Spotlight & Author Guest Post | Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad by Edward Parr

“A vivid and immersive saga that blends the spirit of old-world adventure with the depth of historical truth, TAMANRASSET invites readers to walk the shifting sands of fate.”

Welcome to my stop on the Goddess Fish Promotions tour for Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad by Edward Parr. Set on the edge of the Sahara as empires fade and cultures clash, this sweeping historical novel follows four strangers—a Foreign Legionnaire, a Sharif’s son, an American archaeologist, and a Swedish widow—whose intersecting lives reveal the fragile threads that connect humanity across war, faith, and fate. Parr blends the immersive detail of a historian with the heart of a storyteller, capturing the vast beauty and brutal truth of a world on the brink of transformation.

🔻 Keep scrolling to enter the giveaway! 🔻

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📝 All About the Book

Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad
By Edward Parr
Published by Edwardian Press on October 2025
Genres: Historical Fiction
Formats: eBook, Hardcover
Pages: 531

Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad is a historical novel set in North Africa at the start of the twentieth century, inspired by the French Foreign Legion and Sahara adventure stories of the era.

The novel follows four figures: Sergeant Jacques Demoreau, a career soldier in the French Foreign Legion; Isabel Pedersen, a young Swedish widow in Fez; Ahmad ibn Mostepha al-Haybah, son of a tribal leader; and Renwick Francis Villere, an American archaeologist.

The Prologue depicts a traveler arriving in Algeria and moving southward, culminating in a first encounter with the immensity of the Sahara.

Chapter I traces Demoreau’s Legionnaires from their station in Igli through desert marches and clashes with Doui-Menia tribes led by Ahmad’s father.

Chapter II follows Isabel in Fez, where her domestic life, religious instruction, and struggle to integrate in the community are upended by murder.

Chapter III presents the siege of Taghit from both the French garrison and the tribal coalition, bringing Ahmad and Demoreau each to a moment of crisis.

Chapter IV follows Villere’s expedition into the Sahara, balancing scientific aims with the hazards of travel through unknown and contested regions.

Chapter V shifts to Casablanca as the French bombard the city as Morocco seeks to retain its soul.

The Epilogue looks forward, disclosing the ultimate fates of the protagonists.

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📜 A Specially Chosen Excerpt For You

Step into Edward Parr’s vividly imagined Sahara, where a Swedish widow named Isabel walks among ancient ruins and shifting allegiances. The following excerpt captures the sensory richness and quiet tension that define Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad.

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The Sun had not yet risen above the ruins of the Mechouar Palace, but at the mosque nearby many Muslim people of the city of Tlemcen were already at their morning prayer. It was a great privilege to be admitted to one of the oldest mosques in Algeria, over eight hundred years old, and an even greater privilege to be allowed to pray before the mihrab there among the great white columns that lined the enormous hall.

As the prayers ended, there was a gentle rustling of movement as the faithful rose and exited to the open and airy marble-tiled courtyard of the mosque, still quiet in the twilight of dawn. Isabel retrieved her leather boots and exited a side door beneath the shadow of the towering brick minaret. Covered by her tightly drawn dark brown burnouse, khaki pants, white shirt, and a black hijab, Isabel walked along the great stone wall to the main gate of the palace.

The few buildings in the complex that were still usable had been made into offices for the French army, but the pool and gardens of the central courtyard were peaceful and shadowy. She passed an alcove that featured Islamic calligraphy carved into the stucco, and Isabel stopped to read it: “Allah is God, there is no god but He: the King.”

A quiet voice behind her asked: “Madame Pedersen?”

She turned to find a short, elegantly dressed French officer approaching her. His flat-topped white hair was soldierly, but his crisp, tailored uniform, polished boots, and wide waxed mustache displayed a carefully composed appearance.

“Peace be with you,” she said, casting her eyes downward and crossing her arm over her chest as she nodded.

“Peace be with you, Madame. I apologize if I disturbed you; will you come inside?”

“As you wish.”

She followed the French colonel to a charming wood-paneled room overlooking an orchard of citrus trees bearing large green fruit. The colonel sat on a bare wood chair beside a wide wooden table, crossed his legs, and twirled the end of his wide mustache. Isabel stood silently before him in a respectful posture.

“I have the greatest respect for your beliefs, my dear, but it would be helpful to me if you would sit and speak to me informally. Would you be so kind?”

“Of course,” she said and she sat on the chair beside his. Her demeanor now expressed more of her experience and self-assurance, her hijab more a symbol of her confidence than of her humility. The colonel raised an eyebrow in appreciation of her serene face and brilliant blue eyes.

© 2025 by Edward Parr and Edwardian Press (New Orleans, Louisiana)

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📚 Where to Find Tamanrasset

Available on Amazon

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🛒 KINDLE  |  HARDCOVER

If the above links don’t direct you to your country’s Amazon page, please feel free to contact me—I’m happy to provide the correct link.

Using my Amazon affiliate links doesn’t change the price you pay. Amazon shares a small commission with me, which helps keep this blog running—thank you!

