Friday Interviews-Justin Guay

As we do on Fridays, when we have an interview, we take a break from the Regency Personality series. It shall of course return. As early as tomorrow.

Today we are fortunate to have with us J. Aurel Guay who writes short stories in a variety of fiction genres. Though we want to hear of his work that is soon to be released.

What moved you to become an author?
        I’ve always had in interest in art and expressing myself, but never had the ‘hands’ or technical skill for visual art, like painting and such. Still, the vivid characters and creatures that routinely romp through my mind needed an outlet and I found that in writing. It doesn’t take much skill to type on a keyboard or hold a pencil. Though I’ve since learned that there is no small amount of skill in writing a compelling story; something I am continually working to get better at.

Tell us about your current novel.
        I don’t have a serious novel project going at the moment, though I have several that are on the back burner. My focus of late has been on honing my skills by writing short stories. Xchyler Publishing was kind enough to pick up my short story ‘The Death of Dr. Marcus Wells’ for their Fall Anthology. I’m super excited about it!

How did the story begin to develop in your mind?
        TDoDMW is really a mash-up of two ideas. The first was a sci-fi concept involving learning to live with parasitic/symbiotic creatures, and the second was a sci-fi rationalization of the werewolf concept. I blended the two together, stirred well, and set them into gothic London to boost the paranormal factor Xchyler was looking for in their anthology call.

What did you find most challenging about this book?
        Two things were really challenging about this project. Putting the setting into gothic London and the need to emphasize so much drama forced a narrative voice that really stretched my grammar skills. Thankfully, I got some help from one of my beta-readers F. M. Longo who helped me with that a lot. (DWW-I was a beta reader as well… Those who like scary movies will need to take a peak at this story.)

The second challenge has come in the editing process, and it deals with my main character. A large part of the story is driven by the loss that surrounds the main character and pushes him into a rather depressed state. Have you ever tried to increase the character development for a character that is apathetic, reserved, and stoic? It’s not easy since it’s hard to get them to do anything or focus on something other than themselves. Arg!

How did you choose your publishing method?
        My plan for getting published was to develop my short story skills, start submitting to online magazines, work up to anthologies, and then take the plunge into soliciting publishers for a novel. I actually have to give the credit for finding this opportunity to you Dave, since it was your call for Advance Copy Readers for ‘Mechanized Masterpieces’ that first introduced me to Xchyler Publishing and their quarterly anthology contests. (DWW-Check MMSA out, I have a story featured there.) I’m grateful to be published through Xchyler Pub, and thrilled that I have been able to skip the first few steps in my plan and jump right in to being published in a hard copy anthology!

Tell us a little about yourself?
        I’m a Christian, husband, Dad, Graduate Student, and Writer, in that order. My Grad studies are in molecular biology, and specifically modeling kidney disease in mutant mice. I’ve been telling people that I’ve almost completed my Ph.D. for so long now that no one believes me, but eventually here I’ll finish grad school and move on to a career in academic research/teaching. Outside of work I have more interests than I have time for including, hiking, camping, fly fishing, programming, laptop repair, gardening, and obviously writing.

What is your next work, and beyond that, what do you want to work on.
        Next up will be another anthology submission to Xchyler Pub. I had a great idea for their ‘Back to the Future’ Fantasy contest, but with the edits for my currently accepted project I will not have time to complete it. Instead I’ll be thinking about how to twist ‘Around the World in 80 days’ with Steampunk in a way that no one will expect. Once I’m done with my degree (for real) I’ll start working on a novel. I’ve got two or three in various stages. They are mostly fantasy stories, or blends of fantasy and scifi.

In the current work, is there an excerpt to share? Your favorite scene, a part of your life that you put into the work and think it came out exceptionally well that you would like to share.
        The current work is still under editing and review by the publisher, but in lieu of that I’ll give you a sampling from a story closer to your own genre. Here is a snippet from my steampunk romance short story ‘Airships and Escapes’:

“You’re too lake Hawkins.  The only way to deactivate the device now is with this key,” a long metallic object was briefly dangled in front of Miss Cunningham.  “Secure your masks gentlemen, and prepare to depart, soon the entire south coast will be a lifeless wasteland!”

