ACROSS THE POND by Barry Eva (aka Storyheart)

Up until this book I have mainly worked on short romance stores, a quick 5/10 minute read. While these have been read an enjoyed at my site. I wanted to write something with a little more depth and substance.

So deciding to write a novel I had to almost teach myself to write all over again. Thankfully there is plenty of help and encouragement out there. Joining the SCBWI (Society of Book Writers and illustrators) was a great help and I was able to use my local monthly meeting as a sounding board especially through the hard graft of the early chapters.

They say “write about what you know” and after moving from England to the U.S.A. I certainly know all about the complications one can run into when I moved “across the pond”. Many of the parts in my book “Across the Pond” I can relate to from first hand experiences, you could say that the main character has a lot of me in him. Like Hitchcock used to appear in his own films, you could say I am there in the book; even my local “watering hole” gets a mention

I wanted to write something for a younger audience both with humor and with romance and came up with this story. The inspiration coming from my own migration from England to the USA in 2000 and what I have run into since being here. My previous romance writing experience also helped shape the story. The characters actually started out a little younger in my mind, however when the romance side developed so did their ages.

While writing the short stories did not help with planning the novel, it did help with creating the hooks at the end of each chapter, something to make the reader keep turning the pages. Many people and reviews have commented on the fact that once they started reading the book they could not stop until the end. So this seems to have worked.

I always try and add humor to what I write and love putting twists in the story to keep the reader guessing.

In the end I am very pleased with what has been the result of my writing; Across the Pond has in its short three months since publication received great reviews from ages ranging from ten to eighty.
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Born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, Barry, also known as “Storyheart”, left his beloved England in 2000, moving to the USA to be with the woman he’d met and fallen in love with on the Internet.

Better known for his short romance stories on the net and in his book “Stories from the Heart”.Barry is popular for narrating his stories on local TV or as a guest on other media stations,where his whit, oratory, and old-fashioned English charm make him a popular interviewee.

At present, Barry is living in Connecticut, with his wife and two children.

You can visit Storyheart’s website at http://www.across-t-pond.com.

IN SILENCE: DISCOVERING SELF THROUGH MEDITATION by Jane Rosalea Booth

People ask me how I started to meditate. Many people meet spiritual teachers but my first inspiration that there might me something special about meditation came when I saw the Beatles meditating. John Lennon, with his quest for a peaceful world, really ‘awoke’ me to explore my spiritual life more deeply. So I began to meditate and began to hear an inner voice that I listened to and recorded what I heard. My pen just seemed to be moving on its own and the language was much different than my own. My inner voice spoke in a dialect with ‘doth’ and ‘ye’. I grew to know that when I heard this dialect that I better listen to the message and record it.

So over the years I wrote in my journals and now have a wondrous collection of spiritual messages. I was told that world was going through a huge transformation that would affect everyone. At first these words frighten me but I soon learned that this great change was about love. Wow…a world transforming through love, but how could this be when all I was seeing was war and greed? I was told to transform myself and live from a loving heart. But this was not easy as living my truth, as my messages told me to do, meant I had to make changes in relationships, family and work. But I knew how true love felt in my meditations and as I became more loving, I found in my personal life. I eventually became a Minister of Spiritual Peacemaking with the Beloved Community founded by James Twyman, a peace troubadour and was ordained in the All Seasons Church of Canada in 2005.

The world is changing quickly as we can see with the election of President Obama. People need to know how to withstand change and transitions. Meditation is the key to balance, harmony and of course, finding the deep love within. In our silence, our stillness within, we connect with the Divine. Each religion teaches us this truth but most people simply listen to a minister, teacher or priest and do not listen to their inner wisdom.

This is what is behind my motivation to create In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation by providing simple ways to meditate, to increase your intuition and wisdom and to find a place of peace within. From this inner sanctuary, you can shine your own light brightly to others. This is how the world is transforming…each one of us finding peace and then being peace. This is how to empower each person and it is simple and each of us can create a world of peace within our own heart, our family, our work and our communities…within our planet. It begins…In Silence. Discover your inner Self through meditation.

