Giveaway

It's giveaway time!
This week I'll be taking part in the Paranormal Romance Blog Tour. To celebrate I'm giving away the first three books (in paperback format) in The Guardians of The Light series. The Winner will be picked at random. Plus EVERY tenth person who signs up to my mailing list will receive Infinite Spring in e-book format, the fiftieth will receive Infinite Spring and Eternal Summer, and the hundredth sign up will win the whole series in ebook format.
Everyone else can download the first book in the series, Endless Winter, for free for the next five days (starting Sat 23rd Oct)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HOIHR2K

Good luck and keep coming back as I have a lot more going on over the next few days

To be in with a chance to win, join the mailing list here
http://eepurl.com/bDGV7T

Eternal Summer

When it happened, there was nothing. No light at the end of the tunnel, no out of body experience. There was no sound or colour. No dreams, nothing. Just an endless blackness that stretched on in all directions. Time had no meaning and so when Anais finally felt something, she had no way of knowing how long it had been since she had been awake. It was still dark, but now she felt a slight pressure in her hand, a tingle, a shiver of electricity. It was Aethelu. She couldn’t see her but she instinctively knew she was there and had always been.

Eternal Summer

Prequel to The Guardians of The Light - Becoming Aethelu Chapter 1

Coming soon...

Becoming Aethelu (The fourteenth century diary of Mary Hyde)

If you’ve ever read the Guardians of The Light books, you’ll know how my life ended up but do you know how it started? I wasn’t always Aethelu. I began life as plain old Mary Hyde, the fifth child of Winnifred and Thomas Hyde. I was born in 1322 in a small Yorkshire village. My father already had the beginnings of a reputation as a great healer and because of this, we lived in a better house than most of our neighbours. A couple of years before I was born, A local lords wife had given birth and almost died along with the baby but my father had managed to save both of their lives. The Lord had been so grateful that he’d given my father some land and built a house which was given to us.

Compared to today’s standards it was nothing more than a hut but it had three bedrooms, a main room with a kitchen area and a small parcel of land around it. Apart from the Lord, we were the first people in the village to have glass windows. You could say we lived privileged lives. We didn’t have to farm the Lords land and anything we did manage to grow on our land belonged to us. Most of the land was taken up with Daddy’s medicinal herbs and flowers which he used to concoct his potions.

As a child, I was in charge of bringing my father whichever herb he may need. I knew that garden like the back of my hand and could tell you the name of every plant in there. I used to love running through the fragrant bushes and picking the leaves for my Dads medicines. My mother also had a small part of the land which she used to grow vegetables. No matter how much my Mama tried, she could not garner the same interest in me for vegetables as I had for the herbs. Who wanted to pull up carrots when there was the smell of lavender and rosemary and a hundred other plants which, when put together in the right quantities, could almost perform magic?  We also kept livestock. We had a small field with perhaps a dozen sheep, a couple of cows and a pig called Matilda. She was given to us so we could feed her up and slaughter her for meat but she kept escaping into our front yard which made our Father laugh so she became our pet.

From a very young age, I was expected to go to the Lords manor once a week to learn to read and write. I hated having to go there, not because of the reading which I adored but because of the Lords son who also had lessons with me. He considered me beneath him and would not pass up any opportunity to remind me that he was a Lord and I was nothing more than a villein or pauper. I reminded him on more than a dozen occasions that if it hadn’t been for my pauper father, both he and his mother would have died but he just laughed so eventually I gave up and tried to ignore him as much as possible. I wouldn’t have gone at all if it were not for my father insisting upon it. He said that education was a real privilege and I was lucky to have any at all. I knew it was true, no one else in my village could read or write except for the local priest who taught myself and William, the Lords son and my father. When William was old enough to learn to read and write, the Lord offered my father the chance for his children to attend the same lessons. My eldest brother Robert (Who you will know as August) and my sister Emma (Who would become Arcadia) were considered too old and my youngest sister Anna was too young. That left my older twin brothers, Robin and Seth (Alex and Rafe) and myself. Every Saturday we would head to the Lords house but more often than not, the twins would run off, preferring to spend the day climbing trees or getting into some other bother. My father was very angry at their non-attendance but with his hands full healing the sick, he had no time to follow the twins and any punishment he doled out fell on deaf ears. It wasn’t long until it was just myself and William attending the lessons. We were taught to read and write in Latin first and then eventually in English. William hated Latin and spent most of every lesson complaining about it. I, on the other hand loved the sound of the words. Daddy used Latin a lot in his potions and it wasn’t long before I knew the Latin name for all the plants in the garden.

Here is my diary for the year 1336...

 

To read the Guardians of The Light series first start here

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HOIHR2K

Well It's been a while since I last blogged. It seems like forever ago that Autumn Ever After was published. I've since published all four Guardians of the Light books as an omnibus and started writing the next two books. For some reason I'm writing two book simultaneously. One is connected to the Guardians of The Light world but the second is something completely different. It's actually easier to write two at once as when I get writers block with one I can switch to the other and keep writing. I'm back at work after a long summer (ok almost summer - it didn't quite happen did it?) I've just got a job where I'll not only be designing but writing all day. I wonder if anyone will notice if I write my books whilst there?

Guardians of The Light book four

The last book in the Guardians of The Light series is finally here. Live on Amazon now.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZNZP0H0
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ZNZP0H0

With Jago's identity finally out in the open and a lot closer to home than she realised, Anais has to do everything she can to finally beat her biggest enemy. But time is running out. Will she have her baby before her world comes crashing down around her. In this thrilling conclusion we find Anais fighting not only for herself and the world but for her unborn daughter to see the light of day.

Enjoy

J

Back to the Future

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/04/back-to-the-future-deleted-gay-scene-_n_6800472.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Interesting deleted scene! What if Marty McFly ended up being gay? I'm more worried about the fact he has to feel up his mom!

Writing

It's been a bit quiet on the writing front of late (mainly because it's been extremely busy on the living life front) However I am busy beavering away at book number four - The final book of The Guardians of The Light series. I've been challenged to write 15,000 words in the next week which I've accepted. I've written 4,000 today so I'm already on target to do it. I'm also very close to my highest ever author ranking. Just another few books sold and I might just top my personal best. smile emoticon