New Release: A Journal of Sin by Darryl Donaghue

New release alert! And what a good one it looks to be! A Journal of Sin by Darryl Donaghue is the first in what looks to be an awesome mystery series and it’s right up my ally, so I’ll be reading it for sure.

A village, isolated by a severe storm, and a young officer, alone and out of her depth. A troubled priest is brutally murdered, leaving behind a journal of the resident’s confessional secrets; secrets certain people would prefer he took to the grave. As word spreads, the pressure rises as the eyes of the town watch her every move. With no forensic team, no support and a savage killer hiding in a turbulent town, is PC Sarah Gladstone up to the task?

 

 

I grew up in Wimbledon, London. Tennis country. I didn’t have the enthusiasm, or the lung capacity, for sports, preferring more introverted pursuits such as reading, writing and Super Nintendo. Had the ‘ball boy’ tryouts referred to the shape of my silhouette, I’d have been on centre court, but all the running involved only encouraged me to sit at home and watch with a bowl of seasonal strawberry ice cream.

My early reviews weren’t positive. Miss Molyneaux, my middle school English teacher, regularly awarded E’s and F’s for my creative pieces. In high school, Mr Potter continued the trend, but one day added the most encouraging thing a young writer could ever read:

“I know you copied it. I’m just not sure where from.”

This misplaced accusation of plagiarism was the greatest compliment I’d had. Someone thought my work was so good, it couldn’t possibly have come from the grey matter between my ears.

At 17, I was diagnosed with cancer. It’s something I’m happy to talk about more if you’d like, just drop me an email, but for the purpose of this section, suffice it to say, it changed my life and with the help of very supportive parents, I decided to go to university.

I left Wimbledon to study Criminology and Psychological Studies at Southampton, graduating in 2003. On the discovery of beer, women and freedom (and how the first two really eat into the third), the writing went by the wayside.

In 2005, I became a Police Officer and in 2008, a Detective. In later years, I led my own team and became a Detective Tutor.

As I’m sure you appreciate, writing with any full-time hectic job is a very difficult task and, although I wasn’t able to produce a novel, I had three short stories published during this time.

Heartbreaking as it was, in 2014, I quit policing and am now teaching in Seoul, South Korea. I was working far too many hours to be able to write productively, so had to decide between two loves. I’ve got more time to write now and am working on my first crime fiction novel, trying to understand the crazy world of social media and having a good time doing it all.

My writing philosophy is  to humbly admire and learn other people’s work and the stories they tell by living the lives they do, aspire to produce the best stories and the best characters I can and understand that I have to work harder than ever before to get to where I want to be.

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

I was having this conversation with Bill the other day, well a conversation along those lines, but about our children. If any of you have read Bill’s recent posts you’ll know he has a heck of a lot to be proud of, you can check those out here. My children are ten and eleven and already they have said they want to be a plethora of things when they grow up, which got me to thinking of all the things I wanted to be. So, for your amusement and maybe to give you a little insight into my extraordinarily weird brain, here are all the things that I wanted to be when I grew up.

A Thundercat
I mean, c’mon – who didn’t want to be a Thundercat, right? My childhood days were, at times, filled with stripping down to my vest and knickers and doing somersaults across the furniture. I was pretty lithe back then. I can’t remember the first time I ever did a somersault but I remember how all my siblings thought it was really cool. Yep, I fancied myself as a bit of Cheetara and that was what or who I wanted to be when I grew up.

 

Indiana Jones An Archaeologist

Oh man!! I wanted a cool hat and a whip, and snakes, pff – they don’t scare me. I was convinced I could be a better raider of tombs than Dr Jones. I think I was about seven or eight when I first went to the cinema and the film I went to see just happened to be The Last Crusade. Everything about that film blew me away, from the crazy adventuring, hidden walls and the incredible music, I was hooked and even now I watch the films whenever they’re on TV. I wish that had been the last Indiana Jones movie, I didn’t fancy Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls much.

A Wrestler
I’ve always loved WWF WWE and I quite fancied myself as a wrestler back when I was little. I can still put my husband in a tight chokehold, but he always repays me by busting out the figure four leg lock. If I manage to break free without tapping out, I’m fairly quick to land an RKO on him. I have speed on my side, but I rarely manage to get away if he maneuvers me into the walls of Jericho, I always tap out to that. I play dirty though, and his weakness is a wedgie. I know, I know, that’s not a ‘legal’ wrestling move, but it sure works well as a submission manoeuvre.

