Lonestar Lit Blog Tour: THE GOLD ROSE by Jodi Lea Stewart ***Excerpt & Giveaway***
THE GOLD ROSE
by
Jodi Lea Stewart
Historical Fiction / WWII / Action & Drama / International Mystery
Publisher: Progressive Rising Phoenix Press
Date of Publication: February 21, 2023
Number of Pages: 372 pages
***Scroll down for Giveaway!***
Since the early 1940s, THE GOLD ROSE, a secret rescue agency with Asian origins, has used unique systems to ferret out and save victims in every corner of the world. Charlotte Hunt-Basse has faced dangerous and often deadly challenges in her decade as an agent with the agency, not the least of which was the past rescues of two of her assignments, Pinkie and Babe.
Two-year-old Pinkie is discovered abandoned on a dirt road during a violent storm. She is whisked off to Mexico by oil heir Clint Sutton and his girlfriend, Angelina, as they attempt to escape the lies of Clint's father's second wife. Three years later, Pinkie is stolen away to Argentina by an aging Romani. Pinkie suffers from the malice of her captor but wins the fatherly love of a Buenos Aires circus owner and his fiance. Shortly after landing in the crosshairs of THE GOLD ROSE, Pinkie's life takes two more shocking twists. When the agency locates Pinkie again, Agent Charlotte must throw all caution to the wind to rescue her.
Babe, the child of Texas-based missionaries, is hidden by two Chinese families during the Japanese invasion and ensuing Communist takeover of China. She is forced by the second family to live incognito as a "boy" for several years to save her from soldiers invading China from the North. Martial arts are banned, but the grandfather of the family teaches Babe Yǒng Chūn in deepest secrecy. The civil war escalates, and Babe finds herself on a dangerous quest for survival as she journeys alone through enemy territory toward the faintest hope of rescue.
Shadowy impressions are all I have of my two years of life before my new mama found me on a dirt road in Texas. Whisked away in a pickup truck bound for Mexico, I settled into my life only to be taken to Argentina by an aging Romni hoping to capitalize on my fair looks to feed her coffers. I was tossed about as flotsam in the sea before making it back to America. Let me ask… what is survival of every calamity worth when you are finally saved, but your savior turns out to be worse than all the others? All that I went through before I was ten years old was nothing compared to what came next. — Pinkie
Life was danger and death during the Japanese invasion and ensuing civil war in China. Though my parents left me when I was a young child to go into hiding in 1942, my nature compelled me to see everything through rose-colored glasses. Only after I witnessed firsthand the tragic consequences of hatred and power while hiding behind a píngfēng screen did my attitude change. The brutality of life pushed me into silence, and later, into seeking remedy from people weak in mind or character. The long hours of gut-wrenching, secret practice of the art of YǒngChūnbecame my life. Now… come and get me. I’ll be waiting. — Babe
I limped back to the street shaking with cold and anger. Thank God, and I truly mean that, I saw a blurry neon sign on a building not too far in the distance. If I hadn’t been so livid about what transpired in that alley, I might have worried about making my way down a dark snowy street in a deserted part of town. My exposed toes were deadly cold the whole time, but let me say, my soul was charged and ready for a fight. You just don’t cross me like that. Not anymore. — Charlotte
Jodi Lea Stewart is a fiction author who centers her themes around the triumph of overcoming adversity through grit, humor, and hard-rock tenacity. Born in Texas and growing up in Arizona smelling cedar berries and cow pens on a large cattle ranch wedged between the Navajo Nation and the White Mountain Apache Tribe, most of her friends were Native American and Hispanic, with a few Anglos thrown in for good measure. On the ranch, she climbed petroglyph-etched boulders, sang to chickens, bounced two feet in the air in the backend of pickups wrestling through washed-out terracotta roads, and rode horseback on the winds of her imagination through the arroyos and mountains of the Arizona high country. Later, she left her studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson to move to San Francisco, where she learned about peace, love, and exactly what she didn’t want to do with her life.
Moving back to her native Texas, Jodi graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Business Management, raised three+ children, worked as an electro-mechanical drafter, penned humor columns for a college periodical, wrote regional western articles, and served as managing editor of a Fortune 500 corporate newsletter. Her lifelong friendship with all shades of folks, cowpunchers, southern belles, intellectuals, and "outlaws" propels Jodi into writing comfortably about the Southwest, the South, and far beyond. She currently resides in Arizona with her husband, two wild and crazy Standard poodles, one rescue cat, her fun-loving ninety-plus-year-old mom, a never-be-still-four-year-old tornado, and numerous bossy houseplants.
Such an intriguing Prologue, and now that I've read the tour reviews and more about the book, I get it! Thanks for sharing.
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