Warrior Princess 2: Destiny’s Path Preview

By Allan | Wednesday, 24 June 2009 at 08:09
Category: book excerpts | Tags: ,

I have just posted on-line the first chapter of the second book in the Warrior Princess series: Destiny’s Path! To find and read it, go into Books, then Warrior Princess - Destiny’s Path, and you will find it on a link called “sneak peek…”

Hope you enjoy it! I will post another chapter in August.

The book is due out in October.

Faerie Path On-Line Movie Petition

By Allan | Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 08:23
Category: Writing | Tags:

Well now, this is fun! There is a website where fans of The Faerie Path can join in with a petition to have the books made into a Movie!

The site is: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/FaeriePath

Thank you to Addie Cummings for getting this started and for letting me know about it.

So…does anyone out there like the idea of a Faerie Path movie???

bye for now

Allan

Book excerpts on-line

By Allan | Monday, 15 June 2009 at 16:11
Category: book excerpts | Tags: ,

Book excerpts on-line.

I have now added the facility for you to read excerpts from a few of my newer books on-line. These include the first four Faerie Path books and the first Warrior Princess book.

In the near future, I also hope to be posting excerpts from books not yet published. The first of these will be Destiny’s Path - book two of the Warrior Princess series, intended to be published in October 2009.

The second of these “sneak-peaks” will be from The Enchanted Quest - book five of The Faerie Path series, due to be published Feb 1st 2010.

Watch this space - I shall download this stuff as soon as I hear from the Publisher that we have an agreed “final” versions of these new books.

Faerie Path: The Enchanted Quest

By Allan | Friday, 12 June 2009 at 09:49
Category: Writing | Tags:

Hello there

This is just a very quick post to let you know that the publishers have told me The Faerie Path Book Five: The Enchanted Quest will be published on the 1st February 2010.

Also, within the next few weeks, I am planning on posting some sneak-peaks of this book on-line.

A true story

By Allan | Sunday, 7 June 2009 at 09:38
Category: Writing | Tags:

This is a true story.

When I first left school, I took a job in central London, which meant a short trip back and forth every day on a train. One afternoon, I boarded my usual train. I was reading a hardback copy of The Two Towers, the middle volume of The Lord of The Rings. I opened the book and started reading, not paying any attention to anyone else in the carriage.

Suddenly I felt someone tap me on the knee, and a voice said. “You’re lucky!”

I looked up. Sitting opposite me was a portly elderly man with a white beard and wearing a tweed suit – he looked kind of like a professor or something.

“Why?” I asked, puzzled, because people don’t usually speak to one another on commuter trains, and we were alone in the carriage at the time.

“Because you haven’t finished it,” he said, pointing to the book.

“Oh! Actually I’ve already read the whole thing about ten times over,” I told him.

So, we started chatting. It turned out he had framed maps of Middle Earth on the walls in his living room, and had read a huge number of fantasy books of which I had never heard. He particularly recommended a book called The Worm Ouroboros by E R Eddison. He also asked me if I had heard the dramatised radio version of The Hobbit. I hadn’t. He told me that if I brought some blank tapes with me tomorrow, he would copy the show (which he had taped from the radio) for me!!

Well, the following day, I met him on the platform and handed over the tapes. We chatted some more, and he recommended a few more books – The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany, The Well At The World’s End by William Morris and Dune by Frank Herbert.

The following day, he gave me back my tapes with The Hobbit radio dramatization on them. It was a great program, of six 30-minute broadcasts, and I really enjoyed listening to it that evening when I got home.

The next day I went to a bookshop and bought The Worm Ouroboros and Dune.

I enjoyed them both, reading The Worm Ouroboros over the weekend even though it was very long.

I expected to see the man again on Monday evening at the station, but he wasn’t there.

In the back of The Worm Ouroboros was a list of “similar” fantasy novels and a form with which you could order by mail whichever of these books you liked the sound of.

I ordered all 23 of them. A few weeks later a big parcel of books arrived and I started reading. Many of these books became absolute favourites of mine and still are – and you can see their titles in my “favourite books” list on this site.

I had never thought to ask the man on the train his name. I never saw him again. Ever.

This is a true story.

On-Line Interview

By Allan | Thursday, 4 June 2009 at 07:48
Category: Writing | Tags: , ,

Hi there! I thought you might like to know that an on-line book review site has just posted an interview with me on their webpage. It can be found on seaofpages.blogspot.com, where I answer questions about Faerie Path, Warrior Princess and other stuff.