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Do you prefer to shop locally?
🛍️ You can also purchase Edward Parr books from your favorite indie bookstore online.

Bookshop.org is an excellent option that supports indie authors—and book bloggers like me—while avoiding the big-box route.

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Also available at:
📘 Barnes & Noble

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More works from Edward Parr

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🖋️ Guest Post by Edward Parr

Edward Parr’s approach to historical fiction is both reverent and refreshingly authentic. In Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad, he revives the lost world of the early 1900s Sahara through richly detailed settings and deeply human characters. In today’s guest post, Edward reflects on what drives him to write, the challenges of creating historically faithful fiction, and why Tamanrasset is more than just an adventure—it’s a story about identity, resilience, and finding meaning at the edge of the world.

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Who am I, and why should you care?

If you’ve never heard of me, why should you read my new novel Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad? It’s a fair question: We live in an era when the marketplace is absolutely flooded with writing. Some of it is certainly a bit messy and some of it was written by machines, but there’s also independently published work out there which is absolutely terrific (but will still go utterly noticed by the editors at the New York Times). So would you like my novel? Just give me a second to tell you about it, and you decide:

It’s Historical Fiction inspired by the French Foreign Legion adventure stories written in the past. I try to make a time and place come alive with a lot of period-accurate details (you might even say that I’m part documentarian), and my approach is what I like to call “boots on the ground,” a military cliche meaning to deploy combat troops into a country.

I mean it to convey the idea that the characters I’ve invented are “deployed” into a real situation, where the things that happened in the past are actually happening to them in the story so that we as readers can get a sense of what it was like to be there and understand how the events unfolded and why decisions were made. I definitely lean more towards authenticity and accuracy rather than romantic abstraction.

My prose is heavily descriptive with attention to sensory detail: sounds and smells in the marketplace, shapes and colors of architecture, details of the uniforms of the soldiers. I favor concrete imagery that grounds the narrative in lived experience. In this case, Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad tells a story that spans an eight-year period in Morocco and Algiers, roughly 1900 to 1908, at a time when France as the established colonial power in Algeria began to move into Morocco and Westernize a culture that had dominated the region for a centuries.

I also sought to capture some of the fun of the classic pulp fiction stories of the French Foreign Legion but with the benefit of what we know now about what would happen there, treating all the characters and their beliefs with respect, and based on the actual events that occurred.

It’s a story written from Multiple Points Of View. There are four main characters whose lives become entwined: A mature Foreign Legionnaire who has made his home in the harsh life of France’s desert fortresses; the young Arab son of the Sharif that leads the tribes in the western Sahara fighting to protect their families; an ambitious American archeologist in charge of the excavations at Carthage; and a young Swedish widow in Fez who adopts Islam in order to earn a place there.

Each of them suffers a crisis which isolates them from their community – death, murder, betrayal, the struggle with one’s weaknesses – and it is only through the chance intersection of their lives that they become bound to each other and come to influence a world that stands on the brink of vanishing.

It's meant to be a Pleasure to Read. I’m not trying to write the great American novel. To the contrary, both the diction and lexicon I use when writing, as well as the story forms, formats, and motifs, intentionally adopt an older, Edwardian or late-Victorian cadence, echoing period travelogues and adventure novels. I write books I’d like to read for pleasure, and I believe you will enjoy reading them too.

Tamanrasset is a novel about loss and alienation and the fragile, often transitory bonds that tie people together; it’s about a nearly barren world of ancient mysteries that is now gone forever. But it is a story that I hope will also leave you asking questions and seeing the world in a new way. Anyway, I hope you’ll give it a try, and please know that your support is wildly appreciated!

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👤 Meet the Author: Edward Parr

Edward (“Ted”) Parr studied playwriting at New York University in the 1980s and began his creative career in Off-Off-Broadway theater, collaborating with innovative artists such as Robert Wilson, Anne Bogart, and the Bread and Puppet Theater. His original plays include Trask, Mythographia, Jason and Medea, Rising, and a translation of Oedipus Rex.

After transitioning into a long career in law and public service, Parr returned to storytelling with his award-winning Kingdoms Fall trilogy, a World War I espionage adventure series recognized by Literary Classics for both Best First Novel and Best Historical Fiction.

His fiction explores historical turning points through the lens of human endurance and transformation, often inspired by classic genres such as pulp adventure and early espionage tales. Drawing influence from literary greats like Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Georges Surdez, and Patrick O’Brien, Parr blends meticulous research with an eye for emotional depth and authenticity.

Find Edward Parr online:
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Amazon | Goodreads | LinkedIn | Reddit

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🌍 Closing Notes

Thank you for stopping by my spotlight and guest post for Tamanrasset: Crossroads of the Nomad by Edward Parr, part of the Goddess Fish Promotions tour. This richly layered novel blends adventure, history, and humanity in a landscape where civilizations collide and destinies intertwine.

Don’t forget to enter the $25 Amazon/Barnes & Noble gift card giveaway through the link below!

Good luck, and happy reading! 💛

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🎁 Giveaway!

Enter below for your chance to win a $25 Amazon/BN.com gift card—courtesy of the author.

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