Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to Everyone (FREE eBooks)

Greetings all, I wish you all the joy, blessings and peace of the season. I hope you are all well and happy and have fun at this holiday time, whether you celebrate the birth of a baby, another festival or just the fact that people seem to be nicer to each other at this time of year :).

I've been rather busy today, I started by making Last Minute Christmas Chutney - it's so easy and so very, very tasty :). We also achieved turkey! We went and picked it up at 6:30 this morning from the butcher and it is now in the back of the car with ice packs to keep it cool. I'm also made a Galette from Mary Berry's recipe for those of us who don't like Christmas pudding. I know, it is sacrilegious to say such things in the UK, but I just don't like it ;). Shortly I will prepare the veg for tomorrow. With that all done it will be time to pop over to my parents' place to celebrate my father's birthday.

Soph and I have been roped in to singing in the choir for Midnight because they have several people away this year, which I am really looking forward to. I love singing carols and descants. And Daddy is taking the 10:30 Christmas morning service, so yay! The local vicar is very nice, but I have always had my Dad standing up the sharp end and so it doesn't feel like Christmas unless he officiates at one of the services :). Church of England vicars never really retire, they just end up doing services for other people :D.

So, now onto the public service announcement about FREE ebooks.

A Very Merry Christmas to One & All!

And at this time of year, we'd like to say a big thank you to all our Wittegen Press readers, especially those who have supported us by signing up to our mailing list. As a gift from us to you, we have two books for you to enjoy totally free. 

Those of you already subscribed to our mailing list will remember us asking you to vote on your favourite genres and now the two books based on the top two genres are ready for you to enjoy :).

Genre: Paranormal

Assassin's Blood

by Natasha Duncan-Drake

Meet Kira Roltof, or rather Jasmin Welby at the moment because she’s undercover. Kira’s an assassin with a sense of humour that’s almost as dangerous as she is. When hunting down her targets it helps that she's a vampire/werewolf hybrid and has been at the killing game for over seventy years. Practice makes perfect and all that jazz.

Of course her combined species status could just as easily get her killed as help her out. If either the vampires or the werewolves figure out she’s both, she’ll never be safe again.

Her latest target is a Mafia big shot. Nothing she can’t handle easily, except she runs into a little snag of the vampire persuasion at the end of the job.

Assassin’s Blood is a short story full of paranormal intrigue and action with a little bit of romance to round it off.

Genre: Contemporary Fantasy

Curse of a Banshee - (The Darwell [Magical] Cleaning Services #1)

by Sophie Duncan

B, a djinn/banshee low fae, runs Darwell Cleaning Services, a business that specializes in tidying up magical crime scenes. She's managed her company with her friend and business partner, Jean, for over one hundred years without any complaints, or problems. She keeps her head down and offers a job to those whom higher fae look down on for their lack of personal magic.

B and her team are expecting an ordinary night of clean-up when they arrive at the aftermath of a spell battle in the middle of an English woodland. However, when a terrified djinn boy appears in the middle of their job, B finds the mix of her djinn and banshee instincts, which she normally keeps under strict control, beginning to rise. The boy is not alone, he is being chased by criminals intent on selling him to become a genie, the same gang who took B's father a century earlier.

B must struggle with her own unsettled powers and fight the slavers for the boy's freedom, risking her own life and those of her friends in the process.

Curse of a Banshee is fast-paced fantasy taking a fresh look at ancient powers in a contemporary British setting.

~

Existing subscribers to our mailing list will have received our Christmas Newsletter containing the links to the books, for anyone else, you can get the books as well. We'll send you the links in the confirmation email when you sign up to the Wittegen Press mailing list.

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So I just got a 1 star review on Amazon ...

So I just got a 1 star review on Amazon for The Avebury Legacy from someone who gave the person I beat on Cover Wars a 5* review.

The review is one line and there is no verified purchase to go with it. People are welcome to their opinion, but I think this (and this is the whole review):

Not worth reading. Nothing but lies and negative horror.

seems to be nothing about the book. I'm not sure how there can be lies in a fiction book anyway - I mean, I made it up, it's all fictitious, but then I don't expect to walk down the road and meet a vampire and am not trying to tell people they will, so no lies.

