Happy New Year and January Sale!

Hi!

Happy New Year!  Hope you all had a good time.  I have big plans for 2014 but I thought I'd start the year with a little sale.  

Get Leslie's Bus for only $0.99!

Follow the link:

Smashwords - Leslie's Bus

and use the code:

EM32P

With her mother in a mental hospital and her father preoccupied with his pregnant girlfriend, Susan Blake is lost and lonely. She finds an unlikely friend in Paul, a New Age traveller, and he introduces her to the colourful and exciting British alternative scene of the 1990's. Susan discovers a world full of drugs and alcohol, raves, parties and festivals, but not everyone is as nice or as honest as Paul. 

When Susan's world falls apart she finds comfort in the arms of Leslie, a charismatic and seasoned traveller. He shares his alternative philosophy as they travel on his bus, but will she heed the warnings that there is more to him than meets the eye? 

Available in all formats for iPad, iPhone, Android, PC, Mac, Kindle, Kobo, Nook and more!

"Just read Leslie's Bus after stumbling across it on bus love - fantastic book! 

Bought back some memories! Thank you :)" James

"Fantastic book! I spent as much time crying as I did reading." Keith

"This is a brilliant story of our time in history where we are at with youths of today...  

And I loved it." Sue

Leslie's Bus - Out Now!

Are you ready to take a ride on Leslie's Bus?

I'm proud to announce the release of my fifth full length novel, Leslie's Bus.

Set in England in the 1990's it follows the story of Susan, a young woman who is faced with some difficult choices in her life.  She is befriended by a New Age traveller boy called Paul and he introduces her to the colourful alternative scene.  She makes new friends and opens her mind to a new way of thinking, but when her world falls apart the only person there is support her is Leslie, a charming and seasoned traveller with a sexual appetite for young girls.

Leslie's Bus is available to buy from Amazon  and Smashwords.

I hope you enjoy it and I'l love to hear your feedback so don't be shy, please rate and review.

Thank you!

Cover Reveal - Leslie's Bus

The waiting is nearly over!  I'm still dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's on my latest novel, Leslie's Bus, it's very nearly ready for release but I couldn't wait to share the cover with you.

Ta dah!

Leslie's Bus

Adult content 18+

"You do a lot of daft stuff when you're sixteen, when you're full of hormones and angst and you're convinced the world is against you.  You can let your guard drop and do things that you'd never dream of doing."

With her mother in a mental hospital and her father preoccupied with his pregnant girlfriend, Susan Blake is lost and lonely.  She finds an unlikely friend in Paul, a New Age traveller, and he introduces her to the colourful and exciting British alternative scene of the 1990's.  Susan discovers a world full of drugs and alcohol, raves, parties and festivals, but not everyone is as nice or as honest as Paul.

When Susan's world falls apart she finds comfort in the arms of Leslie, a charismatic and seasoned traveller.  He shares his alternative philosophy as they travel on his bus, but will she heed the warnings that there is more to him than meets the eye?

Leslie's Bus is a touching and at times harrowing story of a young woman's self discovery.

Contains strong language, drug use, sexually explicit scenes, sexual abuse and violence.

Coming soon to all good eBook retailers!

Quarantined! The Kobo saga continues...

Further to 'Kobo did WHAT?' I emailed the company to ask why my novels and short stories had been removed from their website.  I was told they hadn't been removed, they were merely quarantined.

A letter to our KWL authors and self-publishing partners

In order to address the situation Kobo is taking the following steps:

1. We are removing titles in question from the Kobo platform.

1. We are quarantining and reviewing titles to ensure that compliance to our policies is met by all authors and publishers. We will ensure that content meeting the policy is made available online as soon as possible.

1. We are reviewing our policies and procedures to implement safeguards that will ensure this situation does not happen in the future.

I am glad they are addressing the issue of the vile and unwholesome books that slipped through the net but the whole situation reminds me of being at school.  Someone has written a naughty word on the toilet door so the whole class is kept behind until someone owns up.

As an author I am still a very small fish in the big pond of self publishing.  I hate to admit that I'm unlikely to lose much revenue from my books being unavailable but I really feel for the bigger authors and especially the small publishing houses who have been affected by this situation.  Kobo's mistake could cost them dear indeed.

It has raised a lot of discussion about what is suitable subject matter and what is not.  Erotica is subjective, some people are turned on by sunset walks on the beach, other's prefer a bit of slap and tickle but I think we can safely draw the line at illegal acts.  Or can we?

I have been feeling a little paranoid about the book I'm currently working on.  It explores the grey areas of sexual abuse.  Is it sexual abuse if the woman doesn't say no?  Is it rape if she is incapable of saying no?

Without spoiling the story there are scenes were an older man takes sexual advantage over an inebriated young woman.  The scenes are reasonably explicit but I didn't write them as erotica to turn people on, I wrote them as part of a greater story.  If scenes of rape are unacceptable then does my book break the policy?  If it does then  by the same measure do we also lose such great works as Alice Walker's The Color Purple?

It's food for though and I don't envy Kobo's review team one little bit!

Kobo did WHAT?

I love my little Kobo Glo.  I've been singing it's praises for the past month or so and I have been busy tweeting links for other Kobo owners to buy my books from the Kobo website but today the love affair turned sour.  I went to the Kobo website and my books weren't there anymore.

What?

All six of my books had disappeared from the Kobo website.

Heaven Knows This Time.  Gone.
Another Perfect Angel.  Gone.
Angel's Shadow.  Gone.
Being Isobel.  Gone.
The Last Bite.  Gone.
The Boutique.  Yup, my innocent little ghost story had gone too.

