The Phantom of the Faerie Mountain by E M McIntyre

A first for my blog!

Today I'm posting an interview with E. M. McIntyre along with a review of her great YA novel The Phantom of Faerie Mountain. Onwards and upwards for Writer, haunted!

A quick blurb in italics first, then down to the nitty-gritty.

A telepathic dog. An ancient prophecy. Two devious faeries. 14 yr old Abby Fletcher must unravel their connection when she is thrown into a world of unknowns after receiving a mysterious message from a frightening beast: The Red King must set me free. Determined to discover the meaning of this puzzling phrase, Abby sets off to explore a nearby Scottish mountainside in search of clues. What Abby doesn't realize, however, is that it's not a matter of where she will find her answers but when. Whisked back to the early 14th century, Abby must find the courage to solve the mystery of the Red King and save not only herself but a group of powerless captives wrapped up in a faerie plot.

I always get a kick out of reading about everyday characters in out-of-the-ordinary situations. You get to see how the character reacts and grows as the story goes on. And Abby, the lead character, has a lot of growing to do in this, the first of a trilogy. She finds herself far from the home she knows, in more ways than one...

The story gets into high gear pretty quickly as our hero Abby receives a message from a strange creature in the fog. This is a big plus for me, as I'm not a fan of pages and pages of exposition. I like a story to start with the action, and that's how Phantom draws us in.

The Scottish setting isn't merely here for a different flavour, it's integral to the plot and I really enjoyed digging into the mythology of the creatures and faeries. Much like the Percy Jackson books thrive on the legends of Greek mythology, this book gains a distinct personality from its setting.

Dialogue is natural - including the Scottish character Rory, who is easy to read, and shouldn't be a problem for younger readers. The relationship between the two leads develops and a steady, believable rate too.

Also, the novel isn't overly long, and there's enough here to make me look forward to the next in the series. Oh, and it's not often you get a telepathic dog, so that's an automatic extra mark.

With fantasy, time-travel, and magic, there's plenty here for readers to enjoy. Recommended for readers between 10-14 in particular, although like any good fantasy story people of all ages can enjoy it.

A world well worth visiting.

RIGHT. Let's find out a bit about the author, shall we?

INTERVIEW WITH E. M. MCINTYRE

1.Why write?

When a photo is shared with me of a ‘tween’ with her nose shoved in a book (my book) and is seemingly lost within that world – this is why I write. When I see a teenager staring intently at a page of the same book, her brow furrowed as if upset or concerned – this is why I write. I write so young readers may find themselves swept away to another reality where they are free to ‘just be’ and imagine.

2.What are you most proud of within your work?

What I’m most proud of is twofold. As referenced above, it is humbling, amazing, and exciting to me to know something I’ve created is taking young readers to the same place I went at that age. To that place when I first discovered Pippi Longstocking, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys, and later, Piers Anthony and his Xanth series, to name a few. I am also proud to have been awarded 5 accolades thus far for the first two books in my trilogy, it’s astonishing to me.

3.What’s your writing process? Anything you find easy or hard?

Before I can even begin writing a new project, I must have a solid outline planned, chapter by chapter. Otherwise, I’m quite certain my brain might explode. This is probably the hardest and slowest part of the process for me. I use Scrivener as my software of choice, and once said outline is accomplished, I’m ready to roll. I normally write both days on the weekends, locked away in my bedroom with only the hum of the fish tank next to me. I start as soon as I’ve had breakfast and work most of the day, breaking only for lunch, until I hit my quota.

4.Which book do you wish you had written and why?

While there are many amazing books already written by equally amazing authors, those books were theirs to write. What I do wish I had written were the many stories in my own mind waiting to be discovered decades ago. How nice it would have been to have started on the path of authorship a bit earlier.

5.If you were a food, what food would you be?

Cheese pizza with a sweet sauce and hand-tossed dough cooked to golden perfection.

6.Is there any hope for Planet Earth?

This is a tough one, as we all know there are so many negative things happening on and to our planet. I’d like to think our youngest generation and those yet to come will say ‘enough is enough’ and begin to heal not only the Earth but ourselves. The realist in me thinks it might be too late but I will always have hope.

Hope you all enjoyed reading this interview, and I'm hoping to post more in the future.

Check out The Phantom of Faerie Mountain here, bearing in mind that I only really recommend books here that I think you might enjoy, there's nothing random about my recommendations. Stop making the boring choices, people. Live a little.

Laters.

Book review: A Soul Divided by Daniel M. Quilter

Here, then, is the next phase in my stumbling efforts to support fellow indie authors. This is the first of a (probably very) occasional series of reviews, recommending works that could be well under your radar.

First up, David M. Quilter's A Soul Divided.

Amazon blurb incoming:

When the princess of the technologically advanced Human Empire is kidnapped by an agent of the Mystic religion, they’re forced to turn to the last person they’d ever expected to ask for help: Drake Ashbell, a snarky pirate who has a problem with authority, and a dark secret. 
When he’s pulled into the conflict, Drake finds himself caught up in a fast-paced adventure that will take him to distant worlds, make him face his tragic past, and test the limits of his soul.

