Book Review: Danube Waves

Danube Waves

By:  Katharina Bordet

Publish Date:  February 12, 2016

Format:  eARC

Genre:  Fantasy

Series:  2nd in A Wiener Blut novel series; 1st Book ~ The Coffee Legacy
Short stories in the world: The Princess and the Coffee Bean

First Impression:  Delicious fairy tale weaved into the real world.

Synopsis:
The portals between worlds have been shut down, leaving king-to-be Maximilian Schindler-Krug trapped in our world in the form of a goat. An impending revolution, a murderer on the loose, recurring nightmares and a mad scientist stand between him and the throne. It’s going to take more than a talking swan, a fainting goat and copious amounts of coffee and cake to save the day.

Ten years since the murder of his mother, Maximilian Schindler-Krug is having increasingly vivid dreams about the night that changed his life forever, but that is the least of his problems. His coronation as King of Neu Meidling is approaching fast, but revolution across the kingdom threatens his family, while the closing of portals between the worlds has split up others.

Karin’s peaceful life at the Alt Wien is turned upside-down when her daughter brings home a wounded swan, which leads her to discover a lost family secret that will change her life forever. Her own husband’s place in events could rip their relationship apart.
Lily, a trainee Beschützer finds herself trapped in another world, torn between her duty to protect the royal Wächter line and coffee trade and her love for her future king. When she meets a man and his goat who provide unexpected solutions, she has to make a choice that could topple the monarchy, assuming she can get the young king back home alive.

“Danube Waves” takes us back to the linked worlds of the Wiener Blut universe first introduced in “The Coffee Legacy”, revisiting beloved characters and introducing new ones, not to mention tickling the tastebuds with a range of traditional Austrian cakes.

First Sentence:
"Tea? Are you serious? Why on earth would I want tea with a piece of cake?" the old man asked angrily.

Purchase At:
Amazon  /  Barnes & Nobles - eBook & Print  /  Book Depository 

My Thoughts and Summary:
The city of Unterbrucken has been cut off from Wien for so many years that the rations are slowly emptying from the castle stores. Lord Bluewater was the only person to successfully cross the line from Wien to Unterbrucken, and in doing so has affected all.

Max is dreaming again, of his wedding then drifts to a reoccurring nightmare. The king, Max's grand father, has passed on. The man who helped raise Max and Sebastian the last ten years. Max is now King, as he was trained for.

This book is so cool to look back on as it has several layers. The deaths in Coffee Legacy, that appeared to be solved, are so much more than they appeared at first sight. A revolution threatens in New Meidling. A new world is discovered, and a crazy scientist wants to prove it all to the world. A family reunited, and a love grows deeper. And goats!

Ten years after the Coffee Legacy we pickup with the worlds coming to a high in many ways. We get three different worlds in the book - Wien, Unterbrucken, and Neu Meidling. The name of the book, Danube Waves, comes from a cake and the river in the area. The river has a very important part to play in the story. We get a legend of the Danube, the Land of the River that lives deep below the surface, and the King's daughter.

We see Karin and Andreas again, and their daughter. Christina is mesmerized with the tale her mother tells her of a tale of a fisherman and his son and the people of the river. Karin and Andreas' lives are impacted from both sides, in connections and actions. We see the Krugs again. Max is to be king, and needs a few days away with his girlfriend before the weight of the world is placed on his shoulders. The events that follow get both of them thinking. Max is also facing his nightmares of a time he'd like to not see, but there is something that strikes him as not right in the visions from the past.

Their are many family secrets that come to surface in this story, and each have a different agenda. Times of change are here, but what are those changes?

Cakes are the connection in this book. We get a cake and it's description at the beginning of each chapter, then in the chapter the cake is mentioned. We have a few bakers in the worlds here. And they all sound so delicious!

A wonderful read to get submersed in the story and worlds created. A great pleasure to read. The book is a clean read. I would say older teens could read this story, and Coffee Legacy, as the language is mild and the story is not heavy romance.

Katharina is a talented author. I'm mesmerized by her amazing skillfulness at weaving a fairy tale of her own making that blends into the real world. I always love getting lost in her worlds.

Cover Reveal: Danube Waves

Oooh, I'm starving to share this delicious cover with you. Okay, food temptation to much? Well when you get to dive into this book you'll understand why. The first book was full of coffee recipes at each chapter to start out the amazing story. This book is full of cakes and delectable deserts. Mmm.

I so enjoyed being submersed in this world in the first book of Wiener Blut series, The Coffee Legacy. I felt like I was living in a fairy tale with the world weaved here and the two tales I got, as they collided together. (Curious? Good. Here's the link to my review for you to check out as well.)