Head scratching commenced.  I double checked my Smashwords account (they distribute my works to Kobo and other retailers) and I started to Google for clues.  Then I came across this.

BBC - WH Smith takes website offline after porn e-book scandal

Now if you've ever visited Smashwords and turned the Adult Filter 'OFF' then you might have seen some of the unsavoury titles available in the 'erotic' genre.  I'm not a big fan of porn but each to their own, I gloss over it and move on.

My husband then sent me this link.  WARNING!  The subject matter is pretty offensive, don't click if you have small children around.

The Kernel - An Epidemic of Filth

It all started to make sense.  This extreme material had found it's way onto some eBook websites and the way they chose to deal with it was to shut them down and get rid of all the self published books.

WHAT?

I'm not a computer expert but surely there are better ways of dealing with the problem than shutting the whole website down?  WHSmith website is still offline as I type this and the holding page states:

Our website will become live again once all self published eBooks have been removed and we are totally sure that there are no offending titles available. When our website goes back online it will not display any self published material until we are completely confident that inappropriate books can never be shown again. 

Now I'm glad they are trying to stop the very extreme and nasty novels from being available but did they really have to tar all self publishing authors with the same brush?

My books have been removed from the Kobo website and I've not been given a reason or explanation.  There is chaos amongst self published authors on the internet.  No-one seems to know what is going on and I'm sat here feeling hurt and confused.

Were my books bad?  Are they too explicit?  What about The Boutique?  There's no sex in that!  The conspiracy theorists are whispering about it being a planned attack on self publishing authors.  The old school publishers don't like that we're doing a better job than they are, but I don't really subscribe to all that.  I just want Kobo and WHSmith to put my books back on their websites.

I worked hard on my novels.  They may not be the most deep or thought provoking books in the world but I think they are good stories and I want to share them with people so they can enjoy them too.  I might be too much of a risk for the big publishers to take on but at least by self publishing I can reach people and hopefully provide a little entertainment to brighten their day.  Some of my stories are even free!

So, Kobo, if you're listening.  Could you put my books back, please?

If not, I'm sending everyone to Amazon UK, Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords!

I've defected to the Kobo Glo

I was a bit late to the electronic book party.  I guess I was a purist, I liked to feel the pages of a paperback between my fingers and my eyes never really felt comfortable reading a screen for any length of time.

Kindle Touch v's Kobo glo

I bought my Kindle Touch when I started writing seriously again.  I wanted to be able to review what I'd written sitting in the comfort of my armchair instead of propped up at the PC.  The Kindle Touch seemed like the perfect thing for me.  It was easy to buy books from Amazon and my DH was pleased that I wasn't cluttering up the house with yet more paperback.

I really liked my Kindle.  OK, it was a bit grey and boring but I bought a snazzy red case to brighten it up.  It was light and fitted in my handbag so I took it everywhere with me.  It killed time in hospital waiting rooms and it provided anonymity when I was reading *those* books.  Still not sure why I bothered but curiosity and all that...

Anyway, the Kindle was great but there was a small problem.  I found myself straining to read the screen in the evenings.  I needed a light.  I did a bit of research and found you can get cases with lights on but I they looked like more trouble than they were worth.  I also researched the Kindle Paperwhite.  It looked like it would fit the bill and until I read the reviews.  They weren't very convincing.  The more I read about faulty screens, bulb shadows and weird colour casting the more I realised it wasn't going to be the one for me.

Grey Kindle, pretty blue Kobo

I'd never really considered any of the other eReaders because they weren't Amazon, but I'd seen some reviews of the Kobo Glo and people were raving about it.  I popped into my local W H Smith store and had a play.  I was sold!  The screen was clearer, the page turns were faster and best of all at the touch of a button the page lit up and I could read at night!!!

I decided to get the blue one.  It wasn't available online but thankfully they had it in stock in W H Smith at Meadowhell  (and no, that's not a typo!).  I got it out the box and fell in love!  It's so cute in blue!  It took a little while to set up on the computer but buying books is just as easy as getting them from Amazon.

I did have a little panic when I realised I could only put books on it that I'd bought from the Kobo website but then I remembered reading about Calibre and pretty soon I'd downloaded that too and I had all my other books on my new beloved Kobo Glo.

I am so loving it.  I can read in the conservatory when it starts to get dark, I can read in bed without turning the lamp on, and I can adjust the brightness so it's perfect for my eyes.  So, I'm sorry Kindle, you're relegated to reading old books in the bath because I've defected to Kobo :D

Its glow in the dark!

Do you like ghost stories?

I love a supernatural tale.  I have fond memories of reading ghost stories aloud with my friends in the school library but as an adult I've been quite disappointed with some of the short ghost stories I've read.

I like to challenge myself with my writing.  I decided to write my own ghost story but I wanted to do it a little different.  I didn't want to rehash the old stereotypes, I wanted something modern with a twist.

What if the main character was a ghost but didn't know it?

How would they feel when they realised that they were dead?

And more importantly, what would happen next?

The result was a short story called The Boutique. 

When Alison closes up her fashion boutique for the night, a chance encounter with Peter, the security guard, changes her life forever. Peter is used to people looking straight through him, but when Alison engages in conversation he's faced with the dark realisation that she is just like him. A short ghost story with a heartwarming twist. 

The Boutique is available to download for free from Smashwords.  I hope you enjoy it and I'd love to hear what you think.

Happy reading!