Category Archives: BOOKS

by Jennifer Reed/ bookjunkiez | November 8, 2022 · 5:00 am

The Winding Streets of Kolonaki Blitz

Historical Fiction / Modern Greek Fiction

It is Athens in the late autumn of 1973 and the sweltering heat
of the inner city Summer is replaced by cool ,overcast days. The Greek
dictatorship is slowly starting to crumble. In the working class area of
Omonia a son of The Papadopoulos family joins a protest at the Athens
Polytechnic while the daily buzz and excitement of city life
continues around. Uptown under the watchful eye of the goddess Athena, and a
world away from down town Omonia, the residents of the affluent district of
Kolonaki, and those who aspire to live there, strive to find
validation to their lives amid its steep, winding streets at the
foot of the imposing, Lycabettus Hill. The book follows their joys ,
heartaches ,politics and music on a fifty year journey. As the
years pass, oblivious to its children, the ancient city changes and moves in
an altogether different direction: a wandering tale of latter day Athens and
its peoples.

About the Author

Steve Kerr was brought up in the pleasant seaside town of Broughty Ferry in
North East Scotland. He spent part of his teenage life in Glamis Castle,
home to Macbeth and the Queen Mother, reputed to be the most haunted house
in Scotland! He later worked and studied in London, he also lived in Spain,
Hungary and for a number of years, Greece and worked as a lecturer in
Yorkshire.

Steve’s interest in writing came from the early 1970s when his somewhat
unconventional English teacher encouraged his creativity. His creativity and
imagination went back however to childhood when he would create stories and
draw them in a series of pictures. He has always had a strong interest in
History and music. As a teenager he composed many songs but never met with
success his creative abilities were slowly channeled into writing books.His
first Novel ” A Cafe In Arcadia”,about life in an insular Greek
town, was published in 2014. He had already published ” The Christmas
Tree Of Tales ” in 2013 under the name S R Kerr..In 2021 he published
another novel “The Winding Streets Of Kolonaki” set in
Athens.

He counts a love of music in his interests as well as travel and reading.
He has travelled extensivly to places as diverse as Pakistan and Peru and
hopes to visit Japan, Hong Kong and the USA in the near future.

Growing up next to the beach on the River Tay in his home town was a a
major influence on him as was living in a castle. He was always interested
in anthropology and visiting other countries where he often immersed himself
in their culture. Places he visited and lived in inspired much of his
writing, as did his interest in psychology, people watching. He worked as a
lecturer, tutor, journalist ,civil servant in London where at a point he
shared a house with the group The Test Department.

He is at the moment working on three other books

1) Eurovision, A plea for respect (continental songs and British
attitudes)

3)The afternoons of Sanjay Bassinger

4.)It Came Upon One Christmas Eve.

Contact Link

Website

Purchase Link

Amazon

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by Jennifer Reed/ bookjunkiez | · 5:00 am

Glossolalia Virtual Book Tour

Fantasy

Date Published: 09-27-2022

Publisher: Wolf Publishing

photo add-to-goodreads-button_zpsc7b3c634.png

“My name is Ineluki. I come from past the mountains and ice. It took
me many days to reach here. All I know are dead. Will you take me
in?”

And so begins a calamitous year at the edge of the world.

Chief for the year, Aukul’s life has never been better. His people respect
him, he spends his nights with the love of his life, and his skills as a
butcher and chef improve every day. Then Ineluki, a young stranger, wanders
into town with nothing but an empty book. He begins telling stories of the
world beyond the one they know. His stories challenge their reality and lead
to a summer of unprecedented disasters.

One by one, the villagers begin dancing. Dancing tirelessly, as if in a
trance, until they die. Believing Ineluki is to blame, Aukul confronts him
on the worst night of his life.

Glossolalia Excerpt

by e rathke

Umok was the first to see the boy. There was nothing special about the boy except that he wasn’t one of us and didn’t seem to be an Uummanuq. Not that anyone really knew, then, what the Uummanuq looked like. Not really. But he was too tall to be one of them and much too short to be one of us. Maybe strangest of all, he was dressed as a woman. One of ours, not the Uummanuq women, assuming anyone knew, then, what the Uummanuq looked like when they weren’t smashing our homes down. But he wore a loose, open vest, his trousers tight and reaching just past his knees. In his hands, a hidebound book.