The remaining henchmen donned parachutes and leapt from the giant airship as Hawkins patiently watched.  The monocled leader himself was last to go, dragging Andy to the edge with him.  He pulled his mask from his belt and shouted, “So long Mr. Hawkins!”
With a powerful shove he pushed Andy from the airship.  The emptiness beneath her feet drove her heart into her throat until her hand caught the edge of the gaping hole in the ship’s hull.  From the corner of her eye she saw the monocled man jump from the ship.  She turned to see him secure his mask and release his parachute as he fell.   But the distraction cost her grip.  Down she fell again screaming vainly into the rush of the buffeting wind.
A firm hand grasped her flailing arm. With a jolt that wrenched her shoulder her descent stopped.  Looking up Andy saw the dark locks and amber eyes of Mr. Hawkins, as his entire body dangled from the ship, secured only by his robotic arm.  With surprising strength he pulled her up and allowed her to climb back into the aircraft, where she in turn helped him aboard.
He quickly rushed to the device secured below the console. Its dials spun rapidly counting down the moments till detonation.  Shaking his head, he looked up at her.  “I’m afraid it’s no use Miss Cunningham, without that key, yours will be the last face I look upon.  Though I couldn’t wish for a finer sight to be my last.”
Andy’s heart fluttered childishly.  She gave a sly smile back at Hawkins and reached into her pocket.  “You mean this key?”

Who do you think influenced your writing, this work, and who do you think you write like
        I’m a serious fan of C. S. Lewis for both his fiction and non-fiction. Everyone knows about ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’, but he also wrote some very good science fiction, and a paranormal titled ‘The Screwtape Letters’, which is one of my favorites.
        I’m also a big fan of Jules Verne and have been since I was young. I just love the imagination and well thought fiction he put into his tales. I hope I write a bit like both Verne and Lewis, but I’ll leave that for the reviewers.

Who do you read? What are the things that a reader can identify with that you have grounded yourself in.
        Honestly, what I read the most is drafts from other aspiring authors. I really love helping other others out by critiquing their work. There is so much creativity out there that I always find myself inspired no matter the quality of the writing itself. Doing so has also helped me learn the common mistakes and flaws far more easily than reading more professional works.
        

When writing, what is your routine?
        Wait for my lunch break, grab my sandwich and start typing! I seldom get the luxury of a writing routine, and write whenever I can, although there is usually coffee involved. I plot while putting my kids to sleep, I write during lunch or sometimes while waiting for the next step in a lab experiment. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes not. I think I must have listened to a lot of Evanescence’s ‘Fallen’ Album while writing TDoDMW. You should play it when you get to my part in the anthology. It fits nicely.

Do you think of yourself as an artist, or as a craftsman, a blend of both?
        For me it’s a two part process, artist first, then craftsman. Putting the story together, working out the plot, developing the characters as I write the first draft, that is all art to me. But that isn’t enough to make a good story. Once drafted you have to go over it with your ‘craftsman’ hat on and look for loop holes, find opportunities to create echo’s within the tale, and refine your word use and grammar to make the best product you can. It takes both, and for me, its Art first, Craft second.

Where should we look for your work.
        TDoDMW isn’t quite released yet, but will be available this Halloween. You will find it on Amazon, and other online book stores. Keep an eye on Xchyler Pub’s site http://www.xchylerpublishing.com for updates on the anthology title and where to get your copy. While you wait, you can check out my author’s blog here: http://jaurelguay.wordpress.com/

I’ve got a handful of publicly available short stories up there for you to sample, with everything from scifi to fantasy to steampunk to choose from! Stop by and feel free to leave a

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Conclusion of the Trolling Series-We’ll All Go A Trolling

We’ll All Go A Trolling Not only do I write Regency and Romance, but I also have delved into Fantasy.

The Trolling series is the story of a man, Humphrey. We meet him as he has left youth and become a man with a man’s responsibilities.

We follow him in a series of stories that encompass the stages of life. We see him when he starts his family, when he has older sons and the father son dynamic is tested.

