Oskar Leonard's Blog, page 10

Get Ready For Twisted Bloodlines – Second Edition!

This will be a shorter blog post than usual, because it’s more of an announcement than anything else. If you haven’t been over on my Instagram or Facebook, you might not have seen my posts about the second edition of Twisted Bloodlines, so here’s the news: it’s coming!

I’ll be releasing the second edition of Twisted Bloodlines this October, and it’s going to be a real improvement on the first edition. It’s 80k compared to the original’s 30k and it has been completely rewritten, with lots more details when it comes to worldbuilding and characterisation. The resolution is a little more satisfying, in my mind, but no less dark and harrowing than the original.

There’ll be some more details on my social media this Friday, but the best way to get a direct email when the book is published is to sign up to my newsletter! You can use the form on my home page to sign up really easily, and I’ll only send you approximately one or two emails a month – and I always include links to my free books as well.

The original Twisted Bloodlines can be purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)

Look At A Book: Intricacies Inked In Ice

Just in time for the colder weather, we’re taking a closer look at my winter-inspired poetry collection today, Intricacies Inked In Ice! This collection is full of poetry inspired by the natural world in winter, with icy landscapes and chilly atmospheres.

Intricacies Inked In IceThe Essentials

Winter-inspired poetry.

Genre: Contemporary/Nature Poetry

Age Range: Young Adult and above

Length: 96 pages

Themes: Winter, Nature, Seasons, Snow, Ice, Landscape

Excerpt

Welcome Home

Fall into the deepened heart
of all that is and has ever art
beneath a greying, blizzard sky–
so far above your wandering eye.

Now, look lower, to the earth,
and find yourself on frozen turf;
hear your little footsteps crackle
against every snow-white speckle.

Doesn’t it feel so right to roam
through your wintry warm heart-home?

The Background

This poetry collection is an interesting one for me. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to focus on wintry poetry after I took some photos of the wood where I used to walk my dog, Molly (she’s who Our Paused World is dedicated to!) covered in snow. It was such a beautiful place and I just felt this desire to create something inspired by it, which is why it was so important to me to include the photographs in the print edition of the book! You can see them below, too.

Is It Right For You?

To enjoy this collection, I’d suggest that you need to enjoy poetry or at least have an interest in it. If you’re someone who absolutely loves how the world looks when it’s covered in snow, then you’ll probably enjoy this collection quite a bit too. In general, if you’re a fan of winter, then I’d suggest that you’ll enjoy this book.

You can read it for free here, too!

Intricacies Inked In Ice can be purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)

Look At A Book: On Gentle Wings

This week, we’re taking a closer look at my bird-inspired poetry collection, On Gentle Wings. This lovely collection is divided into four parts – In The Home, In The Air, In The Heart and In The Absurd – and is quite firmly inspired by our feathered friends of the sky. It covers a wide range of avian themes, from birds being pets and friends to their family structures, real or imagined, in the wild, and even some more outlandish depictions of birds as well. I hope that you enjoy learning a little bit more about this poetry collection!

On Gentle WingsThe Essentials

Bird-inspired poetry.

Genre: Contemporary/Nature Poetry

Age Range: Young Adult and above

Length: 174 pages

Themes: Birds, Family, Romance, Absurd, Nature

Excerpt

Shards Of Family

My singing sister sits
in a silver cage.

My voiceless sister lies
on a sodden riverbed.

Between them, I cry
in our homely nest.

I weep for my loss,
as well as theirs.

The Background

For On Gentle Wings, I wrote out every poem by hand in several notebooks before typing up the collection, and I actually ended up filling three notebooks and starting a fourth with all of the poems! This is definitely my longest poetry collection so far, and I’m really proud of it. I also worked with one of my friends, JaceEarts, who created the beautiful illustrations that you can see below for each section of the poetry and also the contents page. These illustrations are exclusive to the print edition of the book, which I do think makes it a little more special.

Is It Right For You?