It was a clear day, just past spring, and though the edge of the world is known for its deathly cold, our summers are quite warm. Warm enough to wade out into the sea and gather crabs or lobster. Or even to swim out to where the leviathans burst through the water, spraying the skies with their misted breath.

Umok was so distracted by the boy that she dropped her arm, accidentally flinging her gyrfalcon, Feo, to the ground. When Feo shrieked the way she does, the boy turned to Umok and smiled a big toothy grin. To hear Umok tell it later, the boy had fangs like a wolf and eyes that glowed with menace.

We’re not prone to superstition, but much changed that summer and especially come winter, when the days last barely a blink and the nameless ones call out to us in the long night, and mothers wake to missing children, never to be seen again.

But the boy didn’t stop when he saw Umok. It was like he had a set destination. Like he knew where we were. And maybe that’s the most shocking of all. That he just wandered out from the dark green summer mountains and walked right to our little village at the edge of the world with nothing but the clothes he was wearing, an empty book, and a mouthful of words that would change the shape of all our lives.

It was summer, which meant just about everyone was in the sea, either swimming or fishing or on lookout for the Uummanuq or the fishers recently set out. Nearly everyone else was on the beach relaxing. So when the boy walked into the village, there wasn’t much to see.

Umok kept an eye on him, though, and circled round town to warn everyone at the beach.

It’s a strange thing, having strangers at the edge of the world. Besides the Uummanuq, it had been generations since anyone had been seen at our little village. So this was news. Not unwelcome, but unexpected, which made it a bit frightening.

Umok sent Feo into the air and ran through the beach hollering for anyone who could hear, “Someone’s here! A boy, dressed like a woman!”

At first we ignored Umok, but her persistence caused us to give in and follow her back to the village. Umok wasn’t known as a liar, but it all sounded too ridiculous. How would someone just arrive here? There’s only ocean and mountain and sky.

But those lounging on the beach made their way up to town. Those already out to sea or looking out for the Uummanuq kept about their business. Idle chatter and friendly laughter brought them up the beach and past the chief’s hall to the town square.

And who waited for them but Aukul and the boy. Just sitting there, smiling.

III

Aukul was chief that year. A young man, tall and well built, who always seemed to be smiling, at least until he met this boy. Many have blamed Aukul’s age or poor judgment for what happened, saying that he was little more than a large boy, too young for such responsibilities, which had some truth to it. He had only seen seventeen winters by the time his turn came to be chief. It’s strange now to think we had ever let someone so young spend a year as chief, but it wasn’t so unusual then. And the truth is that he was just unlucky to be chief that year. Probably none of us would’ve done better, and had he served the year before or the year after, he would be remembered differently. But this was his year to serve us as chief.

So it goes.

Aukul turned to us and smiled, waved, said, “Come on over and sit with us.”

Umok near choked from shock at Aukul’s reaction, and it’s possible that we all would’ve reacted similarly had we seen the boy alone, as Umok had. But all of us together as we were, it made it hard to fear this unassuming boy, especially with Aukul smiling the way he was. And so we just walked up and sat, forming a circle of sorts around Aukul and the boy. All of us except Umok, that is. She shook her head and chewed her lips and grunted at every breath.

The truth is, none of us wanted to take the lead with this stranger. We were happy to have Aukul sitting across from him and talking so we could just observe. Responsibility slid off our shoulders and landed firmly on Aukul, but he didn’t seem to mind.

When we were all settled, Aukul turned back to the boy, “Tell them what you told me.”

That was the first time we would hear the boy’s voice. Husky and masculine, like he held more years than his face told. The first time we heard his name and why he came to us here at the edge of the world. There was some kind of otherworldly touch to his words, to his voice. Something that made us cling to his words and follow the shapes his lips made as he formed them. We should’ve been surprised that he spoke our language, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing in the world. We had little concept, then, of other languages. Of other people. Of other places.

It was also the first time we truly got to look at the stranger, when he stood tall and smiled at all of us. That big book in his tiny hands. He had soft features and smooth skin, like a child, untouched by the tattoos he would have collected through adolescence to mark his past. For our skin is like a book, recording our lives. His hair was a wild nest of curls and kinks tumbling white from his head. This, along with him dressing like a woman, made him immediately strange. He looked so much like us, like he could be any of our sons, but for these two details. And his size, but many boys don’t grow to their man’s height till they’re quite a bit older. But then there was his eye.

