Rae of Light

Once, when I was about 12 or 13 I bemoaned the fact I had no friends.  Around me, my contemporaries seemed to have scores of them.  I felt understandably left out. My mother sat me down and told me she could count her most valued friends on one hand. I disbelieved her. I was at that age when you begin doubting the wisdom of your parents. As you know from  Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend , I’m thrilled to have 5 gems on my bracelet. But with Thanksgiving round the corner, I'm once again celebrating fabulously forged friendships because a good friend is the most priceless gift of all.   As well as the Koh-i-noor diamonds   making up my sparkilicious friendship bracelet, there are other friends who also give me succour in more ways than they might realise. The first group owed acknowledgement this Friendsgiving are the members of my Writing Group in Telegraph Hill.  Without this lot I’d spend a great deal of time writing far too ma...

I'm thrilled to announce that Where Rainbows Hide has been included in a mass e-book GIVEAWAY hosted by well known author and pod-caster, Paul Teague . Can you spot my little baby in the fabulous line up above? Get your FREE books here Scifi/Dystopian Giveaway

It’s time to update you on how my annual reading challenge is going. For those of you new to this blog I’ll give a quick recap. This is the second year I’ve set myself a reading challenge. Last year I decided I would have a go at reading 100 books in a year. It nearly killed me but I did it. If you want to read about it please do so by following the link above.  This post however is about my current reading challenge. It’s the one where I try to read as many Pratchett novels as I can in a year. I started with the Discworld books and there are 41 in the series.  I’ve managed to read 24 and thought I’d give you a heads up on the five I’ve found the most entertaining so far. At number 5 is Witches Abroad The triple act of the witches Weatherwax, Ogg and Garlic are crucial in giving readers a taste of Pratchett’s brilliance at character creation.   He does a mean job of description and one of my favourites is of Nanny Ogg’s son Jason:   “He didn’t...

An e-book GIVEAWAY Hosted by Scott Ferrell and featuring over 30 writers, including myself, of   amazing young adult stories that fall under the genres of fantasy and sci-fi in all of their many forms. Get your free books here Imagination Set Free

So this is my first ever blog tour to promote the release of a new book.  I’m being hosted by a fabulous set of bloggers. A massive thank you to them all for having me. Dates for your diary 2 nd November To begin with I’m staying more or less local. Post 1 is hosted by Lindsay Bamfield who I met through a North West London writing group. It was run by Stewart Permutt and was the most welcoming group ever to grace the face of the planet. I was introduced to it by my good friend Barbara Hartridge. Even though getting there and back was a major trek on the North Circular, I stayed in this writing group for almost 4 years while it was run out of various venues, including a room at Alexandra Palace . 9 th November Next I’m off to Sheffield where Post 2 is hosted by the lovely Anna Caig’s reading blog . Anna and I met in a bakery while I was visiting my Sheffield BF. Anna blogs about books she’s read in her ever growing home library and her ...

May it be as scary & adventurous as possible Stay safe while Trick or Treating & remember to brush those teeth afterwards, including the false set.

I thoroughly enjoyed this instalment of shenanigans in the Discworld. The main theme running through it is that stories have power.  Their part in the fight between good and evil is emphasised to the max. There are many literary references to look out for including The Lord of the Rings and Dracula .  Fairy tales also have a central role and thus we need the help of 3 witches first introduced to us in Wyrd Sisters . The triple act of the witches Weatherwax, Ogg and Garlic are crucial to give the reader the viewpoint of different types of people.  Pratchett also very cleverly uses the combined enthusiasm and lack of experience of youth to lead the reader towards knowledge without hitting us over the head with a mallet. There were some lovely descriptions and I particularly liked the one of Nanny Ogg’s son Jason: “He didn’t look as if he could possibly have been born, but as if he must have been constructed. In a shipyard.  To his essentially slow and ...