Welcome Author Karen King!

I’m delighted to welcome my good friend, Karen King back onto my blog today. Karen and I have shared many a school visit, talking about our books to assembly halls full of primary school children and encouraging youngsters to read and write.  Our KAT visits (Kids and Authors Together) are legendary – to us anyway!

With an incredible 120 children’s books to her name, Karen is now expanding her writing prowess into other genres.

One genre being more edgy young adult books. Her first YA, Perfect Summer, was runner up in the Red Telephone Books 2011 YA Novel Competition and her second YA, Sapphire Blue, now republished as Rise of the Soul Catchers by Littwitz Press, was called ‘the best YA book out there right now’ by a reviewer for Ind’Tale magazine.

Having read Rise of the Soul Catchers, I have to agree it’s a great read, and a fascinating, thought provoking look at what the afterlife could be like.

She is also writing sassy, heart-warming romance. She currently has four romcoms published by Accent Press, and a fifth one is due out in June this year. Her latest romcom, The Cornish Hotel by the Sea, was #3 in the Amazon bestseller holiday reads, and she has recently signed a two book-contract with Bookouture for more romance novels. 

If that’s not enough, she has also written several short stories for women’s magazines. Well done, Karen!

We are both members of the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) and plan on attending their conference again this summer. Looking forward to that very much.

I have pleasure in sharing the blurb and an extract from Rise of the Soul Catchers for you to enjoy…

Blurb

Can love survive anything – even death?

Sapphire and Will vow to love each other forever. But when a car crash ends that dream all too soon, they find themselves separated in an afterlife with zones named after the colours of the rainbow. Determined to find each other, they start an adventurous journey alongside a cast of characters they don't know whether to trust. They finally meet again in the terror-fuelled Red Zone where the dreaded Soul Catchers are planning on taking over the entire afterworld and are plunged into a dangerous battle. Is their love strong enough to survive against the odds? 

 (Previously published as Sapphire Blue)

Rise of the Soul Catchers – Extract – Sapphire’s Viewpoint.

My mind is a mess. I can’t leave Will. I’ve got to help him. But how can I? I don’t know this world. If I don’t go with Grandpa and my family, I’ll be on my own. The Soul Catchers might get me too.

Soul Catchers. The very name makes me shudder. Have they got Will? What are they doing to him?

Will and I promised to love each other forever. How can I go without knowing he’s safe? I can’t leave him. But if I stay, how can I help him? My head is such a mish-mash of thoughts and fears I’m hardly aware of Grandpa leading me over to the silver bus, of climbing up the steps to board it.

It’s crowded so we have to go right at the back to find a seat. Grandpa gently pushes me into the seat by the window. I look out and see the guy still waiting on the steps. He’s not giving up on his sister. How can I give up on Will so easily?

That guy belongs here. He knows his way around, I remind myself. I’m new. I need to stay with Grandpa. Besides, the zone guides will find Will.

What if they don’t? I might never see him again.

The realization smacks me like a punch to the stomach, momentarily winding me.

I can’t go. Going with Grandpa might mean leaving Will forever and I can’t do that.

I can get another bus and meet up with Grandpa later, when I find Will. He could be on his way here, right now. I think of him walking in alone and confused like I was, of running to greet him, hugging him, letting him know that even though we’re here we still have each other. I have to wait for him.

I get up from my seat, almost jumping over Grandpa in my haste to get off.

“I’m waiting for Will,” I shout as I race down the aisle toward the closing door.

I can hear Grandpa and Aunt May calling me to come back but I ignore them. The doors are closing. With a final burst I reach them, slip through the narrowing gap and leap out, landing sprawled out on the ground. I hear the doors slide shut behind me and a loud whoosh. Scrambling to my knees I swivel around just in time to see the silver bus rise up and soar off into the sky, swiftly disappearing behind the clouds. Okay, so that’s why it’s called a sky-bus. Now what the hell do I do?

Buy Links

Rise of the Soul Catchers is available for pre-order from Amazon and will be published on 25^th April.

