Thirty Ways to Pray Without Really Praying

My newest spiritual book, Thirty Ways to Pray Without Really Praying, is now available on Amazon. And you don't have to be religious or even pray at all to get something out of it!

Thirty Ways to Pray Without Really Praying is a spiritual book designed to help you draw closer to your inner self, whether you pray regularly or not at all. It provides one activity for you to do every day for a month, and will help you focus on the things that are important to you. Happy praying (without really praying at all)!


Happy reading!

Anne Brooke Books
Biblical Fiction UK
The Gathandrian Fantasy Trilogy

Dancing with Lions

I'm pleased to say that my biblical short story, Dancing with Lions, is published today and you can pick up a copy here - though I'm afraid you'll have to be patient as, for some reason, the links to Smashwords take an age to click through.

While you're waiting, you can read an extract from the beginning of the story and also enjoy the book trailer. Never say I'm not kind to you, and have a truly fabulous Friday!

Anne Brooke

Shrikes and Fruit

Great bird news this week! We've finally - after about four or five attempts and many miles covered - spotted a Great Grey Shrike on our trip to the New Forest yesterday, hurrah. Such a beautiful bird and a real pleasure to see. Especially as we'd just given up and were returning to the car when suddenly there it was. Bliss. A lifetime first. Two other lifetime firsts yesterday were the black-throated diver and the scaup. Triple huzzahs then! And we also added to our year bird count with a Dartford warbler, a little grebe, grey plovers, curlews, a Brent goose, sanderlings (hundreds of them) and a ringed plover. Big results all round indeed.

Other nice news is that How to Eat Fruit is now available at Amazon US in Kindle version. Ideal Valentine weekend reading, I'd say.

I'm also very pleased with a 4-star rating of Two Christmases on Goodreads - thanks, Jonathan. Very much appreciated, and so glad you enjoyed the read.

Finally, in Book World, Chapter Six of The Prayer Seeker's Journal is now uploaded and can be found here. In which Michael has his first experience of spiritual direction, which isn't entirely what he was expecting.

And here's this week's haiku:

Hidden amongst trees
crocus shoots point to the skies.
Deep green and slender.

Anne's website - always a fruitful place to be
The Prayer Seeker's Journal - finding its own direction

Sex and religion

At last! Those two great influences in life have finally arrived at roughly the same time (as it were). I'm very happy to say that my gay erotic menage story, The Delaneys and Me, has been accepted for publication on 17 April by Amber Allure Press. It's the first menage story I've ever written and I like to think I've given it a rather interesting twist of dark comedy, but time and readers will have to judge. I'm also equally pleased to say that my literary bible story, Dancing with Lions, has been accepted for publication by Untreed Reads in March, so I'm looking forward to that one as well. Nice, if rather strange, to have two so very different stories accepted in the same week. I'll create web pages for both once the cover art is decided.

Keeping to a spiritual note, I've uploaded the next section of The Prayer Seeker's Journal, in which Michael finds a whole new direction to his search. That completes Chapter Five and we're slowly stepping along.

Yesterday, Lord H and I had an utterly fabulous day at Dungeness RSPB Reserve and managed (hurrah!) to spot the following: red-legged partridges, stonechats, Slavonian grebes, a marsh harrier, smews, a bittern, a little egret and a goldeneye. All of which adds nicely to this year's bird count. The bittern was definitely THE bird of the day, and probably the year - you so rarely see them. Well, this one took off from the water and flew lazily past the bird hide so everyone could get a really close and good view of it. Fantastic! I was very good though and didn't scream and jump up and down whilst hyperventilating with excitement (though I desperately wanted to) - this sort of thing doesn't go down too well with the birding fraternity. It tends to scare the birds ...

So, that brings me to the end of a very lovely week off, and I am attempting to turn my head back to the working world again for tomorrow, sigh. I really love these weeks off where I can just stay at home, chill and write. It's lovely.

I've written a couple of haikus this week and here they are:

Strange dogs haunt my dreams
hunting in the night's shadows.
Dark blood and silence.


Over distant blue,
lapwings spin a cloud of lace
and pearls. Glittering.

Anne's website - with a foot in so many camps ...
The Prayer Seeker - where a spiritual search takes an unexpected direction

Wing mirrors and strange conversations

Got up at a totally ungodly hour today to get to the garage early so I could get my wing mirror fixed. And they actually managed to do it - hurrah! I whiled away the time flicking through the new copy of "Retreat" magazine - there's a new focus on "bio-spiritual" weekends, which sounds interesting to me, as I don't want all that airy-fairy up-in-the-air stuff, so once I got home in my now two-winged car, I emailed them for more info. We'll see. I'm already going on one retreat anyway next year, so I don't want to be too damn holy. You've got to leave some kind of space for sin.

I spent the rest of the morning typing out a conversation with Michael (aka man in my head). Weird, but I kind of enjoyed it. It's not long - just a page-and-a-half - but it'll be something to spark off from at next week's counselling session. Ye gods, but the bloke has some strongly-held views. Wonder if they're mine too? Hmm ... Either way, how I love talking to him - which is of course even weirder.

Played a really quite classy game of golf with Marian at lunchtime (I had my normal head on by then - just) - even managed to get a par on the last hole. Pause for shock. But we were both much happier as there was hardly anyone else out playing but us - due to the weather/water-logged course I imagine - and it's nicer when there's no macho boy golfers breathing down our necks and indulging in psychic tutting. Dashed into Godalming afterwards to get extra Christmas presents and generic girly stuff. As you do. Then dashed back home as Lord H decided to take the afternoon off - an event rather spoiled by the fact that he had a puncture on the way home and was forced to call out the RAC man again to sort the tyre out. We are indeed cursed when it comes to cars this year - let's hope 2007 is incident-free. Please?

Oh, and one of my poems - "Keith in the Bath" - was published in Roundyhouse magazine today, Gawd bless 'em. Which is interesting on two counts - (1) being that they ignored all my deep angst-ridden stuff I thought was bound to get in and took the comic "filler" poem I sent them, and (2) you finally get to know Lord H's real name. Ha!

Today's nice things:

1. A new wing mirror
2. Getting a poem published
3. Talking to Michael.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk