Book Club & Food

Happy February Folks!

I was hoping to post a little sooner, but you know how life goes. This is what I’m covering in this months post; it’s going to be a long one:

• Website changes (surprise, surprise)
• My book club meeting
• Every food item mentioned in the book
• Subscriber and followers’ incentive
• eBook is out and I’m going to try to get physical copies into bookstores this year
• Special Announcement!
• I’ve met a couple local authors recently, here are their books!

Website Changes
I have not yet added my “Letter from a Friend” yet, but it is on my list of things to do before my next blog. Another thing I will be adding is International Tracking which will be a separate item people outside of Canada can choose to add to their cart. Here is how my shipping prices work:
               Automatically at checkout a price is attached to your purchase (let’s say a book). For Canadian’s your shipping covers a tracked package, and you will receive an email with your tracking number when the package is sent out!
               For anyone outside of Canada, your price covers ground shipping, without tracking. This could take your package anywhere from four to eight weeks to reach you unfortunately. However, if you want tracked shipping, there will be an option to add it to your cart amongst my listings. Unfortunately, it has a hefty price tag ($50CAD), which is why I’m leaving it optional for those who want it. Tracked international shipping WILL get you your book between 6-15 business days. A friend of mine in Australia (that’s 11 000km away!) got hers in five days, which was pretty impressive after her original package went missing. Though pricy, I believe tracking is definitely worth it for those who want to track their package internationally.

I think there’s more I want to do to my website, but I can’t remember it right now.

Book Club Meeting
It was my pick for Book Club in December. Naturally I picked my debut novel Time, Swords, and Blood so I could gush about it. We took an extra month to read it because of the holiday’s and, due to scheduling, we did not get together until this past Thursday(Feb 13^th)!

So, if you’re in a Book Club and want to read my book, here is what we did and discussed in case you want some ideas!



We had a potluck featuring food from, or inspired by, the book including:

• Durin’s Potato Salad (inspired by Durin’s potato soup)
• Devilled eggs (inspired by all the hard-boiled eggs the characters eat)
• Dill Soup
• Honey Thyme Bread
• Pickled Vegetables
• Spiced Oat Cookies
• Charcuterie, featuring salted meat, soft cheese, apples, berries and grapes
• Mango Juice w/ Glitter (inspired by the potions Vice makes. I featured a glittery potion at my launch party too made of pineapple juice, ginger ale and lime juice)
• Cranberry Wine (because of course we need it after a line like this: “Know that hearing your voice is like cranberry wine and I draw life from hearing it.” Yes, maybe I did include that line because I love cranberry wine so much.

Look at these pictures, don’t you just want to eat them up?

Here is what we discussed and feel free to use these questions in your own Book Club!

General Questions

• What would you rate the book out of 5 stars? Average rating was 3.5-4. I loved this, especially considering all my book club members have OG copies of the book with all the painful grammar and spelling errors. When I wrote Time, Swords, and Blood I was hoping for a 3-star read and it looks like I delivered! One of my favourite comments while discussing this was when one reader said it felt like ‘Fantasy Friends’
• Do you have a favourite moment/scene in the book? (SPOILER’S AHEAD FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T READ IT YET): Any mention of food (and this is common comment), Vice’s werewolf reveal scene, Vice painting Delilah’s room, the Amputation scene.
• Who were your favourite characters?  Friends said favourite characters included Nerice, Bellamy, Vice, Gwen (saying she was like a murderous golden retriever), and Durin. (Durin and Gwen are fan favourites from a lot of readers). One comment also included “I wanted Theone to step on me.”

In the Detail Questions

• Does anyone know who pulled Delilah from the water?
• Did anyone catch who Vice’s-boyfriend was?
• Who do you think/believe made the paintings in Delilah’s Machine/who made it back to earth? They DO make an appearance in the book.
• Does anyone have any theories on what is in the trees?
  One comment: “Really badass squirrels”
• I almost ended the book after Delilah pressed the self-destruct and cut the last chapter. Do you think you would have enjoyed the book more OR less if I had ended it there? Just so you know, the last chapter still would have existed, but I would have put it in an anthology of short stories for fans to have later.
  A collective agreement was everyone was happy the last chapter was not cut.
• Why do you think Andreja chose Delilah as her patron?
• Space Roanoke.

No, I will not elaborate. Only one person as commented on this and it was not a member of my book club. Will your book club notice?

