Author of the Princelings of the East fantasy and Viridian System scifi series
Did You See Melody? launches in the UK August 24th, and I received an ARC via Net-Galley some months ago. I like Sophie Hannah, although wasn’t quite so keen on her Poirot adventures. I thought this would be truer to
Ghosts of the Sea Queen: With no particular prompt this week I went back to the list of titles Chuck Wendig gave us a few weeks back, and picked out this one, with various Marie Celeste images floating through my
Sign up now to reduce the length/size of your reading pile. September 11th to 24th sees the fifth TackleTBR Readathon, thanks to Tressa at Wishful Endings. The goal you set is entirely up to you – maybe you don’t even
The Roanoke Girls came from the publisher via Net-Galley. Thank you very much. I’d heard some whispers about this one, so either the marketing worked, or the word-of-mouth. After I read it, I wish I’d listened closer. I thought it
A unicorn from the future appears at the marriage of a Scottish queen. It says: “I am here to talk to you.” This quote is from the Magic Realism Bot – something someone found and sent to Chuck Wendig, and
Way back when this blog was new, it was a different beast. I occasionally look back at the beginnings when we come up with an anniversary of some sort. That’s if WordPress reminds me in time. Today’s Book Blogger Hop
Blood Moon is the second in the series about the wolf Nashoga and his pack. I thought I had this book, hunted everywhere for it, then realised that in spite of putting it on my TBR in 2013, I hadn’t
‘Far music’ reminds me of lying in bed listening to a steam fair echoing across the fields when I was maybe twelve or thirteen; the following year my brother took me and I went on some of the rides –
Pet peeves; something I don’t really have, save for badly edited books and wrong homophones. But this is the first Wednesday of the month, and it’s Insecure Writers Support Group, so I’ll go with the flow. I’d like to thank
Guinevere: At the Dawn of Legend is newly published by author Cheryl Carpinello. I’m delighted to welcome Cheryl, a fellow BookElf, through a BeachBound Books Blog Tour which runs from July 17 – August 7, 2017. There’s a giveaway for a
Blood Sister is a book I bought at Noirwich last year, after the Brit Noir session with author Dreda Say Mitchell and others. I was highly impressed with Ms Say Mitchell, and she gave me some sound advice on the
Spaghettification started out as an independent short story in February 2015, and then became the key to the second book in the Viridian System series. That’s Curved Space to Corsair—I’ve just started the main edit. It’s my offering for Flashback
After Dinner is Monday morning’s offering for the Fiction in 50 (words) for this week. I usually do these a little earlier, to make sure I put them on the BookShelf Gargoyle’s page as soon as he puts it up
The Fourteenth Goldfish was the Goodreads Great Middle Grade Reads group’s Book of the Month for May. They didn’t have it in my library, so I asked for it. They eventually agreed, and only charged me the regular reservation fee.
‘Fanwester loses it’ is an extract that I really enjoyed writing. The original version (first draft, not the one that got published) was a lengthy rant by the character about people and things that my reader had no idea about
The Pirate King first appeared in the Princelings and the Pirates. This interview comes from a series I did in the summer of 2012 – five years ago!! I can’t quite believe it. You may find it interesting, as I
Shirley Link and the Black Cat follows Shirley Link and the Safe Case, Shirley Link and the Hot Comic and Shirley Link and the Treasure Chest, in this wonderful MG detective series. Shirley Link and the Black Cat by Ben
Camp NaNoWriMo week 2 was going well… until I read the latest Adirondack Publishing advice on The Story Reading Ape – about Voice. As you know, I’m re-editing The Perihelix, especially the first ‘half’ which had, let’s call it, ‘deficiency
I have free books for you at Smashwords all through July. I also have some at half price. So if you want to catch up on the Princelings series, or you missed out on the giveaway for my father’s memoirs,
All the Light We Cannot See is one of those books you hear a lot about. I put it on my TBR. I picked it up on my occasional visits to Waterstones bookshop in Norwich, read the back, considered buying
An extract from The Perihelix (or whatever I’m working on at Camp NaNoWriMo) is my best offering for Flash Fiction this month. This 550 word section follows on from the snippet I gave you on Wednesday. Of course, you don’t
It’s the Insecure Writers’ Support Group today, asking about a valuable lesson you’ve learnt. I’m at Camp Nano, so this is just a quickie to show willing. My most valuable lesson The most valuable lesson I’ve learnt while writing comes
Halfway through the Reading Challenges for the year already. Time for the second of four that I hope to do this year – since I remembered to do one at the end of March. Click the progress links to see
How to Stop Time was an advance review copy I got from the publisher via Net-galley. It launches this week. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig Published by Canongate books on 6th July 304 pages – paperback ISBN 9781782118626; ebook
GhostGum Creek: I’m going back to June 2014 for this one, which surprised me as I’ve never rerun it before (I checked). It is a venue that I integrated into the end of the Perihelix (and has stood the test