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Today we’re lucky enough to have an excerpt from A A Wise’s first novel to promote his second! But first, a little about the author.

Allan Andrew Wise (A. A. Wise), born in Uganda, East Africa, moved to England as a young boy. His interest in fantasy literature appeared at a young age and he has been devouring fantasy novels ever since.

Allan’s first book, Inock Tehan and the Phantom of the Ruins, was published by Austin Macauley in 2017. His second novel in that series, Inock Tehan and the Forbidden Clan was published by Austin Macauley in May this year. The books are available on Amazon and in bookstores.

The first book is centred around a thirteen-year-old boy called Inock Tehan. Inock lives in a different world to ours. A world full of witches, demons and many magical creatures.

Allan designed Inock to be a bit mischievous and fun loving because he was a little like this as a child. He designed Inock’s best friend as a friendly, knowledgeable ghost to add wisdom and balance. Inock later meets his other friends Lalita and Andre as the story progresses. Andre is black and they are all around the same age.

Allan wrote this story because he enjoys fantasy stories and so wanted to create a story of his own that others could enjoy.

Allan takes inspiration from books he’s read, the television, movies, animation, and stories told to him in Uganda when he was young.

An Excerpt from Blackwood Chronicles: Inock Tehan and the Phantom of the Ruins

‘You charge way too much for lessons here at your school,’ argued Laden, pointing a finger at Inock’s big brother.

‘Look, I’m not the one who sets the prices,’ Torend retorted. ‘You’ll have to come back when my father isn’t busy. He sets the prices!’

‘Every time we come here he’s busy,’ said Laden, laying a hand on his little sister’s shoulder. ‘And you always tell us to come back later.’

‘I wouldn’t lie about…’

‘Look, Torend,’ Laden interrupted, ‘my little sister recently came into her powers and she needs to see a power-trainer. Her powers keep going out of control. And they’ll only get worse if she doesn’t see the power-trainer right away.’

‘I understand what you’re saying but I can’t book you in,’ said Torend. ‘My mother said no. Why don’t you just go and see another power-trainer?’

‘Oh, come on, Torend. You know there isn’t another power-trainer for miles. And I can’t afford to send her to the Secilia Power Academy; they charge a fortune!’

(The Secilia Power Academy was a very famous school for demons and witches. It was in a faraway city.)

Torend was about to reply when he was interrupted by a pair of angry-looking men accompanied by two vile creatures; these were venators with their ghastly onis!

Venators were the police of Inock’s world. They were bald, black men with green eyebrows and they always looked angry. They wore a uniform of dark green, knee-length silk jackets with long black sleeves, black trousers and black boots and they always had black whips hanging from their waists. They also wore a green metallic brace around their necks. Venators were invariably accompanied by onis – large black creatures that came up to a man’s waist. They looked like gigantic dogs – like a bull terrier with large red eyes, no ears and two very long, scaly tails that writhed like serpents behind them. They had long jaws that resembled a crocodile’s, packed with lots of sharp, stained teeth.

Venators always used these horrible creatures to help them patrol the streets. You’d never see a venator without an onis.

‘What’s the commotion here?’ one of the venators snapped.

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ replied Torend.

‘Who asked you guys to butt in?’ spat Laden.

‘You’re causing a scene,’ hissed one of the venators, reaching for the black whip at his waist.

The two onis snarled at Laden, their four tails thrashing about behind them.

Seeing the two vicious creatures snarl like that reminded little Inock of something – the Onis flute. He reached into his pocket, took it out and stared at it. It looked exactly like the little flute one of the angry venators was holding. He wondered if the dog-like creatures would do what he wanted if he blew into it. Would they come and stand by his side? Could he make them chase the angry venators away from his brother?

Inock just had to find out. He raised the green flute to his mouth and was about to blow into it when Rozanthia screamed out, ‘No, Inock! Don’t!’

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Better late than never – a cover reveal of White Night!

In keeping with the theme of other YA novels at the moment, the cover of White Night by Ellie Marney is quite abstract. Think Our Chemical Hearts and The Build-Up Season. It’s good, because it doesn’t give too much away about the story. Now I just have to remember not to look at the synopsis. This looks like a great addition to the YA stable.

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Please welcome back Andrew Joyce! I have worked with Andrew before to promote his novel Yellow Hair and interview him. His newest novel, Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups is sure to take the fancy of some readers! I know I love to read at bedtime.

Hello, my name is Andrew Joyce. I have a new book out entitled Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups. It came about because my editor hounded me for two years to put all my short stories into one collection. Actually, it was supposed to be a two-volume set because there was so much material. I fended her off for as long as possible. I didn’t want to do the work of editing all the stories. There were a lot of them. But she finally wore me down. Instead of two volumes, I put all the stories into a single book because I wanted to get the whole thing over with. I had other books to write.

