I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I don’t like to make people pay for my work, but at the same time, I’m disabled, I can only work a few hours a week and the exhaustion is interfering with my ability to write. I want to give myself an incentive to write when I feel well enough. If I have paying subscribers, I have to write!
I may have mentioned the Space Dragon story I’ve been working on for a couple of years. The plan is to share a chapter a month for paying subscribers until I’ve written it all. You won’t be getting the first draft, since I write that by hand, but you’ll get the edited version. There will probably be further edits in future before I release it as a book. I might also share some of my short stories as paid subscriber posts.
What do you think?
Let me share a few paragraphs with you and if you want the rest, please feel free to join the paid subscription.
Update 22/03/2025
No one wanted paid subscriptions, so I’ve unlocked this chapter and any others that I’ve posted.
Two in the eye of the storm. Two in touch with the end.
Syzenne. A princess? Or a mere bargaining chip in a contest between two powers?
Duna. A teenage girl dragged into a war by a fanatical priest? Or a child who can break mountains?
As blood-thirsty elves sweep the land, as religions crumble and rumours spread of an empire of the dead revived it is two young women who hold the key. As the world spirals down into war, The Last Blade Priest must face the fear and wonder of The Dead Man’s Empire. In The Holy Mountain, W.P. Wiles has created an epic fantasy of incredible richness and originality. A celebration of the genre and breath of fresh air.
My Review
Thanks to the team at Angry Robot for sending me a copy of this book. I have been waiting for this book since I finished reading The Last Blade Priest. Now I have to wait for the next book. There had better be another book, Will!
We join Duna and Elecy after the end of The Last Blade Priest as they travel across the Hidden Land and travel to a neighbouring kingdom to get support. At the same time we follow, Syzenne of Penzique as she arrives in the court of the Miroline Empire as a potential bride for the Emperor, a 16 year old boy. Things do not go well.
In the Hidden Land, things are going badly as Augardine cultists start to influence the leadership of the League army and then something really terrible actions…
Syzenne is a Scourge, who finds a Boon in Miroline, while Duna is a Scourge, who left her Boon in the Hidden Land. There must be more Boons and Scourges out there, and they have to decide whether they should stand together or against each other.
I really enjoyed the development of the story and expansion of the world. The description of the world was lush, while the complex politics of the various groups is engrossing to read. The court of Miroline is grotesque and reminds me of descriptions of the Imperial Roman court by those who hated certain emperors. Syzenne’s disgust is visceral and the conflict between her understanding of the world, and that of those around her, including the snobbery of the Mirolines about anyone not part of their crumbling empire, help her to develop as a diplomat. Her random chaos is enjoyable to read.
The new characters are complex and pushed the narrative forward. I enjoyed following Syzenne’s adventures as she tries to survive the Miroline court and Duna’s qualms about her abilities as she follows the religious fanatics across the continent. Their development as characters was fun to follow and made complete sense.
Duna’s use of her power in battle, entirely under her control, unlike the chaos of her first battle under the influence of the elves, is a magnificent way to defeat the titan and the Miroline Empire. I loved it.
Inar is definitely not safe and Augardine is up to something! I know he is.
I couldn’t put the book down and now I really need to know what happens next. Chop chop Will, get writing!
Icelandic detective-in-training Sigurdís is studying criminal psychology in the US, but her plans are thrown into disarray when she discovers that her boss and mentor, Garðar, has been fired from Reykjavík CID over his investigation into Sigurdís’s father’s death.
Returning to Iceland to deal with the fallout, Sigurdís finds herself pulled into a disturbing case: controversial TV personality Olga Einars has been stabbed to death during the Reykjavík Marathon. Struggling to locate a runner waring the number 1407, who was seen near the murdered woman during the race, the police soon discover that several masked runners were wearing the same number.
As the mystery deepens, Sigurdís and her fellow detective Unnar soon learn exactly how unpopular Olga was – not just with the interviewees she humiliated on live TV, but with her own son, her business partner, a widower who insists that she had a hand in his wife’s death, and her ex-husband, who died in suspicious circumstances thirty years ago…
As her exploration into Olga’s past becomes ever darker and more harrowing, Sigurdís must also face the truth about her own father, while searching for an attacker who will go to any lengths to cover up their crimes…
THE AUTHOR
Katrín Júlíusdóttir is a former Icelandic politician, elected in 2003 and serving as Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism, Minister of Finance and Economy and Social Democratic Alliance’s vice-chair until she retired from politics in 2016. Before she was elected to parliament, Katrín was an advisor and project manager at a tech company and a senior buyer and CEO in the retail sector, as well as the managing director of a student union at Reykjavík University, where she studied anthropology and received an MBA. She is now managing director of Finance Iceland. Katrín won the Blackbird Award for best Icelandic crime debut for her first novel, Dead Sweet, in 2020, and it received immense critical acclaim, hitting the bestseller lists shortly after publication. In the UK, it was a Booksellers Circle Book of the Month and longlisted for the Waterstones Debut Novel Prize, debuting at No. 15 on the Sunday Times bestseller list. Katrín was raised in Kópavogur, about fifteen minutes’ drive from downtown Reykjavík, and she now lives in the neighbouring town of Garðabær with her family. She is married to author Bjarni M. Bjarnason, who encouraged her to start writing, and they have four sons.
