Happy Halloween from everyone on Gillyford.
This past weekend I was fortunate to host a special Henrietta event at Writer’s Block in St Peter Port. This included a reading of a special Halloween Henrietta story read by Henriett’s niece, Harriet Hedgekin.
In celebration of my favourite day of the year, you can download this spooky tale by clicking the link below.
It’s not often I do book reviews, but this is one I can’t pass up. As a disclaimer, I must disclose that I had the honour of being a beta reader for The Withering, the first book in the Encia Trilogy.
My good friend, co-worker and fellow nerd N. K. Harrison is not just an up-and-coming fantasy author, but also a travel consultant, avid gamer, and youth business supporter. Hailing from the island of Guernsey, her extensive travels have been incredibly influential in her writing.
I hope that my writing can take people to places that I would not be able to normally send them in my day job.
N. K. Harrison – The Withering Launch Party
World building is the key to a lot of writing, and in no genre is this more important than fantasy. I know from my own work with Gillyford that it very quickly takes on a life of its own. For Fantasy, the level of detail is several magnitudes greater. Encaris is a beautifully rich world with its own dialects, lore, and history. All of which are perfectly portrayed by the author. One detail I found especially wonderful is the use of time. A year on Encaris is less than a year in our world, which as the author has said, required a complete rethink of how long months, weeks and even days were. It is attention to detail such as this that really draws you in to this world of magic and adventure.
Now for us Guerns, there is an added element of fun by trying to find the local easter eggs that have been dropped in. A wonderful nod and acknowledgement of the authors home.
You can explore the world of Encaris here
This is the section that is the hardest to do without giving too much away. As River Song would say, “Spoilers, sweetie!”. So let’s start with the official blurb:
Instinct and choice define a person, or at least Harrison Stone believes so, which is why he chose to become a warden. Despite his impressive efforts, however, it was always going to be his twin sister, Siljanna, receiving the admiration of their commander and father, Sampson Stone. Living in her shadow had its advantages, until a tragic event and devastating fire changed his life unimaginably. Forced to choose between Siljanna and one of his dearest friends, a recently exposed mage, Harrison follows his instincts and the consequences of that choice steer his life in ways he never envisaged.
Now every fantasy reader knows that a good magic system is essential. On Encaris, this magic is called Encia (hence the Encia Trilogy). Encia is a potent energy that when harnessed, gives the user incredible magical abilities. There’s a bit of a caveat though. Unless you’re a member of the Elven race, Encia is actually incredibly toxic. Exposure for humans is a death sentence due to its effects. Hence the title of book one. It will literally cause a person to wither and die. So the question becomes: Would you be willing to risk everything for a taste of this power? And beyond a desire for power, what would drive you to use it?
As I’ve said, I was a beta reader for The Withering, and as such I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the story grow and change. N. K. Harrison has created a wonderful world of magic and adventure. But more than that, it has a quality that lets us explore our own humanity. Engrossing and compelling; The Withering leaves you both satisfied and wanting more of this wonderful world.
You can purchase your own copy of The Withering from the following:
For local readers: Writer’s Block
Visit the official Encia Trilogy website to find out more about the world of Encaris, the characters, and all the latest news and events.
As promised, here is the video of The Road to Gillyford event.
This past Thursday, I had the pleasure of hosting a meet-the-author and book-signing event at Guilles-Alles Public Library. It was a great turnout. And lovely to meet some of my young fans.
A video of the event will be available soon on YouTube. Or you can find it here on my Facebook Page.
I am absolutely thrilled to announce that my first children’s picture book, The Adventures of Henrietta Hedgekin, is published and available for purchase.
I want to thank everyone who has supported me and kept me going. The life of a writer is not always an easy one, and that confounded imposter syndrome is always lurking just around the corner. Having people to keep you on track and refuse to let you give up is so important.
The Adventures of Henrietta Hedgekin:Friendship is available for purchase from Austin Macauley, Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and all good online stores across the globe.
I will be hosting a ‘Meet the Author’ event on June 8th at the Guille-Alles Public library. While in person space is limited, the event is going to be streamed live on my Facebook page. You can sign up for the live-stream by clicking on the button below.
Big things ahead. I’m going to be holding my first ‘Meet the Author’ event on June 8th at Guille-Alles Public Library in Guernsey.