 

A writer
I had dark times as a child. I expect we all have had, at some point. I found solace in books and was so amazed by how the words on a page could take me somewhere far, far away, that I wanted to be able to give that gift of escapism to others. I still do, obviously.

 

 

 

A Footballer
Now here’s the thing about this one. I had a wild imagination, still do, and this ‘wannabe’ entailed dressing up as a guy and convincing the whole team I had junk between my legs. Then, when I scored the winning goal in the Champions League, I’d reveal to the world I was a girl and they’d love me even more. Yeah, that one was never going to pan out, plus, I don’t even like watching it anymore.

 

 

A Marine Biologist.
Think Seaquest DSV. I watched it religiously and decided I wanted to live on a submarine studying ocean life, as long as I got to wield a gun and kick the crap out of the bad guys.

 

 

A naturist naturalist.
I seriously went around telling people I wanted to be a naturist. What I actually meant, and I know this now, is that I wanted to be a naturalist. I wanted to study plant and wildlife in their natural biome just because I thought it would be fun. Actually, I still think it would be fun. When I occasionally tweet I want to live barefoot in the woods, I’m not joking. Although, as Bill pointed out to me recently, I’d have to study up on which berries I could eat. Of course, being a social media junkie, maybe living barefoot in the woods isn’t the most sensible thing I could want.

An actress/singer
I acted in a few school plays, even took part in a theater production, I was an extra. I also got a role in a local production of ‘Andy Warhol’ – I played ‘death’. Later on in life, I joined a band, left a band and then I won a big Karaoke competition singing a dance version of My Heart Will Go On. The prizes were the best part. I was eighteen and won money, booze and a holiday to Kos. I never did go on that holiday, I didn’t have a passport, oops.

Lara Croft An Archaeologist
Yep, back to that. See how films, tv and video games inspire me? Lara Croft is pretty badass and back in 1996, when Tomb Raider fist came out, I was back pining to be an archaeologist again. I wanted to scour the Earth and traverse the jungles to find ancient artifacts. Though I grew out of that phase, I still play Tomb Raider and somehow, and I don’t know how, became one of the best multiplayers of Tomb Raider in the world. I get a lot of kills on the game, but I also do a whole load of dying too because I can’t aim to save my life so I prefer close contact fighting which usually involves me jumping out on some poor unsuspecting player and firing off my shotgun or whacking them over the head with my axe. So I’m kind of living that dream, in the virtual world at least.

A Psychologist
By this time 2004 – I had done a bit of growing up and decided that I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. I went to Uni and everything, Graduated and could still go on to be a clinical psychologist but in my final year I studied health psychology and it well and truly put me off, which is daft because it’s completely different from clinical. I think it was an easy out that I took because somewhere along the line, I just stopped wanting to be one.

And that’s about it. There are many, many more but it would take me far too long to list them all. Even now, when I’m watching Arrow, I get the urge to go find something green, grab my daughters Nerf bow and head out to save the world, but, aside from foam arrows having little effect, it’s just too difficult to commit to vigilantism when I have a family to feed. Maybe I could be a work in progress?

We all have hopes and dream. I’m only 33 and as Jake keeps reminding me, I’m only a ‘young’un’. So, as of right now, when I grow up I want to be a writer. I want to earn enough so I can bugger off for seven months to go hiking. I might take up some form of martial arts, depending on what comic strip series I’m watching that day. Can’t really see myself being able to carry out the salmon ladder though.

So what about you guys? What do you all want to be ‘when you grow up’? I’d love to know! I’d especially love to know all the things you wanted to be too.

Here Come the Nerves

Vomit keeps rising in my throat. Maybe that’s a SLIGHT exaggeration, but I am definitely queasy right now. As I type this post, it’s 23.55pm on the 19th of December. That means Fractured Immortal is 24 hours and 5 minutes away from being released. It’s the first time I have ever put a book out there for all to see. And it is possibly one of the most nerve wracking things I have ever done.

Last night I had a nightmare that there was a huge error in my book. It was one of those dreams that felt 100% real. I’ve had them before and they usually manifest themselves when I have a lot on my mind. The first part of the week started out okay. I was a bit scared – actually, I was a lot scared but not as scared as I am right now. I love Fractured Immortal but what one person loves, another person loves not so much. Movies, music, flavors, fashion – just like books, opinions are subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? Indeed.