Sci-fantasy. That's what we've got here. I'm far from the biggest sci-fi fan, (I enjoy it on the screen but don't follow much of what goes on in books) but I do think that magic in space is a pretty novel idea, and can't imagine that there's been too many variations on this idea. Immediately, then, there's a freshness to the work, difficult to achieve in any flooded field.

Things get off to a pretty quick start. Olivia, Princess of the Human Empire, looking forward to an evening of staring the stars, finds herself watching as five soldiers are taken down by a single man, and we're only a couple of pages in. The action is taut and tightly written throughout the book, and it's the speed of events that really helps the book. The ideas are a tad cliche, but when done with gusto the whole story makes for a rollicking adventure that will keep those pages turning.

The characters aren't the usual cardboard cut-outs either. Olivia in the above scene finds the confrontation an 'interesting' diversion from the norm. The brothers Vahn and Drake offer up interesting contrasts. Vahn, sent on a quest to find his criminal half-sibling, is diligent, Drake is a Han Solo-esque rogue with a knack for a snappy line (he's the kind of guy who'll jump through a window if you don't let him use the door). Not long after we meet Drake we're into a chase scene. In fact, it's to the book's credit that we never sit still for long periods of exposition. In that sense, A Soul Divided is very reminiscent of original trilogy Star Wars or Indiana Jones.

My only niggle is that the cover doesn't do a particularly good job of representing the story, so I recommend any prospective readers look past it (and we all know the proverb about judging and book covers...). There's a review I've seen that complains about the paragraphing, but that's not a problem I had, unless it applies to the print version? Anyway, kindle edition is laid out correctly and easy to read. A couple of editing issues here and there, nothing overly bothersome though.

A Soul Divided, then is recommended if you're after a real blast of adventure set around a solid magic system that sticks to its rules.

As a bonus, the kindle edition is only a couple of quid. Get it here

Back to promoting myself/babbling rubbish soon.

Laters

Bad review, what do I do?

I got a couple of bad reviews, and now I'm in freefall and I don't know what to do.

This is a particularly painful post, and I've thought long and hard whether to publish it. I promised myself, however, that if I wrote a blog then I would be honest about the writing journey. With that in mind, this is going to be a very honest post, possibly to the detriment of my unreleased book. But what can you do? The bloody reviews are out there now. No hiding those.

Way back when I started this bloody thing,

I never thought it would be so much trouble.

It all seemed like a pretty good idea. New book A Graveyard Visible is due for release at the end of April, and I was feeling confident about it, thought it was about as good a piece of work as I could put together (after all, I sent it to a publisher, and they accepted it, so, you know...) Why not drum up a bit of interest for my YA horror nice and early? I stumbled upon a scheme to garner a bunch of reviews. So I went for it.

Yeah. Pretty good idea.

First review came in. I checked it out nervously. It was great:

'This book goes from “good” to “great” to “I can’t put this book down until I have finished it”. If you want creepy, edge-of-your-seat page turner, this is for you!'

In the spirit of honesty, then, here are some direct quotes from the negative reviews, and this is the stuff that broke my heart:

'Ok, I did not get this book at all. I love suspense and horror, but this was a mangled mess of confusion. The alternating third person perspective and stream of consciousness just left me confused. This would have been a DNF for me except I felt guilty...'

And even worse:

'The story started off strong and I was captivated by the idea of what could be happening within the graveyard. The narrative soon became really difficult to follow. Each chapter switched between many characters’ perspectives and it often took me reading a paragraph or two to understand which character I was reading about.
This was a difficult book for me to get through. I ended up quitting with only 70 pages left because I was just uninterested and not invested in the story. '

Never in my life thought I'd write a novel people didn't want to finish! I can't imagine a review being any worse.

This is what my cat thinks of the whole situation.

Again, being honest, I got defensive when I read these. When you've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours creating something you believe in, anyone would get a tad bristly, I suppose. So let's get the stroppy author bit out of the way. The main beef here seemed to be the multiple perspectives. But what's wrong with that? I whined. It's hardly the first novel to have multiple bloody viewpoints. It's standard stuff for telling big tales! It's meant to give proceedings a touch of the ole epic scope. It keeps the story fresh, lends a bit of unpredictability to how it all unfolds.

Look, there's not that many viewpoints! There's our two leads Caleb and Misha, some flashback stuff (which is all in italics, by the way), some very brief stuff with the grandparents, and some short sequences with the villain of the piece, and he's really obvious because he has all these dark thoughts 'n that. That's it. Caleb is a very normal boy, Misha is a bit odd, it's all signposted quite clearly.

I've read a ton of books that switch viewpoints. Grab one of Stephen King's bigger epics - The Stand, Under The Dome - and you'll be switching all over the place. I don't think it's that hard to keep up in my novel. Really I don't. Maybe I'm too close to the story though. After all, it did take longer than usual and more effort to get it done. Maybe I've buggered it up far more than I think.