One was black, like all of us. But the other was green. Not a bright green, but the green of our valleys and mountains. Dark and beautiful and oddly radiant, that green eye.

And then he spoke.

“My name is Ineluki. I come from past the mountains and ice. It took me many days to reach here. All I know are dead. Will you take me in?”

Aukul stood then, his summer dress wrinkled from sitting and bunched up around his right knee. He smiled big and clapped the boy on the back, “Welcome, Ineluki. We’ll be your people now.”

And that settled it. This boy was brought into the village. Welcomed by everyone in turn. But it was old Malu who took the boy in to be her new son. We all thought that was well and good. A boy to keep them company and care for them in their final years. Kiilk, Malu’s man, was happy to have the boy, too. Though they were old, they were spry and lively, always ready with a dance or a tune. Umaal just shrugged with a smile and embraced him as her new brother. She was a winterchild to Malu and Kiilk, born to them when they were well past an age to have children. Malu had weathered nearly fifty winters and Kiilk had seen at least as many, if not many more, by the time Umaal was born, and Umaal was coming an age to take up with her own man and leave them alone. The child was seen as a blessing to two lovers who had dreamt so long of having a boy to watch over them and care for them through their winter years.

And simple as that, Ineluki became one of us with not a person speaking against this. Not even Umok, though, to hear her tell it now, she was screaming her lungs out in warning.

It took three men to butcher the seal. Though Aukul was chief, he still had much to learn as a cook. Paakuq directed him and the other assistants in hooking up the seal. Then Paakuq took a sharp knife, cut the seal from the throat down to the tail. Aukul dug his fingers into that slit and pulled it open while Manook pulled the other side open. Paakuq reached in, harvesting each organ and handing it to one of the younger boys who wouldn’t even be able to touch the seal’s meat till he’d seen a few more winters.

With the delicate work done, Paakuq motioned with his knife for Aukul and Manook to get to work. First they lowered the seal to the ground. Slick with blood, Aukul dug his fingers into the meat, knowing it’d take half the night to get it out from his fingernails, to remove the stink of death from his skin. His thoughts drifted for a moment to the soft breasts and wide hips the summer night promised, but he dug down.

Butchery’s a delicate business requiring close attention. Aukul’s fingers and arms had the scars to prove it. Pale slivers of memory selfcarved into his skin to mark every time he let his cock think instead of his eyes and hands. He sliced the blubber from the skin and meat, handing it to Paakuq, who commanded one of his many apprentices to either store it or set it aside for the night’s stew.

Aukul worked quickly and efficiently. He got the blubber out before Manook and stood up, stretching his back. Paakuq sighed and examined his work while Manook finished.

Paakuq was a man like a mountain. Patient and quiet and large, but Aukul had never seen anyone move as delicately as Paakuq did with a knife in one hand and a carcass in the other. Paakuq looked over the seal silently, pulling the skin this way and that.

Aukul’s heart raced the entire time. He watched Manook to keep from having a panic attack. Manook moved slow, taking his time. Aukul was already seeing how much cleaner his cuts were, how no blubber clung to the seal’s skin.

It wasn’t that Aukul thought speed was more important than accuracy. It’s that he could never seem to slow himself down. The moment his blade touched a carcass, everything made sense. It made so much sense that his hands and eyes worked without a single thought crossing through his head. Or, no thoughts beyond the women of the town. Their breasts bouncing as they ran in the sunlight. The curve of their cheeks when they laughed or smiled. The way their summer clothes revealed so much, yet somehow never enough to satiate his desire.

Paakuq looked back and grunted, his lips pulling back on one side for just an instant. Aukul came close and looked over the big man’s shoulder as Paakuq pointed with his knife to places Aukul missed or places where the skin was near ruined by his sawing at it. A tap here with the point of the blade, a poke there accompanied by a grunt and a shake of the head.

Aukul’s mouth went dry and he nodded along, not trusting his voice.

Then Paakuq stood straight and his lips pushed up high. He nodded at Aukul as Manook stood, his side now de-blubbered as well.