One of my favorite quotes is If you’ve never failed, you’ve never tried. This quote has been credited to a lot of people but I’m pretty sure it came from the mouth of Albert Einstein. Yes, it’s difficult to write a book and, yes, it’s freaking scary as hell to take said book and give it wings. But – If I don’t try, I won’t fail…..hang on there one candytushed moment, that’s not right. But you see what I’m getting at? We all have things we’re scared of but we have to suck it up, swallow it (stop that right now) and expose ourselves. (Seriously, stop it.) Whether we fail or succeed is by the by, at least we tried. That’s what I mean.

Not everyone is going to like Fractured Immortal. Not everyone is going to like me. But I will suck it up. (possibly after rocking in the corner crying for an hour). Whatever. Because, hey – I wrote a book. I spent a year on it. Jumping on it, thumping it and smacking it into order with the help of some incredibly awesome people. And now, I’m giving it wings and sending it off out into the world. I know already that some people love it. I’ve not heard anything negative about it thus far, but give it time. But if I ever get a bad review, if I ever get someone say ‘what the actual * is this?’, I can shrug and know that at least a few people already love it as much as I do. I can also learn from what others think is missing or wrong.

When I started writing Fractured Immortal, I didn’t think I’d actually get it finished. I am the Queen of half done. THE QUEEN. My husband thinks it’s funny when I ramble around the house doing stuff because I start something then wander off and start something else without finishing. But this book wanted to be written. It insisted. So I wrote it, and by the end of it, I was so in love with the characters and the setting that as long as just one person felt the same way, I’d be happy. So I am. I am over the moon. So I’m going to continue to swallow down the scary, and work hard on the next book, because I’ll be releasing that ‘lil beastie into the world too, so look out for the ‘I’m crapping my pants’ post that will surely appear a few days prior to that release too.

For all of you writers out there, have faith in yourselves. (pot, kettle). If this little fruitcake from England can do it, you can too.

T-Minus 23hrs 24mins

Sit up and Pay Attention.

I am being completely serious with the title of my blog post. It’s not a play on words and it’s not a joke.

For the past several months I have been in a lot of pain in my back and neck. I’m one of those ‘see the worst’ kind of people. I never used to be but… life. When my back started hurting I ignored it because I didn’t think it could be all that serious. When my neck started hurting I thought ‘uh-oh’, but when I started to get a horrible almost indescribable pain at the base of my skull I though – oh shit, the end is nigh.

Sorry for the swear, but I really did think that. My neck started making grinding noises every time I moved it. My back cracked and pulled every time I sat up straight. Bending over became an issue and sleep almost impossible and as someone with an aversion to sleep anyway, this wasn’t good. I got pins and needles in my thumbs and sometimes my toes.

So off I trundled to the doctor. And there was the ‘ah ha’ moment.

 

See, I have really bad posture and when I’m writing I sit cross-legged and hunched over the laptop with it balanced on my lap. BAD, BAD ME. So now I have to go see a physiotherapist to strengthen my back again. Ooops. I’m relieved it’s something that can be treated and repaired. I’m also relieved that, as a resident of the UK, I can rely on the National Health Service to look after me. I don’t know how much physiotherapy costs in countries without a National Health Service, but I imagine it’s costly.

The stupid thing is, this could all have been avoided.

Had I used my brain, purchased a desk and sat up straight, I could have avoided the pain, the physiotherapy and the weakening of my spine. I deserve no sympathy, it is my own stupid fault for spending hours and hours every day hunched over my laptop. So for all of you out there that spend a lot of time on a computer, sit up and pay attention to your posture or you’ll end up thinking your head is going to fall off your neck, like I did.

I implore you, look after yourself! I assure you, it’s worth it.

Author Interview: Dawn Marie Hamilton

Just in Time for a Highland Christmas (A Highland Gardens Novella)—a Scottish historical time travel romance with Highlanders, scheming faeries, a mischievous brownie, magic, adventure, and romance set in 16th century Scotland and the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
Can a determined brownie craft a perfect match in time for Christmas?

When the Chief of Clan MacLachlan travels to the stronghold of his feuding neighbors to fetch his betrothed, she is gone. A year later, she is still missing. Making life more vexing, a band of reivers are stealing clan cattle, leaving behind destruction. Archibald MacLachlan determines to capture them and administer harsh punishment.

Though once in love with the man, Isobell Lamont refuses to wed her clan’s enemy. After running away, she joins the band of reivers set on revenge.

