A gift for New Year. It’s not exactly a Christmas story but it does start and end with New Year festivities, so it’s an appropriate time to offer it. When I started my Living Fae series it was meant to be a quartet. Then various spin-offs happened and eventually there was a further novel, Willow’s Way. Recently, a couple of minor characters were badgering me for a book of their own and I thought maybe it would be interesting to explore a human’s reactions to the fae world. I had already written about Micky, Cobweb’s human partner, and one or two visitors to the Edge, but no human had ever actually lived on the Edge permanently until Oliver moved in with Thorn, and no, you can’t count the werewolf. So I began what I thought would be a short story and it turned into a novella of 17k words. I decided not to publish it in the conventional fashion, but to put it here for any readers who are interested. I will of course cross-post to my other social media places. I hope any of you who like my fae will like it. For anyone who hasn’t read the series, this story should sort of stand alone as I think I’ve clarified anything that desperately needed clarification. However, although you can read it by itself, the events in it are concurrent with those of the main series so obviously there are spoilers for that. If you’re not bothered by spoilers, or if you just want a short (and free) taste of my fae, go straight ahead! Enjoy!
Cover of my new novel which is now ‘live’ on Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo.
My latest novel has just been published on both Amazon (Kindle) and Smashwords (which is now merged with Draft2Digital) plus Kobo to which D2D distribute.
Willow’s Way is the fifth full length novel in the Living Fae series. It follows Willow, Harlequin’s youngest brother, who is now grown up and ready to start his own independent life. Everyone is reluctant to separate the twins, Willow and Briony, but the twins themselves have very different ambitions. Willow rejects guard duty in Tara in favour of doing some investigations on behalf of the court, and his first assignment takes him, with Briony too, to the Hebrides to check on their father who is under a kind of open imprisonment there for his crimes. Willow is also tasked with investigating reports of drug addiction in Glasgow. On the way he meets Ref, a travelling fae. They fall madly in love but are soon separated. The rest of the novel details Willow’s various cases, his reunion with Ref, and their eventual return together to the Edge. Briony goes to Tara without Willow. So the book is part mm romance and part detective work covering issues like theft, murder and kidnapping. Willow has his own story, narrated by him, and is no longer merely one of the twins.
I was startled to realise that Joy Lynn Fielding, to whom the book is dedicated, had been notified of its ‘live’ status on Smashwords before they had notified me! I was going to send her a complimentary copy but was too late! I find the new D2D system harder to navigate than the old Smashwords one but will no doubt adjust given time. Joy has been really helpful with thoughtful critiques and I hope she enjoys this new volume.
Readers unfamiliar with the Living Fae series will probably find this novel impenetrable as it references so many events and characters from the earlier stories. So if you are interested, I would recommend tackling the series in order. However, if anyone has simply forgotten names and locations there is a glossary on this website under the tab Living Fae which should sort things out for you. There are also shorter stories set in the same world under the tab Free Stuff. I may start working on another of these soon. It seems my brain is reluctant to leave the Edge and its fae inhabitants.
I’ll take the opportunity here to mention and thank my editor, MA Naess, for her brilliant advice and proof reading.
If you like the idea of modern fae living complex lives centred around Alderley Edge in Cheshire, UK, please give my series a try! And if you do and you enjoy the books please either leave a review somewhere or let me know your thoughts!
Merchant ties together the nineteenth century revolt of workers in England with the current unrest about AI. As such, this is a timely and interesting book.
For the most part this is a fascinating and detailed account of the Luddite movement in early nineteenth century Britain, filled with carefully researched information about the period and events and including documents from the time..
The revolt against the use of powered looms and factory style production started in Nottinghamshire among the silk knitters and weavers. It then spread to other parts of the north, including Manchester. The Luddites took their name from ‘King Ludd’ who may or may not have been based on a real person but whose title was used by the Luddites in their messages to their employers. The acts of sabotage, including smashing machines with hammers, were directed initially against the machinery itself rather than people, but the effects were intended to hit the employers’ profits. Later, there were personal vendettas, culminating in the killing of Luddites by conscripted military forces, and the murder of at least one employer.
