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New Release Giveaway
It’s release day for A Cantata of Love, book 4 in The Code Breakers series. I’m celebrating with a fun giveaway. There are lots of ways to enter. One lucky winner will receive an e-gift card from Gyft.com, where you can shop from more than 200 retailers.
Add heart-pounding adventure, international intrigue, and sizzling romance to your summer reading list with A Cantata of Love.
Napoleonic France is no place for an Englishman, especially Michael Harcourt, the Earl of Kendal, who is on a clandestine assignment for the Crown. Already injured and facing imminent discovery by Napoleon and Fouche’s men, Michael finds his escape made even more perilous when he is charged with the safety of a young boy who must be spirited out of Paris.
Desperate to escape the terrible fate that awaits her if she remains in France, Lady Gabrielle De Valmont must disguise herself as a boy and rely on the cunning of a virtual stranger—an Englishman, no less—to smuggle her out of the country. When the Earl’s injury becomes severely infected, rendering him gravely ill, Gabrielle realizes it is now up to her to save them both.
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Historical romance giveaway ~ win a Kindle Fire.
To celebrate July 4th, I’ve teamed up with more than 50 fantastic authors to give away a huge selection of historical romance novels, PLUS a Kindle Fire to one lucky winner!You can win books from: Andrea Pickens, Anne Gracie, Barbara Devlin, Brenda Hiatt, Bronwen Evans, Collette Cameron, Cynthia Wright, Deb Marlowe, Donna Fletcher, Donna MacMeans, Edith Layton, Glynnis Campbell, Joan Wolf, Joanna Shupe, Julie Johnstone, Kathryn Le Veque, Lauren Royal, Lauren Smith, Linore Burkard, Lynne Barron, Mary Jo Putney, Meara Platt, Nicola Cornick, Patricia Rice, Selena Kitt, Susana Ellis, Suzan Tisdale, Tammy Andresen, Vanessa Kelly, and more!
The Grand Prize winner receives a Kindle Fire and all participating books. Four runner-ups will receive a selection of participating books.
Summer vacation giveaway
Summer has officially arrived and that means travel, getaways, lazy days by the pool or maybe just kicking back in the air conditioned comfort of your home. Whether traveling by plane, train or automobile, doing a vacation or stay-cation, there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy a good book.
After you enjoy these fun facts about summer, visit me on Facebook and comment for a chance to win a digital copy of The Code Breakers Regency Romantic Suspense Series boxed set. The winner will be announced Friday.
- In the U.S., over 650 million long-distance summer trips are made during summer.
- The top 5 most popular summer vacations are 1) beach/ocean (45%), 2) a famous city (42%), 3) national parks (21%), 4) a lake (17%), and 5) a resort (14%).
- According to the U.S Travel Association, 1.7 billion U.S. residents logged a summer vacation in 2014, adding to the $2.1 trillion of economic output generated by America’s tourism industry.
- One in nine U.S jobs depend on travel and tourism, making it the seventh largest private employment sector.
- $644.9 billion was spent on leisure travel in 2014.
Hiding secret messages in music
Do you know how to read music? If so, take a look at this and tell me if you notice anything unusual about it.
This is known as the BACH motif, which is an example of musical cryptography, a coded system used to create musical note sequences for names or other messages in musical compositions.
I have been intrigued by the idea of using musical scores and passages to encrypt messages for some time and thought it was a great concept for my Code Breakers Regency romantic suspense series. It provided inspiration for my current project, book 4 in the Code Breakers series, CANTATA OF LOVE.
Part of my fascination with this method of ciphering stems from my love of music. I’ve studied both voice and piano–mainly jazz– and I appreciate the mathematical complexity of music. Coding a message into a song’s musical score or the song lyrics requires a great deal of creativity and presented a tremendous challenge as I plotted the story. While researching period opera singers, such as Mrs. Elizabeth Billington, I discovered that operas were written for singers to show off their voices and allowed for improvisation. That would certainly have made it easy for musicians and performers to send coded messages to specific individuals!
Early examples of musical cryptography include Baroque composers who wove their names or the names of significant individuals into musical selections. The application found popularity with those engaging in espionage, due to the difficulty in breaking musical codes. Other examples of musical coding can be found in the songs of American slaves. Negro spirituals provided a means of communication for those who wanted to escape slavery; references to “going home” or “bound for Canaan” didn’t signify death and heaven but heading north to Canada and freedom.
In 2013, International Science Times featured a story that suggested a musical score written by composer Gottfried Federlein contained annotations that secretly documented the location of buried Nazi treasure.
One online website reports a number of “creepy spy radio transmissions” that feature suspected musical clues and/or codes broadcast over shortwave radios. This practice began around the time of WWI and continues today.
A special thank you to my friend and music composer Greg Bartholomew, who shared his expertise with me on this topic. Here is one of his compositions, Baby Blue Roses. When Daisies Pied is an example of a piece of music ladies would have sung during the Regency period.
Are there any songs you believe contain a hidden message?
![JackiDelecki_ACantataofLove_HR[1]](http://jackidelecki.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/JackiDelecki_ACantataofLove_HR1.jpg)
A Cantata of Love, Book 4 in The Code Breakers Regency Romantic Suspense series, releases June 28th. You can pre-order on iBooks.
Napoleonic France is no place for an Englishman, especially Michael Harcourt, the Earl of Kendal, who is on a clandestine assignment for the Crown. Already injured and facing imminent discovery by Napoleon and Fouche’s men, Michael finds his escape made even more perilous when he is charged with the safety of a young boy who must be spirited out of Paris.
Desperate to escape the terrible fate that awaits her if she remains in France, Lady Gabrielle De Valmont must disguise herself as a boy and rely on the cunning of a virtual stranger—an Englishman, no less—to smuggle her out of the country. When the Earl’s injury becomes severely infected, rendering him gravely ill, Gabrielle realizes it is now up to her to save them both.
#iBooksGalore June Giveaway
I’m giving away copies of my books to iBook readers throughout the month of June as part of the #iBooksGalore giveaway. This is a great way to stock up on summer reads if you use an iPod, iPad, iPhone or Mac.
Winners will randomly be announced on Facebook and contacted by email. Winners may select any title from my Grayce Walters series or the Codebreakers Regency romantic suspense series and will receive a code to download the ebook from iBooks.
Search #iBooksGalore on Twitter and Facebook to find other authors participating in this month-long giveaway!
Enter as often as you wish. Good luck!
#amreading #amlistening