Can Archibald forgive the raven-haired beauty? Will a journey through time bring them together for a Highland Christmas?Amazon US

Amazon UK

What inspired you to write your first book?

I enjoyed writing when I was young, first in journals, later short stories. While traveling in Brussels on business, I glimpsed a billboard with a tartan clad Highlander advertising whisky and the germ of an idea formed. It incubated for several years while I continued to devour romance novels, until it matured into a premise for the Highland Gardens time travel romance series. The Queen of the Fae has challenged a banished faerie to craft three nearly impossible matches that cross continents, centuries, and realms.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Dare to dream.

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?

My latest book, Just in Time for a Highland Christmas, is a novella, which I really enjoyed writing. Each time I re-read the wee tale, I love it more. Several fans commented that they wished the book was a full-length novel. I’ve thought about it and I like the novella as it is. Perhaps the same hero and heroine might be featured in a future novel.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

If you really want to write books, don’t give up. Join a writing group and keep writing. I tried for ten years to find a publisher for my first book. Stacks of rejections came in. I took workshops on craft and continued writing. I finaled in several contests. Placed first in one. I decided to hire an editor and self-publish a month before I finaled in the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart® contest. That gave me the courage to proceed. We are living in an exciting time for authors. So many options are available to help us fulfill our dreams.

How much research do you do?

Quite a bit. Research on myths and legends and magic. Settings, both contemporary and historical, must be researched in most cases without physically visiting the locales. Since all my books are Scottish inspired, the culture of Scotland and of American-Scots must be explored. Clothing of different time periods, vessels, foods, plants, and on and on. One review on Amazon for the first book in the series, Just Beyond the Garden Gate, made me feel especially good about the amount of time put into research: “The finesse with which the story is told shows that this author has spent time honing her craft and researching the Scottish Highlands of 1509.”

And while we’re on the subject of research – most writers research some crazy sounding things – what is the strangest thing you have had to research?

Hmmm. Nothing terribly outrages. I guess it would be voodoo/ hoodoo and the reports of missing vessels within the Bermuda Triangle for Sea Panther, the first book in the Crimson Storm paranormal series. Dawn Marie Hamilton dares you to dream. She is a 2013 RWA® Golden Heart® Finalist who pens Scottish-inspired fantasy and paranormal romance. Some of her tales are rife with mischief-making faeries, brownies, and other fae creatures. More tormented souls–shape shifters, vampires, and maybe a zombie or two–stalk across the pages of other stories. When not writing, she’s cooking, gardening, or paddling the local creeks of Southern Maryland with her husband.

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The Girl in Between Spotlight: Laekan Zea Kemp

As a writer, reading and writing go hand in hand. One of the awesome parts about being a writer is the cool authors I get to interact with. For this post I would like to shine a spotlight on one of these authors and their books. Yay!

Laekan is a writer and explorer extraordinaire who grew up in the flatlands of West Texas. She graduated from Texas Tech with a BA in Creative Writing and is the author of the multi-cultural New Adult novels The Things They Didn’t Bury, Orphans of Paradise, Breathing Ghosts, and the Young Adult novel The Girl In Between, which is the first in an upcoming paranormal romance series.

 

Bryn Reyes is a real life sleeping beauty. Afflicted with Klein-Levin Syndrome, she suffers episodes of prolonged sleep that steal weeks, and sometimes even months, from her life. But unlike most KLS patients, she doesn’t spend each episode in a catatonic state or wake up with no recollection of the time she’s missed. Instead, Bryn spends half her life in an alternate reality made up of her memories. For Bryn, the past is a place, until one day a boy she’s never met before washes up on the illusory beach of her dreams with no memory of who he is.

But the appearance of this strange boy isn’t the only thing that’s changed. Bryn’s symptoms are worsening, her body weakening as she’s plagued by hallucinations even while awake. Her only hope of finding a cure is to undergo experimental treatment created by a German specialist. But when Dr. Banz reveals that he knows more about her strange symptoms than he originally let on, Bryn learns that the boy in her head might actually be the key to understanding what’s happening to her, and worse, that if she doesn’t find out his identity before it’s too late, they both may not survive.

Excerpt:

“Can I show you something?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure if I should follow her or even if I could but I didn’t want her to let go of me. I didn’t want her to disappear again and leave me there alone, still lost. So I nodded.