Aukul’s smile burst over his face. Though it seemed the slightest sign of approval, that was more than most got from Paakuq in a year.

Aukul went back into the seal to cut out the meat. Separating the ribs from the spine, carefully removing the cheeks, and cutting the rest out to be dried, smoked, roasted or stewed. He tried to go slow, but there was just no time for him to remind himself to do so. His hands knew what to do and the excitement of Paakuq’s approval flooded him, washing all other thoughts—even those of breasts—out of his skull.

When the butchery was finished, Paakuq motioned for Aukul to take the lead. Aukul’s jaw hung open for a moment and then a smile got stuck there and stayed the whole time he directed the younger boys to cut up the onions and potatoes, when he told them how much blubber and seal meat to add. He even had them toss in a few clams caught that morning.

Aukul didn’t mind being chief, but this was what he lived for. His smile remained while he watched everyone eat the meal he prepared. Not Paakuq’s meal, but his. He counted every smile, every grunt of approval, every time someone licked their bowl clean or slurped up the last bit of broth. And when he washed in the ocean afterwards, he couldn’t believe life could get any better than this.

VII

Aukul liked to listen to the loons sing at night. They only lived in the lake in the valley west of town, separated from the ocean by an unremarkable mountain leading to a sheer cliff-face that can be hiked up and back down in the time it takes tea to go from steaming to cold.

It was late and most slept, despite the excitement brought by Ineluki. The silent mountains and valleys held their breath. One moon smiled against the ocean, the other was wide-eyed above him. He pulled Umaal close to him and said, “Do you hear what they sing?”

“Kya,” Umaal scrunched up her face and elbowed him away. She was dressed in her summer clothes, just a loose, open vest and tight trousers. “This your move? Bring women out here to hear the loon’s lovesongs till they cream themselves? Kya,” she grimaced and folded her arms, “might work on Kaia or the cliffboys—what you smiling for?”

Aukul unfastened his flowing summer dress and let it drop like a puddle at his feet.

Umaal eyed him up and down, “Bit more direct.” She smiled and took a step towards him. Her left palm pressed against his chest, her fingers tracing the shape of his tattoos. The ways they spiraled over his well-muscled chest and abdomen and up his neck, to his thin jaw. The story of his life written deep into his skin. She brought her fingers down to his left nipple and felt it harden, and then she pinched it, but he made no reaction beyond exhaling through his nose. Her other hand grabbed his stiff cock and she laughed, “This what you came to show me?”

Aukul shrugged with his cock, moving it up and down in her warm hand.

She laughed from deep in her chest, then slapped his face. Hard. Much harder than Aukul expected, but she was smiling wide when he turned back to her. “Idiot,” she said and she pushed him down into the thick grass and pulled off her trousers.

The landscape rolled beyond them. Valleys and mountains spotted with grass, a green so dark it sometimes looked black. Mountains rose like the spine of a monster halfburied by time. Grey and white and beautiful against the open sky, the surrounding ocean. In the distance, Mount Qanaamonaq tore into the sky’s open mouth. A snowcapped dagger reaching higher than the moons. The loons sang and it sounded like love, echoing all around them and when Umaal grunted her hips into Aukul’s, he yelped like a wolfcub.

Had anyone ever felt so lucky?

About the Author

A finalist for the 2022 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, e rathke is the
author of Glossolalia and several other forthcoming novellas. His short
fiction will appear in Queer Tales of Monumental Invention, Mysterion
Magazine, and elsewhere. He writes about books and games at
radicaledward.substack.com.

Contact Links

Purchase Link

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by Jennifer Reed/ bookjunkiez | · 5:00 am

The Coronation Tour

Secret History Thriller, Historical Fantasy, Supernatural Thriller,
Speculative Fiction.

Date Published: 28/01/2019

Publisher: Matador

It is 1761. Prussia is at war with Russia and Austria.

As the Russian army occupies East Prussia, King Frederick the Great and his
men fight hard to win back their homeland.

In Ludwigshain, a Junker estate in East Prussia, Countess Marion von Adler
celebrates an exceptional harvest. But it is requisitioned by Russian
troops. When Marion tries to stop them, a Russian captain strikes her. His
lieutenant, Ian Fermor, defends Marion’s honour and is stabbed for his
insubordination. Abandoned by the Russians, Fermor becomes a divisive figure
on the estate.