Again, this is really a book for fans of poetry – there are a lot of poems in this collection so if you’re looking for a book where you can just sit and read through it and immerse yourself in a world of birds, then this is the one for you. If you’re a bird lover or an animal or nature lover in general, then you’ll probably like this one too. The eBook edition is available for free on Smashwords and the print edition is available at a discounted rate on Amazon UK currently, so feel free to check it out if this sounds like a book you might be interested in!

On Gentle Wings can be purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)

Look At A Book: Commute

Today it’s time to take a look at another one of my poetry collections, and it’s one of my favourites. I’ve done a lot of commuting and travelling around my local area on public transport, so I thought it was only right that I dedicated a book to it, and each poem in this collection is inspired by a specific route or service that I’ve personally used. Let’s get into the details with Commute!

CommuteThe Essentials

Travel-inspired poetry.

Genre: Contemporary Poetry

Age Range: Young Adult and above

Length: 84 pages

Themes: Travel/Commuting, Locations, Journeys, Relationships

Excerpt

Commute Horror Show

5.30 AM–the bus driver has blood
on his fingertips, clutching the wheel
with an early morning death grip.

Towards the stairs–she’s wearing the skins
of her last three pet cats, still pulsing
with their final panicked breaths.

Top deck–two skeletons chatter
while puffing smoke out of mimic lungs,
staring each other down with borrowed eyes.

Backseat–between the engine’s growls,
faint screams echo through the metal:
poor souls who stayed on past the last stop.

The Background

The driving force (if you’ll excuse the pun) for the inspiration behind this collection was my first year of university, when I commuted to and from Ormskirk. This was an approximately two-hour journey each way, so it definitely gave me a lot of time to think and reflect on things, as well as sneak in some reading, writing and coursework. I was commuting by bus because of a student bus pass that I used, and one of the buses in particular was always a very intimate affair – it was a small bus that only a couple of people took every day, and sometimes I’d be the only passenger and think to myself that it was almost like an oversized taxi for me to get to and from university on.

Is It Right For You?

Of course, if you’re not a fan of poetry then this might not be the best book for you. However, if you love poetry and particularly like writing with a focus on transport and scenery, then you very well might love Commute! It’s slice of life with a little bit of everyday magic tucked away in there, and if you live in the general area where I do then you might enjoy the references to the bus and train routes.

Commute does have a free eBook version available here, and oddly enough the UK Amazon version has been ‘out of stock’ for ages, even though that hasn’t happened to any of my other books. If you’re on US Amazon though, then you’re in luck! You can grab a copy with the link below. Feel free to try ordering the out-of-stock one on UK Amazon if you’d like to – I’m curious as to whether one will be sent out, as they’re supposed to be print-on-demand. Report back if you find out anything about that!

Commute can be purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)

Look At A Book: Obsession

This is an interesting one for me – Obsession is the only book I have published under ‘O.T. Leonard’, when I was still quite early into using Oskar as my name, and it’s one of my only romance/love-focused books. It’s also pretty dark, akin to Cicerone, and it’s a fantasy book, which I’ve got a couple of now. So, let’s take a closer look at Obsession today!

ObsessionThe Essentials

Obsession is a dangerous beast.

Genre: Dark Fantasy Romance

Age Range: Adult

Length: Novel

Main Character: Rosaline, she/her

Themes: Love, Magic, Adventure, Manipulation, Power

Excerpt

After her last question, the world began to fade. It was subtle at first – sometimes she thought the fog was looking a little more grey than white, or shimmering less, until it became a matter of the fog being a darker shade of grey, and finally the annoyance that she couldn’t see where she was going at all. Granted, she couldn’t see much anyway, what with all the fog blocking her vision – if there was anything to look at in the first place, which, somehow, she doubted – but at least, before, she could see the fog. Now, there was nothing. No fog. No voice. No bed, which she hadn’t stumbled upon since she first woke up in this strange place. Just quiet darkness, which seemed to be getting darker with every passing moment even though that was quite impossible.