I'm thrilled to say we have a cover and a release time frame for the second book!

Danube Waves

Wiener Blut #2

By:  Katharina Bordet

Due Out:  Spring 2015

Description:

The portals between worlds have been shut down, leaving king-to-be Maximilian Schindler-Krug trapped in our world in the form of a goat. An impending revolution, a murderer on the loose, recurring nightmares and a mad scientist stand between him and the throne. It’s going to take more than a talking swan, a fainting goat and copious amounts of coffee and cake to save the day.

Ten years since the murder of his mother, Maximilian Schindler-Krug is having increasingly vivid dreams about the night that changed his life forever, but that is the least of his problems. His coronation as King of Neu Meidling is approaching fast, but revolution across the kingdom threatens his family, while the closing of portals between the worlds has split up others.

Karin’s peaceful life at the Alt Wien is turned upside-down when her daughter brings home a wounded swan, which leads her to discover a lost family secret that will change her life forever. Her own husband’s place in events could rip their relationship apart.

Lily, a trainee Beschützer finds herself trapped in another world, torn between her duty to protect the royal Wächter line and coffee trade and her love for her future king. When she meets a man and his goat who provide unexpected solutions, she has to make a choice that could topple the monarchy, assuming she can get the young king back home alive.

“Danube Waves” takes us back to the linked worlds of the Wiener Blut universe first introduced in “The Coffee Legacy”, revisiting beloved characters and introducing new ones, not to mention tickling the tastebuds with a range of traditional Austrian cakes.

Oh my! I really can't wait to get back into the world with the magical creation Katharina has here. That cake looks delicious! And the knife! Oh there is trouble brewing. I'm curious to see how Maximilian has grown up too.

Follow Katharina Twitter or her site and you'll get the details on when the book will be available.

About Katharina:
Katharina Bordet lives in Vienna (Wien), Austria with her husband. She works as a lawyer and is currently working towards her doctorate, yet still manages to find time for writing fiction, taking photographs and recording podcasts. These interests all come together in the regular podcast "Every Photo Tells..." where her photographs inspire short stories by herself and many other writers, with well over 100 episodes produced to date. When it came time to record a podcast version of The Coffee Legacy (aka. Wiener Blut 1), her standing within the podcast community resulted in a who's who of audio fiction appearing in roles within the full cast audio production.

Besides writing fiction, Katharina also published some non-fiction with her husband Mick. They wrote a Christmas market guide book full of photos, reviews and tips in English and German, titled "Christmas Markets in Vienna" — "Weihnachtsmärkte in Wien". It is available at Amazon, the iBooks Store and other eBook seller.

Find Katharina:
You can find her website at:
http://www.maimer.net
http://wiener-blut.com/
Twitter: @KMLaw, The Coffee Legacy: @Wiener__Blut

Every Photo Tells... Podcast
http://www.everyphototells.com


Purchase The Coffee Legacy and be ready for release of Danube Waves:
Amazon  /  Barnes & Nobles

Or listen to The Coffee Legacy for free in entirety at:
Podiobooks  /  iTunes

Fantasy tale of the Coffee Legacy GIVEAWAY!

This is the last post for the Blog Birthday Celebrations. I'm sad to see it come to an end. But there are many amazing posts and giveaways to look at and enter for. This is one of them.

One of my favorite fantasy reads this year was The Coffee Legacy by Katharina Bordet. I love the story she created around the coffee legend and the world she created. There is a murder, a mystery, troubles, and more in this magical tale.

Do you have to like coffee to enjoy the book? Oh heavens no. But if you do enjoy coffee, there are recipes for many different kinds here for you to try.

Giveaway Time!

Katharina has graciously offered One (1) ebook for a giveaway!

The Coffee Legacy

Description:

An old café, an even older legend and a new threat.

When Isabelle's secret past returns to haunt her nightmares, she must take action to protect her family from a threat that is closer than she realises.

Set within the traditional Viennese café culture, The Coffee Legacy is the story of café owner Isabelle Schindler-Krug and her role in a struggle for power that stretches back for centuries.

As she tells her sons the legends behind coffee and Vienna, it becomes clear that one such legend is still in the making, with her own family caught right in the middle.

Follow the easy selections in the Rafflecopter to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mythical Monday (55)

It seems there are many books based on or influenced by Myths and Mythological Beings.

There are so many different Mythology and Mythological Beings recorded. Some are very popular and well known, others not so much. There are many similar beings, yet different depending on the culture it’s based in.  The definition of Myth covers about anything in the Urban Fantasy/Fantasy realm to me.

