#Review: The Welsh Linnet

Read from 10-15th July 2023

Synopsis: 

England in the year 1642. Civil War looms between King Charles I and his Puritan Parliament.

The excitement of life as officers in King Charles I’s cavalry soon turns sour for brothers Will and Harry Lucie, drawn to the war like moths to a flame. The family divided by the conflict, their sister Bess becomes caught up in the deadly struggle and is forced to flee the family home. In the grim aftermath of battle, Harry is thrown together with grieving widower Gabriel Vaughan, a man concealing a dangerous secret.

From the slaughter of Edgehill to the defence of doomed fortress Basing House, the story of dishonour and betrayal plays out against the backdrop of real events and places, “this war without an enemie”.

Bookish Things: 470 pages. The cover is appropriate for the genre and feel of the book. This is the first book in the War Without An Enemy Series and happily book #2 is already out.

Out Now: Wanted for Indulgence, Trained for Greed!!

Wanted for Indulgence, Trained for Greed is out now on kindle and paperback from Amazon from $2.99!

Initial reviews are slowly starting to come in at 4.5 stars out of 5.

If you pick up a copy please get in touch either here or on Goodreads and let me know what you thought.

Review: Dark Closets

Read on 9th July 2023.

Synopsis: A double header of horror!
In the first of two frightening tales, a young boy turns the monster in the closet loose on a much more grown up fear.
Then, a midnight visitor slithers from a man’s darkest imagination and becomes an all-too-real roommate.

Bookish Things: 12 pages. The cover is very basic and looks homemade.

Where to buy: Amazon on kindle for $1.66.

My Review: 

Bookshelves: horror, 2-star-review, indie-author, made-me-bored, paranormal, short-story, something-missing, too-short

I have no idea when I added this to my TBR List, and I only decided to read this one today because I forgot to get out my next physical book to read, so I picked this very short 12 page story (two actually) to tide me over until I get my book out.

These two stories read very much like writing exercises in horror writing 101. Very little characterisation and almost zero story arc. Mostly just a jumble of sensations and an attempt to build an eerie sense of dread.

While there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with these stories, they’re very basic and the ‘twists’ are signposted well in advance.

If you pick this up for free you might enjoy it, but I wouldn’t bother if you have to pay. Took less than 10mins to read both.

I’d probably consider something longer from the author if it’s out there.

Review: Hangman by Jack Heath

Read on 7th July 2023

Synopsis: 

A 14-year-old boy vanishes on his way home from school. His frantic mother receives a disturbing ransom call. It’s only hours before the deadline, and the police have no leads.

Enter Timothy Blake, codename Hangman. Blake is a genius, known for solving impossible cases. He’s also a sociopath – the FBI’s last resort.

But this time Blake might have met his match. The kidnapper is more cunning and ruthless than anyone he’s faced before. And Blake has been assigned a new partner, a woman linked to the past he’s so desperate to forget.

Timothy Blake has a secret, one so dark he will do anything to keep it hidden.

And he also has a price. Every time he saves a life, he takes one…

Already sold into five territories, Hangman is a mesmerising dissection of the criminal mind and a bulletproof thriller.

Bookish Things: Book 1 of the 4 book Timothy Blake series. The book is 368 pages. The cover is suitably crime/thriller fiction.

Where to buy: Amazon on kindle for $9.99. I picked up a physical copy.

NaNoWriMo Day 22 update

So I’ve been busy writing book 6 and mostly hitting the daily word goal. You can see in the above image it’s dipped below that grey line a few times, but not by much. I hit my word goal for day 22, stopping in at a total of 36,904 words.

So far, book 6 is shaping up to be around the same length as Magnolia’s story and a similar sort of feel. It’s certainly not pure smut, but it’s also not what I’d call a romance either.

I’m looking into a few alternative genre types to see if anything else fits better.

My first thought was perhaps it could come under erotic literary fiction. When I look into what literary fiction is defined as:

Now if you’d asked me a few years ago if I’d go anywhere near literary fiction I’d probably have laughed in your face and called you nuts. But, given my goal for the last two books I’ve published, and this one, is to showcase real world issues that occur in the kink community I think they might just fit into that literary fiction genre.

Blank face look.

What do you think?

Review: Memory of Dragons

Read from 29th June to 6th July 2023

Synopsis: With a dragon’s magic, even a memory can be dangerous…

Austin is an American grad student, on leave to mourn the death of his girlfriend, Rhi. Yet during a pilgrimage to her favorite place on the Welsh coast, he finds she may not be as dead as he thought. A pickpocket named Corinna claims to have stolen her memories. Rhi was a wizard from another world, she insists, and if Austin doesn’t trust her, that world will perish in an apocalypse of dragons.

Austin rejects Corinna’s story. Magic? Stolen memories? Dragons? Yet soon, a sinister figure begins stalking him. A glowing crystal speaks with a voice in his mind. When a creature too horrible to be natural attacks, snarling Austin’s name through mangled mandibles, he must reexamine his grasp of reality, or die.

Corinna might be his only hope. Can he trust her, an admitted thief, when the voice from the crystal calls her a liar? Meanwhile, Austin’s stalker creeps ever closer, murderous, implacable, and seeking a confrontation on which hinges Austin’s life, Rhi’s death, and the fate of two worlds.

Memory of Dragons imagines our fairy tale monsters are another world’s criminal castoffs, and that magic can exist, if we can stomach the cost.

Bookish Things: 315 pages. The cover is quite eye-catching. Lovely font!