PUBLICATION DATE: 17th JULY 2025 HARDBACK ORIGINAL | £ 16. 99 | ORENDA BOOKS
November, 1967, Iceland.
Fourteen-year-old Marsí has a secret penpal – a boy who lives on the other side of the country – but she has been writing to him in her older sister’s name. Now she is excited to meet him for the first time.
But when the date arrives, Marsí is prevented from going, and during the night her sister Stína goes missing – her bloodstained anorak later found at the place where Marsí and her penpal had agreed to meet.
November, 1977.
Stína’s disappearance remains unsolved. Then an unexpected letter arrives for Marsí It’s from her penpal, and he’s still out there…
Desperate for news of her missing sister, but terrified that he might coming after her next, Marsí returns to her hometown and embarks on an investigation of her own.
But Marsí has always had trouble distinguishing her vivid dreams from reality, and as insomnia threatens her sanity, it seems she can’t even trust her own memories.
Sorry it’s taken so long for me to update the story, but I’ve been struggling with my brain weasels for months and I have been struggling to write. I’m back now! I’ve almost finished writing the first draft of this novella and I’ve started writing a novel and a short story. I’ve had some work accepted by a local LGBTQIA+ zine, and I’ve submitted a short story to a competition. I will try to update with part two in the next few days.
Chapter 15 – Maria and Sahrai meet the local sentient aliens
“Now then, McClintock, been a while. Not going up top this time ‘round?”
The man, Joshua Dalton, accosted Maria and Sahrai as the track towards the crossroads, several days after their adventures in the flyer. He stood in the road, blocking their path.
“Dalton.” Sahrai nodded sharply at the man and ushered Maria around the man.
Dalton joined them, uninvited, walking beside Sahrai, grinning at thev discomfort of his companions.
Expected publication July 15, 2025 by Flame Tree Press
ISBN 9781787589452
Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer member’s striking new book of time travel and biological science fiction is a thrilling ride.
Kezza, an aerialist in the Martian circus, can never return to Earth – but she can assassinate the man she blames for her grim life on the red planet. Her murderous plans take an unexpected turn, however, when she uncovers a sinister secret.
A thousand years into the future, Azad lives a safe but controlled life on the beautiful desert planet of Nabatea. His world is upended when he joins a crew of space-traveling historians seeking to learn the true reason that their ancestors left Mars
Separated by time and space, Kezza and Azad’s stories collide in the Martian desert.
Ava must fight an entity locked in on taking out the crew of the Eden, a moon-sized cemetery in space, as it brings back the souls of the dead buried aboard. One such soul is Ava’s lost love, Roland.
The spirits of the interred on the Eden haunt those aboard, including a visiting musician is tasked with writing a new song for the dead. Her Requiem calls a cosmic entity that illuminates their darkest fears and secrets. One by one, they’re driven mad. Ava fights her grief and must rise up before they’re lost and the entity reaches Earth.
Yes, that’s me. I edited an anthology of work by Autistic people for my employer, Faraway, and now it’s ready for sale. We received funding through the Amazon Literary Partnership, and worked with Matthew’s Hub over in Hull to run creative writing groups.
Blurb: This anthology contains stories, poems and art by neurodivergent creatives and explores the diversity of the human mind and how art is made even more beautiful by the inclusion of voices often left unheard. The power of Autism is not one of ‘blacks and whites’, but a full spectrum of experiences that you may have yet to encounter.
The book is available as a paperback, it is currently available for pre-order with 20th July being publication day.
I have a sci-fi story in there. There are poems and art. There is a piece of memoir and several fantasy stories. I got to read a wide variety of work to as part of my editing process, and the choices were difficult to make. I decided any work by Faraway members would go in automatically, to encourage them to keep writing their stories and poetry, and creating their art.
Plus, they’re really enjoyable works.
There were one or two stories that I had to do a lot of editing on, mainly spelling and grammar. Autistic people can have idiosyncratic approaches to words and sentence structure, and I’ve tried to keep those idiosyncrasies where they make sense. Sometimes I’ve had to correct a systematic misunderstanding of sentence structure that detracts from the work but otherwise not changed anything.
I have a lot of respect for professional editors!
We’re planning to send copies to contributors and sell some copies from our office, so people in the area can buy a copy direct from Faraway. The funds raised will be used to support our work supporting Autistic adults. I’m hoping we make enough for me to restart our creative writing group.
Monstrous Agonies captures the late-night, weekly advice segment of the UK’s only dedicated radio station for people of the night. Each episode features two letters and their responses as listeners write in to ask for advice on all things liminal, from vampires trying to eat more ethically to ghosts whose crushes look right through them.
Winner of the 2022 British Fantasy Award for Best Audio, Monstrous Agonies was our first podcast and our first foray into getting our audience involved in the storytelling process. Listeners were able to send in their own letters and questions, shaping the universe of the show as it was being created.
Monstrous Agonies wrapped up in September 2023.
My Review
I’ve been listening to this podcast on and off for the last couple of months. Each week there are a couple of letters that the host has to answer. Each letter asks a different question, which cover all sorts of dilemmas. Over the course of the three series, there is a through line of the Hosts relationship with Mab, which goes from antagonistic to loving. There is also a sub-plot in which the station is threatened by a corporation that is trying to take over all businesses that serve the liminal community.
