RRBC 'Back-to-School' Blog & Book Block Party

Today the MILELE SAFARI BLOG is tickled pink to be one of the first hosting venues for RAVE REVIEWS BOOK CLUB'S 'Back to School' Block Party People!

You are currently somewhere near  LAUNCESTON in NORTH CORNWALL, UK! 

BUT FIRST here are my...

GRRRRR-eat GIVEAWAYS!

(I'm happy to ship outside the UK!)

For SEPTEMBER 1st only I have some 

BRILLIANT PRIZES FOR 4 LUCKY VISITORS...

(Here's some jungley music while you're browsing!)

 LATE ENTRY - BONUS GIVEAWAY! 

Because we had so much fun yesterday, I decided to put in a bonus prize which will give visitors after September 1st a chance to win one of my Giveaways too...

So ~ the first person to answer this question IN ACCURATE DETAIL correctly wins!

 WHAT EXACTLY GIVES THE DISTINCTIVE FLAVOUR OF AMARULA LIQUEUR? 

(for those of you who've got the book - the answer's in there somewhere!)

AND THE LUCKY 1ST OF SEPTEMBER WINNERS WERE...

 1ST PRIZE - goes to BRUCE BORDERS! 

A basic white or black T-shirt from my ZAZZLE shop

with a choice of 3 designs inspired by some of my favourite African National Parks

(email me back with your size: small - 4XL and your snail mail address)

Mosi-oa-Tunya (Victoria Falls)

Etosha & Namib-Naukluft (Namibia)

 2ND PRIZE - goes to NONNIE JULES! 

A signed paperback of Milele Safari

(email me back with your snail mail address and preferred dedication!)

 3RD PRIZE - goes to C.S. BOYACK! 

An eBook edition of Milele Safari

(email me back with your preferred eReader platform (Kindle, Nook, Kobo etc) I will email you the ePub or PDF version)

 4TH PRIZE - goes to S.M. SPENCER! 

An exclusive 2016 printed desk calendar from Vistaprint 

with the same photo stock from my personal collection as used on the Milele Freebies page

(email me back with your snail mail address)

And now a bit more about my first novel and how it came to be...

CLICK COVER TO GO TO AMAZON

Paperback also available at all good online stores, or by ISBN in your local high street

This follows the programme for my first ever Blog Tour (courtesy of 4Wills Publishing) back in June 2015 -

 If you want to skip ahead here's the links to the other Milele Blog Safari destinations 

Zambia | Tanzania | Biafra | Zimbabwe | Uganda | Zyanda | Kenya

The childhood ordeal of tragic Biafran war orphan, Teresa Olatunde, is the fateful catalyst for the savage events at the heart of Milele Safari

Deciding where to start a story is not always clear cut and, because I came at this book with a story plan that was loosely based on The Canterbury Tales, that followed several people's experiences, there's a fair amount of flashbacks and jumping ahead, whilst following along the main timeline of the safari. I hope I succeeded in making sense of the flow in the novel, but when I began to look ahead to marketing issues and found a need for a book blog, I quickly realised that I needed to streamline things more, so people could get a flavour of what goes on, and where, in the story more clearly.

We first meet main character, Sophie Taylor and her safari companions on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls, and the story roughly follows their itinerary from there into Zimbabwe and then Uganda and finally, after it's over, into Tanzania where Sophie starts her new job. A magazine treatment, based on their journey (with the odd deviation when the backstory dictated) gradually presented itself as a useful solution for the blog, as it gave me an opportunity to include some of my own personal background, influences and research information on the countries in which Milele Safari are set, and to including short synopses on each of the Tales that 'happen' in that region.

What's good for my own blog should surely work for a blog tour too! So, this is your personal invitation to join me on a 'blog safari' that tells the true-life inside story behind Milele Safari, through the real and almost real lands depicted in the book...

... the Tales play out through the auspices of several point of view characters and their narratives, some through flashbacks into the past, or through a journal device that joins the various strands of their Tales together.

THE VOICES are...

CLICK ON A COUNTRY ON THE TOP MENU 
TO CONTINUE ON THE MILELE BLOG SAFARI TRAIL!

BOOK LINKS

NOW AVAILABLE in PAPERBACK and KINDLE formats on AMAZON

Barnes & Noble (print only)

Book Trailer

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

Twitter - @JanHawke 

Facebook Author page

LinkedIn  

Author blog - Jan Hawke INKorporated    

 HAD FUN HERE? 

This party is still going on today September 12th - boogie on over to 

4WILLSPUBLISHING AUTHOR SERVICES

and CLICK HERE

FOR OUR PARTY VENUES ALL THROUGH SEPTEMBER

AND FINALLY
as that Sleepy Lion slinks off into the dawn...

 HAKUNA MATATA! 

(check out the utterly brilliant Jimmy Cliff's version of Elton John's classic)