Does anyone fancy helping me out and giving me some honest reviews in exchange for a free copy of the book. It's only 99c anyway until the 21st, but I would very much appreciate some reviewers and am happy to give you a copy of the book in exchange for an honest opinion. The other reviews are 4 and 5 * BTW in case you were wondering what other people thought of it, there just aren't that many of them.

The book is contemporary fantasy with some elements of paranormal and horror. Nasty vampires, a quest, magic etc.

The Avebury Legacy - book blurb

Love your vampires nasty and your fantasy with elements of paranormal horror? "The Avebury Legacy" is the contemporary novel for you.

Nate was hunting a vampire when he first bumped into Lexie, a witch infected by a vampire bite. When Lexie used blood magic to save him from certain death, she passed on the infection to Nate. For a time Lexie's magic has been able to keep them both partially human as they continue to protect ignorant humanity from the vampire threat, but that magic is now starting to fail.

There are legends that the ancient Avebury ritual designed to destroy Morigan of Leyland, the most powerful vampire ever known, may hold the key to the cure they need, but to perform it Nate and Lexie require the four relics from the original ritual. Enlisting the help of veteran hunter, Brian Hawker, who has his own reasons for finding the relics, they must search across continents before it is too late.

In their way are vampire nuns, a crystal cave, shape changers, a labyrinthine catacomb, mummified monks and even librarians. However, their greatest foe is Dahlia, undead sister of Morigan, who will stop at nothing to retrieve the relics for herself and to claim Morigan's power. If Dahlia reaches any of the relics before them, Nate and Lexie face a fate worse than death, losing their humanity to the blood lust.

Exciting contemporary paranormal fantasy. "Tomb Raider meets vampires" with fast paced action and engaging characters.

Thank you to everyone who voted for The Avebury Legacy at Cover Wars

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who voted for The Avebury Legacy at Cover Wars :)

We won! :D

The Avebury Legacy is now book of the week.

You are all absolutely awesome.

The Bunny is safe! ;)

Meet Ruby - new kitty

So this is Ruby. She's an F2 Savannah like Amber and she is actually Amber's cousin (they both have the same grandfather). We weren't going to try another kitty with Amber, but Ruby needs a good home and she's quite large and hence not easy to re-home. We have her on a trail period to see if Amber will come round.

So far it's looking better than with Fi. For a start Ruby thinks Rob is completely awesome and so is bonding more with him than me, which should please Amber. Ruby is also much more laid back. They actually seem to speak the same language. Amber is growling and being offish, but she isn't hiding and Ruby keeps simply flopping into the floor trying to make friends. If we can convince Amber that this is a good idea we might be able to get somewhere.

Ruby is incredibly friendly, but she's doesn't like children. She's actually larger than Amber and she talks lots like Amber does, but in an entirely different way. She's very sweet and I do hope they get along or come to some sort of understanding.

Great Review for The Avebury Legacy and Link to Vampire Archetypes blog post

I've just had an awesome review for The Avebury Legacy at A Creative Mind, which is a great blog with great reviews. I recommend it thoroughly. She was also wonderful and posted it on Amazon where it translates as 5 star :).

The Avebury Legacy (Vampires: The New Age #1) by Natasha Duncan-Drake Review @ A Creative Mind

Since I'm on something of a vampire kick at the moment I was also thinking about all the different types of vampire that show up in various forms of fiction so I wrote a blog post about them. The genre really is a lot more diverse than many media outlets would like us to believe.

Vampire Archetypes and The Characters They Spawn @ Wittegen Press

There is a question at the bottom of the above blog post and I would love to chat.

The Avebury Legacy and why I wrote it.

I love vampires, there are no two ways about it, that is a simple fact. I love vampire movies and vampire books and I love writing vampires. I own nearly 200 vampire films and have a shelf full of vampire novels so I'm not kidding :).

