First Love – Out This Week!

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FIRST LOVE MARKETING GRAPHIC

This week – on Thursday the 28th of February to be precise – the new romantic fantasy anthology from Dragon Soul Press, entitled First Love, is finally released.

I’ve been yakking on about this for a while because one of my short stories, entitled Papercut, is a part of this prestigious volume. See? I’m not just about scaring the pants off people. I’ve got a lovey-dovey side too.

Papercut concerns a lonely teenage boy living with his ultra-strict Jehovah’s Witness mother. One night a mysterious girl made entirely of paper appears in his dreams, and… you can find out more by clicking the pre-order links below.

First Love also features stories from a bunch of other hugely talented authors, some of whom will feature in interviews on the blog over the next couple of weeks. Whether you fancy reading about the romantic dreamscapes of the religiously oppressed, or love stories involving forest nymphs, mages, selkies, Native American mythology, or, as one of my fellow writers pitched her story to me, “Bridget Jones meets Morgana Le Fay”, this is a must for those who like their romance with a fantastical twist.

To pre-order on Amazon Kindle in the UK click here.

To pre-order on Amazon Kindle in the US click here.

Paperbacks can already be ordered.

STOP PRESS: First Love paperbacks are out early!

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First-Love-KindleFirst Love, the romantic fantasy anthology from Dragon Soul Press, is out a little early, if you decide to get it in paperback form. It can be ordered now here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

This anthology features my short story Papercut – a poignant, heartfelt love story about a lonely teenage boy living with his ultra-strict Jehovah’s Witness mother. In his dreams, he is visited by a mysterious girl made entirely of paper, leading to a fantastical journey into… You’ll have to read the story to find out.

To get First Love on Kindle, pre-order here (in the UK) and here (in the US). The official launch date is still the 28th of February.

First Love: A Dragon Soul Press interview with yours truly

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Recently I was interviewed by my publisher, Dragon Soul Press, in conjunction with the release of their new romantic fantasy anthology First Love, for which I have contributed a short story entitled Papercut.

 

Papercut concerns a lonely teenage boy living with his overbearing Jehovah’s Witness mother, who has his world turned upside down when a mysterious girl made entirely of paper keeps appearing in his dreams.

Bits of this interview may crop up elsewhere, but here it is in full.

Did any of your books get rejected by publishers?

Yes. In some cases I came maddeningly close to mainstream publication. My most notable near misses were for Love vs Honour, a teenage romantic drama with a religious twist; and for Children of the Folded Valley, a dystopian memoir about a man looking back on his life growing up in the midst of a seemingly utopian cult. In the latter case, the publisher wanted me to rewrite the entire novel as a third person narrative, which was absurd. I felt thoroughly vindicated by the fact that when I self-published it, Children of the Folded Valley became my most successful novel to date by far. Everyone else I have spoken to says they can’t imagine it being a tenth as powerful as a third person narrative.

What inspires you to write?

The voices in my head. They won’t shut up.

What is your writing Kryptonite?

Social media (so distracting). Or exhaustion.

How hard was it to sit down and actually start writing something?

For First Love? Honestly not that hard. Although romance isn’t a genre I often tackle (despite the afore-mentioned novel Love vs Honour), romance with fantasy elements is a little different. I had the idea for my short story Paper Cut download into my mind almost straight away once I read the brief for the anthology.

What does literary success look like to you?

Someone making a film of your book. Even if the film ends up being terrible, it shows the book reached enough people that someone thought making the film was a good idea in the first place.

A more boring answer is making enough money on book sales so you can quit the day job. That’s a pipe dream for most writers though. Actually, a pipe dream is aspiring to be a plumber. Just as punching a clairvoyant who has won the lottery is striking a happy medium. Enough terrible jokes…

Do you read much and if so, who are your favourite authors?