As I live on a pretty small island in the middle of the English Channel, I know that the bulk of people won’t be able to make it in person. With this in mind, I will be live-streaming the event over on my Facebook page. If you would like to join us, click on the link below and select ‘Going’. This will send you a notification when things are about to go live.
The event will be at 7pm (bst), on June 8th.
If you are local to Guernsey and want to attend in person, there are still some tickets available. Space is limited, so get in fast.
I hope to see you there.
The day is finally upon us. I am thrilled to be able to announce that The Adventures of Henrietta Hedgekin: Friendship will be available from April 28th, 2023.
I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about this. It’s been my dream for so long, and to actually have it come to fruition is the best feeling in the world. It’s been a heck of a journey and I’ve learned so much along the way. There’s a lot more to publishing than just writing the story and getting it out there. There’s a lot of work that follows; from marketing to organising events. It’s amazing to think that every book you see on the shelf has gone through this process.
These days there is a lot of onus on social media and self-promotion. And I admit there have been times I’ve found myself muttering “Richard Scarry and Enid Blyton didn’t have to deal with this crap”. But it’s all worth it. You need to be adaptable to be in this game.
Speaking of events, I have a couple coming up. I will be hosting The Road to Gillyford on June 8th at Guille-Alles Library. Space is limited so if you want to attend in person, I have tickets available on Eventbrite.
For anyone who can’t get there in person, I will also be streaming it live on my FB page. It’s set for 7pm BST. I have it as a separate event to make things a bit easier. If you wish to attend from the comfort of home, got to The Road to Gillyford – Live event and select Going.
The Adventures of Henrietta Hedgekin will be available to buy from Amazon, Waterstones and all good book retailers. As well as direct from my publisher: Austin Macauley
I want to thank everyone who has supported me all these years and especially the last 2 years in making my dream a reality. I couldn’t have done this without you.
And before I forget. There are going to be some new additions to this website coming very soon so stay tuned!
This is it folks! The countdown to launch has begun.
I have been notified by my publisher that The Adventures of Henrietta Hedgekin: Friendship is due this March.
I am beyond excited. As anyone who has had to put up with me for the past few months will tell you. I want to thank everyone who has helped make this possible. All of you have kept me going when I wanted to give up.
This is going to be the first of many adventures for Henrietta. The second book, Goblin in the Garden, is already written, and book three isn’t too far behind. Henrietta’s fourth adventure is starting to take shape as well. All of these will introduce us to new and exciting characters. We may even learn a few things along the way.
Thank you for joining me on this amazing journey. Stay tuned for updates and events as I get them.
Let me start by saying Happy New Year, everyone.
As you may have gathered from this article’s title, I’m going to talk about collective nouns. I love collective nouns. Writing is filled with stuffy grammar rules that no one really likes, and which were created by the gods of writing to torture and torment schoolchildren and adults alike for centuries to come. Collective nouns are one exception. These are words used to describe groups of things: People, animals; almost anything that can be in multiples. And while there are some well-known ones, a murder of crows, for example, there are no hard, fast rules. My theory on this is that the ancient writing ancestors were celebrating the yule festivities with a snifter of mead which help relax their normal stick-up-the-arse outlook. All of a sudden, Roger, the fun one of the group, produced a bag of dubious looking mushrooms. He offered them around to the to others who, not wanting to look like a bunch of squares, joined in.
And so began the creation of the collective noun. This is why we have such gems as ‘A congress of baboons’, ‘A parliament of owls’. and ‘A smack of jellyfish’. (Yes, that last one is real).
This is why I love collective pronouns. They are the rebels of the language. They are the cool uncle who sneaks you the beer at the family gathering; who catches you smoking and asks for a light instead of snitching to your parents. And the best part is, you can actually make up your own when you’re writing. It’s your world, your rules.
Just for fun, here are a few of my favourites:
These are a mere taster of what is out there. As you can see, there are often multiple terms for groups of things. The baboons have at least two. This is what’s great, you can pretty much come up with your own. Remember that language is a living, fluid entity. It grows, it evolves.
Curiously there is no real collective noun for a group of writers. Admittedly we are a fairly solitary bunch but on occasion, we do gather. And I think it’s time we had something semi-official at the very least. The most common one I see bounced around is ‘A procrastination of writers’. Rather apt as we are all guilty of it. What would be your suggestion for what to call ourselves?
As the big day approaches, I just want to wish everybody a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. Thank you for a great 2022!
J B Angell - Author 