About the author

My first novel came about by accident. I had written a large number of short stories for a few years and wanted to develop a story of greater depth, not realising it would turn out to be a 100,000 word manuscript. The result, after two years, was not the great debut I wanted. However, five years later, I have written another four books and feel at least two of them are fit for publication. I have had a few poems published in collections over the last four years and while I greatly enjoy poetry, my time now is filled by writing books and searching for publishers interested in first-time authors. 

I live with my partner of the last five years in Cambridgeshire, England. She is very supportive and accepting of the time I spend locked away creating imaginary people in imaginary worlds. I work in the cataloguing and acquisitions department of a library, which gives me chance to see what the publishing industry is focusing upon. I have been in this position for the last two years and enjoy it very much. However, I see writing as my job rather than a hobby.

Penhaligan Page has published three of my poems in the last three years (A Glimpse At Life contains My Dear; Searching Visions contains Chance; and Fragments In Perception contains I Fell Out Of The Sky) while Dogma Publications has also published three (Spirit Of The Mind contains Just Looking; The Resurrected Soul contains My Passport, and The Silent Voice contains Let There Be Love). I have very recently finished a sequel to JULY and have plans to continue the story. A brief synopsis is attached for your consideration as well as the opening 5000 words. The manuscript runs to 120,000 words.

Synopsis of JULY 

July is a fantasy story concerned with a war between two elemental forces and those who must choose their sides at the same time as others who have been dead for centuries shape that war.

The issues in the novel of a war between these two forces, ghosts, and different worlds coming together to fight in this war enabled me to explore more grounded issues such as belief, friendship, bravery, fear of the unknown, morality and love while keeping the reader interested with a thriller built on real characters and real dialogue.

At the novel’s start, the reader is introduced to a middle-aged man who is suffering great mental pain as he walks through the countryside and then apparently leaves the story. We forward almost two hundred years to meet four young people who form a tight friendship over the course of a few weeks. They are quickly thrown into a frightening situation involving evil from the past, an invading force on their parents, and an attack on one of their number, Lucy, which leaves her literally speechless. Through various events, they learn that two forces, known through the Scottish Gaelic terms as eucoir and ceart, (meaning Right and Wrong) are warring. People from a world very similar to our own are also involved in this war; they are headed by a woman named Sarah. She is Queen of a city holding out against the eucoir and human enemies. We also meet her Council: a small group from a world destroyed by the Wrong a few years before; also meeting her brother Joseph who is not the support she needs. Within these conflicts of politics and family, the four children learn that they must travel to a small town on the outskirts of Aylesbury to fight against an evil from the past which killed an ancestor of Lucy’s. At the same time, Sarah and her Council must fight in their world against a force which can end everything. As the climax approaches, the two battles will become the same.

July is aimed at the same readers who enjoyed, for example, Stephen King’s It. Although July does feature children, it is not a children’s book. The age of the four friends becomes immaterial particularly as they have to mature quickly. While the story covers areas such as how love affects us and our decisions, the importance of communication and how the differences between warring groups can seem very small, it is also an entertaining horror fantasy made of genuine characters experiencing amazing events.

Synopsis of HAVE A NICE DAY 

In a time of celebrity culture, wannabes and no-hopers, what happens when a group of record shop employees with no time for this state are forced into reality television at their most stressful time of year: Christmas.

I wanted to explore the reactions and development of a group of employees in a record shop chain after being told their store will be filmed and broadcast on TV over the Christmas period. This group has been together long enough to be more friends than colleagues; they are comfortable enough to argue and insult each other, and they have developed an us and them culture without knowing.

At the start of the novel, the reader meets these characters while they are being filmed at an unspecified point in the future for a retrospective of the story’s events. They all take various days and events and narrate them from their point of view. The first narration is from Rich who describes the day they are told of the plans to film them for a month. Their reactions are negative as the manager, Sandra, expects, but after being told their co-operation will be rewarded with a bonus worth three months’ salary, the staff eventually agrees to the idea although Rich only does so after confrontation with his colleagues and developments in his personal life. Rich will become the focus of much of the story’s intentions of character development when faced with personal crisis and professional choices which could affect much more than his own life.

The personal stories such as the feelings between Jenny and Tony, Rich’s break-up with his girlfriend Jo, the troubled pregnancy of Stu’s wife Kirsty, and a work romance between Sandra and Matty are featured because I wanted to compare apparently small issues with the larger ideas of a critique of the music industry and how reality TV creates disposable celebrities. Using these smaller issues of relationships breaking down, flirting in the workplace and developing that flirting to a relationship, and the stress and worry of recovering from a miscarriage and subsequent new pregnancy enabled me to show my characters are much more than people desperate to validate themselves by acquiring temporary fame-indeed, it takes a meeting with old friends for Stu to realise he and his colleagues are seen as having no more longevity or depth than a loser from Big Brother. This is true in spite of the staff seeing themselves as having not changed through the filming. In Stu’s own words, they’re just at work and what’s so interesting about that?

This question will be answered towards the end of the novel when the real involvement of the music industry and the company’s Head Office becomes clear. When this occurs, the reader is given the choice of deciding whether the events that have been put in motion are an indictment of cynical manipulation, chasing fame and our current celebrity culture or simply people reacting to a situation out of their control and attempting to hold on to their standards, ethics and identity. This decision is up to the reader; the feelings of the staff are clear, but I leave the final choice to the reader. In doing so, the reader will have to ask himself where entertainment ends and responsibility begins.

If you enjoy these extracts - or indeed if you have any other comments to make - then the author would be very grateful if you would click on Your Comments and express your views. It is a simple process and only takes a few moments. And who knows? You may well be helping to get this book into print. Thank you!