The letters can easily be interpreted as referring to Neurodivergent and Queer issues. Everything from imposter syndrome to being the only one in the family, to having a young family member who is being treated badly by parents who won’t listen to an adult with the same identity. And then there’s the dragon who has taken on a princess and has struggled to find a hero to rescue her. And the giant spider cursed with empathy who can’t eat the creatures lured into her webs.
The creativity and humour of this podcast kept me entertained through 111 episodes, while the advice dispensed is actually rather useful. You just have to work out the context…
Throughout the three series, Hero makes pointed criticism of capitalism, bigotry, and landlords. Landlords get hit with a metaphorical big stick. As they should. I enjoyed their social commentary.
All of the episodes are short, about 15 minutes, so you don’t have to commit huge amounts of time to get through a couple of episodes. It’s good walking to the shops or going on your break at work listening. I really enjoyed the writing, the storytelling, and Hero has a lovely voice for audio. If you enjoy urban fantasy, love folklore, and are a bit anti-capitalist, you’ll enjoy this podcast. Highly recommended.
I’ve moved on to their next podcast, Travelling Light. I shall report back once I’ve listened to all of them.
Books can change lives. Magic books can change everything.
In a tiny, miserable farm on the edge of the tiny, miserable village of East Grasby, Isabella Nagg is trying to get on with her equally tiny and miserable existence. Dividing her time between enduring her feckless husband, inadequately caring for the farm’s strange collection of animals, cooking up ‘scrunge’, and crooning over her treasured pot of basil, Isabella can’t help but think that there might be something more to life. So, while she’s initially aghast when Mr. Nagg comes home with a spell book purloined from the local wizard, she soon starts to think: what harm could a little magic do?
As Isabella embarks on a journey of self-discovery with a grouchy cat-like companion, Darkshire’s imagination runs wild, plunging readers into a delightfully deranged world full of enchantment, folklore, and an entrepreneurial villain running a magical Ponzi scheme.
My Review
I found out about this book on Saturday from the Hodderscape Instagram feed and ordered it straight away from the local Waterstones. I picked it up after I went to The Festival of the Sea, got home, and read it in a single sitting.
I was promised Pratchettian humour.
There were footnotes. The footnotes were funny. There was a lot of folklore drawn on as well as invented. Which does smell of Discworld, but doesn’t quite scratch the itch. I did not get my Pratchettian story.
The story is of Isabella Nagg realising she doesn’t have to be a farmer’s wife after reading a magic book (stolen from the local wizard by her useless husband), fighting goblins and grifters, and dealing with past events as they come home to roost. There is a mysteriously disappearing wizard and a mysteriously appearing pony, a talking donkey, a grifter looking to set up a ‘new goblin market’ and the eponymous pot of basil.
It was quite, quite silly and I enjoyed the story immensely, even if it did at first feel contrived. Once I got into it, I could see the charm in this cosy fantasy. The social commentary and observations of life in small rural villages was pointed and entertaining, while the criticisms of unequal marriages was sharp.
‘Times like these you wish you had something to pray to’
Idolfire is an epic sapphic fantasy inspired by the fall of Rome from the author of the Frontier and Floating Hotel.
ON ONE SIDE OF THE WORLD, Aleya Ana-Ulai is desperate for a chance. Her family have written her off as a mistake, but she’s determined to prove every last one of them wrong.
ON THE OTHER, Kirby of Wall’s End is searching for redemption. An ancient curse tore her life apart, but to fix it, she’ll have to leave everything behind.
Fate sets them both on the path to Nivela, a city once poised to conquer the world with the power of a thousand stolen gods. Now the gates are closed and the old magic slumbers. Dead—or waiting for a spark to light it anew . . .
My Review
I listened to this over several days, usually while walking to the pool and back. I’ve also got an special edition of the hardback on the shelves. I have all of Grace Curtis’ books and I’ve noticed a theme running through them. All of them contain people on a journey who learn about themselves in the process of completing their journey.
In this book we find Kirby who discovers that the world is bigger than she thought it was, and that there are more options than marrying a local boy. Aleya discovers an internal source of strength to make the changes she knows her city of Ash needs. Nylo learns to stop being a bigoted prat, just before he dies in battle.
The world building draws heavily on the ancient world and the author’s note does explain their inspiration. Kirby feels like she’s from the north east of England (helped by the accent the narrator has), while Nylo screams of Sparta, and Aleya is from somewhere in Mesopotamia. The landscape is vividly described, as the group sail and walk across the world from their various homes to Nivela as they try to complete their individual quests. The land and seascapes are an important part of the plot, which adds to the tension (especially that undersea tunnel and the wastelands around Nivela!) in what is a pretty standard quest story.
The magical system, idolfire, is powered by worship and limited in scope. It drains the power source and can harm the person using it. Magic without limits is a deus ex machina. Aleya’s inability to use the idolfire at difficult moments brings tension to the plot. It also provides the odd last desperate attempt to survive.
I enjoyed the characters of Kirby and Aleya, while Nylo got on my nerves. He’s a tit, who’s perspective is egregiously clouded by his prejudices. Both Kirby and Aleya have their prejudices, but it doesn’t cloud their perspective as much as his does. There were other minor characters that I found entertaining, like the little seer who takes Kirby to see a sheep’s skull after calling Aleya a liar.
Overall, a good quest story set in a vaguely familiar world that isn’t pseudo-medieval north western Europe.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 