Blog Tour | Review : The Assassin (Mortal Beloved #2) by Pamela DuMond





Author: Pamela DuMond
24180925Publisher: Pamela DuMond
Publication Date: July 5th 2015
Source: ebook (Xpresso Book Tours)
Rate:



Summary:

"I was a Messenger: I kept the memory of all our encounters, our lives, like a locket that brushes the skin and bones covering my heart. But Samuel was a Healer: he didn't time travel. His kind lived, died, re-incarnated, and he didn't retain memories from his past lives. Every year I landed in required starting our relationship over: from ashes, from scrap...
Every place I journeyed had beauty as well as darkness; all my time-travels were bittersweet." Madeline.
Madeline’s a Messenger: time traveling across lifetimes and delivering messages that could change one life or many. When she discovers that her true love, Samuel, is alive in present day, but doesn’t remember her from their past, she journeys to a deadly royal conflict in medieval Portugal hoping to rekindle his memory. Mortal assassins as well as dark-souled time travelers seek to kill her. Will Madeline and Samuel be together again in life—or only in death?  - Goodreads

THE SEEKER (Mortal Beloved, Book Three) publishes Winter 2015/2016.


Trailer:


Review:
Madeline is a Messenger... She can tear through the barriers of time and space and travel to different times and spaces to deliver messages that change the lives of others.
In every lifetime she experiences she always meets a reincarnation of Samuel, a Healer and her one true love, but he never recognizes her... now that she knows that there's a "Samuel" in her own lifetime she's going to do everything in her power so he remembers her.
Madeline journeys to medieval Portugal in order to rekindle his memory and she gets involved in a real life "Romeo and Juliet" kind of situation. She has to deliver her message and try to make him remember her.
I have to start by stating that, for me, this is one of the top books of this year, not only because it talks about one of my country's greatest love stories but also because the author was able to channel the full potential of all the time periods she wrote about.
The first book already had very deep characters and this one did not let me down in that department mainly in what has to do with Samuel, his incarnations and his personality as well as Madeline's reactions to all that.
Beyond the historical facts and locations, the villains and the "saints" are well balanced, you get a feeling that good and evil exist and that threats exist, just like in any quotidian situation what puts the emotional setting of the story in the right place. It doesn't elevate the story to a dreamy fairy tale, too light and fluffy, but instead keeping it at an amazing adventurous tale with romance and struggle.
This is a perfect book to read this Fall while you hear the rain outside and feel the air getting colder try to snuggle with a hot drink in one hand and this book in the other, it will amaze you.
I advise this book to all literature lovers what means that if you like to read you qualify!

Giveaway:
a Rafflecopter giveaway



The Author:
Pamela DuMond
Pamela DuMond is the author who discovered Erin Brockovich’s life story, thought it would make a great movie and pitched it to ‘Hollywood. She’s addicted to TV shows — The Voice and Reign. The movies Love Actually and The Bourne trilogy (with Matt Damon — not that other actor guy,) make her cry ever time she watches them. (Like — a thousand.) When she’s not writing Pamela’s also a chiropractor and cat wrangler. She loves reading, the beach, working out, movies, TV, animals, her family and friends. She lives in Venice, California with her fur-babies. She likes her coffee strong, her cabernet hearty, her chocolate dark, her foods non-GMO and she lives for a good giggle.She writes romantic comedic mysteries, romantic YA time travel and New Adult romance. Her book The Story of You and Me was a Quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakout Novel Award (ABNA) 2014 in Romance. Cupcakes, Pies, and Hot Guys was a Quarterfinalist in ABNA 2013 in Mystery .

Check this out while you're reading:
As you all know I'm Portuguese or, as I say it, Portuguesa so I decided to left here in the end some pictures with explanations that you can check while reading so you feel more situated in the story, since I know most of you don't know anything about my lovely and beautiful country and this story that's featured in this book.
Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha, Coimbra, Portugal
Quinta das Lágrimas, Coimbra, Portugal
The couple, Inês and Pedro, lived in an estate near the monastery, now known as Quinta das Lágrimas, Farm of Tears, because of all the actions that you'll read about.
Fonte das Lágrimas (Fountain of Tears), Quinta das Lágrimas, Coimbra, Portugal
This is the place where the legends state that Inês de Castro was assassinated and her blood spilt to the fountain. It's said that the rocks remain red, stained with the blood of the bela galega and will remain that way forever.

A Súplica de Inês de Castro (The Plea of Inês de Castro) by Columbano
A depiction of Pedro and Inês
Tomb: Inês de Castro

Tomb: D. Pedro I de Portugal
The lovers' tombs remain turned to each other on the Mosteiro de Alcobaça to this day because king D. Pedro said that he wanted his tomb to be in front his love's tomb so when they awaken on the Judgement Day the first thing they see is each other.
Here's the whole story: (copied from www.quintadaslagrimas.pt )
The story of Inês de Castro (1325-1355) and King of Portugal D. Pedro I (1320-1367) is one of the most haunting in European history. Pedro met Inês in 1340 when she was a lady in waiting to Pedro’s new bride. Pedro, heir to the throne, fell in love with Inês – ignoring his new wife for the caress of the beautiful Inês. This caused concern in the court, since Inês came from a powerful Castilian family. Pedro’s father, King D. Afonso IV, ran out of patience when Pedro’s wife died in 1349, and Pedro took Inês as his common law wife. The king ordered that Inês be murdered. Three assassins beheaded her in the secluded gardens in Coimbra. In deep grief, Pedro turned on his father and launched Portugal into civil war. King Afonso soon died of a broken heart and in 1387 Pedro became the eighth king of Portugal. He declared that Inês was the queen of Portugal, though she had been dead for two years. Pedro ordered her body exhumed and had her coroneted at the great abbey at Alcobaça, where the royal court kissed her hand and swore their allegiance to her as queen. Pedro hunted down two of the men who had killed Inês and killed them with his own hands. The third, upon hearing what had befallen the others, dropped dead. The tale of Inês and Pedro is immortalized in verse and theater in many languages, in fact almost two dozen operas have been written about it. Come, discover for yourself! The scene of the Inês murder is now a hotel -- the Quinta das Lágrimas in Coimbra, and the great Abby of Alcobaça is a national monument where the tombs of the two lovers lay foot-to-foot, as Pedro had ordered. His theory? On the day of redemption, the first thing they will see after rising from the grave will be each other.

7 comments

  1. Great review, Ana! This sounds like a great read and very atmospheric, too! Glad you liked it!

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  2. Ana - I loved your review and I LOVED that you included so much of the historical story and the pictures! Now I'm dying to visit again! Thank you!

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    1. Thank you so very much! I just love this part of my country's history, my dad grew up in Coimbra and my family still lives there so it always was a story close to my heart, beyond that it marked my country so deeple that it inspired not only Columbano but also Luis de Camões and many artists of our day.
      I hope you visit again :) our country loves to receive people. If you ever do come back tell me and I'll give you some visit pointers to the most amazing places.
      Thank you for writing this amazing series! I'm already waiting for the next book!
      Love, Ana

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  3. This is the first time I have read the origins of the story, thank you. I adored The Messenger!

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    1. It is a great book :) if you have any doubts about the story or anything that has to do with Portugal feel free to ask.
      Love, Ana

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