Now I know lots of people think vampires are over done and passé, but I have to disagree. The thing about the vampire genre is there are so many ways to go with it and so many possibilities. I saw a vampire film just last night that was fresh and new and I hadn't seen done in quite that way before (I'm going to review it shortly :)).

The Avebury Legacy is not your romantic vampire seducing the heroine/hero (be they evil or not) kind of story. I have written those, in fact my best selling book is kind of along those lines, but Avebury's vampires are more of the rip your head off than wine and dine you types.

When I set out to write this novel I knew from the get go that these vampires were not sympathetic in any way. They're also not overly civilised.

• They are driven by powerful urges and kill and take what they want when they want. 
• They live in a kind of hive like structure where the queen bee, or alpha, has a brood of workers known as spawn that are subject to her/his every whim. 
• An alpha is the brains of the operation and spawn have any intelligence they may have once possessed suppressed by the will of their alpha. 
• Only if an alpha dies or abandons their brood will one of the spawn rise to the level of alpha, regaining their faculties. 
• A more powerful alpha might have more intelligent spawn, their will being strong enough to deal with more creative minions, but no alpha allows rebellion.

Most people don't know vampires even exist and the vampires live on the edges of society, hidden away. The people who do come across them tend to not live very long or become hunters. The world church is united about one thing even if they disagree about every other doctrine; vampires need to be destroyed. Most vampire hunters are affiliated with a religious organisation in some way, but there are independents, like Nate, my main protagonist.

In this universe, becoming a vampire is a fate worse than death.

Which is the whole premise behind the plot.

Another thing I love to read and write is a character stuck between two world. My entry drug to vampire movies was The Lost Boys and I think Michael had a great effect on my psyche :). My two main protagonists, Nate and Lexie are both infected with vampirism, but Lexie's magic is keeping them partially human using a ritual she invented.

They would have made wonderful characters just like that, but, of course, they needed an impetus to do something, hence they are running out of time. Lexie's magic is bringing them back to further away from human each time and sooner or later they will lose the battle and become full vampires. Something neither of them want. They need a cure.

The cure is offered by the legendary Avebury ritual, designed many centuries ago by a pagan/Christian coalition to destroy the most powerful vampire who ever lived: Morigan of Leyland.

This is where yet another of my favourite things comes in: the quest. I've been a fantasy fan since reading The Hobbit as a pre-teen (or rather at the time having it read to me), so quests are awesome as far as I am concerned.

Nate and Lexie's quest is to find the four relics from the Avebury ritual and the scolls which explain how to use them.

Their big problem is Dahlia, Morigan's undead sister, who is also after the relics because they can give her Morigan's power. That and the fact that if any hunter realises they are infected they are likely to end up staked on principle. Which is why enlisting the help of the most renown vampire hunter alive, Brian Hawker, is something of a risky strategy, but he is also researching the relics and has a head start.

So, basically, I put a whole load of things I love to read in a book that I hope others will love to read too.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my twisted mind :).

Are you a vampire fan? If so what kind of vampires do you like best, romantic leads, evil bastards or something in between? If not, what don't you like about them?

Buy Links

The Avebury Legacy is on sale for 99c ($2.99) until the 21st Dec, so get it while it's on offer.

Amazon US | Amazon (non-US) | Smashwords | Google Play | iBooks | Kobo | Inktera | txtr

The bunny is in danger!

Keep the bunny safe! Vote for The Avebury Legacy over at Cover wars or the vicious kitty will attack!

• click here to go to the Cover Wars page
• check the radio button next to The Avebury Legacy
• click vote
• repeat daily until Sunday (if you would be so kind)

I'm in second place, but I'm 30 or so votes behind. If I win my book becomes book of the week so all their visitors see it in the side bar of their blog.

The Avebury Legacy in Cover Wars and 99c SALE

This week The Avebury Legacy is up in Cover Wars over at Author Shout and I would be really grateful for a little help with the voting please :).