I’ve invited authors to share briefly the Mythological being or Myth that influenced their character(s) or story, or what their character(s) are based on influencing their books.  Hosting here, one author and being or myth per week.

This week we have:

Author Katharina Bordet

Talking of The Coffee Legacy.

A key part of visiting Vienna (or Wien as it is called in German and in my book, The Coffee Legacy) is going to a café to savour some of the decadent Viennese coffees and cakes. Naturally, when my husband-to-be, Mick, first came to visit me here, we went to many cafés and – due to our love of writing and coffee – we ended up spending much time in them with our laptops, feverishly writing away on story after story. Some time in fall it became time to plan for NaNoWriMo. I knew I wanted to write a book set in my hometown of Vienna, but not much more than that. It was during one of those times, as we sat in the café and I was reading through the menu, that I came across an old legend, printed on the inside.

The story differs in some details, but the gist remains the same. Once upon a time, there was a goatherd, watching his goats on the field. Suddenly he noticed that the goats started behaving strangely. They started to run around like crazy – despite the heat – and were basically, what we’d call nowadays “hyper”. He worked out that the goats had been eating berries from a shrub, so he tried them too. Soon he, too, was on a caffeine high. According to the story, that’s how coffee was discovered.

This legend got me thinking. I remembered the stories I knew of how coffee came to Vienna, about the Turkish siege of the city when they left beans behind and a famous man... Naturally, many of those legends were mere distant memories, but they had sparked an idea. With the menu in hand – one that sported many different coffee variations with interesting names – I knew that the book would grow out of the idea of legends. So my research began.

Vienna has been the source of many legends – inspired by coffee, by the Danube, by wars and plagues, and much, much more. I was still reading up on legends and fairy tales when NaNoWriMo came around. I knew my book was going to be about Vienna, coffee and legends. A mere month later – The Coffee Legacy and the world of Wiener Blut were born.

Visit Katharina's site for delicious recipes.

The story starts off with two women running a café and one of them - Isabelle - tells her son bedtime stories in the evening. Bedtime stories that are old legends, sometimes slightly changed, some close to the original and some invented ones. So the legends became part of the story as just those — legends — at first. Then Isabelle's aunt gets murdered and her family find themselves in the middle of a story that is much more than just a legend. I took the old tales, wove them in, developed from them and then went back and looked for more stories. Some got put aside, some became part of the book. In the end, I had entwined the city and its places with the coffees and the legends revolving around them into my story.

When I put the proverbial pen down, I knew this would not be the end of the story of the people in Neu Meidling and Vienna. There were so many more legends to use and weave into my story. Some became short stories in the world of Wiener Blut, and some were set aside for what was to become Danube Waves. Much like coffee, the river is the life blood of the city and it had shaped its history due to its strength. Only in the last century was the Danube tamed into the course where it currently flows and people living near it still fear its floods today.

Hundreds of years ago, when the legends around the Danube were written, people attributed the moody river more to whatever must be living within, or who must be living within, rather than any natural phenomenon. At this point, I knew the world of Wiener Blut had just grown.

Whilst I was writing Danube Waves, I was still researching legends, stories and this time also real history. So many of the old Austrian legends were rooted in historical events that I could not simply ignore them. The funny thing was, it worked even better than I had expected. Even though some of the research was done “on the go”, the legends felt as though they fitted the overall picture and even more, they sparked new ideas and surprised me at the same time.

I could not write about Vienna and ignore the legends. Even though my book is fantasy, it is also set in modern-day Vienna. None of this makes the legends worth less – on the contrary – every Viennese person can tell you a legend or two about the city. When history is so much part of the everyday life of a 21st century city, legends never quite leave you, and people might even be heard discussing details of which version of the legend might be the “proper” one.


Author Bio:
Born and bred Austrian, Katharina Bordet lives in Vienna with the Scot of her dreams. She’s a trained lawyer, passionate podcaster, all-round geek, writer and photographer.

As well as the 'Wiener Blut' series of novels and short stories (www.wiener-blut.com), she co-hosts and writes for the 'Every Photo Tells...' short story podcast (www.everyphototells.com) which features tales from many different authors around the world.

A keen photographer and amateur chef, Katharina regularly blogs about recipes, photo tours around Europe, Vienna's famous Christmas markets and similar topics at her own website (www.maimer.net).

Purchase At:


Short Stories in the Wiener Blut world:
       

Audio Book Review: The Coffee Legacy

The Coffee Legacy

By:  Katharina Bordet

Publisher:  Katharina Bordet

Publish Date:  March 30, 2013

Format:  PodioBooks

Series:  1st of A Wiener Blut series.

