May 25th-29th my e-book sale on at Smashwords, Kobo and Amazon. 

It seems to me that all the short C.V.s and writer bios I have to pump out whenever I have a  book sale on and must sign up with the email newsletters grow more and more manically cheerful.

How about the following as a C.V.?

p.d.r lindsay feels old - she is – and lost among the tech style of writing. She’s passionate about words, feels the loss of people like Shakespeare , those who wrote the King James Bible, poets who made words dance, like Gerard Manley Hopkins. Where are they? p.d.r. has been trying to trim her style to modern tastes and fails. Trying to make words behave again in a more acceptable modern way is hard and it hurts!  And messy post-modern, contemporary content drives her nuts.

p.d.r. lindsay has published over 100 short stories, 2 anthologies and three novels and is struggling to shape a fourth novel which will satisfy her and the modern reader. She’s floundering and thinks longingly of the days when she could write a poem or two in a lunch break. These days the poetic muse had deserted her. Something to do with age and cynicism?

Doubt it would encourage readers to buy a book!

I've just been to our annual Rotary Book Fair - a weekend sale in a massive warehouse truly stacked from floor to ceiling with 2nd hand books for sale. I go to pick up those wonderful and expensive university press books on topics like Food in England, European Cathedrals, British Castles. I can afford two or three dollars for them but I look at the staggering trestle tables loaded with fiction and I despair. The same names piled up there by the hundred. How on earth can I compete with Traditional Publishers, readers' reluctance to try new authors and get my books noticed amongst the millions Amazon publish each year?

I have no idea! But it is hard to struggle and care and love my characters and write their stories amidst the competition. 

Stupefying Stories: Submission Guidelines

Stupefying Stories: Submission Guidelines: Last updated: 30 April 2018 Who We Are Edited by award-winning science fiction writer Bruce Bethke , STUPEFYING STORIES is a bold attem...

Have a look at this!

Wow!

Whoopee! The e-book sale is off already. It's a good feeling knowing that new readers are finding the characters and the stories one has invested so much time and love on when writing their tales.

Tizzie is already selling.and is being featured on Friday May 25th 2018 at www.ebooksoda.com. Check it out for free and bargain ebook deals! 

And my silence has been due to getting this new novel finished! More book reviews soon. And searching through my Japanese photos for research for new stories I found the photos for the exciting archery festival.

Review of 'Soul of Fire' by Eliot Pattison

Soul of the Fire by Eliot Pattison

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


For those who have not read 'The Skull Mantra', the first in the series, you really ought to do so. Author Pattison is a fine writer with a lucid style and a way of making difficult thoughts and ideas understandable. Whilst every novel stands alone, and can be read without having read the others in the series, a reader will miss the full impact of what the author is asking us to think about and consider.

Each book is not just a mystery set in a foreign country, readers are asked to think about political systems, about the use of violence, about deliberate destruction of a culture and way of life, about torture and gulags, and about human kindness. No, there are no rants, the complex plots speak for themselves. We're talking about Tibet, the Chinese invasion and the terrible things which are still done to Tibetans. Forcible removal to China as slave labour, children forcibly taken to special boarding schools, renamed, indoctrinated, the language forbidden, brutal policing. It reads like Hitler's Germany. However the books are not intended as a polemic, each has a good story to tell against the background of Chinese brutality and one big question is always asked: 'What is the purpose of our life, what is each person's life for and about?

In Soul of Fire Shan is forced by Public Security, to leave his post in the little village and become a member of a special international commission investigating those terrible Tibetan suicides by immolation, because the Tibetan member has suddenly died. His old friend Lokesh is dragged along too but put into gaol. Of course, the Tibetan was murdered and then a monk sets himself on fire in front of the commissioners and Shan realises that this is another whitewash attempt by the Chinese government to fool the international community. But the Public Security officer running the Commission, Major Ren, has Lokesh, who is an old and frail Tibetan, beaten and tortured, forcing Shan to toe the line and be Beijing's mouthpiece. Shan has to find the murderers, protect Lokesh and reveal a truth which could help all Tibetans.

The plot is tense, tight and nicely twisty. The characters are 3D and complex. Shan is Chinese himself which does help balance the nastiness of many of the Chinese officials. If Shan can treat Tibetans well perhaps other Chinese can?

I learn so much reading this series and Soul of Fire is no exception. It's a great book in a great series, and ought to be on every reader's to read list.



View all my reviews

Review of 'Soot' by Andrew Martin.

Soot by Andrew Martin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Impressive until the ending! And did that ending annoy me!

18th C and a murder, a nasty one. An artist who makes silhouettes is found stabbed with his large cutting scissors. No one is discovered as the murder so the artist's dissolute son, who had heard of Fletcher Rigge's ability to solve mysteries, makes him an offer. Rigge is stuck in the debtor's prison, but if he solves the crime he will be free. He is offered freedom for one month, but in that time, he must find the killer. If he fails, back into gaol he goes. With only the copies of the last 6 silhouettes, for one of them must be the murderer, Fletcher Rigge begins his search.

It's a well written well plotted book with 3D characters and a nasty twist. Written from several people's points of view it takes a bit of concentrated reading at first but the story will pull the reader on.



View all my reviews

Review: The House of Unexpected Sisters by Alexander McCall Smith

The House of Unexpected Sisters by Alexander McCall Smith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Once again we have a delightful story about gentle people and the author uses the story to explore forgiveness.

Those readers used to McCall Smith's bent for philosophy, and who enjoy thinking about what he writes, will enjoy this new episode of the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency. Precious Ramotswe adored her father and treasures his memory. In this story she has to re-examine her ideas on the problems of first impressions and what forgiveness really means.

Easy reading, lots to think about and a book to enjoy many times.



View all my reviews

Review: The Rat Catchers' Olympics by Colin Cotterill

The Rat Catchers' Olympics by Colin Cotterill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I am still laughing. The idea of the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, in 1980, sending a team to the Olympic games in Moscow, which were boycotted by most of the Western world, is hilarious. They didn't have athletes. In fact the Russians come to train them. The trainer's advice to the boxers, 'Take the hit, then lie on the mat until the counting is finished' gives you some idea of the standards.

If you have not met Colin Cotterill's Dr Siri Paiboun, his wife, and misfit/crazy companions you are missing a chance to poke fun at politicians, politics, bureaucracy, and the human race. And laugh out loud as you read.

Siri is an elderly retired coroner, his companions are all a little odd, his wife is delightful. When news breaks that a Laotian team is heading to Moscow there is no way Siri is going to miss out. Forbidden by the government as not a good representative for their country he manages, by devious means, to be the only doctor available.

Of course when they get to Moscow for the 1980 Olympic Games they soon find themselves involved in a murder mystery. One of their team is accused of murder, and it soon becomes a race between Siri and the Moscow authorities to clear up the muddle and clear the Laotian team.

And the rats? Well that is one competition they don't lose.
One of the better Siri novels and well worth a read.





View all my reviews