NOT A CONSTANT READER, BUT A GOOD ONE

Some authors can write all day and then cheerfully read all evening. Others can't. And unfortunately, I'm very much afraid that I fall into the latter category. I can't properly concentrate on my own work while reading the work of other people.

Why? Well in my case, I'm afraid it's a matter of a thing called 'voice.' And I'll give you an example. I was working on one of my Raine's Landing supernatural thrillers. They're set in a fictional town of the same name in Massachusetts, and are mostly narrated by the central character, a certain Ross Devries. He's never left his hometown once in his life, because of a curse on the place. You get the general picture?

Anyway, I was working on a scene he was narrating one day. And the previous evening, I had been reading one of Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire novels. And before I knew it, Ross's voice -- the voice of someone who's a lifelong northeast coast, New England man -- was ringing through my head with a very heavy Southern accent, redolent of fried turkey and grits. Hey, how 'bout them Salem witches, y'all. And I couldn't get rid of it all day. That's how much other people's work can sometimes affect me.

Honestly, it drives me nuts, because I love to read. Between projects, I do so as much as I can. I devour books when I'm vacationing, and half enjoy catching the flu, because it stops me working and allows me to get a little more reading in. But the point of all this is that I have now joined Goodreads. As you can tell from the scenario above, my personal reviews of books won't be too frequent, but I'll do it when I can. And I'd love to hear your opinions of both my and other writers' efforts. You can look me up right here.

A SIGHT FOR TIRED EYES

Even writers have it tough sometimes. It's been a pretty busy year so far. There've been the various edits of my new supernatural thriller -- TROPIC OF DARKNESS from Pocket Star/Gallery -- to deal with. I've a new horror novel on the boil. And to add insult to injury, I honestly thought that I was getting near to a final version of my fifth Raine's Landing novel -- SPEAK OF THE DEVIL -- only to realise it needs a couple more drafts at least before it's properly complete.

Ah, the joys of being a perfectionist!

Throw in an absolutely terrible British winter which has lasted right until the end of April, and by the middle of that month  I was absolutely drained and needed, very badly, to get away for a while.

A couple of days scootching around on the Internet and Louise had come up with an inexpensive one-week deal in, of all places, Ibiza. You know, hangout for hippies in the Sixties and Seventies, now the favoured destination for all-night clubbers. But we went for it.

We wound up in a nice hotel which was a little isolated and was, frankly, pretty quiet. Very early in the season, you see ...it had only just opened, and I doubt if a quarter of its rooms were occupied. But right outside the entrance was a bus stop, and in ten minutes you could get into the heart of the island's capital, Ibiza Town, and what a joy that was. The harbour was nice enough -- face it, they always are. But heading away from that, you come into the Old Town, all tall, gaily-painted old houses with wrought iron balconies, and leafy, cafe-lined squares. Absolutely charming. But the best was yet to come.

Past the Old Town is the mostly 16th Century walled  city of Ibiza Town, founded -- I think -- by Philip II of Spain. We're talking huge walls, massive fortifications, cannons at the top. To defend against whom? I'm not quite sure. Pirates? Corsairs? Even the Perfidious Brits?

You go in through the main entrance -- across a drawbridge, no less -- and suddenly realise that you've wound up somewhere very special. And it's not just the lovely old architecture. The whole of the walled city is built on the slopes of a very steep hill, so that the streets running acrosswise are normal lanes, but the streets running upward are not lanes at all but flights of stone stairs, hundreds of them, heading in every which direction. And the place is no museum -- people live there by the thousand. I could have wandered there for hours, and I generally did.

I hear that Luca in Italy is built along similar lines but, never having been there, I found Ibiza Town's walled city quite unique, a place of special magic. There's a lot more to that island than just clubbing.

THE SPEED OF DARK

Further down this blog, you'll find an interview with Canadian author and publisher Clayton Bye. And now I'm in an anthology of his. It's horror, and it's different and unsettling stuff. At 334 pages, The Speed of Dark has 27 stories by 19 authors from across the world, all of them by invite, and includes my latest Birchiam-on-Sea tale, 'Across the Tracks.'

A GREAT HORROR FREEBIE!

For the whole of today, Saturday 23rd February, one of my collections of horror tales -- The Books of Shadow: Volume II -- is absolutely free on Amazon Kindle. A dozen of my best creepy tales, all of them originally published between the Eighties and the present day. There are two other books in this series, by the way. You can find out more about them HERE.