Bedtime Stories is made up of fiction and nonfiction stories and some of ’em are about my criminal youth. I must tell you, I never thought any of these stories would see the light of day. I wrote them for myself and then forgot about them. By the way, there are all sorts of genres within its pages, from westerns to detective stories to love stories and just about anything else that you can imagine.

There are a whole lotta stories in the book—700 pages worth. Enough to keep you reading for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, here’s one of the shorter stories from the book.

Treasure

He stumbled upon the treasure quite by accident. He was exploring the vicinity when he happened upon it. His first thought was, This cannot be real. He cautiously approached it. Someone might be playing a trick on him. Maybe he was being observed. But no one sprung from a concealed location—no one yelled for him to halt his advance. It seemed safe to move forward. When he arrived at the treasure, he bent down to touch it, just to make sure it was real. After one touch, he fled to better-known and safer environs.

That night he could not sleep for thinking of what he had discovered. He thought and thought of ways he could explain it to members of his tribe. If he suddenly showed up with the treasure, anything he said would be suspect. One does not find treasure of this sort every day. No, he would have to think this through.

The next day he went back to where he had found the treasure, but dared not get too close. Instead, he peered at it from a distance. It was still there and untouched. But for how long would it stay undiscovered? A fire burned within him to possess it. If not for the taboo placed on matters of this sort by the Law Giver, he would claim the treasure as his own. But no, the Law Giver would never allow it.

As he tried to sleep on the second night after his discovery, he thought perhaps the Law Giver would understand. Perhaps he should approach her, and tell her of his find. No! If she forbade him from keeping the treasure, it would be lost forever. Conceivably, he could bring it to his village and hide it from the Law Giver. But … where could he hide it? The Law Giver was all-wise; she knew the secrets of his heart.

Quite unexpectedly, he overheard the Law Giver speaking of the place he had found the treasure. This is what he heard: “When they moved out, they told me they left a few things behind, and if we wanted anything, we were welcome to it. I’ve been too busy to go over there, but I think I’ll take a look this afternoon. Maybe there will be something Billy might like.”

Something I might like. Something I might like! Was she toying with him? Did she indeed know of the treasure? Later that afternoon, his mother called Billy to the front of the house. He was not allowed far from home because he was only five years old, so he appeared right away. His mother said, “Look what I found next door where the Simms used to live.” And there it was—the treasure!

His mother handed little Billy the bright red toy fire truck that had caused him to lose so much sleep. You see, Billy had been afraid his mother would think he had stolen it, even though it seemed to have been abandoned. And in his home, stealing was the one thing his mother, the Law Giver, would never tolerate.

Mr. Joyce sincerely hopes that you will enjoy his stories because, as he has stated, “It took a lot of living to come up with the material for some of them.”

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A Spotlight with Christopher David Rosales

David Rosales is the author of ‘Silence the Bird, Silence the Keeper’ and today you guys are lucky enough to get to see an excerpt from it!

—-

It was hard to say how Rudy Two’s son, the one called Tre, thought back then.

He stood in the square, against the town hall’s muraled wall, smoking from a joint pinched tight between his fingers. He was young, maybe eighteen, but more than that he was mean and we didn’t want to admit he might think like us—even if he did.

He had one foot kicked back flat against the painted wall, and grease smudged the toe of his shoe where it wore thin from all the gear-shifting in traffic. The motorbike wasn’t far. Wasn’t ever far. He’d left it in the shade in an alley so its red wouldn’t draw more attention. Still, it was getting late. The sun in the square was orange now. The birds were returning, one by one like fat drops of oil splashing at his feet. They hobbled near the broken fountain, where the old men fed them bread.

Another young man called Junior lumbered across the cobbles carrying a crushed envelope. Junior, big and baby-faced but no younger than Tre, almost leaned on the mural to catch his breath but dropped that hand with the other to both knees and went on panting. Tre went on leaning coolly, thinking cool thoughts and staring at the broken fountain in the center of the square. At least three different statues of three different mayors had stood there in his lifetime. He smirked at the crumbled concrete loafer, all that remained of one. These politicos, and their reverse Cinderella dreams. He imagined the same old loafer passed along from statue to statue, from mayor to mayor, from prince to prince. His sister, Nora, was back home, pining for her own kind of slipper offered by some wealthy politico or decorated militant. Tre coughed a laugh to himself. No one in his family knew how to live in this world without depending on others. No one knew how to survive. No one but him.

The painted figure in the mural that towered above the young men was sleek, rosy, and stiff, with a blank expression that could have been mistaken for… Tre theorized constipation, but it was probably meant to show purpose. He offered Junior the joint, but Junior waved it away, still catching his breath.

Tre smoked deep. “Too good, or what?”

“We’re self-employed.” Junior clutched his heaving side. “A business man’s got to set some standards.”