Yes, I read constantly across many genres. I answered this question in fairly exhaustive fashion elsewhere on the Dragon Soul Press website, but this time I shall mostly restrict my answers to romantic fiction. I tend to prefer my romance doomed. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte), The English Patient (Michael Odaatje), Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy), The Remains of the Day (Kazou Ishiguro) and One Day (David Nicholls) are all good examples. There are a few exceptions to this, such as Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, or Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd (which is sort-of happy at the end despite the melancholia and tragedy throughout). Many of my favourite novels that wouldn’t be classed as romance feature doomed romantic subplots. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell for example, or Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. Fantasy fiction also features a few great romantic tragedies, including one that to my mind rivals Romeo and Juliet, at the conclusion of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

As Sally Sparrow once observed in classic Doctor Who episode Blink, “Sad is happy for deep people”.

How many hours a day do you write?

I don’t really time myself, but I have a daily goal of writing 1,000 words per day on weekdays, and 2,000 words per day at weekends, whenever I take on a project (either a novel or a short story).

What is your motivation for writing more?

To silence the voices in my head.

When did it dawn upon you that you wanted to be a writer?

It evolved over a longer process that always involved writing to some degree. I’ve always written short stories, but my first ambition was to be a journalist. That evolved into wanting to be a film director, but then I realised I preferred writing screenplays to the production rigmarole. That then evolved into writing novels.

Are you satisfied with your success?

No. I’ve still got loads of things I want to share with the widest possible readership. I have a pathological urge to entertain, and I don’t think I’ll ever be cured of it. Nor do I want to be.

First Love also features stories from a bunch of other hugely talented authors. Whether you fancy reading about the romantic dreamscapes of the religiously oppressed, or love stories involving forest nymphs, mages, selkies, Native American mythology, or, as one of my fellow writers pitched her story to me, “Bridget Jones meets Morgana Le Fay”, this is a must for those who like their romance with a fantastical twist.

To pre-order in the UK click here.

To pre-order in the US click here.

Paperbacks of First Love will be available from the 28th of February.

First Love: Now Available For Pre-Order

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You can now pre-order First Love on Amazon Kindle. I have contributed a short story entitled Papercut to this Dragon Soul Press romantic fantasy anthology, and even though I say so myself, it is really rather good.

Papercut concerns a lonely teenage boy living with his ultra-strict Jehovah’s Witness mother. One night a mysterious girl made entirely of paper appears in his dreams, who takes him on a magical journey into… Well, you’ll have to read more to find out.

First Love is released on the 28th of February.

To pre-order click here (for the UK) and here (for the US).

Spectre of Springwell Forest: Simple Relatable Fears

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SSF coverAll great horror stories have, at their core, a simple and relatable fear which is then explored, exploited and exaggerated. In my opinion that is what makes for a really memorable scary tale, not blood and gore.

My new novel Spectre of Springwell Forest asks this simple question: how far would you be prepared to go, to protect your child? Would you run away from a possible supernatural threat? Or would you stand up it? What if you didn’t understand the evil force you were up against? Would you research it to try and find a way to defeat it, or would you think some questions don’t have good answers and run for it?

Lily Parker, the protagonist at the heart of the story, faces all the above questions. She is curious, but inwardly battles against a second instinct urging her to flee. In addition, her investigations take her to an increasingly lonely place. As she gradually asks questions, a breakdown in communication occurs within her marriage, alienating her from her sceptical husband.

The novel isn’t all mystery, suspense and scares. I make room for a few slightly satirical moments. For instance, the competitiveness of parents of primary school children and related playground politics, as well as some jokey nods to UK political history.

In addition, Spectre of Springwell Forest touches on the folly of mob justice, and one or two other questions concerning the precise nature of the supernatural force at the heart of the tale. I have always enjoyed horror stories that include enough ambiguity for the reader to bring their own interpretations. Despite the apparently inexplicable nature of events in the story, there are a few hints here and there that might just offer a more rational explanation, for those that want such a thing. Yes, it all builds to a shocking and unexpected finale, but even then… Well, I shall say nothing more, for fear of spoilers.

