BLOOD PEARL, my new novel, is now available from smashwords (in kindle, epub and PDF formats) and the amazons (in kindle and paperback).
It’s the first part of “The Camillography”, a fantasy trilogy set in Britain and France. The heroine is an English schoolgirl who finds herself at the centre of a terrifying intrigue involving shapeshifters, zombies, witches, ghosts, precious stones, Arthurian legend, Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan and a Paris fashion house which is the front for a sect of incredibly ancient and evil vampires. Along the way, she discovers that there’s more to her parents, village and school than meets the eye. (And no, she isn’t a wizard.)
Settings in the first volume include a village in Kent, St. Pancras, the Louvre and Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Later volumes will pay visits to a Scottish loch, the Île St. Louis in Paris, and the mystical forest of Broceliande in Brittany, site of Merlin’s tomb. Notre-Dame cathedral was also going to put in an appearance, but after the fire of April 2019 I might have to change that – or at least decide whether the action takes place before or after the fire.
I started writing this as a Young Adult novel, though as it progressed it became obvious that no self-respecting Young Adult was going to touch it with a bargepole. So I basically gave up trying to please some undefined demographic and instead just wrote it for 15-year-old me, drawing on the books I read and enjoyed around that age. Here are some of them:
Once I’ve read it I’ll let my nearly-15-yo have a look and see what she thinks.
Aaagh! That’s the REAL test. (She’ll probably hate it)
Ooh, off to find that now. Also had a senior moment and misread one of the books as The Princess and the Cardie – aiming for the menopausal market…….
LOL! The Princess and the Cardie is a WHOLE OTHER STORY! (When I was a small girl I was attracted to that title because it reminded me of Lemon Curd. Come to think of it, haven’t tasted Lemon Curd in a while. I can feel a hankering coming on…)