Take Cover!

I can remember when I was a teen and getting big into music how excited I'd be about new releases. My mate Woodsy would fire me up and we'd nip out of school at lunchtime, bike down to town, and count out the 10p pieces to buy the new LP/12 inch/single. Downloads and CDs have never replicated that for me. I loved the covers as much as the music--in my earliest music loving years it was the album covers of Iron Maiden and Marillion that did it especially.

So it is with comparable enjoyment that I can unveil the cover for Darkness Rising Book Two- Quest. This is the second part of Volume 1 of the Prism series, and it boasts a fresh edit, a new prologue (with Torm) and an extended epilogue. I might post the extra material on the Nurolia website, for those who bought the original undivided Volume 1 which was available between Sept 11 and March 12.

The cover was done by Ceri Clark, an author previously at FIBP. Ceri is independent now, but is doing some stuff with a new label called Myrddin (appropriate as she's Welsh!). She has a fantastic style and technique and we set out to make the cover link with that of Book One (Chained). Hence we used the same model, but altered the background and colour tone to make it distinct.

The full dustcover/ wrap around displays a coastal scene with a castle/city atop a rocky outcrop. This is representative of Goldoria City, which is where the finale of the book is situated. The book begins with Emelia, wounded by the demonic humour being taken by Jem, Hunor and Orla to the sanctuary of Master Ten. En route they bump into some old acquaintances from Book One. A parallel story arc follows Aldred, Baron Enfarson's son, as he investigates both Hunor and the murder of a maiden in Eviksburg.

To me the real star of the book is Vildor, Lord of the Ghasts, whose scenes in the Dead City provide most of my quotes for Twitter's Sample Sunday. Having just written Prism book 5 (first half of volume 3) its great knowing where the story takes his character.

The book is pencilled for release in early August. I'll update on here, and on the World of Nurolia website here! Until then bask in the glory of Ceri's work, and check out her website at http://cericlark.com/

A Cup of Tea with Alison

One of the great things about signing up with Fantasy Island Publishing has been the opportunity to meet other writers. When I first looked at FIBP for submission I romped around their web-site like a 70kg baby and one or two books really leapt out at me.

One of these was Alison DeLuca's The Nightwatchman Express. Part of it was the amazing cover, part was the blurb and part the genre, Steampunk.

I'd got into the Steampunk thing originally via Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright and Moore/O'Neil's League of Extraoridinary Gentlemen. From there I'd got ahold of Tim Power's Anubis Gates and KW Jeter's Infernal Devices. I'll not ramble on as I plan to write a post about it all soon enough.

Alison's book is wonderful. Its a perfect adventure story, set around turn of the century and reminded me of traditional adventure-mystery stories that used to captivate me as a kid. I posted a 5* review on Amazon which you can read here: Review of Nightwatchmen Express

Anyhow, Alison asked me to guest on her blog- 'A fresh pot of tea'- and I've ranted on in my own usual way about fantasy, specifically about anti-heroes in fantasy. Please go and have a shufty and whilst you're there look at all the other posts. It's an excellent site.

Go to Alison's site clicking here.

If you want to browse the book then follow this link: Nightwatchmen Express Kindle UK
or....Nightwatchmen Express Kindle US