Spectre of Springwell Forest is out now. Pick up your copy here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Spectre of Springwell Forest: Trees, Tunnels and Toadstools

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SSF coverFor all their supernatural shenanigans, I try to keep an air of realism (if not reality) in my horror stories, and my most recent novel Spectre of Springwell Forest is a case in point. To that end, I have tried to base the story locations on real places with which I am familiar. I have also conducted whatever research is necessary to try and maintain this illusion of realism.

I have had it pointed out to me that Springwell Forest is a real place in Northern Ireland. However, my Springwell Forest is not based there but in the south-west of Britain, in Devon near Plymouth, on the southern outskirts of Dartmoor. The village of Springwell draws inspiration from sleepy hamlets and villages such as Hemerdon and Sparkwell, which are located near where I live. It is also partly based on Aston in Oxfordshire, one of the places I lived as a child.

Springwell Forest is inspired by the woods near my house where I often go walking (deer are regularly seen there), but the abandoned railway tunnel is inspired by an area in Plymbridge woods, slightly further from where I live. I have never discovered magic mushrooms in these woods, but I undertook research into hallucinogenic fungi for the novel (no, not that kind of “research”).

Another question I am often asked concerns the subject of witchcraft, and how much research I did for those elements of the story. The simple answer is very little (at least, for this novel). The witchcraft element of the narrative is mostly made-up (and as far as I know, there is no secret society called the Pridwen Order in real life). However, because I wanted the story to have that afore-mentioned air of realism, I researched a few related subjects, such as differences between Wicca and witchcraft, and a handful of other elements that I won’t bore you with here.

Spectre of Springwell Forest is out now. Pick up your copy here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Spectre of Springwell Forest – Influences and Inspiration

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What writers inspired my latest novel Spectre of Springwell Forest?

Two undoubted influences on the story are Susan Hill’s seminal The Woman in Black, and the shorts of ghost story par excellence author MR James (such as The Ash Tree and Oh Whistle And I’ll Come To You My Lad). There’s also a smidgeon of Don’t Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier present, along with a dash of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. In fact, pretty much all my favourite ghost stories have informed this novel in some way, shape or form.

In the case of The Woman in Black, one of the major inspirations was the structure of the novel, including the framing device, and the famously upsetting, terse finale. I’ve always loved the way that book begins in a more settled present; at Christmas (like my story) but with a sense that the apparent serenity of the present masks long buried pain. Certainly as Arthur Kipps recounts his bone-chilling visit to Eel Marsh House, it becomes apparent that he is opening wounds that have never really healed.

With Spectre of Springwell Forest, I wanted to capture something of this tone in the framing device structure, and with the nasty sting in the tail right at the end. Thematically my novel shares other DNA with The Woman in Black – the apparent threat to children, for instance. Don’t Look Now also deals with the death of children and the supernatural.

On the other hand, I didn’t want Spectre of Springwell Forest to be one hundred percent clear cut in its explanations. The Turn of the Screw has an ambiguity that has always appealed to me, and in my novel, amid the spooky shenanigans I wanted to hint that there might – just might – be a natural explanation.

In the case of MR James’s stories, it was more the terrifying tone of those tales that proved an influence, rather than plot specifics. His superbly suspenseful prose remains unsurpassed. If my book contains a tenth of the churning dread conjured by his writing, I will have done very well. Of course, my novel doesn’t set out to copy his work or the other afore-mentioned classics, but seeks to be its own beast.

Spectre of Springwell Forest is out now. Pick up your copy here (in the UK) or here (in the US).

First Love: Another short story coming soon

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I have some more exciting news on the publishing front. Dragon Soul Press has selected my short story Papercut for inclusion in their upcoming romantic anthology, First Love.

The theme for this anthology is self-explanatory, but with elements of fantasy. My story, Papercut, concerns a lonely teenage boy living with his ultra-strict Jehovah’s Witness mother. One night a mysterious girl made entirely of paper appears in his dreams, and… Well, you’ll have to read it to find out what happens.

