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It’s Here… The Waxwood Series Relaunch!

All covers by Essi/100 Covers

Series: Waxwood Series, Book 4

Author: Tam May

Genres: Historical Women’s Fiction/Family Saga

Relaunch Date: November 1, 2021

How many myths and half-truths does it take to destroy a family?

Vivian, the daughter and “Dagger Girl”, whose refusal to leave family secrets untold leads her down a dark path to a better future.

Jake, the son, and heir, whose search for a father figure leads him down the dark path of sin and redemption.

Larissa, the family matriarch, whose obsession with Nob Hill’s rigid social codes hides the shameful secrets of her past.

Come dive into this family saga set during one of America’s Gilded Age today. Book 1 is only 99¢!

Click the following links below to get the full details and all the buy links for each book:

The Specter (Waxwood Series: Book 1): https://tammayauthor.com/books-2/waxwood-series/the-specter-waxwood-series-book-1

False Fathers (Waxwood Series: Book 2): https://tammayauthor.com/books-2/waxwood-series/false-fathers-waxwood-series-book-2

Pathfinding Women (Waxwood Series: Book 3): https://tammayauthor.com/books-2/waxwood-series/pathfinding-women-waxwood-series-book-3

Dandelions (Waxwood Series: Book 4): https://tammayauthor.com/books-2/waxwood-series/dandelionswaxwood-series-book-4

Want to read an excerpt from each book? There’s a group for that! Join Tam’s Dreamers and you’ll get access to extra files, including special excerpts and other goodies. Plus, fun stuff about the history you never knew (like Victorian-era pudding recipes and vintage Halloween stickers!). You can request to join by clicking the button below.

Tam’s Dreamers

About the Author

As soon as Tam May started writing at the age of fourteen, writing became her voice. She writes historical women’s fiction and historical mysteries. She loves to take readers into the nooks and crannies of the past, and she wants to inspire readers with her resilient and autonomous female characters. Most of her fiction is set in and around the San Francisco Bay Area because she fell in love with the city and found her independence and writing voice when she lived there in the 1990s.

Her book Lessons From My Mother’s Life debuted at #1 in its category on Amazon. She’s also published a Gilded age family saga set among San Francisco’s Nob Hill elite titled the Waxwood Series which follows the Alderdices as they discover their place amidst revolutionary changes and shifting values in the last decade of the 19th century.

Tam’s current project is a historical mystery series titled The Paper Chase Mysteries. The series takes place in Northern California at the turn of the 20th century and features amateur sleuth and epistolary expert Adele Gossling, a progressive and independent young woman whose talent for solving crimes comes into direct conflict with her new community apt to prefer the previous era’s angel in the house to the current century’s New Woman.

Tam lives in Texas but calls San Francisco and the Bay Area “home”. When she’s not writing, she’s reading classic literature, watching classic films, cross-stitching, or cooking yummy vegetarian dishes.

Is the life of a Gilded Age debutante all parties and flirtations? Read “The Rose Debutante” to find out! It’s FREE! Plus, you’ll get to know about life in the past and about the resilient women the history books forgot. And how about fun historical facts, great deals on historical fiction books, and a cool monthly freebie thrown in just because? Here’s where you can sign up.

Social Media Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tammayauthor/

Instragram: https://www.instagram.com/tammayauthor/

Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16111197.Tam_May

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Tam-May/e/B01N7BQZ9Y/

BookBub Author Page: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/tam-may

To celebrate the relaunch of the Waxwood Series, I’m doing a big giveaway where you could win a grand prize that includes paperbacks of all four books in the series, swag, and chocolate. And there are a few smaller prizes on offer as well. To enter, click the button below.

Waxwood Series Relaunch Giveaway

Waxwood Series Relaunch Giveaway!!!

🎁Lessons From My Mother’s Life (Updated and Revised Edition) Giveaway!!!🎁

Why I Love (And Write) Women’s Fiction

***This blog post was written in honor of Women’s Fiction Day, designated as June 8 by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.***

If you would ask me what is the genre of the Waxwood Series, I would unhesitatingly say “women’s fiction”. This is in spite of the fact that False Fathers, Book 2 of the series, is actually about a young man’s coming-of-age. The series itself focuses on the journey of one young woman to emotional and intellectual maturity in the last decade of the 19th century. Women’s fiction is always about journeys and all of my fiction, regardless of genre, even my upcoming historical cozy mystery series, the Paper Chase Mysteries, is about women’s journeys.

But is women’s fiction only about the gender of the author?

Different authors define women’s fiction (whether they write it or not) differently. My definition of women’s fiction is fiction where a woman goes through some kind of emotional and psychological journey and transformation, usually the main character or one of the main characters. That transformation doesn’t necessarily have to be a positive one, but one in which she learns something about herself and the world around her. And the book doesn’t have to be written by a woman either. I consider books like Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary women’s fiction, because the woman protagonist of each book goes through her own journey and transformation (however tragic), and we learn something about human nature and women’s lives in the nineteenth century.