Amazon: http://ow.ly/Fz1L30j0hqh

Author links

Website: http://www.karenking.net/

Twitter: @karen_king

Karen King Young Adult Books Facebook Page

Karen King Romance Author Facebook Page

Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/karenkingauthor/

Welcome Author Marilyn Pemberton!

I’m delighted to welcome author Marilyn Pemberton onto my blog today to talk about her beautifully written debut novel, The Jewel Garden.

Marilyn is one of my Monday Night writing students, and it’s been my pleasure over the last few years to hear extracts of Marilyn’s book and to follow her journey from just an idea right through to publication.

Marilyn has always worked in IT and is still a full-time project manager. However, at the age of 40 she decided she wanted to exercise the right side of her brain and so commenced a part-time BA in English literature at Warwick University. This progressed to an MA and then to a PhD on the utopian & dystopian aspects of Victorian fairy tales.

After giving a paper at a conference she was approached by a publisher who suggested she gather together some lesser known fairy tales and as a result Enchanted Ideologies: A Collection of Rediscovered Nineteenth-Century English Moral Fairy Tales was published by The True Bill Press in 2010.

During her research Marilyn “discovered” Mary De Morgan, a Victorian writer of fairy tales. She  became somewhat obsessed with De Morgan and in order to share her research she wrote Out of the Shadows: The Life and Works of Mary De Morgan, which was published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2012.

Despite her intensive research there were still many gaps in her knowledge and because she just could not let De Morgan, or the act of writing, go, she decided to write a fictional novel based on De Morgan’s life - the result being The Jewel Garden.

Here’s the blurb for The Jewel Garden…

It was a time when women were starting to rebel against Victorian conventions and to strive for their independence. This is a story of Hannah Russell’s physical, emotional and artistic journey from the back streets of the East End of London to the noisy souks and sandy wastes of Egypt; from the labyrinthine canals of Venice to the lonely corridors of Russell Hall in Kent. Hannah thinks she has found love with Mary De Morgan, a writer of fairy tales and one of William Morris’s circle of friends. But where there is devotion there can also be deceit and where there is hope there also dwells despair.

Enjoy this extract from The Jewel Garden by Marilyn Pemberton as Hannah sails out to Egypt from England.

The next morning I awoke early. The sun was only just rising and had not yet warmed the air, but I decided to wrap myself up well and to sit on the upper deck and to savour the birth of the day. There were already a few passengers already on deck, but I managed to find a deck chair that offered protection from the cool breeze, but provided a wonderful view out to sea.

When I first looked out I thought that there was nothing to see but the vast flat expanse of blue that stretched to infinity. But the longer I looked the more I saw: the smudge of smoke from another ship on the horizon; a flock of black cormorants skimming the surface of the ocean, coming from goodness knows where, going to goodness knows where; a single small white cloud marring the otherwise clear azure dome.

And the sea itself, not flat after all, but just like blue icing on a Christmas cake that the cook had patted with a spatula and then brushed with sugar. I imagined rather than saw the brightly coloured shoals of fish that darted hither and thither in the dark depths. The surface was suddenly, joyfully, broken by five shiny porpoises, arching in synchrony through the air. I saw them for but a few seconds, then no more and I wondered if I had imagined them.

Marilyn is a member of the Society of Women Writers & Journalists and has just won first prize in one of their short story competitions. She is also a member of the Historical Novel Society and The Society of Authors.

She is currently working on a new historical novel, set in 18th century Italy that tells of two young boys who are bought from their families, castrated and then trained to be singers. This was something that was actually done at the time, though this story is purely fictional. It follows the boys’ careers, one who becomes a successful singer and the other who does not.

I would like to thank Marilyn for being on my blog – and I can’t wait to read her next novel.

The Jewel Garden by Marilyn Pemberton, published by Williams & Whiting.

Available in print and as an ebook:

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jewel-Garden-Marilyn-Pemberton-ebook/dp/B079ZY877T 

 https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-jewel-garden/marilyn-pemberton/9781912582037

Discover more about Marilyn:  https://marilynpemberton.wixsite.com/author

Blog: writingtokeepsane.wordpress.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marilyn.pemberton.391

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mapemberton54