I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I don’t like to make people pay for my work, but at the same time, I’m disabled, I can only work a few hours a week and the exhaustion is interfering with my ability to write. I want to give myself an incentive to write when I feel well enough. If I have paying subscribers, I have to write!
I may have mentioned the Space Dragon story I’ve been working on for a couple of years. The plan is to share a chapter a month for paying subscribers until I’ve written it all. You won’t be getting the first draft, since I write that by hand, but you’ll get the edited version. There will probably be further edits in future before I release it as a book. I might also share some of my short stories as paid subscriber posts.
What do you think?
Let me share a few paragraphs with you and if you want the rest, please feel free to join the paid subscription.
One of Our Assessors is Missing
Chapter 1: Maria
Maria Walder yelped as their co-assessor, the star dragon Lah-Shar, turned sharply through the skies of Ascend To The Stars, their home planet. Below them, the landscape was dark, dotted with a few lights from small towns, and the glow of Avalon in the far distance. Above, the darkness of space spread out above them, a few zephyr clouds dances across the sky and three moons looked down on them.
“What are you doing, Shar? I thought – ” Maria yelled. They gripped the saddle tight, closing their eyes, shivering against the cold.
‘Don’t worry, I know where I’m going.’ Lah-Shar thought to them, ‘And stop screaming.’ He flapped his wings again, beating against the ever-thinning atmosphere.
‘I’m not screaming.’ Maria thought back, aware that they had, in fact, been screaming as Lah-Shar had turned ninety degrees and shot into the night sky.
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Thanks to Anne Cater for organising this tour. My copy did not from the publisher did not arrive, so I bought myself one. I’m not a fan or the author. their TV shows, or anything like that, I’m interested in both wildlife and Cornwall, since my mum’s maternal family and my step-Dad are Devon and Cornwall (unlike Stitfall who is a blow-in from Essex).
I’ve been a bit of a spotter since I was a kid, but I was never any good at it. I used to enjoy taking my little Osbourne books of birds and coastal life out with me on hikes with my dad and the local walking club, but haven’t really done much since I was 14. I do like to sit in the garden, or allotment, and bird watch. We have a new ecology group at work too, so I’m picking up bits of insect information. Again, I’m not very good at it. I need more practice.
Sorry if I sound grumpy today, I’m in pain. Because of this book. I read an awful lot of my copy on Tuesday, and enthused by the writing, decided to take a walk along the coast near here. The Humber is a SSSI designated area. I walked from the main drag of the Prom to the sand dunes by the swimming pool and then along the paths through the sea grass meadows. They’ve become much more extensive in the last twenty years. the area that used to be beach, on the other side of the swimming pool has changed immensely, with a much more varied habitat of dunes and salt marsh. I kept to the paths, but they got a bit wobbly once I got to the marsh adjacent to Meridian Point and I fell twice trying to cross from the path to the sea wall. got covered in mud. Which, to be honest, is nothing new. I have a cut on my right knee and my left hip is registering its disapproval quite vociferously. I did make it to a bus though and home, so it’s all good.
I saw a heron, and lots of crows and magpies. I think. I didn’t get bitten by anything, which is practically a miracle in itself, and I had a paddle in the water. I took photos of various plants and birds and at some point I’ll attempt to identify them.
Back to the book review.
I enjoyed the writing style, straightforward and descriptive, shading into poetic at times. I loved the photography. It really enthused me about going out and appreciating the local nature (the ‘wild life’ is a different matter altogether – Newquay misbehaviour ain’t got nothing on Cleethorpes in the early hours of a summer Saturday). This book is a celebratory and entertaining trip through the natural calendar of Cornwall, written by someone with a genuine love of wildlife and an ethical approach to nature photography. I recommend it to people who want to see what’s living in their area, if they live in Cornwall or are visiting at any time of year.
Also, my step-Dad tells a fantastic story about Seal Island near St. Ives, involving a boatload of American tourists and an inflatable seal.