At no time did the workers claim not to appreciate technology or new machines, contrary to what their name conjures in the modern mind. They realised that the problem was not the machinery itself but the way it was deployed to make maximum profit for the owners with absolutely no benefit to the working classes. Indeed many of them faced severe poverty. They also objected to the factory system which they could see would destroy family and social life as they knew it.
Some politicians supported them but the king, and later his son as regent, did not. They were also supported sporadically by writers such as Byron and Shelley. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was in fact an allegory meant to show the dangers of the way manufacturing and invention was heading.
The Luddites were in a sense defeated by the state and some of their leaders were hanged, but they paved the way for the growth of trade unions and acts of parliament designed to curtail the worst excesses of the factory owners. It should also be mentioned that some factory owners were sympathetic to the cause and attempted themselves to ameliorate conditions – provided their profits didn’t suffer.
The author also points out the effects on the plantation slaves in America, forced into far harder work to produce sufficient cotton to feed the factories, and the way the plantation owners needed more and more slaves to satisfy demand and of course make themselves rich in the process.
I was surprised that no mention was made of the deliberate wrecking of the Indian cotton industry so that northern England would be the world leader in the field, and that nothing was said about the mindset of the political and business people who were understandably jittery at all calls for reform, something that must have underpinned Peterloo, the Manchester massacre of ordinary people seeking political change. However, the book is already long and perhaps the author, who is American, felt obliged to draw a line somewhere.
Merchant then goes on to draw parallels with today’s concerns about modern technology and artificial intelligence. The term ‘Luddite’ is sometimes thrown at people who express those concerns but it should, says Merchant, be taken as a badge of honour. Again, protesters are not against research, development and modern technologies. Their worries are the ends to which these are put and the fact that the profits are concentrated in the hands of a very few rich people. Not only do the population in general not benefit, but many of them also actually suffer, through loss of earnings, inhuman surveillance techniques, and a worsening of many aspects of society including art, music, literature and other creative cultural pursuits. . Meanwhile there is no democratic way to challenge the tech titans.
The history of the Luddites was meticulously researched and the same scholarship was deployed in giving examples of the way our modern tech giants have moved fast, broken things, and made themselves (like the nineteenth century mill owners) extraordinarily rich.
As the controversy over the use of AI increases readers should query our attitudes to the deployment of innovative technologies and their effect on the wider community. This is by no means a plea to hold back on research, but a very heartfelt one to ask how implementation should proceed.
As a writer using the Smashwords publishing platform I was concerned about the merger with Draft2Digital who almost immediately sent out a consultation survey about AI. Ostensibly this asked whether writers would be willing to have their work ‘scraped’ to train AI if given some monetary return. The results were a resounding NO, and Draft2Digital listened. Whether they agreed with the idea before the survey or not, they will definitely not be going ahead and there is relief all round. I suspect the actors’ and screenwriters’ action alerted a lot of people to the issues involved.
For now, it seems it is worth fighting back and in Britain and Europe we have at present the backing of most politicians, but we should all be wary of the machinations of the ‘giants’ who have nothing to lose and everything to gain from the use to which they put AI.
There is a lot of real life tidying, some of which has been waiting for ages. It’s easy enough, I suppose, but hard work. It’s actually a lot easier than the digital tidying which in some ways is more important.
I knew, in a vague sort of way, that I needed to sort out my computer files. Then my brain was invaded by an idea for another novel in the Living Fae series and looking at all the information involving the series so far I got really confused.
The glossary is not by any means up to date. The timeline seems to be non-existent, on my website, anyway.