A BELATED NEW YEAR

I've never cared too much for Xmas. Honestly, I find it dull. So once family duties are over, Louise and I like to get away for New Year if we possibly can. This year it was Palma, capital of Mallorca, a charming town with a large and beautiful Old City, full of winding streets, Arab baths, and amazing buildings including a huge and very beautiful cathedral. I thought I'd share some of it with you (rather late in the day, because I've been pretty busy since I got back).

 

DEADLY VIOLET REVIEWS

Just like the previous three Raine's Landing supernatural novels, the fourth in the series -- DEADLY VIOLET -- has started pulling down some seriously good reviews. Except that, only being an ebook at the moment, those reviews are all on Amazon. Here are the first few:

“What can I say? As entertaining as the other novels, perhaps even more so. I've been a fan of Raine's Landing since I purchased the first novel in the series from the Science Fiction Book Club, and they just keep coming, each one as satisfactory as the last. I always look forward to opening a novel whose title has the subheading: A Raine's Landing Novel.
     This one brings back familiar characters from past stories...Boston cop Lauren, a recovering Saul Hobart, and a pregnant Cassie, trying to maintain a normal life with her boyfriend, the recently-deceased adept Quinn Maycott, as well as others only mentioned previously. There's a little more on Willetts, who came to the Landing, committed what he considers a criminal sin, and stays to work out his own punishment. None of these side stories are enough to detract from the main theme, namely, why does the mysterious violet light suddenly gleam and then nasty things appear and do away with homes and their inhabitants in particularly gruesome ways? It also answers some questions I, and no doubt other readers, have raised through the years.
    I'd call this one a nail-biter, and I'm not going to say any more for Spoilers can pop up unexpectedly whenever one speaks about the Landing. Just read it for yourself, and you'll see what I mean” – T.P. Vissage.

“Deadly Violet, along with the other Raine's Landing novels are page turners. Not a boring part in the whole series. Deadly Violet left you with a cliff hanger at the end, so I'm looking forward to the next in the series” -- Judy.

“Welcome back to Raine's Landing, the town that was built by the original Salem Witches as an escape from the infamous witch trials (1692). However, the town ended up on the wrong side of the wrong witch and found itself cursed in perpetuity. Anyone born in Raine's Landing can never leave and those not born there find it extremely hard to find or visit the town. It is due to this curse That Raine's Landing, a town populated primarily by magic users, exists just off a major highway in the present.
    There are a few people who don't use magic in this town. Ross Devries--a former cop--and his tough sidekick, Cass Mallory, are two of them. Not only that, their peculiar backgrounds make them perfect problem solvers for whenever magic gets out of hand, something that seems to happen with some regularity in Raine's Landing.
    Take this day for example: People have begun disappearing. And giant, purple worms with massive, circular rows of teeth that rotate are grinding unprepared people into nothingness. Then come the little bubbles of violet light that shoot through everything and everyone they find, repeatedly, destroying them just as surely as a "grinder" would. But when houses begin to disappear and people are attacked by their worst nightmares, even the town's adepts can't stop the destruction.
    They keep trying though. Trying to understand and communicate with the intelligent, violet life-forms who seem to be behind all that is happening. But when the sun itself takes on a purple hue, it leaves everyone certain that reality is being consumed by another universe.
    Since magic has failed to protect them, Ross and Cass seem to be the only people who can fix this particular problem. What's the source of that problem? A little girl a hundred years in the past has stolen a powerful talisman, reached out and forward to find the "little girl" from previous stories (She occupies one room in an abandoned house, hovering in the air, spinning slowly and seeing all) and then entwined their minds. It's this that has caused a rip in the continuum of space and allowed the strangest of races access to our world.
    With the clock ticking down to nothingness, Ross and Cass must somehow find a way to break the bond between the two girls and repair the bridge between the universes.
    Be sure to pick up a copy of this superb fantasy. Deadly Violet by Tony Richards just hums along, taking you at high speed to places of which you will never have dreamed. In fact, I think Deadly Violet is the best Raine's Landing novel to date. ” – Clayton Bye.

The book is available for $2.99 (plus a very small delivery fee) from Amazon Kindle, and for those who prefer something more solid, a paperback version ought to be ready sometime later this year.

ELECTRIC ANGELS

At last, after a good long wait, my third Raine's Landing supernatural thriller -- Midnight's Angels -- is available in ebook form. You can get it both on Smashwords and on Amazon Kindle.