PUBLICATION DATE: 9 MAY 2024 PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £16.99 | ORENDA BOOKS
A snobbish Danish literary author is challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days, travelling to a small village in Iceland for inspiration, and then the first body appears…
Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer’s block, Hannah has the feeling that she’s doing something wrong.
When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to Húsafjörður – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration.
But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman’s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah
Format: 444 pages, Paperback Published: February 8, 2022 by Angry Robot ISBN: 9780857669667 (ISBN10: 0857669664) Language: English
Description
Lesbian gunslinger fights spies in space!
Three factions vie for control of the galaxy. Rig, a gunslinging, thieving, rebel with a cause, doesn’t give a damn about them and she hasn’t looked back since abandoning her faction three years ago.
That is, until her former faction sends her a message: return what she stole from them, or they’ll kill her twin sister.
Rig embarks on a journey across the galaxy to save her sister – but for once she’s not alone. She has help from her network of resistance contacts, her taser-wielding librarian girlfriend, and a mysterious bounty hunter.
If Rig fails and her former faction finds what she stole from them, trillions of lives will be lost–including her sister’s. But if she succeeds, she might just pull the whole damn faction system down around their ears. Either way, she’s going to do it with panache and pizzazz.
My Review
Angry Robot sent me a copy of Bluebird to read while I waited for The Hunter’s Gambit, also by the same author. The Hunter’s Gambit is fantasy and I’m reviewing it in late June. Bluebird is sci fi and I had no review date planned, I just happened to sit down yesterday and read the book. I started reading it when the book arrived, but stuff got in the way, so I only read three chapters. Yesterday, I read the remaining 370 pages. Totally worth spending my Saturday afternoon/evening reading it.
We meet Rig, a Kashrini, who has escaped the human faction Pyrite that took over her species’ homeworld and enslaved her species, when they aren’t murdering them, on a mission to rescue more indentured people. In the process she meets Ginka, from a felidae sentient species who’s species has come under the control of the Ossuary faction of humans. Ginka is a fighting machine with strange technology. And then Rig’s former faction catches up with her. This sends Rig and Ginka on a series of adventures as they avoid and/or fight both Pyrite and Ossuary spies. We get interludes where we find out about Ginao’s background and discover why she is out in space alone.
Rig wants to rescue her sister, Daara (loyal to Pyrite but now imprisoned), and protect her partner, Jane, who is an Ascetic faction librarian; Ginka wants to go home to her husband, Crane. They have allies known and unknown who want freedom. There are two powerful intelligence agencies against them. They might have to take down the factions to do it.
I wish I’d had time to read this earlier, it’s so good! As we journey across space with the pair, and meet various allies and enemies, and both of them almost die, the tension pulls the reader on, to keep turning the page. I needed to know what was going to happen next. We learn about the deeper issues in this ancient space empire, and humans don’t come out of it well. This is a richly imagined space adventure, with well-developed characters. The relationships between Rig and the other characters are fascinating and develop across the 400+ pages as they travel and fight.
The book ends with love and hope. We get happy endings for Rig and Ginka, while Daara has to make her own choices in life. One faction has been beaten and the other two have been forced to back off.
Format: 400 pages, Hardcover Expected publication: May 28, 2024 by Angry Robot Books ISBN: 9781915202680 (ISBN10: 191520268X) Language: English
Description
The Devil knows your name, David Aristarkhov.
As a teen, David Aristarkhov was a psychic prodigy, operating under the shadow of his oppressive occultist father. Now, years after his father’s death and rapidly approaching his thirtieth birthday, he is content with the high-powered life he’s curated as a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a powerful medium for his secret society.
But with power comes a price, and the Devil has come to collect on an ancestral deal. David’s days are numbered, and death looms at his door.
