INDIEpendence Day!

This is a special week! Today I’ve joined with other indie authors to participate in INDIEpendence Day! A huge celebration of indie books! Click on the badge to the left or the one down below to visit more websites highlighting great Indie books!

This week, I would like to highlight The Messenger’s Handbook by Pamela DuMond.

I found this book through a friend that recommended it. The young adult novel is about Madeline, a teen girl from Chicago, Illinois who is pushed off a train platform and finds herself in a colonial settlement in 1675, the sole-survival of a brutal massacre. Madeline tries to make sense of her new surroundings and finds out that she is a Messenger, a traveler who can slip through the fabric of time at will. Her task is to bring messages that can change people’s lives.

The colonists do not trust her. But Samuel, a boy with both Indian and English blood lines, will give his life for Madeline who is convinced the boy is her true soul mate. The only way she can save herself and Samuel is to train with the Medicine Woman, confront her own deepest fears, and fulfill her destiny as a Messenger. Yet the Hunters, dark souled predators who also travel through time, want to use Madeline’s powers for their own secret purposes.

Unlike most romance novels that are slow and rudderless, this young adult novel has a fast pace that employs a lot of thriller elements to keep the main plot moving. I especially loved the historical setting of 1675 as a backdrop. It’s a time of superstitions and blind faith among a group of colonists rigid in their ways and beliefs. In their eyes, almost everything is seen as witchcraft. And they wouldn’t hesitate to hang a teen girl who acted “strange.”

I also loved the way the Messengers traveled through time. They actually inhabit another person’s body…after they’re dead. This creates great suspense throughout the story as Madeline tries to make sense of her new identity while trying to figure out just who to trust and who to fear.

The Messenger’s Handbook is the first novel in this time-traveler series. It has some real potential and I look forward to seeing where the second book will take us.

I highly recommend checking out the Paperback and eBook versions now available on Amazon…

The Messenger’s Handbook (Volume 1)

OR you can enter to WIN a Paperback copy of The Messenger’s Handbook by leaving a comment on this post!

To enter, all you need to do is leave one comment on this post by Midnight (CST) on July 6, 2012. The winners will be randomly picked by Author Pamela DuMond. I will announce those winners on July 8, 2012. Sorry, only US entries are eligible for giveaway.   Please list your e-mail on your comment so I can contact you if you win. Don’t worry, I will not use your e-mail for any other purpose.

But wait…there’s more!

BONUS GIVEAWAY!!!!

If you answer the following question correctly, then you’ll be entered in a SECOND GIVEAWAY for a Kindle eBook copy of The Messenger’s Handbook!

The question is…

In The Messenger’s Handbook, teenage Madeline time travels to King Philip’s War in the year 1675. Which of the following scenes in the book were based on true events?

1. A body was  discovered frozen under the ice.

2. During a hanging, the noose broke releasing the prisoner.

3. King Philip’s head was chopped off and stuck on a pike where it was displayed in Plymouth, Massachusetts for twenty-five years.

4. All of the above.

I will reveal the answer at the END of the giveaway. The rules above still apply to this second giveaway.

Good luck!

Pamela DuMond’s Website

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Tagged with: 1675, author, Colonial America, fiction, novel, Pamela Dumond, review, teen, The Messenger's Handbook, time travel, YA, young adult
Posted in Book Reviews, Contest, Events