My latest novel- Earth Fire

I'm pleased to announce that I've published another novel in the Heart of the World series, the seventh in the series and my eighth in all. If that makes the process sound easy, its actually not but there is a lot of satisfaction in turning ideas into a story. The books are mainly aimed at a younger audience though theoretically can be enjoyed by anyone. At least anyone who doesn't read something and then say "well that could never happen". Because, you know, it just might....

When I was at school, before the days of streaming, BBC and ITV would both show old films to keep us entertained during the school holidays. One of these often repeated movies was Jason and the Argonauts. The scene that stuck with me the most from the fantasy adventure was when a giant metal statue called Talos is animated and threatens our heroes. To be honest if you look at it now, Talos doesn’t do that much except stomp around a bit (though he does lift up the adventurer's boat at one point) but I’ve always wanted to work the idea of statues coming to life into a story. Its not an original idea as such- Doctor Who has the Weeping Angels of course and even the last Ghostbusters film included a stone lion coming to life. That made me more nervous than the rest of the film but thankfully all it did was roar and that was that. 

None of these animated statues were as deadly as their appearance suggested and that was the aspect I wanted to include. So these statues are dangerous. Not only can they move but they can attack you with either fire if they're made of stone or electrical static if composed of metal. And think how many statues there are in the world. If someone  was able to wake up all the statues and control them like some enormous deadly army that would be a serious threat. 

Another inspiration came from those Agatha Christie stories where a disparate group of people are trapped with a murderer on the loose. You don’t know who will be murdered next. Our characters spend much of the novel in the house and grounds of the Loxton Hall estate. Some of them work there, others are visitors.  Is one of them controlling the statues? Who can be trusted? Who will survive? And what is going on underneath the house?

People have asked me why I keep self publishing these books if sales are low and profits non existent and its a reasonable question. It is a hobby as I have a full time job so luckily I don't need to rely on the books for a living otherwise I would be living in a dilapidated shed. So the answer is simply because I enjoy the writing process and I seem to keep having ideas. As long as that's the case, I will carry on. I'm already drafting ideas for the next book which won't be part of this series but something different.

The novel is available in paperback or Kindle ebook format from Amazon, link here.

The striking cover was produced by Glendon Haddix of Streetlight.

Finally, here's the book cover blurb...

After Tom Allenby is attacked by statues that have somehow come to life suspicions lead to the mysterious scientist Professor Emile Quillam. Is he behind these elementally controlled attacks or is there someone else, hidden away, controlling events? Tom, his friends and a number of others find themselves trapped and being hunted in a large country house. With time running out before a larger threat is released, can Tom solve the mystery and save the world from chaos?