Gina Rae Mitchell

Thumb Fire Desire by Carol Nickles | $50 Gift Card Giveaway, Excerpt, & Guest Post

A book blog tour from Goddess Fish Promotions.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Marianne & Judy at Goddess Fish for providing me with the information for this tour.

Book Details

Thumb Fire Desire by Carol Nickles
Published by The Wild Rose Press on 06/22/2022
Pages: 432

In the Spring of 1881, indigent seamstress Ginny Dahlke arrives in one of the earliest Polish American settlements- Parisville, Michigan.
Deemed charmless and awkward by her mean-spirited sister-in-law, Ginny disparages her chance of securing love.
But sought-after widowed farmer Peter Nickles is enamored by Ginny's perseverance, her pioneer spirit, and her inclusive acceptance of the indigenous peoples of Michigan.
The seductiveness of a buxom heiress, a twisted story of an old-country betrothal, and the largest natural disaster in Michigan's history- The Great Thumb Fire of September 5, 1881, challenge their fledgling attraction and ultimate committal.

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Excerpt from Thumb Fire Desire

The northbound Dove was a day late. Now Tom’s worry expanded beyond land and fixed on friends he knew who traveled the lake, no doubt in danger from the disorienting darkness created from the inferno on land. How would the Dove crew find the docks? Could the fires of hell fall upon an innocent ship and swallow it in flames just as it had to the boats docked onshore? What could he do to guide them in or know their fate? But Tom had little time to worry about his sailor friends. The land drifters, the bedraggled, and their dead kept appearing at his door. Each brought with them a different story of horror and grief.

Marie handed a toddler one of the ragdolls she had made to sell.

The child clutched the toy to her smoky clothing, sat on the floor at Marie’s feet, and rocked. Her mother offered Marie a wan smile and returned her attention to an infant suckling her breast.

“Taraski,” one of the survivors called after him. “Look outside at your new farm.”

In addition to the stranded, homeless, battered humans making their way to his store, a pathetic collection of chickens, pigs, sheep, horses, and cows, with hair, fur, and feathers singed away, hobbled to Tom’s property. Tom looked on in horror. Many of the animals walked on burned-away hooves or feet. Steeling himself once more that day, he returned to the back of his store for guns and a barrel of ammunition.

Excerpt provided by the author/publisher for use in this post.

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Purchase Links for Thumb Fire Desire

Amazon – OneLink for every country   

Bookshop/IndieBound     Kobo

AppleBooks/iTunes     The Book Depository     Blackwell’s

Waterstones     GoogleBooks    The Wordery

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Guest Post by Carol Nickles

Lipstick

 

My beauty regimen hasn’t changed much in thirty-five years—splash face with water, apply moisturizer, pat on make-up, dust on powder, highlight with blush, finish by lining lips, and smoothing on lipstick. The first five steps are followed once a day before a gold frame mirror between the 6:05 a.m. news and the annoying diatribe of two knucklehead deejays blaring from my teenage daughter’s alarm clock radio. The lip maintenance, however, goes on intermittently all day long.

I have tubes of lipstick in the glove compartment, in a basket on my nightstand, in a bathroom drawer, and in the pockets of every coat and purse. Lipstick is applied in the morning and rerolled before I start work, after eating, when the doorbell rings, while prepping for a meeting, or whenever my lips feel dry.

Buying my first tube of lipstick and rolling the dyed combination of beeswax and castor oil over my lips was as much a rite of passage as anything Margaret Mead recorded Samoan girls doing. By applying lipstick, I am sharing in a universal/historical movement, the act of adorning the body.

In 1982 as part of my faculty load at Michigan State University, I taught a required class titled Survey of World Dress. I began each lecture by showing an entire carousel of slides depicting examples of cultural and historical ideals of beauty. Students winced at the vivid scenes of foot binding, teeth filing, lip stretching, neck lengthening, and flesh scarring. Examples of poufing, tattooing, bustling, girdling, manicuring, and painting were also shown.

“Why?” we pondered, “Does man subject himself to possible health hazards, financial deprivation, and countless hours as a canvas in the name of beauty? The reasons vary a desire for acceptance, to shout one’s voice or to amplify sexual attraction.

Why do I commit to lipstick?

I love color. I love color on my otherwise colorless face. I love hydration. I love hydration on my otherwise dry lips. I love to paint, but I’m not skilled with a brush. Lipstick tubes provide a method of easy painting.

Lipstick has garnered me kisses. Lipstick has denied me kisses.

“Your lips are so sculpted, so lush,” my husband would say adoringly as he planted his lips on mine.

Years ago, in the back seat on a high school double date, my boyfriend leaned in to kiss me as he opened the car door. I fumbled in my coat pocket for my tube of Bonne Belle frosted pink. What I came up with was a hole—an escape hatch for the lipstick.

Kissing would remove the pink on my lips and the grand entrance to the dance. I ducked the kiss and smiled big as I walked into the Port Huron Catholic High School. Beauty intact. Sigh……..

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I love my Amazon Kindle Unlimited Subscription. So many books, so little time!

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Purchase Thumb Fire Desire online from a local bookstore.

Amazon – OneLink for every country   

Thumb Fire DesireShop on Amazon Thumb Fire DesireShop on Amazon

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Giveaway!

Carol Nickles will be awarding a $50 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Visit more stops on this Goddess Fish tour for extra chances to win!

Official Tour Page for Thumb Fire Desire

Full Tour Schedule:

June 27: Hope. Dreams. Life… Love
June 28: Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews
June 29: Romance Novel Giveaways
June 30: Literary Gold
July 1: Fabulous and Brunette

July 11: Joanne Guidoccio
July 12: Maggie Blackbird
July 13: Viviana MacKade
July 14: Archaeolibrarian – I Dig Good Books!
July 15: All the Ups and Downs
July 18: The Key Of Love

July 19: Rogue’s Angels
July 19: Westveil Publishing
July 20: Gina Rae Mitchell
July 21: Words of Wisdom from The Scarf Princess
July 22: Notes From a Romantic’s Heart

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