Today, I am delighted to host Justin Newland for the blog tour for The Midnight of Eights, the second book in his The Island of Angels series. Justin has kindly provided an extract for you to enjoy (see below).
You can follow the full tour here:
The Midnight of Eights by Justin Newland
Blurb:
1580.
Nelan Michaels docks at Plymouth after sailing around the world aboard the Golden Hind. He seeks only to master his mystical powers – the mark of the salamander, that mysterious spirit of fire – and reunite with his beloved Eleanor.
After delivering a message to Francis Walsingham, he’s recruited into the service of the Queen’s spymaster, where his astral abilities help him to predict and thwart future plots against the realm.
But in 1588, the Spanish Armada threatens England’s shores.
So how could the fledgling navy of a small, misty isle on the edge of mainland Europe repulse the greatest fleet in the world?
Was the Queen right when she claimed it was divine intervention, saying, ‘He blew with His winds, and they were scattered!’?
Or was it an entirely different intervention – the extraordinary conjunction of coincidences that Nelan’s astral powers brought to bear on that fateful Midnight of Eights?
Universal Buy Link: https://mybook.to/TheMidnightofEights
Also available in Kindle Unlimited
Extract from Chapter 5: Follow the Fox
14th July 1581
Nelan tossed and turned, half awake and half asleep. The light from the enormous moon in the sky kept him from slumber. All the while, he’d dreamed of a fox. Then, in the dream, he wasn’t watching the fox; he was the fox, hiding in the bushes, watching… a mouse scurry into its burrow, a hog stroll through the meadow, a blackbird land on a branch. He smelled the hedgerow and the dank, earthy odours from the barley field nearby. His whiskers bristled with alarm. In the bushes behind him, there was movement.
A man shouted, “Follow the fox!”
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Outside, the sound of rain against the hull, splashing on the deck.
“Follow the fox!” The phrase echoed in his mind, but what did it mean? The cunning creatures were masters of deception and possessed the extraordinary ability to disappear in plain sight. He scratched his head, pulled his beard, and cast into his mind all the foxes he’d seen, and everywhere he’d encountered them.
Then he knew which fox to follow. It brought his future to a head. But it was a choice he made without hesitation. He knew it was the right one, because it lifted a weight from his shoulders.
Grabbing his doublet, he climbed the ladder up to the deck. Rain slanted into the hull. Almost slipping on the wet boards, he bade a hasty fare-thee-well to Tom, the bosun. He edged down the gangplank, onto the quay, and hailed the early morning ferry. He boarded it just as its master shoved it into the river flow.
“Don’t be rockin’ us, lad, or I’ll be rockin’ you!” the wherry master barked at him, a growl he recognised.
“Well, well, well,” Nelan said. “If it isn’t old Wenceslaus himself.”
“Ah! ’Tis I,” the man said from amidst the folds of his salt-and-pepper beard. “Now, where will I be a’ takin’ you, Little Master?”
“Upriver, Wenceslaus.”
“Upriver’s got a lot of places. Greenwich or the Bridge. Richmond or Putney. Where’s it to be?”
“Just row,” Nelan said. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”
The rain speared into them, but Wenceslaus still pulled hard on the oars. “Now, how long’s it been? Last time I sees ya, that Spanish boy got hisself blown up.”
“I’d no involvement in his death.”
“I believe ya, an’ I did so then, too.”
Just beyond London Bridge, he saw his old haunt of St Michael Queenhithe, where he used to sit with Eleanor. Ah. Eleanor. He had to believe he was getting closer to finding her. As the rain clouds cleared, Wenceslaus narrowly avoided colliding with the Putney ferry.
“Dock at that mansion over there!” Nelan yelled, pointing to a nearby jetty. “The one with the weather vane.”
“Is that a dog?”
“It looks like a dog, but it’s not a dog. It’s a fox. This is Barn Elms.”
Droplets of water dripped onto the floor of the same anteroom as the day he found the plough head. Because of the chill brought by the rain, the steward had lit a fire which crackled and snapped, but it said not a word. Despite that, Nelan had a great feeling. Barn Elms was near the waters of the river. He stood by a fire in the hearth. The weather vane of the fox graced the top of the building. He’d followed the fox. Now, where was Eleanor?
The door flung open, and Roger Adden gestured for Nelan to enter the fox’s den.
Since he’d last seen him, Walsingham appeared older, his face more wrinkled with the heavy concerns of keeping the realm safe from internal rebellion and foreign invasion. As he entered, the two other men in the room examined him with studied indifference.
Author Bio:
Justin Newland’s novels represent an innovative blend of genres from historical adventure to supernatural thriller and magical realism.
Undeterred by the award of a Maths Doctorate, he conceived his debut novel, The Genes of Isis (ISBN 9781789014860, Matador, 2018), an epic fantasy set under Ancient Egyptian skies.
His second book, The Old Dragon’s Head (ISBN 9781789015829, Matador, 2018), and is set in Ming Dynasty China in the shadows of the Great Wall.
Set during the Great Enlightenment, The Coronation (ISBN 9781838591885, Matador, 2019) speculates on the genesis of the most important event in the modern world – the Industrial Revolution.
The Abdication (ISBN 9781800463950, Matador, 2021) is a mystery thriller in which a young woman confronts her faith in a higher purpose and what it means to abdicate that faith.
The Mark of the Salamander (ISBN 9781915853271, Book Guild, 2023), is the first in a two-book series, The Island of Angels. Set in the Elizabethan era, it tells the epic tale of England’s coming of age.
The latest is The Midnight of Eights (ISBN 9781835740 330, Book Guild, 2024), the second in The Island of Angels series, which charts the uncanny coincidences of time and tide that culminated in the repulse of the Spanish Armada.
His work in progress is The Spirit of the Times which explores the events of the 14th century featuring an unlikely cast of the Silk Road, Genghis Khan, the Black Plague, and a nursery rhyme that begins ‘Ring a-ring a-roses’.
Author, speaker and broadcaster, Justin gives talks to historical associations and libraries, appears on LitFest panels, and enjoys giving radio interviews. He lives with his partner in plain sight of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England.
Author Links:
Website: https://www.justinnewland.com/
Twitter: https://x.com/JustinNewland53
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justin.newland.author/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-newland-b393aa28/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjustinnewland/
Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/justin-newland
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/jnewland
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Justin-Newland/author/B06WRQVLT8
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