Adventure time!

June 15, 2016June 15, 20161 Comment

Can you believe June is half gone already? It seems to me like school just ended. Hard to believe that was two weeks ago already. At this rate, my little Cricket bug will be heading off to kindergarten before I know it!

*counts weeks left of summer*

Only ten weeks left. That’s not nearly enough summer! 😀

I had great plans for this summer. Plans for writing and querying. Plans for camping and adventure. Plans for fun. But after a spring filled with revisions left me sapped of my writerly mojo, I haven’t written a word in weeks. So what have I been doing?

Well, I have been camping. Twice, even. We had an adventure at the campground pond this past weekend, and an adventure in an antique store on our first camping trip. Said antique store had a calligraphy set, complete with a pen, four nibs, ink, and instructions for several different calligraphy styles, for only a dollar. I’ve taken up the pen a couple of times, but with less-than-stellar results. I can’t wait till I have more than a half hour at the very end of a long day to get in some practice. 🙂

I’ve listened to birds singing, cats fighting, and thunder crashing. I’ve seen roads washed out and rivers raging. And I’ve read a couple of fantastic books.

Yes, books. Glorious, wonderful books.

I’ve always got something to read with me, but it’s been a while since that something was a book. And not just one book – two books! I’ve read two books in the last two weeks, and it’s been a very long time since that happened last.

Oh, you want to know which books I’ve been reading? Very well, then… (Please be warned: mild spoilers lie ahead.) 🙂

The House Next Door…

April 22, 2016April 21, 20167 Comments

thnd …is a frightfully fun read. A spooky tale of demons and darkness, with a fabulous cover by Hazel Butler, this book had me afraid to turn off the light. Mister Jones’ luck is as bad as ever in the third installment of this series, thanks to his equally unlucky neighbor lady, and many of the same characters from the first two books have returned as well. The enigmatic Eric is rapidly becoming one of my favorite characters.

I haven’t enjoyed a series like this since I read the Goosebumps and Fear Street books as a kid. I do hope there will be many more to come. 😀

So, what’s Mister Jones gotten himself into this time? Behold, ze blurb:

Mister Jones thought he had finished with the supernatural world – but the supernatural hadn’t finished with him…

When Sheila Balsam finds herself compelled to buy a genuine antique in a strange little shop, she didn’t bargain for what came with the statuette – and Mister Jones finds himself once again drawn into the dangerous world of the paranormal : this time via the house next door.

An ancient evil has found a way to break from his enchanted prison and the only one who is going to stand in his way is the unfortunate Mister Jones, who seems destined to live in interesting times.

About the Author

Will Macmillan Jones lives in Wales, a lovely green, verdant land with a rich cultural heritage. He does his best to support this heritage by drinking the local beer and shouting loud encouragement whenever International Rugby is on the TV. A fifty-something lover of blues, rock, and jazz, he has just fulfilled a lifetime ambition by filling an entire wall of his home office with (full) bookcases. When not writing, he is usually lost with the help of a satnav on top of a large hill in the middle of nowhere.

His major comic fantasy series, released by Red Kite Publishing, can be found at www.thebannedunderground.com, and information on his other work and stuff in general at www.willmacmillanjones.com. There’s a blog. There’s always a blog, isn’t there?

You can find The House Next Door wherever find e-books are sold.

Of course, if something a bit lighter is more your cup of tea, I’ve got the cure for that, too. Feeling froggy? Check out The Banned Underground books. And for the young (at heart or otherwise), there’s the Snort and Wobbles books as well. I recommend reading them all – you won’t regret it! 🙂

Reaping time!

April 12, 2016April 11, 2016Leave a comment

Reaping-Angel-Book-Blitz

No, I’m not in danger of participating in the next Hunger Games. 😀

If I haven’t mentioned it lately, I love being part of the writing community. I met S.L. Saboviec thanks to the fabulous Michelle Hauck and one of her awesome critique workshops, and am seriously glad to have her as a critique partner. The good she has done for my writing is immeasurable. So naturally, I am super excited to announce that Reaping Angel, the newest book in her Fallen Redemption series, releases today!

Reaping Angel is the sequel to Guarding Angel, which received an honorable mention in the 23rd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards: “…A fascinating story of a particularly loving guardian angel. Overall, the writing is emotionally grounded, character-focused, and technically superior…”

Enael starts picking up the pieces of her decisions from the first book and comes face-to-face with her nemesis from centuries ago. If you enjoy fantasy or paranormal, this series is not to be missed!

GARA Covers

About the book

After the battle at the Bastille, the Council of Seraphim offers reluctant demons Enael and Kaspen a chance to return to Heaven – but only after they’ve completed sufficient penance. Ready to move past the ugly chapter in their lives, they settle into their new assignments.

Until Enael’s former lover…

Tomb-yard Follies, a review

April 6, 2016Leave a comment

tyf So my reading has been a little slow of late. Between sick kids and school events, revisions and renovations, it’s been a little hectic around these parts. But over the weekend, I managed to carve out enough time to read Tomb-yard Follies, the latest in Jim Webster’s Port Naain Intelligencer series, and these be my thoughts.

To begin with, I thought it was great fun. The beginning, in particular, had me intrigued. After all, nothing breeds potential conflict quite like a mysterious group of people in robes ambling through an orgy.

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Getting back to the point, this was a bit different from the last two in that Tallis and Shena appeared less than they did in previous stories, but it was interesting to get more of a feel for Benor. I’d have liked a bit more in the way of explanation about Tizah, but perhaps the enigma that is Tizah will be further expounded upon in later stories?

Please? *looks hopeful*

Anyway, this was a lovely way to dispose of an afternoon, and I can’t wait to see what Mr. Webster comes up with next.

To get your copy of Tomb-yard Follies, head on over to Amazon or Amazon UK!