A brutal assault nine months ago left eccentric portrait artist Micah with facial scars and PTSD. He’s struggled to leave his apartment ever since, and he can’t let anyone in. Then his only sanctuary is disrupted by signs of a haunting.
Between the 80s synth pop and motivation messages scrawled on his bathroom mirror, Micah finds himself more charmed than frightened by who he believes to be Cosmo, the deceased previous resident of his apartment. But when Cosmo’s ghostly visits suddenly stop, Micah is determined to lure him back.
Meanwhile, sculpture artist Cosmo – dramatic, unconventional, and very much alive – is mourning his old self. His boyfriend’s a serial cheater, he’s continually passed over for a promotion at work, and he’s lost contact with his best friend. To make matters worse, his apartment is being haunted by the ghost of a bespectacled man with an eye socket of scars. It’s his last straw, and seeking a new start, Cosmo moves out.
In a chance meeting, Cosmo and Micah’s paths cross again, and tentative sparks fly. But the phantoms of their pasts still linger. In order to find a future where they can both be happy together, Micah and Cosmo need to confront their trauma once and for all.
PUBLICATION DATE: 21 MAY 2026 HARDBACK ORIGINAL | £ 16. 99 | ORENDA BOOKS
Book Description
Hannah is miserable. Her love life is in ruins, her contract demands a sequel to her bestselling crime debut – and she’s out of ideas. After a mortifying TV interview, her agent ships her off to a sun-drenched Sicilian villa with a simple order: finish the book. No distractions. No excuses.
But inspiration doesn’t strike – murder does.
When a night out ends in murder, Hannah finds herself at the centre of a murder investigation … again. The police want her out of the way, and the only person who seems to believe her is a young but charming Italian police officer. That is, until she doesn’t.
Soon Hannah is chasing suspects, fleeing crime scenes, and doing whatever it takes to avoid becoming the next victim. She came to write a crime novel. Now she’s trapped inside one.
ABOUT JENNY LUND MADSEN
Jenny Lund Madsen is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed scriptwriters (including the international hits Rita and Follow the Money) and is known as an advocate for better representation for sexual and ethnic minorities in Danish TV and film. She made her debut as a playwright with the critically acclaimed Audition (Aarhus Teater) and her debut literary thriller, Thirty Days of Darkness, first in an addictive new series, won the Harald Mogensen Prize for Best Danish Crime Novel of the year, was shortlisted for the coveted Glass Key Award, longlisted for the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger, and won the Crime Fiction Lover Award for Best Crime Book in Translation. She lives in Denmark with her wife and young family.
Martha Strangeways has settled into a quiet life in Strathbran, after the horrific events that traumatised the village a year earlier. But all this is turned upside down when her friend at Glasgow CID, DI Derek Summers, calls on her to help with a disturbing case: a human ear, with an unusual Celtic earring, has been found next to a railway line in the Highlands.
And when the body of a young woman wearing matching jewellery turns up at a landmark church shortly after, the mystery deepens. Why has she been laid out in a ritualistic fashion? Does her trek along the little-known Cailleach Way have anything to do with her death? And who is running the Facebook Group where she posted details of her journey to the shrine of the Bone Mother goddess?
As Martha tries to unpick the threads, she finds herself entwined with a ghost from her own past, and in conflict with the owner of a project that threatens to destroy the goddess’s sacred land.
With Halloween approaching, and someone determined to protect the goddess at all costs, can Martha and Summers catch the killer before they strike again – and this time much closer to home…?
About the author
Originally from the north-east of England, former journalist Suzy Aspley has lived in Scotland for almost thirty years. She writes crime and short stories, often inspired by the strange things she sees in the landscape around her. She won Bloody Scotland’s Pitch Perfect in 2019 with the original idea for her debut novel and was shortlisted for the Capital Crime New Voices Award. In 2020, she was mentored by Jo Dickinson as part of the Hachette future bookshelf initiative. Crow Moon was longlisted for the Caledonia Novel Award, and shortlisted for the Val McDermid Debut Award and the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize.
When she’s not writing, she’s either got her nose buried in a book, or is outside with her dogs dreaming up more dark stories. She lives in Stirlingshire with her family.
Dragon’s Comments
I really like the sound of this one, might have to get myself a copy for the book hoard.
The gods are gone. Magic is lost. Vengeance is nigh.
There is death in the north; entire settlements slaughtered in the night by unknown hands. But dead things do not rest. Mages and scholars from across Breitho search for answers, to no avail.
The church clings to a whispered prophecy to bring back the gods and end the horrors in the dark.
But none of them understands what is truly at stake.
In her tiny village, Sarah Brandt has her own problems. She has witnessed her friend’s murder and is now running for her life.