We swam to the end of the dock and she untied the small rowboat. She climbed in first, reaching for the oars and holding it steady as I sat down across from her. I watched the house recede. My eyes trailed back to the road, still waiting for someone to come down it. They didn’t.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Not far.”

I searched the horizon but it was empty. No land. No boats. It felt like we were headed straight for the skyline, about to fall off into nothing. The waves grew choppy and I wanted to take the oars from her but I didn’t know where we were going and for some reason I liked listening to the slow rhythm of her breathing as she fought the waves.

The boat finally grinded to a stop and when I looked over the edge the water was so clear I could see tiny creatures bedding in the sand, their thin shadows eclipsed by the girl as she climbed onto the sandbar.

“I went to the Bahamas once when I was thirteen,” she said. “The water was so blue. I strapped on a snorkel and spent the entire week just walking from sandbar to sandbar, face underwater watching the fish swim by.”

I followed her out of the boat and a school of bright yellow fish cut between us, scales glinting.

“This?” I said.

She smiled and walked around to the other side of the boat. The water was a dark grey, my legs tangled in a mess of rust colored seaweed. I could barely see my feet, their shadows disappearing beneath swirls of mud.

“This is the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston. I tagged along on one of my mom’s work trips. It was just a few weeks after Hurricane Ike.”

I stared at the muddled outline where the two oceans converged—one light, one dark. I waited for them to mix, for that invisible seam to break free but it didn’t.

We waded farther out into the clear water, another school of fish bumping against my calf, bright red coral twisting near my ankles. It was startling.

“I used to come here,” she said. “When I first got sick I would stand here and it wouldn’t feel like purgatory anymore. They’re memories.” She faced the beach. “My memories.” Then she looked at me. “I don’t know why you’re here or if you’re—”

“Real?” I asked.

She nodded and I wasn’t so sure anymore either.

“But you don’t have to be afraid,” she said. “It doesn’t have to feel like purgatory.”

I watched the sunlight reflecting off the ocean and dancing against her skin. Her eyes were lighter in the sun; green churning to a soft sea foam like the waves crashing near our feet. And standing there in that invisible seam between two oceans, two worlds, she was just as startling.

The tide swirled in her gaze and I watched it shimmer there, glinting from a soft grey to jade and then I said, “It doesn’t.”

 

When Roman wakes from a six month coma, the first thing he sees is the girl of his dreams. Except Bryn isn’t confined to the dream-state anymore and neither is he. He’s awake and alive and as the memories of how he and Bryn fell in love come rushing back, so do the memories of why he’s lying in that hospital bed in the first place.

Plagued by guilt, Roman makes a decision that alters both their fates and as Bryn fights for her life in a German hospital, Roman must fight for her forgiveness before it’s too late. Because Roman and Bryn weren’t the only things to wake out of Bryn’s dreams. The shadows seem to be hunting them both and a strange side effect of Roman’s miraculous recovery may be the only means of stopping them. That is, if he can reach Bryn before she slips too deeply into the very dreams that seem to be imposing more and more on their waking lives every day.

 

Those covers are so cool. Some of the prettiest covers I’ve ever seen!

To order The Girl In Between visit:

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To Order The Boy In Her Dreams visit:

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Bridging the disparity of opinion between the self-published and the traditionally published

This is my second attempt at writing about this. The first attempt ended up like one of those essay’s that you do at Uni – you know ‘critically evaluate’ and by the end of it, other than comments about removing fingers from asses and rather impolitely saying ‘suck it’, it rivalled even my finest 1st class thesis.

It’s often said that when you write about something your passionate about, the end result (if not a little biased) is often better than if you were writing about a subject that bores you. This subject is something I’m passionate about and I had voiced it as I would a finely crafted dissertation, and believe me, the length of it almost lived up to that name. However, by writing as a scholar would write, it lacked that fiery passion that sears through my veins when I see an article dissing the self-published, the small press published or the traditionally published author. For crying out loud, I’m not trying to earn a spot in the Guardian or the New York Times, so I dropped the whole scholastic approach in favor of liquid heat. And this is the result.

Bridging the disparity of opinion between the self-published and the traditionally published

The emergence of self-published authors in their droves has had several major impacts on the literary market. Online purveyors in digital books are flooded with a type of book that, up until a few years ago, wouldn’t have kissed the light of day – the self-published book. That’s not to say these books would not have been published traditionally, many authors that could have acquired representation, and indeed, authors that already had, now seek to publish through their own channels.