We see him when his children begin to marry and have children, and at the end of his life when those he has loved, and those who were his friends proceed him over the threshold into death.

All this while he serves a kingdom troubled by monsters. Troubles that he and his friends will learn to deal with and rectify. It is now available in a variety of formats.

For $2.99 you can get this fantasy adventure.

Barnes and Noble for your Nook

Smashwords

Amazon for your Kindle

King Humphrey, retired, has his 80th birthday approaching. An event that he is not looking forward to.

A milestone, of course, but he has found traveling to Torc, the capital of the Valley Kingdom of Torahn, a trial. He enjoys his life in the country, far enough from the center of power where his son Daniel now is King and rules.

Peaceful days sitting on the porch. Reading, writing, passing the time with his guardsmen, his wife, and the visits of his grandson who has moved into a manor very near.

Why go to Torc where he was to be honored, but would certainly have a fight with his son, the current king. The two were just never going to see eye to eye, and Humphrey, at the age of 80, was no longer so concerned with all that happened to others.

He was waiting for his audience with the Gods where all his friends had preceded him. It would be his time soon enough.

Yet, the kingdom wanted him to attend the celebrations, and there were to be many. So many feasts and fireworks he could not keep track, but the most important came at the end, when word was brought that the Trolls were attacking once more.

Now Humphrey would sit as regent for his son, who went off to fight the ancient enemy. Humphrey had ruled the kingdom before, so it should not have been overwhelming, but at eighty, even the little things could prove troublesome.

Feedback

If you have any commentary, thoughts, ideas about the book (especially if you buy it, read it and like it 😉 then we would love to hear from you.

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Regency Personalities Series-George Howard 6th Earl of Carlisle

Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

George Howard 6th Earl of Carlisle
17 September 1773 – 7 October 1848

George Howard 6th Earl of Carlisle

Carlisle was the eldest son of Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, and his wife Lady Margaret Caroline Leveson-Gower, daughter of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford and his wife Lady Louisa, daughter of Scroop Egerton, 1st Duke of Bridgewater. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.

Carlisle was returned to parliament for Morpeth in 1795, a seat he held until 1806, and then represented Cumberland until 1820. In 1806 he was sworn of the Privy Council. In 1825 he succeeded his father in the earldom and entered the House of Lords. He served in the moderate Tory governments of George Canning and Lord Goderich as First Commissioner of Woods and Forests between May and July 1827 and as Lord Privy Seal (with a seat in the cabinet) between July 1827 and January 1828. However, he split with the Tories over electoral reform and later served as a member of the cabinet in the Whig administrations of Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne as Minister without Portfolio between 1830 and 1834 and once again as Lord Privy Seal between July and November 1834.

Apart from his political career Lord Carlisle was Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire between 1824 and 1840. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1837.

Lord Carlisle married Lady Georgiana Cavendish, daughter of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire and Lady Georgiana Spencer, in 1801. They were parents of twelve children:

• George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle
• Lady Caroline Georgiana Howard. She married William Lascelles
• Lady Georgiana Howard. She married George Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron Dover
• Hon. Frederick George Howard
• Lady Harriet Elizabeth Georgina Howard. She married George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland
• William George Howard, 8th Earl of Carlisle
• Edward Granville George Howard, 1st Baron Lanerton. He married Diana Ponsonby, daughter of the Hon. George Ponsonby
• Lady Blanche Georgiana Howard. She married William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire
• Hon. Charles Wentworth George Howard. He married Mary Parke, daughter of James Parke, Baron Wensleydale. They were parents of George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle
• Lady Elizabeth Dorothy Anne Howard. She married Reverend Francis Richard Grey, son of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
• Hon. Henry George Howard. On 29 May 1845, he married Mary Wellesley McTavish, daughter of John McTavish, British Consul at Baltimore, and his wife, Emily. The couple wed from the house of her aunt, the Marchioness Wellesley. He served as Secretary of the British Embassy in Paris. His wife died in Paris 21 February 1850, in her 23rd year.
• Lady Mary Matilda Georgiana Howard. She married Henry Labouchere, 1st Baron Taunton

Lord Carlisle died at Castle Howard, Yorkshire, in October 1848, aged 75, and was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son, George. The Countess of Carlisle died at Castle Howard in August 1858, aged 75.