So back I went to the files. It took hours to sort through. I must have kept everything including all kinds of pre-edit copies. I vaguely recall being advised to keep evidence of the fact that this writing was originally by me but I must have gone overboard. Yes, the files were dated, but it’s quite hard work making sure only the older ones get discarded. And it doesn’t help that Word redates them if you dare to make the slightest alteration. So, the new updated glossary is now a work in progress and should be reloaded soon. Meanwhile, I’ll leave the old one in situ because it isn’t wrong, just needs more added.
The timeline on the other hand… The later versions have stuff that can’t possibly be correct. The first volume has diary entries from 2005 so Harlequin must have found his mobile phone, and all his siblings were with him on Alderley Edge. Which means entries suggesting the twins weren’t born till 2011 were rubbish. This is important because they feature as adults in the new book. The older timelines have much more sensible dates but don’t go much beyond the first volume. Much work is obviously needed before I can even start writing, because in a series with a cast of hundreds (however minor) it’s really important to keep everything consistent.
OneDrive got very overexcited about how a large number of files had been deleted. I wish I could have a conversation with it and explain that this was intentional.
At this point I was looking at the later stories in my ‘free stuff’ on my website for further dates, events, etc. and realised that most of my links are broken. I suspect WordPress has changed the method of inserting download links – a lot of stuff was originally uploaded to my media library as Word documents and the links worked fine. Now documents need to be in pdf format and re-linked. ‘Easily’ fixed, but it will be very time consuming and meanwhile nobody can access a lot of my writing though I think all the Living Fae additions are OK as of today. But clearly I’ll have to fix all the other links too. And then stay alert!
I was delighted recently when a couple of authors I greatly admire ‘liked’ some of my posts, but I really must make sure they can read what I’ve written other than my blog entries, should they so wish.
Please, all of you, be aware that my pages (as opposed to my blog entries) are a work in progress (again)!
Anyway, I’m pleased to report that I have made what I regard as great inroads into my resolution. There’s an enormous amount still to do but I’m usually good at keeping going once I’ve started something. The same applies to the house, though so far I’ve been a bit slower there… After all, it only affects close friends and family, and doesn’t stop me doing anything else!
I messed about for ever and eventually just reversed the cover of the first book and changed the colours a bit.
I’ve finally published The Trouble with Unicorns after having problems earlier in the year with the formatting of the first book, The Virgin and the Unicorn.
There wasn’t going to be a sequel but a reader asked ever so nicely. It isn’t exactly a sequel because it doesn’t have the same main characters. Prince Alair and Kian do appear but only in minor roles. However, much of the action takes place around Kian’s Castle Onehorn and of course there are unicorns.
The story starts and ends with midwinter celebrations where Cory (a minor character in the first book) meets Galad. During the following year there is plenty of action and angst but by the time midwinter comes round again there’s a happy ending.
I’ve been trying to market it and entered it in an Advent giveaway, but have just found most of my links to my pages here are broken or just not as they should be. So you can imagine there’s a huge New Year Resolution in store!
Here, of course, we’ve just had the Solstice and that’s very special to me. For one thing, I like the idea of tying festivals to natural events and for another it’s my daughter’s birthday. I don’t like the darkness of mid-December but I do like all the holiday lights and glitter that somehow raise the spirits. I think fantasy worlds are bound to have their own celebrations of one kind or another and as this particular world has similar seasons to our own I’m sure the people would mark the longest and shortest days.
I hope you had a happy Solstice and will have a great time in the coming weeks whatever you celebrate, even if it’s only time off work!