Why?

The ability to retain rights and therefore retain control of your own content has been met with a major nod of approval. Add to this the control to pick your own platforms, follow your own timeline and receive higher royalties – you have the combination that appealed to the masses.

Sounds good, right? And we should all be free to choose what we want, right? And those that choose to self-publish should not be looked down upon, right? Right!? Hmm, and there we have it. One of the problems with self-publishing. And it is not at all one sided.

There are some that feel the self-published author is not as important nor as ‘good’ as those that have been traditionally published. Indeed, securing an agent is a highlight and a great personal achievement for any writer that wishes to go down that route and should be applauded whether successful or not, however, some people don’t take into account that not everyone wants an agent.

There are also plenty of writers, in fact the vast majority, who feel that an author who is self-published should feel mighty proud of their achievement.

And then, there are the self-published authors who look down on the traditionally published authors because they couldn’t do it themselves when in fact, they could, they just didn’t want to.

And of course, let’s not forget the authors who really don’t give a damn about how a book has been published – a published book is a published book, no matter the method. Again, these form part of the vast majority.

Whether self-published or traditionally published, as writers, we should all support each other. We’ve all written a book.

So, why is there a stigma attached to self-publishing amongst writers?

Widely, there isn’t. However, if you have an e-reader, chances are at some point you have read a truly, truly awful book. Unfortunately, the outlets that allow authors to upload and distribute their work do not rigorously check the content. This has led to books that contain major problems and errors becoming available when they really shouldn’t. And these are the writers that need a smack upside the head for unleashing their beasties upon us without bothering to proof read, hire on editor or even get a beta to read it. They took their pen and swiped a black mark over their peers. It is incredibly difficult to have confidence in a self-published author when you’ve read one of these books. But, there are so many excellent self-published books too and, thankfully, most writers know that.

It’s easy to see why some people would hold the self-published author in negative regard. However, this is terribly poor opinion to have. As mentioned above, there are countless fantastic books available from self-published authors. And why should they be tarnished because of others that didn’t have the good sense to hire an editor. At the same time why should self-published authors feel the need to look down on traditionally published or small press published authors. This one’s a doozie, because what reason can be found to hold the traditionally published or small press published in negative regard? If anyone knows, do tell.

So what can be done to bridge the disparity of opinion?

Respect each other as writers regardless of publishing method. ‘Tis a small circle we run in and bad attitude will be uprooted eventually and no doubt jumped upon because, and here’s the part that warms my heart, there is a certain solidarity amongst writers. There have been several debacles on social media where individuals have decided to slander a person or a competition and, oh my days, I’m not sure if they have any skin left after the literary world joined hands and entered into battle.

Tomato/tomato – okay, that doesn’t work so well in print. A writer is a writer and we should all show each other equal amounts of respect, support and enthusiasm.

We are a community and I, for one, couldn’t give a rats ass how people choose to pursue publishing. I love you all. Group hug!

Cover Reveal and Giveaway: Fractured Immortal by E.L. Wicker

I sunk my life into it. My blood, my sweat, my tears. I gave it everything I had, but that’s another post altogether. Today – today I am over the moon and ridiculously excited to bring you the cover reveal for Fractured Immortal, which you can pre-order now! Release date is 21st December.

Fractured Immortal is a New Adult Supernatural Romance. Packed full of action, friendship, jealousy, romance and a few steamy scenes to boot, I hope you love it as much as I do.

After a terrifying vampire attack in 1810, Ilia Rose spends the next two centuries hunting Sol, the man responsible for turning her and her friends into vampires.

When Ilia discovers he’s run to the one place she’s running from, she’s forced to face her most painful memories back in her hometown, Bearwood.

There, Ilia finds herself face to face with Nathaniel, an insanely hot vampire, and despite the evidence he’s working for her enemy, Ilia can’t fight her attraction to him, especially when he seems to show up whenever she needs him most.

But Nathaniel is keeping secrets and as they begin to unravel, instead of running away from him, Ilia finds herself falling for him. When his last secret is revealed Ilia’s past comes together in a way she never imagined and she’s left with only one option: trust Nathaniel to help her kill Sol, or risk relinquishing her new found strength thus causing catastrophic and devastating consequences for her and everyone she loves.

Ilia begins a gut-wrenching battle to save her life and the lives of her friends, a battle which not everyone will survive.