Anyhoo, my defense is all well and good... but so far two readers don't buy it. That there is bad news, bro.
It could be that multiple viewpoints just wasn't to these readers' tastes. Having two of them say the same thing though? Oh man...

Like I said at the beginning, I don't know what to do. It feels like the damn book's been murdered before it's anywhere near release. Is it fixable? Do I dare get more reviews? I have to, in the hope I can get some balance, get a few good ones in, so that at least it looks like a divisive novel. That would be a good sell, the book that you either love or hate. But... what if more reviewers hate it? What if that's all AGV gets? I don't know what to do....

Oh yeah, I'm comfort eating these days. You wanna see how big I can get? Keep posting them bad reviews, guys. Reckon I could end up a whopper.

Laters.

Love it or hate it, They'll come after you anyway.

Pre-order here. Release date 27th April 2018

The book I couldn't finish.

For the first time ever, I couldn't finish a book because it became too much to bear.

There's plenty of books I've stopped reading partway through, but every one of those times was the result of boredom. When I was younger I would push on no matter what. However, by the time a fella reaches my age, he's put up with a lot of crap that he shouldn't have put up with. It's very possible that I've reached the halfway point of my natural existence (or I could be past that point, maybe even by quite a distance. Oh God I've freaked myself out again). There's not enough time left for me to waste. It's no longer good enough for a book to 'get interesting later on'. Get me at the start, or I'm moving on.

The Troop is not a boring book. That is not the reason why I put it down and may never return to it ever, ever again. This, despite the fact that I would LOVE to know how it all turns out.

Nick Cutter's a pretty damn good writer. I actually read his second novel first, The Deep, and I only picked it up because of the Stephen King quote on the cover (yep, some marketing ploys really do work).

So, the world's in trouble - there's a plague sweeping the world and nobody's got a chance against it. That is, until a substance is found in a trench at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, a substance that just might be able to cure anything. Scientists have been down there in a research lab studying this discovery, but all has gone very, very quiet. It's up to a select few to go down there and find out what's going on.

There's plenty going on. There is no way that anyone getting to the end of the book will be able to say they saw any of it coming. No way.

The book is good fun, and clatters along at a pretty swift pace. That's a big plus for me. I can't stand big chunks of description or explanations the length of instruction manuals of how things work. I want a story to move, and this one gets a hurry on. It's got a bit of The Thing about it. Comparisons to The Abyss are way off the mark though.

The gruesome stuff's kinda queasy - and bizarre, impressively so. There's some wild imagination at work here, enough so that by the end I was slightly wondering what kind of guy Cutter might be, and if his family was comfortable living with him. He also does a great job of conveying the claustrophobia of being so far underwater, and the unnerving nearness of madness due to the pressures way, way down there.
The Deep is well recommended, as long as you have a bit of a tolerance for the grim and the weird.

In the back was an advert for his first novel, The Troop, and the idea of getting it lingered in my mind for a while. I read a few other books first, then, after Clive Barker's Scarlet Gospels (which is messed up in so many ways - don't read it after Abarat!), I got stuck into Cutter's debut.

Oh dear.

So, a small troop of scouts is taken on a 3-day camping trip on a little island. Unfortunately, they land there on the same day as another gentleman. He's a man infected by something terrible and man-made. Something that's driving him to eat whatever is near him (quite literally anything). Something that is devouring every trace of energy in his body. It's something that's going to get out.

Characterisation is great. The author really gets that 13 year old kids are kind-of unpleasant and gross and sweary and slap-happy with rude talk (they are, all of them - even yours, madam). They're likable too, though. Most of them. And that's a tricky bit of writing to pull off. It makes what happens to them all the more unpleasant.

Now, I grew up with horror films. I was 7 when the video nasty drama kicked off, and I had a step-family that was non-too concerned about the kinds of things I was seeing when they rented out tapes. There was a guy came door-to-door, had all the stuff that had just been banned - most of the boxes had no certificates on them, just tremendous images and warnings of the horrors inside. Since that point, I've seen that many horror films that I've reached terminal boredom with the whole thing. Spooks bother me, gore is a bore.

This book, however. Damn. It beat me.

It's all kinds of gross. If you've ever seen or heard of body melt horror films, this is pretty much the book version of that unpleasant genre. If you can't deal with infections or tapeworms or flesh-eating disease, then stay well away. Once the infected man lands on the island, it doesn't let up. At all. I had a pretty bad time with it, up until about the midway point, where something is about to happen to a boy's fingers. There it was - my limit. I ran out of bravery. I suspect I'm getting softer as I get older, but that scene pushed Off buttons I didn't know I had (there seem to be a lot of people on Goodreads who enjoyed the gruesome stuff to a surprising degree - it's a tad worrying). I couldn't carry on.

It's never happened before. But I suppose some things happen with age.

Mr. Cutter (I've since learned this is a pen name), I will read whatever book you attack us with next, but The Troop and I are done.

Tell me about any books you couldn't finish (and not because they were boring). In the mean time,

Laters