Reluctantly, he reaches out to the only person he’s ever trusted, his ex-boyfriend and secret Society rival Rhys, for help. However, the only way to get to Rhys is through his wife, Moira. Thrust into each other’s care, emotions once buried deep resurface, and the trio race to figure out their feelings for one another before the Devil steals David away for good…
The first book in a spellbinding and vibrant new series from The Sunday Times bestselling author of A Dowry of Blood.
My Review
I have a limited edition proof copy of this book, sent by the publisher in December last year. I started reading it in January, but then life and blog tours got in the way, so I managed one chapter before I had to put it down. Last night, I read it all. In about five hours. I think the cover of my edition is way cooler that the standard edition. And I got a mini chocolate bar with my book.
From reading the first chapter I didn’t know if I’d enjoy the book. David is not a likeable character at the start. However, as the story progresses and the reader meets Rhys and Moira, and then other people in their circle, we learn something of them all. David, particularly, makes major character changes over the course of the novel as he becomes sick and is forced to confront his dead father, and a demon. Rhys and Moira are both antagonistic to him at the start, which we learn is due to David misdiagnosing the cause of a haunting in their house and blaming Moira. This is apparently the plot of the novella that precedes this novel. I haven’t read the novella, but picked up some of the story from mentions in this novel.
Rhys has ambitions of becoming important, while Moira suppresses her ambitions under the rules her mother taught her, and David has the insouciance and confidence of old money. They clash, because they all need therapy. David is driven by the fear of failure, of perfectionism, beaten into him by his abusive father. He’s a sober alcoholic, who copes with his stress by obsessively working both as a medium and a lawyer, while maintaining a punishing food and exercise regimen (he’s clearly struggling with orthorexia). Rhys has a load of Catholic guilt about being bisexual, about being an occultist, about having ambition. Moira needs to learn to put herself first sometimes, and to accept her own power.
Moira is the first one to realise, with the help of her friend Kitty, also a powerful magic worker, and wife of one of David and Rhys’ friends at the Society, that there is more than one way to do relationships. Moira at times acts as the hinge that keeps the two men from killing each other, holding them together when they’re falling apart, fighting demons or dying. As the story develops, and they all confront their feelings and trauma, they realise they can form a family that works for them.
It feels a bit like Moira is the one who is doing a lot of the work, of parenting two men in their late twenties who clearly didn’t get the parenting they needed as children. It’s unfortunate that this dynamic is one often found in heterosexual relationships (a woman becoming wife and surrogate mother to a man), and I found criticism of S.T. Gibson in other reviews of this book for that dynamic, but it’s what relationships are often like, and in a book that has demons and magic, the reality is grounding. I enjoyed the character growth they all go through and the resolution is satisfying.
S.T. Gibson is a really talented writer who knows enough about a variety of occult, magic and religious traditions to write convincingly about the many traditions that make an appearance in this book. It was fun playing ‘spot the tradition or folklore reference’ as I read the book. I want more of these books, more adventures for David, Rhys and Moira. And Leda, David’s half sister – who is utterly cool. I reckon if Kitty, Moira and Leda decided to, they could take over the Society, although Lorena would still be more powerful.
Recommended for fans of urban fantasy. Not much sex, for those who aren’t into it, but lots of angst and romance.
Format: 208 pages, Paperback Published: March 20, 2023 by Pluto Press ISBN: 9780745345161 (ISBN10: 0745345166) Language: English
Description
An impassioned discussion about the alternative ways to form relationships and resist capitalism.
Capitalist ideology wants us to believe that there is an optimal way to live. ‘Making connections’ means networking for work. Our emotional needs are to be fulfilled by a single romantic partner, and self-care equates to taking personal responsibility for our suffering. We must be productive and heterosexual, we must have babies and buy a house. But the kicker is most people cannot and do not want to achieve all, or any of these life goals. Instead we are left feeling atomised, exhausted and disempowered.
