The Gifting Book Tour Day Five: the joys of Thomas Covenant

The latest stop on my book tour for The Gifting find me reliving happy memories of reading Stephen Donaldson's marvellous Earth Wars series, starring the wonderful leper and embittered writer Thomas Covenant. These books utterly gripped me through my teenage years, and were a very strong influence in my creation of murderous scribe Simon Hartstongue in the Gathandrian Trilogy.

So come along and pay a visit to the Fantasy Friday blog (albeit a little late) and see if you agree with me! Don't forget to leave a comment to enter the giveaway and to try your luck in the free Kindle competition.

Have a great and bookish weekend and the book tour recommences on Monday!

Anne Brooke
The Gathandrian Trilogy

Daffodils, coconuts and literary comparisons

Book News:

Some nice news about my fantasy novel The Gifting this week. First of all, for a couple of days, it was my bestselling ebook at Amazon UK, and then the lovely Nithu gave it a 4-star review at Goodreads, and even compared my hero Simon Hartstongue to the quite magnificent Thomas Covenant from the bestselling Unbeliever Chronicles series by Stephen Donaldson. Well, gosh, excellent company indeed! And even more heartening as in my teens and twenties I was a huge fan of Thomas Covenant and I like to think my Simon is in some way the next development of that kind of character.

To add to my successes with Bluewood Publishing, I'm equally pleased to note that today my most popular Amazon UK ebook is historical short story Dido's Tale. Hurrah, you go, gal!

Also today, you can find me at TWLIB Reviews with an article taking a look at the concepts of love and obsession in fiction - all visitors welcome and let me know what you think! Love certainly makes the world go round, for better or for worse ...

At Vulpes Libris Reviews, you can find my review of Simon Van Booy's literary novel, Everything Beautiful Began After. It's certainly a beautiful beginning but I fear the finish is rather disappointing, sad to say. I suspect he's more a short story writer than a novelist, but that's only my personal take on the book.

And I'm very happy that my money from the ALCS author funds has come through for this year, so that's a nice little boost to the bank balance, hurrah, and thank you.

Oh, and this week the Surrey Advertiser has interviewed me about the Guildford setting in gay short story The Heart's Greater Silence, and sent a photographer to take a shot too, so I'm looking forward to seeing that article in print at some point. I only hope they understood me as I could barely understand myself, with all the coughing, snuffling and sneezing ...

Life News:


For most of this week, I've continued to be ill, though I did make it into work on Monday (probably a mistake, as it then took Tuesday to recover ...). I'm feeling a lot more normal (ha!) now though, and heartfelt thanks to some very helpful Facebook friends who've suggested some high-quality catarrh/vomiting remedies. A BIG thank you to you all, as I really seriously needed some help! I'm definitely stockpiling everything I can think of ready for the next nasty bout of the wretched beast.

Also this week, Lent has begun. I was toying with the idea of giving up teasing my husband for Lent, but he is still laughing hysterically at the notion that I might last more than 30 seconds in the attempt (such marital confidence, eh!) so I've decided, along the lines of last year, to give up worrying instead. Much healthier, in my opinion.

Recent Nature News has been that the blue tits finished the coconut bird food we'd hung from the apple tree in the front garden - and then very cunningly angled the empty shell towards us so we could see that they needed more, and soon. Clever, clever birds ... Thankfully, K rushed to replace it so we are no longer in danger of being dive-bombed by half-starved birds when we leave the house. Phew. And today, we have our very first daffodil in bloom in the garden. Double hurrahs and hang out the bunting! I hope some daffodil friends come and join it very soon, but in the meantime we are both still hugely excited by the delights of nature.

Tonight, K and I are off to Woking Theatre to see Yes Prime Minister, so we're looking forward to a few laughs and some political irony in order to round the day off nicely.

Anne Brooke
The Gathandrian Trilogy
Gay Reads UK
Biblical Fiction UK

Happy New Year!

Book News:

Happy new year to you, and I hope you're all having a great 2012 so far. I certainly am. There are several items of book news today so hang on to your hats. First off, I'm thrilled that literary gay short story The Heart's Greater Silence has received its first review of 5 stars at The Novel Approach, prior to publication on 6 February. Many thanks, Lisa, for that! If the review stimulates your interest (as it were), then don't forget you can preorder a copy at Riptide Publishing and thereby (a) get the book early and (b) be entered into a competition to get free books for one year - so happy shopping!

Here's a quote from Lisa's review:

"Anne Brooke has written a somber and beautiful story of a man who had everything and lost it all because he coveted two very different men. It is dark and solemn and resonates with a sense of conflict and despair that wove the ideal atmosphere. It was moving and played beautifully against the knowledge that sometimes free will and human nature simply don't leave room for happy endings."

Meanwhile, gay comedy The Hit List also gained a 4-star review at Goodreads (thank you, Fynn) and romantic comedy Pink Champagne and Apple Juice received a 5-star review also at Goodreads (thanks, Nell!). 

I'm also thrilled to say that fantasy novel The Gifting received a fascinating and lovely review from Sharon Bidwell on Facebook (thanks, Sharon!), which certainly made me think. It's great that you loved Simon the Scribe so much as he appears from reader reaction to be a "Marmite Man" - like many of my fictional heroes, I suspect. I was also fascinated by the connection to Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant in the Thomas Covenant Chronicles, as he was who I had in mind when I was writing Simon. That was certainly a fantasy series that had an extremely powerful effect on me when younger, and how I do love a wounded hero ...

I couldn't let New Year go by without some sales news, hurrah! So for today and tomorrow only, you can find 25% off ALL my Dreamspinner Press books, so happy shopping to you.

And, much to my delight, gay thriller A Dangerous Man was one of the Top 2011 Picks at Top 2 Bottom Reviews. Well, gosh, and a big thank you.

Finally (well, sort of ...), I've now created a website for my biblical fiction, where you can find my bible-based short stories, the latest news, and a list of Christian links I've found useful or consider to be interesting, amongst other delights. Enjoy!

The New Year haiku is:

The year eases round

until it begins again.

Slow epiphany.

Life News:

I must say a HUGE thank you to our friends and neighbours, L & J, with whom we spent a wonderful New Year's Eve yesterday. Just a few of us for dinner, drinks and chat so perfect really. I'm afraid I was therefore too tired to make church this morning, but I suspect God can manage without me for a week or so ...

It's been a strange couple of days though - yesterday I actually baked (baked!! Whatever next?...) chocolate buns which aren't bad really, though I say it myself. Mind you, I did use a cake mix and an icing mix from the shop, so yes it's cheating but hey life's too short to get flour under my nails. That's sooo last year ... And K isn't complaining. In fact I'm having trouble keeping him away from the tin. I hope he doesn't think this is going to happen again for at least another year, ah well ...

We also attempted to have a morning at the sales on Friday, but it was rather a disaster. We couldn't find the curtains we wanted in the size we needed them in and the shop assistant told us they weren't going to make them any more (groan), I couldn't remember how to buy books from an actual bookshop where I can't click onto what I want, and then the art gallery we wanted to buy pictures from was shut. Deep sigh. I don't think I'll be doing s-commerce again for a while. Still, at least K ended up with some garden stuff he wanted and a new computer desk which looks lovely, so some joy was salvaged from the morass of gloom. As it were.

And today, we find our narcissi are starting to sprout shoots in the pot we put the seed in, so nature does work, hurrah! Is it Spring yet?...

Anne Brooke

The Gathandrian Trilogy: a fantasy series to make you think