“Oh, and you think this is that kind of business?” Tre laughed. The best way to survive was to adopt new standards, moral and otherwise. At first, his new standards had been a tight heat in the muscles of the jaw and behind the eyelids. At first they were a new skin tight on his face like steam. At first. He checked his cheap plastic watch and held the other hand out for the letter. “Come on.”

“You come on.” Junior finally caught his breath, but didn’t relax. “And don’t lean against that mural, Mamón.” Junior handed the envelope over.

“Why not?” Tre angled his head back until the mural sprawled upside down from his forehead, pouring into the blue. “Who is this guy, anyway?”

“It’s the fucking mayor,” Junior said. “Don’t play dumb.”

“Huh.” Tre may have been reading the letter. He looked at it, at least. Then he used it to tap the mural over his shoulder. “I thought it was Ricky Ricardo.” Yes, his new standards eliminated the guilt, because it was impossible to feel guilty for taking a life he resented.

“Ricky who?”  But Junior squinted one eye up and down, nodding slow recognition at the mural now.

Tre crushed the papers into a ball and tossed them at his feet. He was already laughing at Junior. The joint, Tre plucked from his lips and rubbed out on the manhole sized bottom-button of the mayor’s coat. “The money?”

“Un uh.” Junior said. “After.”

Tre shrugged, held his hand out again. Junior let a handful of bronze bullets fall one by one into Tre’s greasy palm. Tre smiled then. Some things he could still feel the old way. Bullets cold as ice chips in his sweaty palm. A girl’s pussy, hot as a washcloth. He was easy to please.

“Do you ever…” Junior swallowed.

“Do I ever what?”

“Do you ever feel guilty?”

Without opening his mouth Tre licked the outsides of all of his teeth. He shook his head no.

Yeah. It was easier for us to pretend he didn’t think like us. Maybe that he didn’t think at all. Still.

A single bullet fell from Tre’s palm, turning round, and bounced once on the cobbles.

Junior groaned and bent to pick up the ringing bullet but, before he could reach, Tre toed the shiny thing like a snuffed cigarette.

“Not that one,” Tre said.

Junior smacked his lips. “That shit cost me five dollars. What you talking about, not that one?”

“You’ve got yours. I’ve got mine. Standards, homie,” Tre said, grinning. “Standards.”

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Jose Patterson on the origins of her newest novel, My Aunt Manya

I live in the university city of Oxford which, by its very nature, always has a ‘floating’ population of visiting scholars. It was always the custom for my late husband and I to invite guests to share Friday night – the beginning of the Sabbath day – with us. During one never to be forgotten Friday night dinner when the conversation was buzzing, our American friend Susie told us about her grandmother, Sarah who was 11 years old in 1891 and lived near the Russian town of Bialystok. Her father had gone to New York to stay with his sister while he looked for work, leaving Sarah behind with her hated stepmother. Her young life changed forever when she heard from her Aunt the sad news of her father’s sudden death. Her Aunt sent her a boat ticket, some money and the offer of a home. Sarah fled the pogroms and set off alone on the long hazardous journey to Ellis Island. When she finally arrived she learned that her Aunt had died the week before. She was saved from the threat of deportation by her aunt’s two close friends.

These are the few treasured facts on which I based the story of My Aunt Manya which some reviewers – including Clare Morpurgo – have likened to the plight of modern immigrants. As I have mentioned it is indeed a fascinating story and I do hope you will enjoy reading it.

Release notes of My Aunt Manya

José Patterson’s latest children’s story details the journey of Sarah a ten-year old immigrant making her way to America (Based on a true story)

From acclaimed children’s author José Patterson comes a new story that will hit home.

Set in Russia at the end of the 19th century, My Aunt Manya is a period novel featuring heroine Sarah, who lives unhappily with her much-hated stepmother. Sarah’s father has gone to live in New York with his sister Manya while he looks for a job.  Sarah’s life changes overnight when Aunt Manya writes with news that her father has been killed in an accident. She sends her a boat ticket, some money and an offer of a home.

Sarah’s family and friends are poor, Yiddish-speaking Russian Jews. When Sarah’s friends get word that a group of Cossacks is planning a pogrom attack, they lose no time in helping her to set out alone on the longest journey of her young life. 

My Aunt Manya is a heart-warming story of Sarah’s journey to America on the ‘other side of the world.’ She becomes an immigrant with just one goal – to live with her Aunt Manya in a free country. Sarah faces difficulties and dangers of the unknown with great courage and determination which, together with the ‘hand of fate,’ combine to make this an unforgettable story.  Released during a time where immigration is a hotly-debated topic in the UK,  My Aunt Manya will show young readers what it is truly like to be an immigrant.  

José’s first novel, No Buts, Becky! was a runner up in the People’s Book Prize Award Competition and finalist in the Wishing Shelf Independent Book Awards 2013.

Website: http://www.josepatterson.com/

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