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RAP has The End of the World

The End of the World This is the first of the Regency Romances I published. It is available for sale and I hope that you will take the opportunity to order your copy.

For yourself or as a gift. It is now available in a variety of formats. For $7.99 you can get this Regency Romance for your eReader. A little more as an actual physical book.

Barnes and Noble for your Nook

Smashwords

iBookstore

Amazon for your Kindle and as a Trade Paperback

Hermione Merwyn leads a pleasant, quiet life with her father, in the farthest corner of England. All is as it should be, though change is sure to come.  For she and her sister have reached the age of marriage, but that can be no great adventure when life at home has already been so bountiful.

When Samuel Lynchhammer arrives in Cornwall, having journeyed the width of the country, he is down to his last few quid and needs to find work for his keep. Spurned by the most successful mine owner in the county, Gavin Tadcaster, Samuel finds work for Gavin’s adversary, Sir Lawrence Merwyn.

Can working for Sir Lawrence, the father of two young women on the cusp of their first season to far away London, be what Samuel needs to help him resolve the reasons for his running away from his obligations in the east of the country?

Will the daughters be able to find happiness in the desolate landscapes and deadly mines of their home? When a stranger arrives in Cornwall while the war rages on the Peninsula, is he the answer to one’s prayers, or a nightmare wearing the disguise of a gentleman?

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If you have any commentary, thoughts, ideas about the book (especially if you buy it, read it and like it 😉 then we would love to hear from you.

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Regency Personalities Series-Julius Caesar Ibbetson

Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

Julius Caesar Ibbetson
29 December 1759 – 13 October 1817

Julius Caesar Ibbetson

Ibbetson was born at Farnley Moor, Leeds. He was the second child of Richard Ibbetson, a clothier from Yorkshire. According to his Memoir, his mother fell on the ice and went into labor prematurely, causing him to be delivered by caesarean section and resulting in a middle name he attempted to hide throughout his life. Ibbetson was probably educated in a local Moravian community and then by Quakers in Leeds.

Ibbetson was apprenticed to John Fletcher, a ship painter in Hull, from 1772 to 1777. He then moved to London, where for the next ten years he was primarily a picture restorer for a Clarke of Leicester Fields. In 1782 wrote an account of his life and sent it to the artist Benjamin West which was transcribed by Joseph Farington in 1805. Around 1780, Ibbetson married his first wife, Elizabeth.

Sailors Carousing

In 1785, Ibbetson began exhibiting at the Royal Academy with View of North Fleet. Through the efforts of Captain William Baillie in 1787, Ibbetson was made draughtsman to Colonel Charles Cathcart on the first British embassy to Peking (Beijing); he made many watercolor drawings of the animals and plants on the journey. While he was away, his Ascent of George Biggin, esq. from St. George’s Fields, June 29th 1785 was exhibited at the Royal Academy to great critical and popular acclaim.

An 1803 portrait of Ibbetson’s second wife Bella by Ibbetson

In 1789, Ibbetson went to visit the Viscount Mountstuart at Cardiff Castle in Wales. He spent decades drawing the scenery there. After a visit to the Isle of Wight in 1790, he began painting shipwrecks and smugglers.

David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield, and his wife commissioned Ibbetson to decorate Kenwood House, in 1794. This distracted him from the death of his wife and caring for their three children. Her death had “provoked a minor nervous breakdown, exacerbated by near destitution”, but the Kenwood project relieved that stress. Four years later, he moved to Liverpool to work for Thomas Vernon. In 1801 he married his second wife, Bella Thompson, and moved to Ambleside.

Ibbetson acquired several generous patrons in Liverpool and in Edinburgh: William Roscoe, Sir Henry Nelthorpe, and the Countess of Balcarress. The last prompted him to write and publish his instruction manual An Accidence, or Gamut, of Painting in Oil (1803). In 1803, he met the Yorkshire philanthropist William Danby and in 1805 moved to Masham to be near him. The next 14 years of his life were the most settled of his life.