Radical Intimacy shows that it doesn’t need to be this way. A punchy and impassioned account of inspiring ideas about alternative ways to live, Sophie K Rosa demands we use our radical imagination to discover a new form of intimacy and to transform our personal lives and in turn society as a whole.
Including critiques of the ‘wellness’ industry that ignores rising poverty rates, the mental health crisis and racist and misogynist state violence; transcending love and sex under capitalism to move towards feminist, decolonial and queer thinking; asking whether we should abolish the family; interrogating the framing of ageing and death and much more, Radical Intimacy is the compassionate antidote to a callous society.
My Review
I have the Left Book Club edition of this book; the standard cover is plain yellow with black writing. All of the Left Book Club contemporary library have the same cover. I have several of them, this might be the first one I’ve had time to read. I started reading it on Wednesday, and almost finished it, but I had to go to bed, so I finished it off yesterday afternoon.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was a thoughtful introduction to some of the ideas presented, and well referenced. I generally agree with the direction of the argument, the capitalist, atomised society we live in, focused on the nuclear family, doesn’t support humans in a healthy way. I think read in conjunction with other books, such as Empire of Normality, by Robert Chapman, which I’ve reviewed in the past, and other books from Pluto Press (which I have, but haven’t had a chance to read yet), this book could be a good base from which to work. The writing style was engaging although slightly shallow at times, with arguments not developed as fully as perhaps some would like. Sex is barely mentioned, because intimacy and sex are not synonymous.
Format: 260 pages, Paperback Published: August 9, 2016 by Plume ISBN: 9780147517609 (ISBN10: 0147517605) Language: English
Description
From a former editor at the popular humour site Cracked.com and one of the writers of the bestselling You Might Be a Zombie and The De-Textbook, a rollicking look at vice throughout history, complete with instructions for re-creating debauchery at home.
Part history lesson, part how-to guide, A Brief History of Vice includes interviews with experts and original experimentation to bring readers a history of some of humanity’s most prominent vices, along with explanations for how each of them helped humans rise to the top of the food chain. Evans connects the dots between coffee and its Islamic origins, the drug ephedra and Mormons, music and Stonehenge, and much more. Chapters also include step-by-step guides for re-creating prehistoric debauchery in your modern life based on Evans’s first-hand fieldwork. Readers won’t just learn about the beer that destroyed South America’s first empire; they’ll learn how to make it.
My Review
I really enjoy Robert Evans’ podcast ‘Behind The Bastards’ and thought I’d give this book a read, just for amusement. Apparently he spent the money he was paid for this book on living in a ridiculously big house for a year and almost became homeless. Dafty.
Doing daft things for education and entertainment seems to be Evans’ motivation for a lot of things in life, although he is also a decent conflict zone reporter. This book was written while he was still at Cracked.com, and before he started his podcast. It is a mixture of science, history, anthropology and self-experimentation with a variety of historical intoxicants, from Sumerian early beer, hallucinogens from ancient Greece, nose pipes from Mesoamerica, and the ways tobacco has been used for healing, including as a purgative. I’m surprised only one person ended up in hospital.
The book was entertainingly written and honest about the effects of the various substances tried. I’m not sure the thesis, that ‘bad behaviour’ made civilisation, is substantiated, but it’s an interesting trip through the ancient world, from a very different perspective.
Book bloggers are no longer considered ‘fringe media’ but important vehicles to promote new titles, authors and publishers. Unlike mainstream news and feature outlets, which reach a wide but less targeted audience, blogs like EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH DRAGONS are the go-to destination of choice for engaged consumers who return time and time again for expert reviews and advice.
According to Palamedes PR, the UK’s market-leading book marketing agency, bloggers can be instrumental in shaping the overall success of a new release and are an indispensable force in the public relations industry.
Here, we speak to one of its publicists, Anthony Harvison, to find out why book blogs are reshaping the literary marketing and sales landscape, and how they are an increasingly important advocate for underrepresented voices and genres.
Anthony Harvison
Q: How has the landscape of book marketing evolved with the rise of book blogging, and what role does it play in promoting books?