A vampire tale like none other, love, pain, devastation and revenge, all weave together to create the first in a dark and unmissable new adult series.

Due to sexual content, this book is intended for readers age 18+

I’m really happy with the cover, designed by betibup33. It represents a major theme in the book.

So, you’ve seen the cover and I do hope you like it, read on for an excerpt!

EXCERPT

Pre-order Fractured Immortal now! Release date is 21st December:

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Giveaway!

Enter the giveaway to receive a copy of Fractured Immortal for your Kindle. (Kindle only)

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Finally, thank you for stopping by and sharing in my excitement. I would really love it if I could find some lovely people to feature Fractured Immortal and this giveaway on their blog pretty please? With a cherry on top? Please?

Slug Spaghetti

There are some things I do well (The Vulcan salute), some things I excel at (forgetting to tell my husband important things) some things I’m just okay at (Staying vertical for any length of time) and a lot of things I completely suck at.
Imagine the scene: You’re standing in the school playground, you’re hairs a mess, no make up on, odd socks and whatever shoes were closest to the door, whether they match or not (that’s a fib, I wear matching shoes, honest). There are hundreds of little children running around, the little girls have amazing hairstyles, some have cute bows in their hair but your children’s hair is wily and refuses to be tamed, and that bow you fixed to their hair earlier that morning? Well, that’s tossed on a surface somewhere at home because you didn’t do it right.

All of the above, in case you haven’t guessed, that’s me. Look, life is too short to match socks, okay?! And my hair is wavy so can totally get away without a brush first thing in the morning – it’s the wind that messes it up. And my children’s hair – both have them have crazy curls around their foreheads that cannot be controlled. Also, I am not a morning person.

A domestic goddess I am not in fact, I’m the FURTHEST thing from a domestic goddess, honestly, how my husband puts up with me, I don’t know. My daughters keep showing me hairstyle’s on the internet, asking if I can do that to their hair and I try, I really do, but inevitably, by the time I’m finished, they look like this: (Please note, that is not my child)

I am SO jealous of the polished mother’s that style ‘Amelia’ or ‘Oscar’s’ crop of sunshiny glory until not a hair stands out of place. And how do these mother’s get their faces to look like that? Do they get up at 4am to buff, polish and paint their nails and faces until they exude perfection?

Luckily, you don’t need any formal qualifications to clean the house, so I’m pretty badass at pushing a vacuum around and can even extend that badassery to polishing, washing clothes, drying clothes(<< that one took a while and many, many shrinkages) and I can nail making the beds.

One thing I am particularly bad at is cooking. Unless you like things overdone, then I excel. I can make a few things, beef stew, roast chicken beef and pork, and steak, and a few other minor things. I do bake a mean jacket potato and I can make a pretty decent salad (just let that slide, okay?)

The other morning I woke up and for some unknown reason, I fancied a spaghetti bolognese. By the evening, I stood in the kitchen surrounded by the ingredients and got to work. Needless to say, I didn’t make the sauce from scratch, I bought it ready to go from the jar but I chopped fresh veg and squirted some tomato puree in, added some herbs, and, man alive, I felt like Gordon Ramsay. Until I ate it. It was okay, it wasn’t terrible. It looked worse than it tasted, that’s for sure. (It looked like I’d added slugs at some point through the cooking process) But that wasn’t hard because it didn’t really taste of much.

Hopefully, my children will be able to forgive me when they’re older for only being able to cook things from a box, tin or jar. I have some redeeming qualities, I make the BEST hot chocolate for them when they get home from school on a cold day. I know it’s the best because they told me so. Hopefully, the stew and the roasted meats scored me enough points.

To all those super organized mother’s and father’s out there, I salute you – how do you do it? Because I have no idea!!

Please come back Monday where I will be revealing the cover for my new book, Fractured Immortal! Thank you.

The Army Behind The Writer

About a year ago, I sat down and started writing a book based on a scene that played in my head. It took a long, long time to write it. Eleven months, to be exact and boy oh boy, did I learn A LOT along the way.

I feel bad for my early Beta’s – they had to read it! But they were so awesome. I really do love them – (yes Nori and Tricia, you guys!)