If she reached out in front of her with one trembling hand, she couldn’t see it. Her skin, obviously, had decided not to shimmer or shine any longer. The pleasant absence of any feeling of temperature was gone, replaced with a warm feeling around her body, as if she was back in the stranger’s bed, wrapped in his silken sheets, staring up at the wooden beams criss-crossing the roof. It was as if she could reach out a hand and touch his body, stroking the light-peach skin, fingertips tracing every well-defined muscle. It was almost as if she had gone back in time, or was trapped in a vivid memory, of that morning, before everything. That morning, of relative quiet and bliss, when there were no major problems or disasters happening in her life. She wished she could go back to feeling that way. Sure, there were minor troubles, and she was far from being completely content, but she was so much closer to happiness then than she was just a few hours later, when her entire world came crashing down.

And, just like that, she woke up.

The Background

As one of my first published books, Obsession isn’t what I would call the absolute best example of my writing voice and style, which has changed quite a bit since then. However, it is an interesting read and one that I’m still proud of. I think it’s the first one of my more ‘mature’ reads, in terms of being more orientated towards an adult audience, and it was my first dive into full-on fantasy too – obviously, the talking cat characters in the Cats Collection are a little fantastical, but Obsession takes place within a firmly fantasy setting, which makes all the difference to me.

Is It Right For You?

Again, if you do pick up this one, I will say not to go into it expecting perfection. It’s my early work and I’m pretty sure that the print edition – the only available edition – has at least one typo in it. On the plus side, if you’re like me and you love hunting for the occasional typo in every book you read, then happy searching! Obsession might be the book for you if you like fantasy, romance elements and pretty dark books. There’s also magic in there too!

Once again, this is one of my early books so there’s only a print edition available, but it’s quite cheap on UK Amazon (literally a couple of pounds) if you want to give it a try!

Obsession can be purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)

Look At A Book: Twisted Bloodlines

This week, I’m going to take some time to highlight my only vampire-related book (at the moment) and one of my first novels. The first draft was written, as with many of my books, during NaNoWriMo, and it’s one of my books that I’ve got a second edition planned for, so make sure to watch out for that in the future! This is another book which is print-exclusive for now, but when I release the second edition I’ll make sure to make a free eBook edition available as well. However, right now, let’s get into Twisted Bloodlines!

Twisted BloodlinesThe Essentials

The line between death and madness grows thin.

Genre: Supernatural Fiction

Age Range: Young Adult

Length: Novel

Main Character: Kassidy, she/her

Themes: Death, Supernatural, Madness, Vampires, Morality

Excerpt

Moonlight, softer and sweeter than any sunlight I’d ever felt, carefully brushed against my eyelids, as feeling seemed to return to me, acting as if it had never left. The cool embrace of a pillow, the hug of a blanket, and I knew I was dead. I had to be. There was nothing like this in my life – there was no shelter, or bed to go to every night. This was the end – the afterlife. I had finally arrived.

“-but we don’t know if it worked, Seb, that’s the thing. She could lie there all night and not tell us, or we could be staring at a half-born corpse.” These words weren’t so faint as the last – the last. Memories came vividly, bitter and strong, filling my mind with images that I never wanted to see again. Her eyes, putridly animalistic, as she leapt to the kill, and every single clawing attack, every scrape, every… the last bite, the shredding of skin, as I became a meal for a monster. Whatever she was, at least she couldn’t follow me here. This was a haven, free from monsters and nightmares – this was my final resting place, and rest had never felt so- “We could try for the defence instinct, see if that kicks in, but I wouldn’t feel right about it – not with Teddy out. He seemed attached to her, y’know.”

“That’s not surprising.” Authoritative, but not the authority which ended my nightmarish last moments of living. In any case, it didn’t sound threatening, but ‘defence instinct’ sure did, and I wasn’t hanging around for the consequences of that. It didn’t make sense, but maybe the afterlife was a strange and nonsensical place; I would know nothing until I opened my eyes.