I saw many people stressed and frustrated, so I decided in 2007 to self publish my book through Trafford Publishing in Victoria, BC. The book was about to be released but I developed breast cancer and the book was not released until September 2008. I am now well and healthy and meditation really assisted me through my cancer treatment. I kept the vision of myself as well and of my book being published. Both my visions came true. My dream of living by beautiful Georgian Bay came true as well and I married my husband Ian last September, 2008. So to new authors, don’t give up if adversities arise. Discover who you truly are and what is important to you. Keep on writing and creating your dreams and start to meditate to develop you ‘creative consciousness’ more fully.

Jane Rosalea Booth is author of In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation and a Minister of Spiritual Peacemaking who created a program for holistic living and meditation called The Peaceful Path. Through The Golden Light Centre for Well-Being Inc. she is dedicated to assisting people to find inner peace by providing the keys they need to create the abundance, harmony and joy. For over 18 years, Jane has presented meditation and holistic workshops to community and health organizations. She now resides in Meaford, ON. Canada, where she offers her workshops and women’s retreats and holistic services. In 2004, she became an Ordained Minister of Spiritual Peacemaking and holds a Masters of Divinity. She is an ordained minister in the All Seasons Church of Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Social Development Studies and a Certificate of General Social Work. She is a Certified Sound Energy Dynamics Practitioner and Reiki Master Practitioner.

To order In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation

http://www.trafford.com/07-0408

Official Author Site http://www.in-silent.net

http://www.amazon.ca

http://www.amazon.com

http://www.amazon.uk

Jane’s Blog http://janebooth.wordpress.com

Jane’s Golden Light Centre http://www.goldenlightcentre.com

GRAYRIDER by Bruce Skye

Several things influenced me to write Grayrider. The idea for the character of Grayrider had been with me for a number of years. The concept for the hero and his sword came from a troubled home life as a child. It was from that I first visualized Grayrider as a character.

As to what caused me to write the novel, several influences were involved. A divorce caused to me to rethink my life and made me desire to live out my own dreams. The success of the first Lord of the Rings film spurred me to finally begin writing the story. Finally, my fiancé insisted I must try to publish the finished manuscript. She’s dying of cancer—so the book is dedicated to her.

I have several influences in regards to my writing. The first is the author Jack Higgins. His suspense novels I model my own work after. Secondly, J.R.R.Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books are the archetype for all fantasy novels. He was an inspiration for my story. Finally, Bernard Cornwell’s historical novels with their excellent characterizations and suspenseful plotlines continue to challenge me to write as well as he does.

My lifelong dream has been to be an author. And, as my fiancé so astutely observed, I’m happiest when I’m working on a novel. So I keep writing. The second volume of The Deathsong Chronicles is finished and will hopefully be published later this year. I’m currently writing the third book in the series. And after that, I may well take a crack at writing historical fiction. I’ve acquired many books on the topic I want to write about. And that’s a project I’m eager to get into. But I’ve also been told I should do more than three volumes of The Deathsong Chronicles. But I need an idea for the next novel in that series. I don’t have one yet. But I’m working on it!
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A former technical writer, detail is important to Bruce Skye. His research for the Deathsong Chronicles included medieval armor and fortresses, as well as Celtic names and magic. “If you create a world, it must be consistent. And that’s what I strive for Grayrider’s world to be. I’ve built a database of material for each of the Deathsong Chronicles. Those databases aid me in keeping the world the same from book to book.

“When I wrote Grayrider, I followed the advice of Stephen King. I did not write the book following any sort of outline. I have no more idea than my readers do when I write a novel what will happen in the midst of the story. It makes it more exciting for both the readers and myself.”

You can visit his website at www.bruceskye.com.

Editor’s Note: Bruce will be on a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion in March ‘09. If you would like to host him on your blog, contact his publicist, Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife(at)yahoo.com.

AXE OF IRON: THE SETTLERS by J.A. Hunsinger

In 986 about five hundred medieval Norse people settled the island of Greenland. Over the five hundred year history of the two known settlements on the islands southwestern coast the population increased to as many as four thousand people. We know little about the people or the settlements because the people wrote nothing down for posterity. All we know about them comes to us from the Greenland Saga and the Saga of Eirik the Red, both written about two centuries after the facts they pretend to convey. In about the mid-fifteenth century the people abandoned their last remaining settlement, Eiriksfjord. Wherever they went, they took their ships, tools, and every useful item they possessed. Nobody knows their destination for they left not a clue. Their disappearance is the premise for my Axe of Iron series.