Close to death, Fermor dreams of the Adler, a numinous eagle entity, whose
territory extends across the lands of Northern Europe and which is
mysteriously connected to the Enlightenment. What happens next will change
of the course of human history…

EXCERPT

This is an excerpt from The Coronation by Justin Newland.

It’s the closing scene of Chapter 2, The Fear of Famine.

It’s from the point of view of Marion Grafin (or Countess) von Adler and takes place in her home in Schloss (or Castle) Ludwigshain.

She found the officer in charge, a middle-aged, thickset man, with hair sprouting from his eyebrows, and his hands. “What are they doing?” she demanded. “Where are you going with all that food?”

Smart in his uniform, as well as his attitude, the officer replied, “The Russian Army needs transport and supplies. They are mine to requisition.”

“Not again,” she complained. “Two years ago, the Russian Imperial Army barracked an entire regiment on my estate and we’ve barely recovered.”

“I know nothing about that,” the officer said.

“You can tell your men to stop.”

“I will not,” the officer said flatly.

She tried a personal approach and asked, “Who do I have the honour of addressing?”

“Captain Stepan Gurieli of the Guzinskiy Hussars at your service,” he said, clicking the heels of his boots.

As she watched the Georgian soldiers load sacks of potatoes, wheat, corn and carrots onto the carts, Marion had an awful, sinking feeling. This was terrible. Without food, her people, her estate, could all crumble into dust. She tried again.

“This is the last day of the harvest. If you take everything, my people won’t survive the winter.”

“This is for the victorious Russian Army,” Gurieli said with a snarl.

“Famine gnaws at the soul,” she pleaded with him. “At least leave us something!”

“These are my orders,” the captain snapped back. “If you don’t like them, take up the matter with the Governor General of Königsberg, or better still, Elizabeth Petrovna, Empress of all Russia.”

She kept her own counsel on that one.

A younger officer – a lieutenant – joined them. He was the one Konstantin had been berating. He had a slight build and rounded shoulders. Marion particularly noticed his gleaming emerald-green eyes and, protruding from beneath his cap, strands of curly red hair.

“Your report, Lieutenant Fermor,” the captain said.

“The men have gathered everything they can,” the lieutenant replied.

“Good, then prepare the column to leave,” Gurieli said. He bestowed on Marion a smug grin and strode towards his dapple-grey horse.

The monster was going to steal her people’s harvest. There was so little time to save her people. She had to stop him. She darted in front of him, arms outstretched, blocking his way.

Mouth agape, the captain stepped back, evidently as surprised as she was by her impetuous action.

“Get out of my way – or suffer the consequences.”

Breathing hard, her heart pumping, she glared at him. “Please. Don’t steal our harvest!”

The captain leaned forward and barked, “Don’t prevent me from following my orders!”

She chose her next words carefully. “This is cruel, vindictive and contrary to the teachings of Our Lord!”

“Bah!” he scoffed. “I don’t care. The Lutheran Church is full of heretics anyway.”

Silence gripped her round the throat. Fear bared its claws.

“What about the little ones?” she pleaded. “Don’t you have children, Captain Gurieli? Leave something for them, I beg you.”

“Blame it on that odious King Frederick of yours,” the captain replied, tapping his riding whip against his thigh. “Because of his hubris, my countrymen – and yours – die horribly on the battlefield. I’ve seen hundreds lose their limbs. A whole generation is amputated. So many fatherless families. Don’t preach to me about children. Be thankful I’m leaving you your lives!”

“I will not let you leave my people to starve!” Every word was like a peal of thunder.

“Get out of my way, you whore!” the captain hissed.

Hans rushed forward, shouting, “How dare you address my mother like that!”

“Who is this suckling babe?” Gurieli laid on the scorn.

“I’m not a child, I’m a man,” Hans snapped.

What happened next seemed to do so in slow motion.

The glint of a blade in the sunlight. Hans’ overhead thrust parried by Gurieli. The dagger falling from her son’s hand spiralling through the air. Gurieli knocking the boy to the ground and plunging his foot on his chest, then lifting his riding whip above his head.