Sometimes, I wish I’d never opened my eyes. A part of me wishes that I had stayed blind to everything, watching little red strings of fate twist and turn behind my eyes, and rested eternally. But hindsight never does me any good, so I went ahead and opened them, expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting. Clouds, maybe. Certainly some kind of whiteness, although that’s probably just childish. Saying that, clouds sound childish now as well, so maybe all of my half-ideas were stupid. It doesn’t matter, really, but I did have some sort of thought about what I was going to see when I opened my eyes, and whatever it turned out to be, it wasn’t what I saw.

Blood. Dark splatters, red, everywhere. Walls, floor, even… people. They weren’t angels. They couldn’t be. Two of them, lounged in ratty armchairs drawn close to me, both looking at each other, still talking, but the words refused to register in my mind. Their clothes – normal, city clothes, hoodies and jackets, jeans, trainers and boots – were drenched in blood, as if they’d just… as if they were… 

The Background

As I’ve mentioned, Twisted Bloodlines was written during NaNoWriMo, which is always a really productive month for me. I think it was probably heavily inspired by my love for Dracula and vampire fiction in general, and the name ‘Kassidy’ for the main character came from one of my closest friends in college, Kassidy, who is also the person who the Cats Collection is dedicated to, which is quite nice. The second edition is longer (80k rather than 50k) but keeps the same main storyline, just refined and adjusted to make for a better overall narrative, in my opinion.

Is It Right For You?

Twisted Bloodlines isn’t really a romance, as I know a lot of supernatural fiction can be, but it’s definitely an action-filled book with a lot of contemplative moments as well. I think I’ve really gone with the idea that being a vampire or becoming a vampire can be a horrific experience which leaves you wondering what life truly means when someone can be both dead and alive at the same time, in a way, and then stuck in that form for… well, the rest of eternity, really. I also love the atmosphere of having a modern world with fantastical elements like vampires, so if you like books like that, you might like Twisted Bloodlines!

Like with Our Paused World, although there’s only a print edition available, it is quite cheap on Amazon, so consider giving it a go!

Twisted Bloodlines can be purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)

Look At A Book: Our Paused World

Welcome to my hundredth blog post! Today, we’re going to be taking an in-depth look at Our Paused World, my short but sweet lockdown-inspired poetry collection. Unlike most of my books, this one is only available as a print edition – but the copies are relatively cheap on Amazon if you’d like to give it a go.

Our Paused WorldThe Essentials

Lockdown-inspired poetry.

Genre: Contemporary Poetry

Age Range: Young Adult and above

Length: 74 pages

Themes: Hope, Nature, Lockdown, Memories, Animals

Excerpt

Two Crows Croak

Two crows croak,
over a red bottle cap,
hopping over roof tiles,
feathers flying like bullets.

A street away,
flocks of pigeons frolic
in blissful union,
on a crumb-filled lawn.

Beneath shady trees,
one brave mother duck
leads a youthful colony
of her playful young.

While, overhead,
a V-shaped battalion
honks at the world,
afraid of no one.

The Background

Our Paused World was an unintentional collection, in that I was just writing poetry to help me stay sane during lockdown and realised that I’d come up with enough poems for a collection. It’s also interesting in that it was the first book of mine that I illustrated myself, and I’m quite proud of the art that I created – you can check it out here. A lot of the poems from Our Paused World can be found for free on my AllPoetry page, which is here, and three of them – Rows, Two Crows Croak and Beyond The Window – were front page picks on that website, which was really cool. I’ve included a couple of the illustrations below!

Is It Right For You?

Obviously, lockdown wasn’t the best time, so if you’re not interested in any sort of reminder of it, this might not be the collection for you. However, if you’d like to read some thoughtful, ‘slice-of-life’ sort of poetry in a nice little collection with some illustrations, then it’d definitely be worth checking out this one!

The hardcover is at a similar price to the paperback on UK Amazon right now too, in case that tickles your fancy!

