by the album cover. It’s a wonderful story!), yet it has all the hopefulness of a waltz. The melody sings out over those dark undertones like a wren. It evokes Winifred and Court’s first encounter, their crazed waltz in his little room, and the dark, underworld London into which she finds herself plunged. The melody also reminds me of Court and his half-sister Beryl Stuart because they’re both struggling to escape that world as well, yet they have to engage it to survive. It’s heartbreaking.

“The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies,” traditional; Asher Quinn

(Falling Through Time, 2011)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1QWKJc2gJI

When I was child, my father read this poem to me from Hilda Boswell’s charming Treasury of Children’s Poems. There are many covers of the song, but Asher Quinn’s haunting version evoked what Court’s mother, Sadie, must have felt when Mick Furor sang it and seduced her. It’s also the song that Court sings to Winifred the first time they’re together.

“Women of Ireland,” (Mná na hÉireann), Seán Ó Riada and The Chieftains (Barry Lyndon soundtrack, 1975);

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex2iwmIXd5A

“Women of Ireland” (Jeff Beck, guitar; Lizzie Ball, violin; Tal Wilkenfeld, bass; Jonathan Joseph, drums).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQSPBC4fS4

“Women of Ireland” is a poem by Ulster poet Peadar Ó Doirnín (1704–1796). The simple, unadorned version from Stanley Kubrick’s film Barry Lyndon captures the atmosphere of Court’s longing during his journeys with the showman and gypsy Grynt Spivey. It’s the sort of song that Grynt would play by the fire on his flute and that Court will learn to play on his guitar later. Court’s father, the thief and traveler Mick Furor is Irish, so it’s the kind of song he’d share with Court and Sadie in rare, good times as a family.

“La Ci Darem La Mano,” Mozart, Don Giovanni (1787). Rodney Gilfry, Don Giovanni; Liliana Nikiteanu, Zerlina. Staged at the Opernhaus Zürich, 2001. Conductor, Nikolaus Harnoncourt; director, Jürgen Flimm; set-designer, Erich Wonder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJnJjpMdT3Y

I enjoy this production and am a huge Cecilia Bartoli fan (she plays Donna Elvira). For those who aren’t familiar with opera, it’s a lot of fun (a climax in every act, like a soap opera episode). Court’s initial response to this music is like mine. Half the time, I don’t a care about the libretto. I’m simply overwhelmed by the emotional power of the voices. Opera is from Winifred and George’s world. She hates theatre but loves music, and so does George Broughton-Caruthers. Whereas Court would spend time in a music hall, they sit in a private box at Covent Garden. Court discovers opera’s pleasures later in the book, and it opens up another world for him.

“The Trout” Franz Schubert (1829). Translation, Emily Ezust; Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF9DrUXowBo

Schubert was dead at thirty-one, not much older than Winifred and Court, or his half-sister Beryl Stuart and Winifred’s friend George are during Treasure. Like the poet Keats, he’s a tragic figure whose prolific compositions are some of his era’s loveliest. For fans of the Victoria series, he was one of Prince Albert’s favorites, since the prince was a composer as well. “The Trout” is the song that George sings, and that he and Winifred play together on the piano. Its words apply to him.

“Enchantment” Sophia Pavlenko Chandley

https://paulandsophiachandley.com/track/811088/enchantment

Sophia Pavlenko Chandley is a modern composer. I’m in love with her music and want everyone to hear it. This song perfectly captures the sort of piece Winifred might play while she was alone, dreaming of her time with Court.

“And So It Goes” Billy Joel

(Storm Front, 1989)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcUCYtyaLrY

Finally, if Where Your Treasure Is was ever made into a film, I’d want a performance of this song to be part of it. I’ve always loved this ballad of longing. Though there’s a story behind its composition, the song might have been written for Court, Beryl Stuart, George Broughton-Caruthers, and many other characters in Treasure.

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AUTHOR BIO:

M.C. Bunn is a writer of Victorian romance and historical romance novels, a singer (in the indie rock band Mister Felix), and a songwriter. She holds an English degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and a master’s in English from North Carolina State University.

"I've always loved writing. It's a joy to do what makes me happy and to share it."

“My father was a great story-teller. He read to us at the dinner table and passed on his love of history. He’d haul me out of bed in the middle of the night if there was a great old movie on the late show, and family trips always included visits to historic sites. His father was born in 1888, and I have Granddaddy's letters to his bride-to-be in my dresser. I'm working on the story of Daddy's first ancestor in America. It's set in Jamestown, 1690. My mother's grandmother was placed in an orphanage after the Civil War because her father died on the way home, so I always felt that connection to and had a curiosity about the past. Both of my parents read to me before I could walk. Daddy gave me Dickens, Twain, and Stevenson. Mama put the dictionary in my hands and let me watch I, Claudius  and Shoulder to Shoulder when they first aired on Masterpiece Theatre. She told me I'd be a writer one day.”

Acting was another girlhood passion. “I wanted to play all the characters in the books I'd read, or in the stories I made up, like Dickens and Louisa May Alcott did. I also wanted to be an archaeologist because we knew one who worked on digs in Israel. There was never a time when I wasn't making up a story, and it was always set 'a long time ago.' What I really wished for was the car in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, so I could fly back in time and see what it was actually like for women in Victorian and Edwardian England.”

When she's not writing, she loves reading long old books. "I love Anthony Trollope's series, and Anna Karenina. Of more recent vintage, I really enjoyed The Forsyte Saga and The Raj Quartet."

Her idea of a well-appointed room includes multiple bookshelves, a full pot of coffee, and a place to lie down and read. To feed her soul, she takes a walk or makes music with friends. "I try to remember to look up at the sky and take some time each day to be thankful."

She lives in North Carolina with her husband and their dog. Where Your Treasure Is is her first published novel.

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CONNECT WITH M.C. BUNN:

Website:

https://www.mcbunn.com

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/mcbauthor

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/MCBunn3

Pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.com/bunn6220

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/mcbunnauthor

BookBub Author Page:

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/m-c-bunn

BookBub Book Page:

https://www.bookbub.com/books/where-your-treasure-is-by-m-c-bunn

Goodreads Author Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21256508.M_C_Bunn

Goodreads Book Page:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57338680-where-your-treasure-is

Amazon Author Page:

https://amzn.to/32yoVS5

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BOOK BUY LINKS:

Amazon Kindle eBook:

https://amzn.to/3n4Z9hv

Amazon Paperback:

https://amzn.to/3dvPb5R

Barnes and Noble NOOK eBook:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/where-your-treasure-is-m-c-bunn/1138745703?ean=2940162509950

Barnes and Noble Paperback:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/where-your-treasure-is-m-c-bunn/1138745703?ean=9781942209799

The Book Depository Paperback:

https://www.bookdepository.com/Where-Your-Treasure-Is-M-C-Bunn/9781942209799

BAM! Books-A-Million Paperback:

https://www.booksamillion.com/product/A16530491083

Google Play eBook:

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/M_C_Bunn_Where_Your_Treasure_Is?id=mRolEAAAQBAJ

Kobo eBook:

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/where-your-treasure-is-9

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GIVEAWAY INFO:

M.C. Bunn will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N 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.