She flung herself into the trajectory of the whip.

It ripped her cheek and stung her with a shooting pain the like of which she had never experienced. Her knees trembled. With the sheer force of will, she urged herself not to move, nor wipe away the blood trickling down her cheek.

Otto and the young lieutenant rushed towards the captain.

“Stop right there!” One fiery glance endorsed her command.

Defiant like a granite mountain before a storm, she stared into the captain’s eyes.

“Move out of my way, or I’ll have to…” Gurieli said.

The captain raised his whip hand and she winced, expecting another strike. A moment passed. Nothing happened. She opened her eyes. The captain and the young lieutenant were grappling and grunting like a couple of great bears. Hans got up from the ground and she flung a protective arm around him. The lieutenant twisted Gurieli’s hand, forcing him to drop the whip.

Gurieli pulled away, shouting, “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“You struck a lady! Call yourself an Imperial Russian officer? You’ve dishonoured the regiment!” the lieutenant replied.

“This is the foreigner’s true colour!” the captain stoked the flames. “White – like the flag of surrender! You’d have our great mother country bow the knee to Prussians!”

The lieutenant unsheathed his sabre and slashed it against the side of the captain’s head, severing his left ear in one swift, clean blow. The ear landed in the summer dust. Blood oozed down the captain’s neck, turning his crisp white uniform a sanguine shade of scarlet. The captain stroked the wound, examined the blood on his hand and licked it. His face transformed into one of unadulterated fury.

“You’ve done it now, little Lieutenant,” Gurieli snarled. “You are under my command. Your precious uncle isn’t here to cosset you.”

The cut on her cheek seared right through her. Waves of pain beat against her legs. She felt dizzy and leaned against Hans.

The lieutenant took a step back and bowed his head. He seemed to have realised the gravity of his action. In a grovelling tone, he said, “I-I’m sorry, Captain.”

“You will be. Here, bite on this!” The captain pulled out his sabre and drove at the lieutenant, who tried to parry the thrust, but Gurieli ran the lieutenant through the side. She cringed at the squishing sound of the sword piercing his flesh. Gurieli withdrew the sabre and blood spurted in an arc, colouring the sandy ground in a hot crimson stream.

The lieutenant slumped to his knees, clutching his side, blood squelching through his fingers. The captain walked round him, planted a boot on the lieutenant’s back and kicked him to the ground, face first.

No one moved. Everyone was in shock.

The lieutenant lay in a pool of blood oozing into the yellow sand, as flies descended on the banquet. Nearby, the captain’s horse, feeling the ambient tension, deposited a large volume of stinking excrement onto the forecourt.

“There, Gräfin.” The captain’s voice ascended the heights of mockery. “There’s food for your people. From the horse’s arse!”

Marion clung onto Hans’ arm, to prevent him from going back into the fray and stop herself falling over in a heap.

The adjutant stumbled over to where the lieutenant lay stricken on the ground, his life oozing out onto the gravel.

The captain barked at him, “Leave him!”

“He’ll die, Captain Gurieli,” the adjutant replied.

“He struck a superior officer, an offence that bears a grave punishment. Do you want to suffer the same fate?”

The adjutant frowned and shook his head.

“Then pick that up!” Gurieli pointed to his bloody ear.

“Yes, Captain,” the adjutant murmured.

“And that.” Gurieli pointed to his whip. “Now let’s leave this accursed place.”

Gurieli led the column off – taking with them most of their horses, carts and wagons carrying the bulk of the estate’s winter food supplies. They left behind fear of famine, a pile of steaming horse shit and a mortally wounded Russian officer.

Once she made sure Hans was unhurt, Marion acted quickly. “Find the doctor. This wound needs cauterising. Bring the lieutenant inside.”

Otto picked him up by the armpits while Konstantin grabbed the boy’s feet. They hauled him as far as the entrance of the Schloss, where a barrel of a man with a face pitted like the full moon, stood on the steps. Few survived the smallpox, but he had. Arms folded, he blocked their way.

“Alexander,” she said to him, “let them pass.”

The huntsman ignored her and lanced the boil of his opinion. Pointing to the stricken lieutenant, he snarled, “Him, he’s Russian scum. They raped our women and our land. They left him here to die. If it were me, I’d do the same.”