Her frantic escape takes her to a circle of Druid stones, where something ancient and powerful is waiting in the darkness. When she encounters the burning presence within the stones, Sarah’s world changes forever.
Now it isn’t just justice she seeks, but salvation.
Donna Morgan asked for ARC reviewers int he BFS Discord, so I filled in the form and a few days later got the ebook. That was in December, it’s been a busy year so far, and I’ve just got the book read in time for publication day tomorrow. I’ve just pre-ordered a paperback and I need to know what Sarah, Gwith, Taran and Cas do next.
Sarah is a neurodivergent, poor, although literate, outcast living in a small village at the beginning. At the end she’s the embodiment of the spark of life and magic, living in a castle, with a knight husband, and working for the local Duke as his Librarian’s Assistant. The journey she takes to get there include the murder of her only friend, surviving a witch hunt, learning to fight, becoming the Ember Bearer, meeting a goddess, fighting monsters, meeting her husband, dying, and returning from the dead, not necessarily in that order.
I enjoyed this book immensely. I mean, I bawled my eyes out twice, possibly three times, it was fantastic. Sarah’s struggles as a neurodivergent person mirrored some of my own; the rejection of most of society, wearing a mask and contorting yourself to fit into other people’s ideas of normal and still failing, the fear of rejection based on being rejected so often. Surviving despite everything. I adored the first person perspective of Sarah and the interspersed chapters with Moriga and Gwith’s chapter when Sarah dies. I actually felt close to the characters because of that perspective, although I usually prefer 3rd person close.
There’s Sarah’s story and in the background we learn about Gwith, Cas and Taran, the three men who rescue her and become her found family. Cas and Taran are adorable, and would probably drive me up the wall. They’re dancing around each other and it’s obvious, while Sarah is terribly conflicted by Gwith. Since both of them have some trauma related to relationships, it’s understandable. They get the push to sort themselves out after fighting for their lives, which was so very sweetly written, and not graphic.
In the background is a corrupt church that wants to destroy magic and is trying to take over the human duchies. It has succeeded in a couple, but won’t in Trewan; Sarah is there and her presence helps to start the pushback against them. They want her dead because their ‘Veiled Lady’ has told them Sarah, Ember Bearer, will bring about the end of the world. It’s a complex plot the unleash the emptiness from the beginning of the universe and directed by a mad god.
There’s druids, elves, dragons, knockers, gods, and all the fun stuff we expect in fantasy. There’s a darkness that’s relieved by the light moments and love. The world building is magnificent, and the seeding of details that make sense later is really well done. I do like that the god’s are still about in various forms, they just aren’t responding to humans. I enjoyed the insertion of quotes from ‘historical documents’ at the beginning of chapters and the autistic traits I resonate with. I loved the developments of the characters as they go through events and survive. Sarah finding a job in the library is brilliant, I’d totally be hiding in the library and struggling not to ask the sentient giant snake all about his species and homeland, between disappearing into old books for days at a time, too. I think it’s a ‘autistic book person’ thing.
Anyway, as I said, I have a physical copy of this book on the way and if you enjoy darker fantasy, I recommend it.
PUBLICATION DATE: 26th FEBRUARY 2026 PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £ 9. 99 | ORENDA BOOKS
In Wilhelmsburg, Hamburg’s so-called ‘problem area’, an American couple is found brutally murdered in a derelict house.
Prosecutor Chastity Riley is assigned the case and quickly finds herself waist-deep in a murky tangle of city planners, shady investors and vanishing officials. The gentrification machine is rolling on, and someone is sending a very clear message.
As November fog settles over the city, Chastity is coughing up blood, her personal life is a slow-motion disaster, and her former colleague, Faller, won’t stop interfering. But nothing’s going to stop her from cutting through the lies – not even the sharks circling ever closer…
Extinction Horizon meets Contagion in this sequel to 2025’s sci-fi thriller Symbiote, where the biological threat has escaped the South Pole and is now wreaking havoc upon Antarctica.
The survivors of the South Pole massacre will find that getting off the Antarctic continent may cost them their lives…
Months after the events of Symbiote, sunrise has come to the ice continent, bringing with it the beginning of the annual tourist season. where 1,500 summer visitors will soon call the coastal McMurdo Station home. With them are the architects of the classified CIA program that unleashed the deadly microbes, who are determined to uncover what happened with their experiment and harvest samples of the mutation to turn into a biological weapon.
However, when Ben Jacobs returns from an impossible journey to the Pole and is reunited with Penny – an asymptomatic carrier of the symbiotic microbes – all hell breaks loose. When the sea ice surrounding the station becomes a fertile breeding ground for a new and more dangerous infestation, Rajan Chariya and his friends will have to join forces with the CIA to fight the onslaught of infected “sea people” roving the streets. With tensions high and stakes even higher, the question becomes when will the group stop being useful, and start becoming targets who know too much?
Worse, there may be more than one asymptomatic carrier….
With a heart-stopping pace and twists that will leave readers breathless, Sentient is a thrilling sequel that brilliantly combines all the best horror tropes with real world scenarios.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 