When I began, I had a little bit of writing experience. I was editor for two of my school newspapers, won some writing competitions at school and ripped off a point horror book when I was about twelve. I wrote a dissertation for Uni – and where that’s proved helpful in some cases, for the most part it’s proved to be a pain in the butt.
Take a look at some of my blog posts, particularly the earlier ones. Notice anything? I do, at times (most times) my writing style is very formal. I tend not to use contractions and every now and then, I use big words, words you usually need a thesaurus to find. I do it when I talk too. Instead of saying – ‘your new house looks lovely’ – I say ‘it’s aesthetically pleasing’, and instead of saying ‘we have to let the kids be independent’, I say ‘we need to allow our children a certain degree of autonomy’. I don’t do it all the time, I’m pretty flexible, varying my language to my audience so you’d think I could do the same when I write – right? Nu uh.

My manuscript was absolutely littered with formal writing. From not using contractions to using words that were too flowery, it was a mess. Worse still, I entered into a slush competition not even noticing. But it was there that I met my super duper awesome critique partners, Wonder Tash and Super Kathy.

Wonder Tash picked up on my formal language from the get go, insisting I use contractions and man alive, was she right! Once I amended these I brought the story into this century – well the chapters that take place in this century anyway. Another thing she spotted, and for a seasoned writer like Tash – it wasn’t that hard, but for a novice like me, easily overlooked. Bloody adverbs, they are now the bane of my existence. They were EVERYWHERE. I hadn’t realized this was lazy writing, I just thought the words sounded good, and you have to admit – adverbs do sound good, but when writing, they are not your friends. So the vast majority of these have been outed and replaced with sentences that don’t require an adverb. I could waffle on for ages about all of the things Tash found – because there were THAT MANY errors, but it would require probably a months worth of posting daily. <<Argh, evil adverb, poke it with sticks, burn it with FIRE!!! Tash is also an expert at finding ways to eliminate backstory without losing the details.

So with all those mistakes, you’d think there couldn’t be that many more. Oh, there SO was. My dialogue was as dull as a thousand year old tailor’s needle. Flat as a pancake driven over by a fleet of army tanks then stamped on by the stay puft marshmallow man. He said, she said, I said, he said, she said, I said blah blah BLAH. On and on the dialogue went with no action, thoughts or emotion in between. Dull. You could probably get even the most cantankerous teething baby to sleep just by reading them an excerpt of my dialogue. Enter Super Kathy. Zap, zap, zap – GIVE ME MORE! She found every bit of dialogue that needed emotion and action. She helped me bring my characters to life. She also forged a connection between character and reader by saying ‘keep me in your characters head’. My book is written in 1st person passive, yet for pages on end my main character disappeared and became a robotic observer. No more, now she tells you everything she’s feeling and everything she’s thinking.

Between Tash and Kathy – sorry, Wonder Tash and Super Kathy, my book has grown muscle and skin to go with the bones.

Once the amendments were made, I then had to focus on the blurb. Ugh! No matter how good you are at writing blurbs for others, sometimes when it comes to your own, it becomes very, very difficult. That’s where Awesome Kate came in. Actually, she came in long before that. She Beta read Fractured Immortal, helped shape my query and provided untold support. That girl can wave pom-poms, actually – she really can. She’s always there to listen, lend support and she wrote the blurb for Fractured Immortal. Which I think is awesome. She is also the editor that Fractured Immortal is currently with and I highly recommend her. You can find her website by clicking on the link to the right of this page or the link at the end of this post.

My experience has been, that as much as I thought my book was good, there is no better tool a writer can have than excellent critique partners, and I really feel like I’ve struck gold with mine.

Since they helped me to shape Fractured Immortal, the beautiful Dena has read it and her feedback made me squeal with joy. She also found some hilarious mistakes that I have been able to rectify.

One of the best things I did was start up a Twitter account. There you’ll find an army of people to keep you company and make you laugh and guffaw during the hours that you are sitting alone writing. I feel the need to salute Amber, Bill and Jake at this point.

It’s a joint effort to write a book, it really is. For every writer, there is a team of people behind him or her, helping, advising, cheering and offering virtual cake. That has certainly been the case for me and I owe my thanks to so many, many people. Thank you, all of you, so very much.

To follow any of the amazing people that I mentioned here, either on Twitter or their blogs, click on the links below!

Wonder Tash Twitter Blog

Super Kathy Twitter Blog

Awesome Kate Twitter Blog

Beautiful Dena Twitter Blog

Amazing Bill Twitter Blog

Hilarious Jake Twitter Website

Fabulous Amber Twitter Blog

Amazing Beta Readers:

Nori Twitter Blog

Tricia Twitter Blog