“We’re trying to save his life,” she replied.

“What life? He’s not worth it. His soldiers stole our food and our peace of mind. What we gonna feed him on? Berries? Grass? Nah. I see real life in the woods. The beasts of the forest knows the way of things. They’d leave him to die. Not thee, though, Your Excellency. You wanna feed our enemy with food we ain’t even got!”

She glared at him like a Prussian Medusa, willing him to turn to stone under her gaze. “Listen to me! That man doesn’t even know who I am, yet was prepared to lay down his life for me and my son. What more can you ask of a friend, so how can he be an enemy? Now move!”

While the huntsman beat a calculated retreat, she knew it was a temporary respite. The fear of famine crawled into people’s lives like vermin and was as equally hard to remove.

About the Author

Justin Newland is an author of historical fantasy and secret history
thrillers – that’s history with a supernatural twist. His
historical novels feature known events and real people from the past, which
are re-told and examined through the lens of the supernatural.

His novels speculate on the human condition and explore the fundamental
questions of our existence. As a species, as Homo sapiens sapiens –
that’s man the twice-wise – how are we doing so far? Where is
mankind’s spiritual home? What does it look or feel like? Would we
recognise it if we saw it?

Undeterred by the award of a Doctorate in Mathematics from Imperial
College, London, he found his way to the creative keyboard and conceived his
debut novel, The Genes of Isis (Matador, 2018), an epic fantasy set under
Ancient Egyptian skies.

Next came the supernatural thriller, The Old Dragon’s Head (Matador,
2018), set in Ming Dynasty China.

His third novel, The Coronation (Matador, 2019), speculates on the genesis
of the most important event of the modern world – the Industrial
Revolution.

His fourth, The Abdication (Matador, 2021), is a supernatural thriller in
which a young woman confronts her faith in a higher purpose and what it
means to abdicate that faith.

His stories add a touch of the supernatural to history and deal with the
themes of war, religion, evolution and the human’s place in the
universe.

He was born three days before the end of 1953 and lives with his partner in
plain sight of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England.

Contact Links

Twitter: @Matador

Purchase Links

Other book stores:

Author’s Website (where buyers can enter a dedication to be signed by
the author):

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by Jennifer Reed/ bookjunkiez | November 7, 2022 · 5:00 am

Infinite Sea of Stars Teaser

Poetry

Release Date: November 14, 2022

Publisher: Naked Armadillo Press

EVERY POEM IS A LOVE LETTER. AND THESE LETTERS ARE FOR YOU.

For all the times a piece of you was missing, for all the days you
didn’t know where you belonged, for each tiny moment when you
transformed—and still transform.

Infinite Sea of Stars is an ode to love and human resilience. A map of deep
scars and faint laugh lines. Instilling an unwavering sense of hope into
those who decide to dive soul-first into this mystical journey in book
form.

It is a memoir someone else wrote about you. A diary you didn’t know
you kept. The manual you needed but refused to open.

Crafted by decades of introspection and meditation practice, Shannon
Crossman’s poetry is familiar yet enlightening.

Infinite Sea of Stars will pave the reader’s way to self-love,
acceptance, and inner growth, moving through the caverns of discontent and
the soul’s oldest wounds to arrive at the trailhead of a life filled
with deep joy and wonder.

Great for fans of Hafiz, Rumi, Chelan Harkin, and Adyashanti.

Excerpt

Small Birds

Beautiful sister,

rest in the palm of the Beloved.

Nothing, oh nothing,

can push you over the edge of

that Divine cradle.

No tornado of rage,

sea of shame,

mountain of guilt or fear

can pull you from

the Beloved’s gentle caress.

There is no falling.

You are as the small bird

guarded in the nest…

loved and delivered safe

to the day you remember

your own wings.

About the Author

Published in two anthologies, Goddess When She Rules and Hidden Lights, as
well as online at The Urban Howl and Wildheart Writers, Shannon’s work
centers on themes of belonging, resilience, wonder, and the ecstatic.

Nothing excites her more than a blank page or an unexplored path through a
solitary forest. Words and the natural world are and have always been, her
way back home.

In her heart of hearts, she still believes in magic, craves the ocean like
a landlocked mermaid, and dreams of a life without shoes.

Contact Links

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