Our Paused World can be purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)

Look At A Book: Cicerone

Since we’ve already looked at Lighter Fluid, it made sense to me to come to my second novella, quite a different one. This is my darkest fantasy work to date, in my opinion, and it’s got a completely opposite ‘structure’ to Lighter Fluid – instead of a lot of short scenes, this novella contains six longer chapters with an approximately similar wordcount, and it’s my only long-form work that is in second person, which is always interesting. But anyway, let’s get into looking closer at Cicerone!

CiceroneThe Essentials

A dark fantasy novella.

Genre: Dark Fantasy

Age Range: Adult

Length: Novella

Main Character: January, they/them (you – second-person POV)

Themes: Mystery, Insanity/Madness, Crime, Murder, Reality vs Dreams

Excerpt

The uneven hem of her dress swished a little as she turned away, practically skipping over the cobbles in those plain, shape-less shoes – if you were going to wear shoes at all, you could at least put some effort into choosing a decent pair – not even looking to see if there was any traffic she should’ve been aware of. It irked you.

So, all of a sudden, with the scream of an alarmed horse and a sort of muffled, thudding crash, a coach appeared with the steed in a canter which was brutally interrupted by its trampling of Fleur. Her awful dress got caught under its hooves and ripped from her stout body, just as the animal kicked her backwards and her spine met the wooden frame of the coach with a beautiful cracking noise. Her limbs splayed out as breath left her lungs and dark crimson roses blossomed on her skin, reminiscent of a particularly dark wine which was hiding away in the back of your cupboard somewhere, you were sure.

The driver tumbled from his position, perched on his wooden seat, and fell to the cobbles, shouting and flailing his arms about as if that was going to do anything. With a final tug of its head, the horse came loose from the coach and galloped off down the street, forcing several pedestrians to leap out of the way in order to save themselves from the fate which Fleur had fallen foul to.

As a quiet sigh escaped from between your parted lips, you blinked, and all was gone – coach, driver and Fleur, whose true situation was betrayed by the swinging of a door directly opposite you – the building which your agency boss had told you to take her to. It was more than likely that you’d be called on whenever she had to go anywhere important, or even just return to the building which you had escorted her to.

Newcomers found the city particularly daunting, and with good reason. It wasn’t only the towering, monotonous buildings they feared, but the rumours that it wasn’t quite as lifeless as it first seemed. There was a reason why cartography was a forgotten art – even your rooms seemed to wander a little every so often, although they mostly remained close to their neighbours, thankfully. Coach drivers always seemed able to find them with little more than an address – there were more whispers than you cared to mention about the coach drivers themselves, but you did not partake in such a useless hobby as gossiping. Separating truth from fiction was far too time-consuming, and the rewards were often too scarce for it to even be considered as worthwhile.

With the ghost of a smile playing on your lips, and only the slightest hint of disappointment at the fictitious nature of the thoughts lingering in the back of your mind, you turned away from the road and began your journey home. It was only a short way and, without the baggage of Fleur keeping you back, you managed to keep up a good pace. Your lanky legs served their purpose and allowed you to keep said pace without looking entirely ridiculous – you wouldn’t be caught dead jogging or running, especially not in such fine clothes, but a strong walk was entirely respectable.

It even put a sort of formidable aura about you, which you didn’t mind at all. Urchins scurried out of the way and rats scampered from beneath your bare feet as you reached the end of one rain-drizzled street and turned, raising your head for a moment as you paused your walk.

Although the rain muted your senses somewhat, you could still make out the faint calling of must and ink which identified your rooms so clearly, as they were above a used-book shop. They were also usually close to an art gallery badly plagued by damp which itself was beside a quill shop that claimed to have feathers from the most exotic of birds. Most of the names of those avian creatures would make the eyebrows of an ancient scholar shoot upwards, but that was none of your business.