All you have to do is click here to go to the post, tick a radio box next to The Avebury Legacy and then click submit. You can vote once a day until Sunday.

Many Thanks

99c eBook SALE - The Avebury Legacy

The book is also ON SALE for a limited time only for 99c ($2.99) (everywhere except Nook at the moment).

Amazon US | Amazon (non-US) | Smashwords | Google Play | iBooks | Kobo | Inktera | txtr

Nate was hunting a vampire when he first bumped into Lexie, a witch infected by a vampire bite. When Lexie used blood magic to save him from certain death, she passed on the infection to Nate. For a time Lexie’s magic has been able to keep them both partially human as they continue to protect ignorant humanity from the vampire threat, but that magic is now starting to fail.

There are legends that the ancient Avebury ritual designed to destroy Morigan of Leyland, the most powerful vampire ever known, may hold the key to the cure they need, but to perform it Nate and Lexie require the four relics from the original ritual. Enlisting the help of veteran hunter, Brian Hawker, who has his own reasons for finding the relics, they must search across continents before it is too late.

In their way are vampire nuns, a crystal cave, shape changers, a labyrinthine catacomb, mummified monks and even librarians. However, their greatest foe is Dahlia, undead sister of Morigan, who will stop at nothing to retrieve the relics for herself and to claim Morigan’s power. If Dahlia reaches any of the relics before them, Nate and Lexie face a fate worse than death, losing their humanity to the blood lust.

NaNo Win! and the study is almost complete :)

So first we have this *points up*. There were times this month when I really didn't think I was going to finish. It was right down to the wire.

1. I had a really nasty cold, which, I kid you not, turned me into a zombie for about a week. I barely managed to write a couple of thousand words.
2. Last Thursday, just when I was trying to get back on track I fell over in the shower and bruised and jarred my left side which made sitting still and writing somewhat fun for 2 days.
3. My parents-in-law rang up and asked if they could come for the weekend. Don't get me wrong, they're lovely, but that meant most of the weekend was spent with family rather than deep in novel land.

Hence by Friday evening I was pretty sure I wasn't going to reach 50K and I almost gave up, but then I decided to give it one last go. It's funny, my stats on the site make it look as if I wrote almost 20K yesterday, but it was actually just that I was so disappointed that I might not finish I stopped filling it in until I was almost there :).

I'm pretty sure half the stuff I wrote yesterday is crap and is coming straight back out again or being heavily reworked, but at least it's in the machine :).

Well done to everyone else who finished too.

The Study

Our study is very nearly finished. The only things left to do are the hearth in front of the fire, for which we have all the bits, Rob just needs to work his magic, and half the door frame which had to be filled so didn't get painted at the same time as the other half.

This is a panoramic view of the end wall and the right side. You can see how it lays out, but unfortunately Rob's phone couldn't get the whole walls in :). Click to see it bigger.

This is of the end wall so you can see the cupboard, which was the final part we put in. We have always had a cupboard on that wall, but it was old fashioned and too shallow to be of any use, so we have extended it outwards using the same system as the shelves (they have an amazing catalogue).

This is what it looks like in daylight and looking at the end and left wall.

This is standing in front of the bookcase looking back at the doorway. That stylish picture on the wall came from Range - was £12.99 ;).

And finally for the room, this is the view of the corner along from the door. As you can see we need to put something on the walls :) It's the exercise corner.

Of course it wasn't quite complete so we also bought a rug and a bean bag chair (which is remarkably comfortable :)). We just need to get some anti-slip for the rug because it tends to move, although we could not have found a better size if we had custom ordered it.

All that was left was something for me to be able to reach the top shelves and Rob found these on eBay :)

The steps are made of yew and the frame is made of pine and they were hand made in the east end of London 40 years ago. They have been living in a dry cellar ever since. As you can see Rob has cleaned the top step just to see what colour it would come out, but the rest still need doing. I have tried them out and they are awesome - just high enough, but not too high so that unstable me can fall off and do some damage :).

This has now become my favourite room in the house. Book! :)

So who else has finished NaNo? How do you store you books these days?