I also wanted to mention one girl’s absolute hilarious reaction to finding out it is NOT the MC on the cover of Time, Swords, and Blood. Some people knew this already, but she had not yet connected the dots, and it was very enjoyable. I also pointed out the dragon silhouette that gets missed by some readers as well. I am so in love with my cover.

For anyone interested in picking my book for their book club, feel free to email me with questions from your club! I love talking about my book and would love to interact with fans more often.

Want to pick foods for your potluck?
Here is the COMPLETE LIST of foods and drinks in Time, Swords, and Blood:

DRINKS

• Coffee
• Cranberry tea
• Hot apple cider
• Spiced milk tea
• Honey tea and whiskey
• Tea -apple, lemongrass, vervain, sleep
• Chamomile ginger mint tea
• Lemon mint honey tea
• Water with dried oranges
•  Spiced caramel hot chocolate
• Orange ginger oregano tea
• Mulled wine hot chocolate
• Mulled wine
• Ginger tea
• Stomach tonic: ginger, lemon, alcohol, magic 
• Sleepy Tea – orange peel, apple, lavender, chamomile, valerian root
• Chamomile tea

STEWS

• Rabbit stew with wild carrots and swamp potato boiled in water and wine
• Soup with dehydrated meat and vegetables, juniper thyme and apples and bread
• Meatball soup seasoned with mint and cumin
• Fish stew, thick with tomatoes, paprika, garlic served with
• Veggie broth
• Spicy sweet potato and chicken stew
• Stew pickles, potatoes, dill in milky broth
• Red soup with potatoes spiced sausage beans sauerkraut turnip
• Foragers Soup, a creamy wild mushroom soup -notes of dill and paprika
• Potato stew

MEALS

• Roasted meat and veggies
• Fried eggs, bacon and potatoes
• Boiled eggs, jam, thick cut bacon, buttered honey and thyme bread
• Porridge with winter berries, cinnamon and orange zest
• Charcuterie 
• Egg sandwiches dipped in potato stew
• Smoked fish, hummus, fresh bread, I fused oils, grilled vegetables
• Pâté, pickled cucumber, pickled onions, and red jam

SNACKS

• Salted meat and soft cheese, fresh pomegranate, apples, berries,
• Bread, cheese, pears
• fried potatoes and dandelion salad
• Bread and orange jam
• nuts and dried mango

DESSERTS

• Sugared croissants
• Fruit tarts filled with lemon curd and blueberries
• Pastries covered in icing sugar and filled with jam
• Chocolate cake with whipped cream 
• Lemon squares
• Oat cakes filled with raspberry jam
• Warm spiced oat cookie

eBook, Incentive, and More
The eBook IS out now! Be sure to tell your friends who enjoy their eReaders because I have the price set at 4.99CAD for three months. One month is almost up already!
On the book front, I am really hoping to get some physical copies in stores this year. I have a list of independent bookshops I want to contact and I’m also hoping to do a signing in my local Indigo before the end of the year, maybe even before the summer? We will see, but I’ll definitely update when I have a better idea.

That being said, I did not reach my subscriber goal since the last blog post so I’m going to try again this month! As I said last month, if you would like to see a bonus scene from Time, Swords and Blood, I would like 15 more subscribers! Tell your friends about me! I promise it isn’t spam. If we get 10 more, I will include a recipe for one of the MANY food items mentioned in the book. Anything less and we’ll just keep on keeping on with no bonus content.

Now for my special announcement:
Some of you may already know the title of my next book if you listened/watched the podcast mentioned in my previous blogs, but I will be officially releasing the title next month and possibly a release date. I’m really excited about the next book, and I absolutely want to ruin thee lives of every reader with the coming series.

Canadian Authors You Should Check Out!
On the topic of books, I met a couple local authors since my last post and they’re absolutely lovely! (At least from my impressions, haha)

The first author, E.R. Hann, I met on TikTok and has her debut novel coming out March 10! Her debut novel heart-shaped karaoke box is a coming of age by moving abroad book that examines the pain and power of broken hearts, celebrity life, and growing up. You can get to know her more here: https://www.erhannauthor.com

The second author, Meg Lush, I met at my local Indigo. Her book Two for the Love of One is a contemporary spicy adult romance and is already available You can get to know her more here: https://linktr.ee/meglushwrites

Anyway, I think that covers everything this month.
As always, if you’re on discord, please join my server: https://discord.gg/cQMCEvsm  (if you feel like it). Also don’t forget to tell your friends to follow me here, on TikTok and Instagram!

Chat again in March!
HAM