Cirque du Soliel

By Allan | Monday, 15 February 2010 at 14:32
Category: Writing

Last Saturday evening Claudia and I celebrated Valentine’s Eve by going to see VAREKAI by the Cirque du Soliel.
If you have never heard of the Cirque du Soliel, let me tell you it is totally amazing and well worth checking out if they come to a town or city near you!
It’s a two hour show, full of tumblers and acrobats and high-wire acts and jugglers and all that kind of thing - and the costumes are so colourful the world outside looks like it’s in black and white for a while after you leave. The music is also wonderful and the performance is stunningly good.
I was watching it and thinking - this is EXACTLY the kind of entertainment I’d have at a Royal Wedding in Faerie! If ever a movie were made of the Faerie Path series, I’d want the Cirque du Soliel to perform in the Great Hall in the Royal Palace. If you’d like to get an idea of what they’re like, google Varekai Cirque du Soliel -and you’ll find some websites to look at.
Totally brilliant!
Oh, and for Valentine’s Day itself, we had champagne and red roses delivered! Romantic, or what?

Fan Mail

By Allan | Saturday, 13 February 2010 at 09:43
Category: Writing | Tags:

this blog is aimed in particular at Kristal Patton - but also at anyone else who writes to me and doesn’t get a reply.
Thanks Krystal for taking the time to write to me and tell me how much you like the Faerie Path series. I did try to send you a reply to your mail, but my server rejected your email address and wouldn’t send it.
I just want to say here that I try to reply to all the mail I get from fans, and that if you don’t get a response, it means either the mail never got to me or I was unable to send one back.
I start the day reading fan mail and I always read everything I am sent - your mails mean a lot to me and I don’t want anyone who reads and enjoys my books to think I don’t care about you. I do!
Oh, and while I’m here - Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

Faerie Path Winter Escapes Promotion

By Allan | Friday, 5 February 2010 at 13:00
Category: Writing | Tags:

Hi there! Some of you may have noticed mention of a special promotion that the publishers of The Faerie Path series are working on right now.

They have given me the following URL, so you might like to check it out:

http://bit.ly/bHNTQx

Also, there’s more stuff on: http://seaofpages.blogspot.com

The seaofpages blog suggests that the book being given as a prize will be a signed copy - but I’m not sure that’s correct - Harper Collins the publishers certainly haven’t asked me to sign any for them. Anyway - if any of you guys win the book, get in touch with me by sending a message from the Contact page, and I’ll arrange for you to send me the book for signing.

Latest News

By Allan | Thursday, 4 February 2010 at 12:24
Category: Fan Club, Writing | Tags: , ,

Wow - February already! For the time being all the snow we’ve been getting in England has gone away - and we were getting plenty! Up to 16 inches in the Counties around London. I’ve had to trek to the bottom of the garden to break the ice from off the bird-baths, but apart from that, I’ve learned that working from home can be really great when there is four inches of snow outside!

I have been working on the suggestions for The Charmed Return (Faerie Path book 6) that came to me from the American editors, and the manuscript is back with them again at the moment. I think the book is not due out till January 2011 - which must seem like entire lifetimes away! The thing is, publishers like to have a “finished” book in their hands 12 months before they publish - I’m not really sure why, but it is partly to do with advance publicicty and print-runs and stuff like that. Hopefully, in a few months, I should get a cover I can show you and then some sneak-peeks like I did with The Enchanted Quest.

I have the green light for starting to write Warrior Princess 4 now - so I’m going to be getting down to that from next week. It should take me till about mid-April, so if I’m slow at answering your mails or posting new blogs over the next eight or nine weeks, I apologize in advance.

As the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed, I have a couple of new “Coming soon” books on the Home Page - and I’ve added some new information about Warrior Princess Book 3 (The Emerald Flame) and also more about The Sundered Lands series.

My information at the moment is that The Emerald Flame will be out in October this year. I’m intending to post some sneak-peek stuff for this in the same way I did for book 2 - but it will be a few months before that starts happening.

Some of you will have noticed that Marisa’s Fan Site is down at the moment. I’m hoping this will be sorted out quickly, but for the time being there’s not really anything I can do about it. Sorry.

On the other hand, I have been speaking with a friend of mine - the one who helped me to set up this AllanFrewinJones site in the first place, with the plan of adding a “Picture Gallery” page here. I can post some photos and drawings and paintings of mine here, as well as letting you see alternate books covers for other countries. And I’m also thinking that maybe I could post pictures that you guys create - I think it would be fun to see how you imagine the characters and places in Faerie look. Does that seem like a good idea?

Also, I’m considering adding a “Fan-Fiction” page, which might work a little like the Fan Site - letting you chat among yourselves and post your stories online for other people to read.Thing is, that kind of site really needs a moderator - someone who will regularly check what’s being posted and weed out spam mails and anything else that shouldn’t have gotten in there. I’m not sure I’ll have time to do that, but I’ll have a think about it and let you know what’s what in a little while.

A lot of you guys are asking about the possibility of a Faerie Path book 7.

Here’s the thing: originally I was asked to write three books. These books sold well enough for the publisher to come back to me and ask for three more. So, in answer to fans who are clamouring for book 7, 8, 9 etc - it’s really out of my hands right now. If the word is spreading about The Faerie Path series, and plenty of people are buying the books, then there’s a good chance that the publishers will want more. I know that some of you are already out there spreading the word - and the more you do this, the more likely it is that there will be a 7th and an 8th book.

Amy Havre posted a comment a few days ago, asking for good ideas about how to spread the word. So - why not let us all know your thoughts on this. If you’ve already started telling people, tell us what you’ve done, and also post some ideas about what you think might work. You know the kind of thing: airships flying over New York with BUY THE FAERIE PATH BOOKS! written on the side. That kind of thing! Over to you!