Amazing e-book deals

If you love reading and you love deals, have you discovered Bookbub yet?

It is free to join and you can choose to follow all your favourite authors and get regular updates on deals and notifications on new releases for their books. I love reading as much as I love writing, and this is a great way to keep up to date with what is being published and who is new on the scene.

As well as listing my favourites, I am also discovering new authors who write the kind of fiction I want to read. What is not to love about that? As an author, I have also created my own profile so that my fans can easily find me and keep up to date with my books. It is also a great way to do market research, try out book ads and test the market.

Check out my profile here.

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Lockdown reading

I read an interesting article in The Conversation the other day, linking the similarities of our current lockdown and the thirst for reading with book clubs in the Second World War during the blitz. Interesting parallels, although I think these days, it is much easier to get hold of books than it was in 1939. Today, bookshops on the high street might be closed, but the online book industry must be booming. Got to love your e-reader; instant libraries at the touch of a button.

Personally, books are my current choice of drug, having recently quit alcohol. I am hearing stories all around of people stockpiling booze to get through this crisis, but I have found that reading is a much more effective and safe way to get out of your head. It has the power to transport your mind to somewhere completely different, and at the same time aids reflection on your current life, situation or quandary. On the plus side, no hangover, no headaches, no tiredness or depressive thoughts. What’s not to like about that?

So, what am I reading during lockdown? On the fiction side, I am chomping my way through Mark Lawrence’s Book of the Ancestor trilogy, starting with Red Sister. Having read his previous two trilogies – The Broken Empire and The Red Queen’s War – I like his style of writing, which is quite dark and intense, but with a subtle black humour, which is timely and uplifting. I also can’t resist a good fight and a kick-ass female lead, which ticks all my boxes in Red Sister.

On the non-fiction side I am reading Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari; a fascinating look at the history of drug prohibition and addiction. This is a book that everyone should read, and deals with issues that touch all of our lives one way or another. The stories here are powerful and real; they resonate on a level we can all identify with. If you cannot or don’t want to read the book, at the very least, I urge you to check out his TED talk Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong.

So, what are you reading to keep you happy and grounded in lockdown?

Unheard

As writers we strive to engage in sensory description to bring alive our stories for readers. Through sight, sound, touch, smell and taste we can evoke a sense of the familiar and colour our characters with graphic depth. So, I thought I’d mix it up a bit in this story. Synaesthesia is an extraordinary condition where the stimulation of one sense automatically triggers sensations in one of the other five senses. For example, sound triggering a tactile response, music or voices seen as colours. I chose to play about with touch and taste in this case, but I’ll let you, my curious reader, decide for yourself how well you think that worked.

This particular story was also inspired by the deep divisions in our society that are growing ever wider and threaten our unique and inclusive cultural identity. The story takes us into a near future that is already sitting on our doorsteps. As a writer, you can’t help but reflect what you see going on around you. Whether set in our world, a future world or a re-written past, stories give us the opportunity to take a good look at ourselves and wonder what we can do to make the world a better place.

Thank you to The Mechanics’ Institute Review Online for publishing Unheard.

Why we love a coming-of-age story

Coming-of-age is a genre that typically has a young protagonist who goes on a journey to find meaning to their life. We follow their moral and psychological growth from youth to adulthood with the expectation that they will face significant barriers along the way. They may make mistakes and face life or death circumstances, but the key factor is that the character learns from their experience and changes as a result.

The genre of Fantasy Fiction loves a coming-of-age story. The story arc takes our young protagonist on a journey that often starts with loss or alienation; think Harry Potter, or The Hunger Games. A common theme is the discovery of magical or special powers; Name of the Wind, A Wizard of Earthsea, and part of the quest is to discover how to use this special gift for good. This opens up the genre to that age-old battle between good and evil, often introducing a dark antagonist; Lord of the Rings, The Belgariad.

My all time favourite is The Thief by Megan Whelan Turner and its sequel The Queen of Attolia, which strictly speaking, you might not class as a coming-of-age story. However, it has all the elements that make it so in my mind; a young protagonist who faces a journey which forces him to make moral and psychological choices, love, loss – both physical and emotional – and circumstances that demand him to take responsibility not only for himself but for his family and his nation. Add to that a dash of supernatural powers, a few good fight scenes and I am sold.

We can all identify with the loss of innocence; right from the moment we discover that it is really our parents who are putting presents under the Christmas tree. As adults, our whole lives are coloured by perspectives that do not limit the imagination of the young. Somehow, we long to rid ourselves of the shackles of rational thought and return once again to that age of innocence, when life was so much simpler. So the coming-of-age story allows us to relive a life less complicated and find the answers to our own adult conundrums through youthful eyes. What’s not to love about that?

So what can I bring to bear from personal experience on this well documented genre? Well, I’m still waiting to come of age, so in the meantime I’ll just carry on writing stories.

Footprints in the Digisphere

Should you be concerned about your digital footprint?

I came across this hilarious video clip whilst researching content for a presentation I was invited to give recently about managing your online identity. The presentation was primarily pitched at university students but it occurred to me that this is something of interest to anyone who is active online. After showing the clip, several people in the audience whipped out their tablets and starting searching for their privacy settings!

Enjoy! (And beware…)