Ibbetson died on 13 October 1817 and was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s, Masham.

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Space Opera Books Presents Trolling, Trolling, Trolling Fly Hides

Trolling, Trolling, Trolling Fly Hides!

Not only do I write Regency and Romance, but I also have delved into Fantasy.

The Trolling series, (the first three are in print) is the story of a man, Humphrey. We meet him as he has left youth and become a man with a man’s responsibilities.

We follow him in a series of stories that encompass the stages of life. We see him when he starts his family, when he has older sons and the father son dynamic is tested.

We see him when his children begin to marry and have children, and at the end of his life when those he has loved, and those who were his friends proceed him over the threshold into death. All this while he serves a kingdom troubled by monsters.

Troubles that he and his friends will learn to deal with and rectify.

It is now available in a variety of formats. For $2.99 you can get this fantasy adventure.

Barnes and Noble for your Nook

Smashwords

Amazon for your Kindle

Old age is catching up to Humphrey and his friends. He feels it in his bones and with his son and heir having reached the prime of his life, it could very well be time to pass the baton of rule to Daniel.

With the Valley Kingdom of Torahn at Peace, that would not be a terrible thing to do. Though breaking his decision to his wife Gwendolyn, the Queen, might be the hardest battle that he ever would fight.

Even as the life of retirement looks to be attractive and possible, however, the Valley Kingdom is beset again. Not Goblins, Trolls, Giants or Men, this time. No. That Humphrey knew would be far too easy.

Those obstacles had been overcome before and the problems they presented had solutions that the army of Torahn was trained to deal with. No, of all the creatures that came forth from Teantellen that they had beaten, the one they had never faced now came forth. Dragons!

Who in the realm knew how to fight these mythical beasts? Was there even away to do so?

Now Humphrey who had thought to spend the remainder of his days quietly writing his memoirs and drinking, was faced with the greatest challenge he had ever known.

Feedback

If you have any commentary, thoughts, ideas about the book (especially if you buy it, read it and like it 😉 then we would love to hear from you.

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Regency Personalities Series-Richard Carlile

Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

Richard Carlile
9 December 1790 – 10 February 1843

Richard Carlile

Born in Ashburton, Devon, the son of a shoemaker who abandoned the family in 1794 leaving Richard’s mother struggling to support her three children on the income from running a small shop. At the age of six he went for free education to the local Church of England school, then at the age of twelve he left school for a seven-year apprenticeship to a tinsmith in Plymouth. In 1813 he got married, and shortly afterwards the couple moved to Holborn Hill in London where he found work as a tinsmith. Jane Carlile gave birth to five children, three of whom survived.

His interest in politics was kindled first by economic conditions in the winter of 1816 when Carlile was put on short-time work by his employer creating serious problems for the family: “I shared the general distress of 1816 and it was this that opened my eyes.” He began attending political meetings where speakers like Henry Hunt complained that only three men in a hundred had the vote, and was also influenced by the publications of William Cobbett.

As a way of making a living he sold the writings of parliamentary reformers such as Tom Paine on the streets of London, often walking “thirty miles for a profit of eighteen pence”. In April 1817 he formed a publishing business with the printer William Sherwin and rented a shop in Fleet Street.

To make political texts such as Paine’s books The Rights of Man and the Principles of Government available to the poor he split them into sections which he sold as small pamphlets, similarly publishing The Age of Reason and Principles of Nature.

He issued pirated copies of Southey’s Wat Tyler and after the radical William Hone’s arrest in May, he reissued the parody of parts of the Book of Common Prayer for which Hone was to be tried, then was himself arrested in August and held without charge until Hone was acquitted in December.

He took on distributing the banned Radical weekly The Black Dwarf at a time when the government was prosecuting publishers: “The Habeas Corpus Act being suspended … all was terror and alarm, but I take credit to myself in defeating the effect of these two Acts upon the Press… Of imprisonment I made sure, but I felt inclined to court it than to shrink from it”.

Carlile then brought out a radical journal, Sherwin’s Political Register, which reported political meetings and included extracts from books and poems by supporters of the reform movement such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. The popularity of this helped to soon bring his profit from his publishing venture to £50 a week.