Recommendation:  Who would have thought coffee coming to Vienna could be so exciting!? I adored this tale of a legend and legacy blended with love, lies, and death. It's like a fairy tale.

Book Synopsis:
An old café, an even older legend and a new threat.

When Isabelle's secret past returns to haunt her nightmares, she must take action to protect her family from a threat that is closer than she realises.

Set within the traditional Viennese café culture, The Coffee Legacy is the story of café owner Isabelle Schindler-Krug and her role in a struggle for power that stretches back for centuries.

As she tells her sons the legends behind coffee and Vienna, it becomes clear that one such legend is still in the making, with her own family caught right in the middle.

First Sentence:
"Coffee?"
The first word out of Isabelle's mouth in the morning was usually the most important one.

Purchase At:
Amazon  /  Barnes & Nobles

Listen At:
Podiobooks  /  iTunes

****I listened to this story for my own enjoyment.

My Thoughts and Summary:
Isabelle loves the legends and history of the city, Vienna, where her coffee cafe has been since before she inherited it from her Aunt Maria. Her family legacy is tied to the history found with coffee history of Vienna. Aunt Maria is murdered and there is no clue to who did it or why. Isabelle starts having terrible nightmares of a funeral, death, and a sick frail man. Even of her Aunt and others in a world far from Vienna. Isabelle is also worried over her distancing relationship with her husband. Their lives become more intertwined then Isabelle could have ever imagined, learning of secrets she never knew.

Who would have thought coffee coming to Vienna could be so exciting!? I adored this tale of a legend and legacy blended with love, lies, and death. It's like a fairy tale. There's a secret land where when the Wachter reach an age they come to our world and teach us about coffee. All sorts of mixes of coffees.

This story is set in a way we get several stories that interlace. The author, Katharina, starts off introducing the characters to us and their current life's. Then in chapter two, things get complicated. The story of Isabelle and her personal life, Maria's death, Karin's (Isabelle's best friend and manager at her coffee cafe) personal life, Dominik's life, and legends of a kingdom not known to normal man. It might sound as it's complicated, but it's far from it! Katharina has weaved a tale of legend and legacy into one and so thrilling to watch all open together, blending as smoothly as cream and coffee. Isabelle's dreams made me curious and they grow with her legends she tells her sons. The tale is told in our world, but we do end up in the secret world as well.

I love the chapter titles. Each is the name of a specialty coffee. We are given the origin of each specialty coffee with it's recipe as well. Mmm, makes me want to try them all as they sound divine.

The characters unfolded as the story unfolds with them. The plot and characters coming around together, in sync with each other. The plot grows more as we get to know Isabelle and her past, along with the legends of coffee. All is connected, and explained with grace.

I listened to this story through Podiobooks and the voice talents showcased in this story are magnificent. There is a voice for each character and the acting talent in each come across beautifully. Katharina tells the story, and is the voice for Isabelle, and her accent makes listening to this tale all the more authentic to the feel of the legends.

I love the fairy tale feel of coffee here in the German legend. The secret world of Beschutzer - guardians and protectors - and Wachter - keepers and custodians - of coffee making. The magic of coffee. I just adore this story!

There are spin-offs and plans for more books in this world. I do look forward to them!

Coffee lovers. Legend lovers. Mystery lovers. I would love to bring this story to your attention. One with a touch of magic to intrigue and strengthen the desire for coffee as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Princess on the Coffee Bean

By:  Katharina Bordet

Publisher:  Katharina Bordet

Publish Date:  December 9, 2013

Format:  Podcast, a short 8 mins 37 secs

Series:  Set in A Wiener Blut world.

Recommendation:  It's so quick and a lovely tale. Yes, listen to it.

Book Synopsis:
In a land revolving around coffee, a young prince is looking for a genuine princess.

First Sentence:
Once upon a time in a land where rumor had it coffee ran in the rivers, there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess.

Listen At:
Every Photo Tells...

****I listened to this story for my own enjoyment.

My Thoughts and Summary:
A prince can't seem to find the right princess for him, each seems off to him. He has searched the land, but one rainy night a young woman knocks on the door. She has come looking for the prince. The Queen wanted to make sure the princess was worthy of her son and the Queen puts her to an unknown test.

I don't want to say to much as it is a quick listen, but well worth the mention.

This is a spin off in the world of Wiener Blut world. A world where coffee is treasured. It's a coffee twist to the Princess and the pea in the land of coffee. I love the twist to the fairy tale with a coffee bean.

Adorable quick listen set in a magical world I so enjoy.