This last element is really why I love reading women’s fiction. The genre not just about women written for women and only relevant to women. It’s relevant to all our lives, male or female, or however you identify your gender. They also teach us about how women behave and are treated, and this reflects on the way human nature works in our patriarchal society, then and now. I make no secret of the fact that I don’t read many contemporary books but a few months ago, I picked up a book firmly placed in the contemporary women’s fiction category by K. L. Montgomery titled Fat Girl. Montgomery is a body-positive advocate and her protagonist is a plus-size woman whose trials and tribulations with romance, divorce, and raising a teenage boy speaks to our time with the struggles of single parents and body shaming in our weight-conscious society.

In the Waxwood Series, Vivian’s transformation continues throughout the Waxwood Series and will be completed in Book 4. Her revelations about family, women and social expectations will hopefully speak not only of the paradoxes of the Gilded Age but also our time.

In honor of Women’s Fiction Day, I’m giving away an ebook copy of The Specter! To enter the giveaway, please comment on this blog post and tell me why you love women’s fiction (historical or otherwise). The giveaway will end on Sunday, June 13.

Release Day Blitz for Dandelions!

release day, historical fiction, series, family saga, family drama, women's fiction, Gilded Age, 19th Century, women's history, resilient women, US history

Photo Credit: Couple painting, Dionisios Kalivokas, 1858, canvas and oil, Corfu National Gallery, Greece: File upload bot (Magnus Manske)/Wikimedia Commons/PD Art (PD old 70)

Title: Dandelions

Series: Waxwood Series, Book 4

Author: Tam May

Genres: Historical Women’s Fiction/Family Saga

Release Date: December 20, 2020

She had more in common with her nemesis than she wanted to believe…

For Vivian Alderdice, the 20^th century begins with a new start. Now a working girl and progressive reformer like her friend, Nettie Grace, she has forsaken the Gilded Age opulence of Nob Hill for the humbler surroundings of Waxwood’s commercial district. Rather than whittle away her days with other wealthy young women in gossip, parties, and flirtations, she sells talcum powder and strawberry sodas to customers at Nettie’s Drugstore and helps the poor to read at the Waxwood Women’s Lending Library and Reading Room.

But sometimes the scars of the past leave bitterness behind …

Harland Stevens, the man who ruined her brother’s life two years before, appears like another specter in Vivian’s life and, in spite of herself, Vivian is compelled to help him escape from a hell of his own.

You can get your copy of the book at a special promotional price from your favorite online book retailer here.

Excerpt

As she watched him stroll down the boardwalk, his hands in his pockets, nodding at ladies as he passed but without the leering eye of his college boy days, she felt again the wave of uncertainty engulf her like the sea wind. She was alone now with this large, silent man.

“Since you prefer everyone call you Stevens,” she said, glancing at the redhead, “that’s what I’ll call you from now on.”

Though the redhead did not speak, she saw his lips sway as if he were trying to answer her. She felt a surge of relief as she led him down the boardwalk.

As with the hotels, the place was empty. As it was Saturday, men had come down from their city jobs to spend the weekend with their families. She suddenly feared she might encounter people she had known the previous summers in Waxwood and couldn’t help but wonder what they would think. Would they see her as a little plain in her shirtwaist and gray suit but nonetheless fashionable, and Stevens looking for all the world like the new century’s gentleman with his stiff collar and tie tucked inside his closed vest? Would they guess their eyes were feasting upon a Washington Street blue blood nearly fallen from grace and a once vibrant, commanding man, now a hollow shell of silence and perhaps madness?

About the Author

Tam May started writing when she was fourteen, and writing became her voice. She loves history and wants readers to love it too, so she writes historical fiction that lives and breathes a world of the past. She fell in love with San Francisco and its rich history when she learned about the city’s resilience and rebirth after the 1906 earthquake and fire during a walking tour. She grew up in the United States and earned a B.A. and M.A in English. She worked as an English college instructor (where she managed to interest a class of wary freshmen in Henry James’ fiction) and EFL teacher (where she used literature to teach business professionals English) before she became a full-time writer.

Her book Lessons From My Mother’s Life debuted at #1 on Amazon in the Historical Fiction Short Stories category. She has also published a Gilded age family drama set in Northern California at the close of the 19th century which tells the story of the Alderdices, a family crumbling in the midst of revolutionary changes and shifting values in America’s Gilded Age. Her current project delves into the historical mystery fiction genre. The Paper Chase Mysteries is set in Northern California at the turn of the 20^th century and features amateur sleuth and epistolary expert Adele Gossling, a young, progressive, and independent young woman whose talent for solving crimes comes into direct conflict with her new community, where people are apt to prefer the Victorian women of old over the New Woman of the new century.

Social Media Links

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tammayauthor/

Facebook Readers Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/tamsdreamersRG/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tammayauthor

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/tammayauthor/

Instragram: https://www.instagram.com/tammayauthor/

Goodreads Author Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16111197.Tam_May

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Tam-May/e/B01N7BQZ9Y/

BookBub Author Page: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/tam-may