Rae of Light

Originally a guest post on Rita Carla Monticelli's blog. Before settling down to writing and self-publishing I used to be a full time teacher in an inner city London school. Regardless of the country you teach in, anyone will tell you this is a challenging environment. Very quickly into my teaching practice I realised I had a knack for communicating with children with Special Needs (SEN as it’s called here in the UK). Most times when people think of Special Needs they latch onto the idea of a child with learning difficulties. Several times during my 13 year teaching stint I was reminded that while the majority of my students did indeed have these difficulties there were others whose behaviour marked them as SEN when in fact they were highly intelligent. Their lack of engagement with the average classroom content and insular or confrontational attitude masked their talent. At the very start of my teaching career, a...

I’m back from my summer holiday and it was a corker. The villa, up in the hills of an area called Teramala in the Sant’Elena quarter, was comfy and had more or less all the comforts of home. It was of course a fair ways away from the centre of things in Cagliari (a good hour away by bus and they’re not frequent. Nor do Sardinian bus timetables and arrivals of said bus bear any relation to each other.) Somehow, when you’re on holiday in sunny foreign parts where rain is a word scarcely used, this does not irk you as it would if you were here in Blighty. The views from the villa were spectacular. And I’m not exaggerating. Cagliari itself, though hilly (9 of them to be exact) is easy to get around and the food splendid wherever you go. Even the tiniest supermarket has a plethora of cheeses and cold meats to choose from with tons of farm produce in the fruit and veg aisles. The buses, though erratic on the outskirts, were pretty reliable in the city itself and the price of ticket...

Over several months now I’ve been using Instafreebie to ensure I’m not spending hundreds of pounds in my bid to complete my Goodreads annual reading challenge. Sometimes the reads are totally amazing. At other times not so much. I was getting irritated by the endless run of so so reads lately, these are the ones which fall into 3 star or below category for me. It made me forget the list of great authors I’ve found through the site so far such as: Helena Rookwood , Devyn Jayse , Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli and Lana Hart . Thankfully I started a book which reminded me that perseverance pays off. It was so good I resolved to share it with you which also got me thinking about a monthly feature. Why the hell not I thought. So I'll be re-featuring the above authors too as well as any others which catch my attention in the coming months. _________________________________________________________ This month’s offering: Seeker by Amy Reece Genre : Paranormal Audience : Y...

#Review: RED DESERT by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli 4 Star reading I must confess a certain attraction to the inhospitable red planet ever since I saw Total Recall . The Arnie version of course. There simply is no other. As many of you know, I’ve even squeezed a mention of Mars into my very own little eco SciFi number. So I was delighted to come across this translation of Deserto Rosso. It is written in diary format from the perspective of Anna Persson, an astronaut landed on Mars together with several colleagues. Together they are hoping to set up a primary colony. The opening is dramatic as use of the present tense and the narrator’s situation draws the reader in. The story line switches between events on Mars and flashbacks, in the past tense, in which we learn a great deal of backstory. I found these details and the relationships Anna has with other characters very engaging. I wanted to read on and in fact finished the book in only 4 sittings. Anna's compl...