Bliss

March 10, 2016March 12, 20164 Comments

My bliss lies in writing. I love it – I can’t get enough of it.

So many irons in the fire…

No, really. When I haven’t written in a while, I start getting really cranky. Ask my family.

Of course, that also extends to times where I’m not writing as much as I’d like, or times where extracting the story from my brain is like extracting a particularly difficult wisdom tooth, or times where editing is kicking my butt six ways from Sunday…

Still, writing (and editing, I suppose) is my bliss. What’s yours?

Literally critical, part two

March 1, 20161 Comment

If you missed the first part of this story, look no further! You can find part one of Literally Critical right here. And now, to pick up where we left off…

The problem we faced producing both the ‘Port Naain Re-evaluation of Literature’ and the ‘Port Naain Guide to Literary Merit’ was not the workload. The real problem was the need for anonymity. Had we been able to credit the authors of the copy then we could doubtless have hired plenty of contributors. In fact, the act of merely offering money would mean that we would have been forced to beat writers off with a stick. On the other hand, had the Port Naain literary world known who was writing the content for these two publications; it would most likely have been we who were beaten with sticks.

The anonymity did lead to problems for some. I had to do a review of an event Lancet Foredeck had featured heavily in. Now I will admit that I have never let my long association blind me to the flaws in Lancet’s work. Installation poetry has always struck me as somewhat overblown, after all what poet worth their salt cannot spontaneously knock off a few stanzas or even just a rhyme or two when the situation calls for it.

But still, Lancet is a better than middling painter, a perfectly competent teller of tales to large groups of young children whom he can hold spellbound, and to be fair, he’s not a bad poet. But at the event I attended, he surpassed himself. He launched into a mixture of pre-rehearsed and spontaneous work which was breathtaking in its comprehension and range. As he finally sank down into his seat the entire audience stood to applaud him. Even those who were merely present to drink at the bar rose to applaud him. Indeed the barman brought him a tankard of the bar’s best ale to quench his thirst without even being asked or staying for the money. On that day, in that place…

A golden review

January 28, 20164 Comments

Goldenfire cover If you haven’t read Darkhaven or its sequel, Goldenfire, well, why the heck not? Darkhaven is an utterly amazing book, and you can read my thoughts on it here. Today I want to tell you about Goldenfire, which I’ve been talking about all week to anyone who will listen. It is that good.

Don’t know what it’s about? Here, allow me to change that…

Where my heart will take me

January 27, 2016February 4, 20166 Comments

Don’t stop believin’.
Let it go.
Be true to your heart.
Keep on movin’.
I’m goin’ where my heart will take me.

What do these five things have in common, aside from being fantastic songs? They’re words that I find inspiring. But more than that, they’re words I hope to live by in 2016.

Two more days. In two more days, I’ll be 32. While I officially surpassed my mother’s age back in August, it’s really just hitting me now, as I approach the first birthday she never reached. Perhaps this all seems a bit self-indulgent, but for some reason, I’ve always thought I would leave the world like she did – young, and with things left to do. There was – is – so much I want to accomplish before I die, and I had no idea…

Hibernation station

January 12, 20162 Comments

Holy buckets, is it cold out there! How cold is it?

It’s so cold that I passed a bunch of penguins on my way to work this morning. 😀

The worst part is that this is an improvement from the weekend. *sigh*

Meanwhile, I’m busy playing catch-up on pretty much everything after taking care of two sick kiddoes last week, so please excuse my probable absence here this week. In addition to catching up on stuff, I’m also in the midst of reading a fantastic new book. Have no fear – I’ll share my thoughts once I’m finished! It’s a book I’ve been looking forward to reading for some time now, so I suppose I’d better get back to it while I still have a few minutes to spare. 😉

Have a great day, everybody, and in case I don’t see ya, have a great rest of the week as well! 🙂

Two down, sixteen to go!

January 7, 2016January 6, 20168 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve kept track of the books I read in a year, but I signed up for a Goodreads challenge last week. My goal: read eighteen books this year. I figured one book a month wouldn’t be too terribly difficult, and I could maybe squeeze another six in around them. It feels like a cheat; in the old days, I could’ve read eighteen books in a matter of weeks. But now?

Such book binges are a pipe dream.

I’m well on my way to meeting my goal, though. In the past week, I’ve knocked out two books, and I have three more lined up and ready to go. Then there’s that plot book I’ve been meaning to read…

But today I want to tell you about Portrait of a Girl by Will Macmillan Jones. You may remember him from such reviews as The Showing and Snort and Wobbles and The Banned Underground books. It’s no secret I’m a huge fan, or at least it shouldn’t be, and I wasn’t disappointed with this latest book:

Does lightning ever strike twice? It would seem so for the unfortunate Mister Jones. After a harrowing encounter with the paranormal in The Showing, once again he again finds himself in mortal danger on the borders of that shadowed world.

An antique painting holds a strange fascination for him – and others. What does the girl in the portrait want from Mister Jones and from the others who become entranced by her beauty? And can she be stopped before she unleashes her ancient evil into our modern world in a lake of blood?

‘Portrait of a Girl’ is the second in the collection of Mister Jones paranormal mysteries.

This story engaged my attention at once; I sat down to read this story and finished it in a single sitting. The further I read, the more difficulty I had in putting it down for such trivial things as food and sleep. Like any good tale, the tension grew steadily right to the very end, and I’m fairly certain that the goosebumps on my arms throughout my read had as much to do with the story as they did with the cold breeze sneaking in around my window.

If you’ve read The Showing, you’ll be pleased to see some familiar faces in this tale, as well as some new ones. And if you’re like me, you’ll be keen to reread the pair of them until the next in the series comes out!

Check out Portrait of a Girl today – you won’t regret it!