Print of the Peterloo Massacre published by Richard Carlile

Carlile was one of the scheduled main speakers at the reform meeting on 16 August 1819 at St. Peter’s Fields in Manchester. Just as Henry Hunt was about to speak, the crowd was attacked by the yeomanry in what became known as the Peterloo Massacre. Carlile escaped and was hidden by radical friends before he caught the mail coach to London and published his eyewitness account, giving the first full report of what had happened, in Sherwin’s Weekly Political Register of 18 August 1819. His placards proclaimed “Horrid Massacres at Manchester”.

The government responded by closing Sherwin’s Political Register, confiscating the stock of newspapers and pamphlets. Carlile changed the name to The Republican and in its issue of 27 August 1819 demanded that “The massacre… should be the daily theme of the Press until the murderers are brought to justice…. Every man in Manchester who avows his opinions on the necessity of reform, should never go unarmed – retaliation has become a duty, and revenge an act of justice.”

Carlile was prosecuted for blasphemy, blasphemous libel and sedition for publishing material that might encourage people to hate the government in his newspaper, and for publishing Tom Paine’s Common Sense, The Rights of Man and the Age of Reason (which criticised the Church of England). In October 1819 he was found guilty of blasphemy and seditious libel and sentenced to three years in Dorchester Gaol with a fine of £1,500. When he refused to pay the fine, his premises in Fleet Street were raided and his stock was confiscated. While he was in jail he continued to write articles for The Republican which was now published by Carlile’s wife Jane, and thanks to the publicity it now outsold pro-government newspapers such as The Times. (DWW-Good on Carlile and especially Jane Carlile!)

To curb newspapers the government had raised the ½d tax on newspapers first imposed in 1712 to 3½d in 1797 then 4d in 1815. From December 1819 it set a minimum price of 7d and further restrictions. At a time when workers earned less than 10 shillings (120d.) a week this made it hard for them to afford radical newspapers, and publishers tried various strategies to evade the tax. Groups would pool their resources in reading societies and subscription societies to purchase a book or journal in common, and frequently read it aloud to one another as was the case with James Wilson.

By 1821, Carlile was a declared atheist (having previously been a Deist) and published his Address to Men of Science, in favour of materialism and education. In the same year Jane Carlile was in turn sentenced to two years imprisonment for seditious libel, and her place as publisher was taken by Richard Carlile’s sister, Mary. Within six months she was imprisoned for the same offence. The process was repeated with eight of his shop workers, and over 150 men and women were sent to prison for selling The Republican. Carlile’s sentence ended in 1823 but he was immediately arrested and returned to prison for not paying his £1,500 fine, so the process continued until he was eventually released on 25 November 1825. In the next edition of The Republican he expressed the hope that his long confinement would result in the freedom to publish radical political ideas.

He then published further journals, The Lion which campaigned against child labour and The Promptor. He argued that “equality between the sexes” should be the objective of all reformers, and in 1826 published Every Woman’s Book advocating birth control and the sexual emancipation of women.

He joined up with the Revd. Robert Taylor and set out on an “infidel home missionary tour” which reached Cambridge on Thursday 21 May 1829 and caused a considerable upset to the University of Cambridge where a young Charles Darwin was a second year student.

Carlile then opened a ramshackle building on the south bank of the River Thames, the Blackfriars Rotunda, and in widespread public unrest in July 1830 this became a gathering place for republicans and atheists. Taylor staged infidel melodramas, preaching outrageous sermons which got him dubbed “The Devil’s Chaplain”. Thousands of copies of these sermons were circulated in a seditious publication, The Devil’s Pulpit.

In 1830 he was jailed again for seditious libel, given two and a half years for writing an article in support of agricultural labourers campaigning against wage cuts and advising the strikers to regard themselves as being at war with the government. He left prison deeply in debt, and government fines had taken from him the finances needed to publish newspapers.

After living for some years in extreme poverty in Enfield, Carlile returned to Fleet Street in 1842, dying there the following year. He donated his body for medical research. Large numbers of people attended his funeral, recognising the importance of his work for a free press.