Everything that we know about these people, pertaining to their culture and disappearance, I have covered in detail in the Historical Perspective of my character-driven, historical fiction novel Axe of Iron: The Settlers. This is the first book of the continuing Axe of Iron series about the Greenland Norse people and what a lifetime of research has led me to believe happened to them.

My interest in the subject stems from the Norse and Germanic mythology I studied in school, my Swedish/German heritage, and the vexing question of the disappearance of four thousand people. I recognized early on that there are many people who are fascinated by the medieval Viking culture. Although the people I write about share that Viking heritage, when they sailed to Greenland and North America in the tenth and eleventh centuries they were no longer Vikings in the strict sense of the word and I do not refer to them as such.

The unknown aspects of their disappearance gives me the opportunity to use fiction to tell a tale about them that answers many of the questions about certain North American Indian tribes who exhibited characteristics, customs, and mannerisms that early explorers—eighteenth century—attributed to pre-historical European contact. The dates when these facts came to light reinforce my contention that the European contact alluded to could only have been the Greenland Norse people. My series will deal, in a fictional sense, with why tribal members of some pre-historical Indian tribes looked like white people, had customs like white people—including religious beliefs—were completely different from other tribes encountered, and welcomed the earliest white explorers with open arms.

The Greenland Norse did not disappear; they assimilated with the pre-historical North American Indians that they encountered. I believe this assimilation process was well underway by the early years of the eleventh century in the Canadian Arctic and moved south as the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the onslaught of the Mini-Ice Age. This natural climate cycle caused native peoples— including the last holdouts of Greenland Norse people remaining in Eiriksfjord—to migrate with the animals on which they subsisted.

Conventional brick and mortar archaeologists have largely ignored this controversial aspect of our pre-historical past. The path to discovery remains blurred by the passage of one thousand years of time. There are no ruins or pyramids to create entire cultures around, and few artifacts to discover. The presence of the Greenland Norse people on this continent is but an echo from the dim past, but it is here nonetheless.

Scientists have found Norse DNA in Greenland and Baffin Island Inuit people. If somebody will look, perhaps Norse DNA will be found in members of contemporary Indian tribes in northeastern and north central North America. Only then will we know their fate.

As I wrote in the Historical Perspective of Axe of Iron: The Settlers,
more than 40–generations have elapsed since they came to this continent. Now their very existence, everything they accomplished, has faded from the collective memory of all the peoples they contacted.
I prefer to believe the four thousand live on however, their genetic makeup diluted by the intervening centuries of time. They are still here smiling back at us from the faces of the Inuit Greenlanders, Cree, Ojibwa, and Iroquois with whom they joined so long ago.

That is why I have a story to tell, a story as seen through the eyes of my characters.

J. A. Hunsinger lives in Colorado, USA, with his wife Phyllis. The first novel of his character-driven, historical fiction series, Axe of Iron: The Settlers, represents his first serious effort to craft the story of a lifelong interest in the Viking Age—especially as it pertains to Norse exploration west of Iceland—and extensive research and archaeological site visitations as an amateur historian. He has tied the discovery of many of the Norse artifacts found on this continent to places and events portrayed in his novels.

Much of his adult life has been associated with commercial aviation, both in and out of the cockpit. As an Engineering Technical Writer for Honeywell Commercial Flight Systems Group, Phoenix, AZ, he authored two comprehensive pilots’ manuals on aircraft computer guidance systems and several supplemental aircraft radar manuals. His manuals were published and distributed worldwide to airline operators by Honeywell Engineering, Phoenix, AZ. He also published an article, Flight Into Danger, in Flying Magazine, (August 2002).

Historical Novel Society, American Institute of Archaeology, Canadian Archaeology Association, and IBPA-Independent Book Publishers Association, are among the fraternal and trade organizations in which he holds membership.

You can visit his website at http://www.vinlandpublishing.com and his blog at http://www.vinlandpublishing.blogspot.com.

Editor’s Note: J.A. will be on a virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion in March  and April ‘09. If you would like to host him on your blog during his tour, contact his online book publicist, Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife(at)yahoo.com.