First Love is released on the 28th of February. Watch this space for further updates.

Spectre of Springwell Forest – An introduction

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Spectre of Springwell Forest, my first novel published via a traditional publisher (as opposed to self-published) is out now.

A nail-biting, bone-chilling supernatural mystery, Spectre of Springwell Forest is a ghost story in the classical tradition, but with a number of important differences. Here is a more in-depth introduction to the story than I have previously written about on this blog.

SSF coverThe novel opens in Exeter, 2010. Lily Parker learns that her daughter Olivia is to move to the village of Springwell, near Plymouth. To the surprise of her husband Andy, this sends Lily into terrified despair. She tells him that Olivia absolutely must not move to Springwell, under any circumstances. Andy wants to know why, and Lily then tells him what happened to her many decades previously, in 1979, warning him that she has a horrifying secret that she had previously hoped to take with her to the grave.

In 1979, Lily and her then six-year-old daughter Olivia, along with her first husband Tom Henderson, move to the sleepy village of Springwell. Here they meet a tight lipped community of secretive villagers who seem to have something to hide. Lily then discovers a painting of an abandoned railway tunnel in her attic, by a local artist, Alison Merrifield. Lily is strangely drawn to the painting, particularly the dark maw of the tunnel, and ends up hanging the picture in her hallway.

After meeting her neighbour and other mothers dropping their children at the local primary school, Lily is surprised to learn they all have similar paintings in their homes, all of them painted by Alison Merrifield, all of them showing the same abandoned railway tunnel. The other mothers dismiss this as something of a village in-joke, and when Lily visits Alison in her local craft shop, Alison herself insists she cannot understand why the paintings of the abandoned tunnel are so popular. But Lily senses she is being lied to.

Shortly afterwards, when Lily and Olivia go for a walk in the local forest, they come across a fenced off area in the heart of the woods where the barbed wire has been mysteriously torn apart. Investigating further inside the fenced off section, they discover the very same abandoned railway tunnel of the painting, and enter the tunnel… where something I won’t tell you about happens.

After this incident, Lily starts to make out a mysterious figure in the painting of the railway tunnel. As time passes, the eerie figure becomes more and more clearly defined, but Lily is disturbed to discover no-one can see it but her. Worse still, as the sinister figure is revealed, Olivia starts to behave in an increasingly alarming manner…

Then things get really scary, building to a horrifying and unexpected finale.

I hope this introduction whets your appetite for the story.

Spectre of Springwell Forest is out now. Pick up your copy here (in the UK) and here (in the US).

Happy New Year 2019!

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Happy New Year!

2019

Last year was a hugely significant year for my writing, not least because my first novel to be published by a traditional publisher, Spectre of Springwell Forest, has now been released. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, what are you waiting for? Click here (for the UK) and here (for the US) and dive into a nail-biting ghostly mystery that will brighten up your January with page-turning suspense.

So what are my writing plans for 2019?

For a start, I have submitted a short story entitled Paper Cut for inclusion in the upcoming Dragon Soul Press romantic fantasy anthology First Love. More to be announced on that front in due course.

Aside from that, I have started writing my first novel for 2019 – an as yet untitled ghostly tale which is lighter on the terror than Spectre of Springwell Forest and The Thistlewood Curse, yet still falls neatly within the psychological/supernatural thriller/horror spectrum in which I greatly enjoy writing. I will keep my lips sealed on details so far… suffice to say it involves a famous dead actor, his rather less famous actress widow, a large sinister house, a medium, and a big mystery.

Also this year, I intend to finally stop procrastinating and write the science fiction novellas I have put off since mid-2017 (when I opted to write Echo and the White Howl instead). Those I really will say nothing about for now.

On top of that, I hope to have at least one other novel released this year, possibly horror mystery The Irresistible Summons which I wrote back in 2015, depending on what my publisher makes of it. Watch this space for more updates on that and other writing related matters throughout the year. Here’s hoping it’s a good one.