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Space Opera Books presents ECO Agents:Save The Planet a Young Adult Adventure

First ECO Agents book available

Those who follow me for a long time know that I also write in other fields aside from Regency Romance and the historical novels I do. A few months ago, before the end of last year and after 2011 NaNoWriMo, (where I wrote the first draft of another Regency) I started work on a project with my younger brother Douglas (All three of my brothers are younger brothers.)

The premise, as he is now an educator but once was a full on scientist at the NHI and FBI (Very cloak and dagger chemistry.) was that with the world having become green, and more green aware every week, why not have a group of prodigies, studying at a higher learning educational facility tackle the ills that have now begun to beset the world.

So it is now released. We are trickling it out to the major online channels and through Amazon it will be available in trade paperback. Available at Amazon for your Kindle, or your Kindle apps and other online bookstores. For $5.99 you can get this collaboration between the brothers Wilkin.

Or get it for every teenager you know who has access to a Kindle or other eReader.

Barnes and Noble for your Nook

Smashwords

iBookstore for your Apple iDevices

Amazon for your Kindle

Five young people are all that stands between a better world and corporate destruction.

Parker, Priya, JCubed, Guillermo and Jennifer are not just your average high school students. They are ECOAgents, trusted the world over with protecting the planet.

Our Earth is in trouble. Humanity has damaged our home. Billionaire scientist turned educator, Dr. Daniel Phillips-Lee, is using his vast resources to reverse this situation.

Zedadiah Carter, leader of the Earth’s most powerful company, is only getting richer, harvesting resources, with the aid of not so trustworthy employees. When the company threatens part of the world’s water supply, covering up their involvement is business as usual.

The Ecological Conservation Organization’s Academy of Higher Learning and Scientific Achievement, or simply the ECO Academy, high in the hills of Malibu, California overlooking the Pacific Ocean, is the envy of educational institutions worldwide. The teenage students of the ECO Academy, among the best and brightest the planet has to offer, have decided they cannot just watch the world self-destruct. They will meet this challenge head on as they begin to heal the planet.

Feedback

If you have any commentary, thoughts, ideas about the book (especially if you buy it, read it and like it 😉 then we would love to hear from you.

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Regency Personalities Series-Thomas Hearne

Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

Thomas Hearne
22 September 1744 – 13 April 1817

Lanercost Priory near Carlisle

Hearne was an English landscape painter, engraver and illustrator. Hearne’s watercolours were typified by applying a wash of subtle subdued colours over a clear outline in fine brush, pen or pencil. His techniques were studied by younger artists such as Thomas Girtin and J. M. W. Turner.

Born at Marshfield, Gloucestershire. When he was five years old, his father, William, died and Thomas moved with his mother, Prudence, to Brinkworth, Wiltshire. It is suggested that the nearby Malmesbury Abbey proved an inspiration to Hearne’s later interest in Gothic architecture. As a teenager he was apprenticed to his uncle who worked as a pastry cook in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. Next door was a print shop; Miller, the engraver, no doubt facilitated his move to the profession of artist.

In its early years, the Royal Society of Arts offered prizes—which it called “premiums”—for people who could successfully achieve one of a number of published challenges. In 1763 Hearne was awarded a guinea premium for a still life. The next year he received 8 guineas for an equestrian piece. By 1765 he had become apprenticed to the engraver William Woollett, who came to consider him the finest landscape engraver of his day and with whom he stayed for six years.

Early in 1771 Hearne spent six weeks with Woollett and the young George Beaumont in Henstead, Suffolk at the home of the latter’s tutor at Eton, Revd Charles Davy. For Beaumont it proved the inspiration for his future profession as a landscape painter himself. Beaumont would later accompany Hearne on location to the north of England and Scotland in 1777 and 1778.