Book blogging has become a powerful force in book marketing, offering a dynamic platform for readers to share their thoughts and recommendations. It plays a crucial role in creating buzz around books, reaching niche audiences, and influencing purchasing decisions.
Q: In what ways do book bloggers contribute to building a book’s online presence and visibility?
Book bloggers contribute significantly to a book’s online presence by writing reviews, hosting blog tours, and participating in social media discussions. Their authentic and personal recommendations can enhance a book’s visibility and attract a diverse readership.
Q: How do book publicists identify and collaborate with book bloggers to promote specific titles?
Book publicists often research and reach out to book bloggers whose content aligns with the target audience and genre of a particular book. Collaboration may involve sending review copies, organizing blog tours, or facilitating author interviews to generate interest among the blogger’s followers.
Q: Can you share examples of successful book marketing campaigns that heavily leveraged book blogging?
Successful campaigns often involve strategic partnerships with influential book bloggers. For instance, organizing blog tours with well-established bloggers, hosting giveaways, or encouraging book discussions on popular platforms can generate substantial online buzz and drive book sales.
Q: How do book bloggers contribute to the diversity and inclusivity of book promotion, particularly in highlighting underrepresented voices or genres?
Book bloggers have a unique ability to champion diverse voices and genres that might be overlooked in mainstream media. They can bring attention to underrepresented authors and stories, fostering a more inclusive literary landscape and broadening the range of books available to readers.
Q: With the prevalence of social media, how do book bloggers use platforms like Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube to enhance their book reviews and recommendations?
Many book bloggers utilize social media platforms to share visually appealing book recommendations, snippets of reviews, and engage in real-time conversations with their followers. Platforms like Instagram and YouTube, in particular, provide a multimedia approach to book promotion, enhancing the overall impact of their reviews.
Q: How can book publicists and authors effectively engage with book bloggers to ensure a mutually beneficial collaboration?
Building genuine relationships is key. Publicists and authors can engage with book bloggers by offering personalized pitches, providing relevant content, respecting their schedules, and acknowledging their contributions. It’s essential to approach collaborations as a partnership that benefits both parties and their audiences.
Q: Looking forward, do you see any emerging trends or changes in the relationship between book blogging and book marketing?
As technology evolves, immersive experiences like virtual book clubs, interactive content, and multimedia reviews may gain prominence in book blogging. The relationship between book bloggers and marketing may deepen as influencers continue to shape literary conversations and bridge the gap between authors, publishers, and readers.
For more information about Palamedes PR and its book marketing services, go to www.palamedes.co.uk or call 0208 1036883
Publication date Thursday, April 25, 2024 Price £20.00 EAN\ISBN-13 9781800961760
Description
How do you see Britain?
That might depend on your point of view, and as long time British foreign correspondent, Michael Peel has come to understand, it can look very different from outside. It’s tempting to think of the UK as a fundamentally stable and successful nation. But events of the past few years, from Brexit to exposés of imperial history, have begun to spark fierce public debates about whether that is true. Is Britain, just a marginal northern European island nation, marked by injustices, corruption and with a bloody history of slavery, repression and looting?
And yet UK politics, media, and public opinion live constantly in the shadow of old myths, Second World War era nostalgia, and a belief in supposedly core British values of tolerance, decency and fair play. British politicians regularly exploit a damaging complacency that holds that everything will turn out okay, because, in Britain, it always does.
In WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT BRITAIN, Michael Peel digs into the national consciousness with the perspective of distance to pull apart the ways in which we British have become unmoored from crucial truths about ourselves. He shows us that from many perspectives we are no different from other countries whose own national delusions have seen them succumb to abuses of power, increased poverty and divisive conflict. The battle over Britain’s narrative is the struggle for its future and its place in the world.
So, how do we escape the trick mirror – and see ourselves as we really are?
Everything Is Better With Dragons 