I’ve just uploaded a ficlet in the Living Fae series to my Free Stuff page. It’s called The Party and was written for a Dreamwidth group who celebrate Monsterfest every October. This week’s prompt was Shifters and whilst I don’t see the shifters in my stories as monsters in any sense, the story immediately sprang to mind. This was pleasing because I have recently had a dearth of ideas…
I won’t be writing during November despite the common Nanowrimo vibe of the month, mainly because I’ll be concentrating on reformatting a novel for Smashwords. Cue groan. I moved The Skilled Investigators into KU and of course had to remove them from Smashwords. I realised I’d have to change the back matter in my books to reflect the fact that from a Smashwords point of view The Skilled Investigators no longer exists. Oh well, I thought, I might switch back again or I might move other books, and I might write more. So I carefully, or so I thought, composed a section for the back matter that told people how and where to find my books without committing the heinous crime of mentioning Amazon on Smashwords or vice versa. I edited the Smashwords versions with no apparent problems. Then Smashwords assured me that two novels now needed total reformatting before they could be sent to other sites. I’ve done one and had it accepted. Now for the other. It’s very boring and time consuming work but I hope to finish it in November. Meanwhile, the novel is still available on Smashwords but I’m not sure in which formats. And since epub are the ones refusing the new versions, and Amazon are switching from mobi to epub, watch this space. Maybe it’s a good job I have no plot bunnies desperate to be written at the moment!
This is not my photo – I got it from Wikipedia – but I have one the same only my scanner isn’t working.
Some years ago I posted about my own slightly spooky experiences at the site of Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair in Eastern Poland https://wordpress.com/post/jaymountney.com/594 This year I’ve turned that and our subsequent travels in the region into an mm romantic ghost story for a FB group I belong to.
All the details about Poland and Germany are as I recall them but I was there with my husband and we started off with a trip along the Baltic coast, only visiting Berlin on the way home. We used the ferry via Hamburg, not Hull.
My book is now published. Amazon were happy straight away. Smashwords had a problem converting to epub because there were hidden text boxes in the word document. Now sorted. I hope they don’t suddenly reappear in the Kindle version because Amazon don’t seem to give you the opportunity to reupload unless they’ve asked you to!
Well, I’ve uploaded it to Amazon and Smashwords, wrestled with possible blurbs (many many thanks to Rebecca Cohen) and agonised over categories, tags, etc. Apparently you’re not expected to have both mm and mf romances in the same story. Real life should clearly not intrude on fiction… I’ve hopefully given each site the correct versions. For example, Smashwords won’t have anything to do with docx whereas that’s Amazon’s preference even though till about a year ago they liked a web page. Their cover sizes differ, too. I’m never convinced they’ll use my correct pen name because of course I have to use my legal/banking name with them for tax purposes. I’m also usually terrified that they’ll shout at me because something has gone drastically wrong. The only time they ever did was when I forgot to tick the ISBN box, but you never know! I’ve chosen a price – at random really, because I can never decide what price things should be. It’s a question of a selling point rather than actual worth, after all. I suspect the Kindle version won’t have a live table of contents because I got stuck, for the first time, on creating one that looked reasonable. Smashwords do it for you provided you format the chapter headings a certain way. Now I’ll live with low level angst until both sites tell me the book is live – and then till Smashwords tell me whether they consider it worthy of distribution to various other platforms. I’ll let you know!
I have a new book coming out soon and I’m quite excited. It’s called The Seekers and is a stand-alone completely unconnected to any of my other stories.
It’s all edited and ready but I’ve been struggling with the table of contents which a friend assures me is not obligatory and not really necessary with a novel. Smashwords do it for you, but Amazon expects its authors to be more competent… I usually manage tocs fine but this one keeps disintegrating.
Anyway, I’ve also been struggling with the blurb. The trouble is, the book has more than one romance thread and could appeal to both mm and mf readers. So I haven’t quite known how to pitch it! It grew out of characters initially developed for an online game.
Here goes:
Twin fairy princes and their sister are escaping from an abusive and manipulative father. They cross the ocean in search of a better life and head inland accompanied by a motley crew of companions picked up along the way. There’s a slow burn same sex romance, an m/f romance that strikes like lightning but is destined to last, and a choice for an ace character that will also impact the others. Much of the story involves jewels, mined and sold, which inspired the cover.
Jay's World 