Before the invention of photography it was the custom for topographical watercolor artists to travel abroad with the Governors of Colonies. In 1771 Hearne travelled to the Leeward Islands after newly-appointed Governor-General, Sir Ralph Payne commissioned 20 large landscapes (including ten of Antigua). Hearne remained there for three-and-a-half years, making drawings of the characteristic features of the islands. This work also employed him for a further two years in London, painting watercolours from the sketches. Hearne’s portrait of Payne himself is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

In 1777, in conjunction with engraver William Byrne, Hearne began work recording and illustrating the country’s historic monuments for The Antiquities of Great Britain. First Hearne produced drawings specifically for the project, then Byrne produced engravings after them, and descriptions were added in French and English. The works were issued in series for individual sale from 1778. In 1786 the first 52 plates were bound as a book; a second volume of 32 plates was published in 1807. By this time an individual print sold for 15s compared to a complete set of the proof impressions for 26l 5s. Many of the drawings were exhibited at a gallery in Spring Gardens, London. During the extensive tour of Britain which the work necessitated, Hearne studied nature with care, investing his topographical drawings with effects of light and atmosphere seldom attempted by previous draughtsmen in watercolour. He may thus be said to have done much to revive attention to Gothic architecture, and to have been one of the founders of the English school of watercolours.

Byrne further worked with Hearne, using the artist’s designs for Rural Sports from 1780.

Richard Payne Knight, enthusiast of the ‘picturesque’ style, commissioned Hearne to produce several drawings of the grounds of his home, Downton Castle in Herefordshire.

Hearne’s art influenced Thomas Girtin and J M W Turner, both of whom copied his drawings at the houses of Dr. Thomas Monro and John Henderson Snr., the well-known patrons of the arts at the time. From 1781 to 1802 Hearne exhibited drawings of landscape and antiquarian remains at the Royal Academy, London. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

Hearne, as part of Regency London’s artistic establishment was sketched by George Dance. Dance’s highly finished pencil profile portraits were subsequently etched by William Daniell and published over ten years from 1804 in A Collection of Portraits. The depiction of Hearne was published in release VI in December 1809. In 1812 Henry Monro painted Hearne in pastel. The National Portrait Gallery purchased this portrait in 1912.

Hearne died in Macclesfield Street, Soho, London on 13 April 1817, and was buried at Bushey, Hertfordshire.

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Fantasy from Space Opera Books, Trolling’s Pass and Present

Trolling’s Pass and Present

Not only do I write Regency and Romance, but I also have delved into Fantasy.

The Trolling series, (the first three are in print) is the story of a man, Humphrey. We meet him as he has left youth and become a man with a man’s responsibilities.

We follow him in a series of stories that encompass the stages of life. We see him when he starts his family, when he has older sons and the father son dynamic is tested.

We see him when his children begin to marry and have children, and at the end of his life when those he has loved, and those who were his friends proceed him over the threshold into death. All this while he serves a kingdom troubled by monsters.

Troubles that he and his friends will learn to deal with and rectify.

It is now available in a variety of formats. For $2.99 you can get this fantasy adventure.

Barnes and Noble for your Nook

Smashwords

Amazon for your Kindle

Years since their battles with the Trolls, even on foreign soil, the warriors of the Valley Kingdom of Torahn need something to keep their edge honed. The economy too is beginning to fray a little without the great wars to support.

The Leaders hit upon the idea of searching for a path to reach the east side of the continent. The Elves swear that at one time their writings tell of such, the Dwarves swear such a pass across Teantellen is legendary.

Teantellen though is filled with races man has never gotten along with well. Goblins, Dark Elves, Trolls, Giants and Dragons. It has been years since the mountain tops exploded, and perhaps that has changed things enough that a way can be found to link the western lands with the eastern lands and increase trade, and prosperity for all.

Even should they fail in their quest, as the history of man has shown to this point in time, the attempt will do much to spur the economy. Tens of thousands of gold will be spent by the Council of Twenty-One to pay for such an expedition.

Gold that those who are not so scrupulous might choose to pocket as they tried in the Troll Wars. With such shenanigans taking place again, are the hopes of the previous generation, the leaders from the Troll Wars now in retirement, ready to be achieved?

Is it time for Torahn, called the Valley Kingdom, but the only Kingdom without a King, to have a King once more?

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If you have any commentary, thoughts, ideas about the book (especially if you buy it, read it and like it 😉 then we would love to hear from you.

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