Your feet started forwards of their own accord and your eyes, made close-to-useless by the combination of murky conditions and miserable weather, closed a little contemplatively. Maybe these streets moved about more often than you changed outfits, but you were no ordinary citizen. You were a cicerone.

Strangers, both from outside and inside the city walls, trusted you with, practically, their lives, letting you guide them from place to place without even the burden of having to tip you. The agency trusted your sense of direction enough to give you a small regular salary alongside a generous percentage of your fees. More than anything, you trusted you. Considering all this, the rain and dead hour darkness could go and kiss a certain area of your body – they were not stopping you getting home.

The Background

Cicerone is an odd one for me. It remained half-finished for quite a few years, hiding away on my laptop and waiting for me to rediscover it. I also considered including a poem alongside the chapters of the manuscript which I eventually decided against, but the poem can still be read on my blog here. I’m really glad that I took the time to finish this novella, because I think it’s such an interesting read and one of my more complex works. Although it can be a little head-scratching at times, it’s definitely one to try and sink your teeth into. It’s also my only book – as of now – which I published through KDP rather than Blurb for the print edition, which is an interesting little fact!

Is It Right For You?

As opposed to Lighter Fluid and Everything Under The Rainbow – YA – and The Cats Collection – Middle-Grade – this is a firmly adult-orientated book, in my opinion. It’s dark and it’s got some eerie, almost gothic vibes to it, so if that sounds like your sort of book, then you’ll almost definitely enjoy Cicerone. If you’re not a fan of second-person perspective, then this might not be the book for you, and it does have somewhat of a fragmented narrative, so if you prefer your books to be completely straightforward and going from A to B to C, then this also might not be the best pick. But if you’re looking for some mind-bending, experimental fantasy, then Cicerone could be right for you!

You can check out the eBook for free and let me know what you think!

Cicerone can be read for free here or purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)

Look At A Book: The Cats Collection

Okay so, technically, we’re cheating a little bit today. My last two ‘Look At A Book’ posts have both been, as the title suggests, about one book. However, with Cats Alone, Cats Wild and Cats Home, they kind of have to come as a trio. This is my first ever completed series as a trilogy and my only middle-grade focused books, and Cats Alone was the first book I ever wrote and published, so this series does mean a lot to me. If you’re as excited to take a closer look at The Cats Collection as I am, let’s get right into it!

Everything Under The RainbowThe Essentials

A heart-warming feline trilogy.

Genre: Animal Fiction

Age Range: Middle-Grade

Length: Three Short Novels

Main Character: Shadow, he/him

Themes: Family/Found Family, Overcoming Trauma, Abandonment, Friendship, Survival, Growing Up, Parenthood

Excerpt – From Cats Alone

Dawn is pale, yellow-gold fingers stretching through the windowpanes and stroking my back and my face. It twinges my whiskers until I wake up. Today, the sun feels cold; it isn’t freezing, but it’s cold enough to be different from the normal air. Cold enough to tell me… this is wrong.

Bolting upright, I begin to pace, alarmed. What is it? What is… something is missing. Joseph. Joseph! He’s not here. There’s no scent, there’s no warmth, and there’s no body. He’s gone.

Eyes wide, I turn to see everyone else still asleep—the twins on the arms of the chair, Sophia just next to me and Tess on the floor, next to where Joseph’s legs were settled last night. I need them. I need help.

‘Ruby! Where’s Joseph?’ While she is waking up, I strain my ears to hear the sound of distant footsteps, of furniture being moved around, of anything! But there’s nothing. Just deafening silence.

‘Is he not here?’ She’s up now, hopping past me to get to Sapphire. She pats and rubs her head against her twin to wake her up. ‘Did you hear anything last night, Saph? Anything?’

‘What’s all the fuss about?’ Now Tess is awake and Sophia is moving, mewing a yawn, so that’s everyone. ‘Where has the man gone?’

‘That’s Joseph, to you!’ Ruby snaps, turning on Tess and arching her back. ‘What have you done with him, dog? As soon as you show up, he disappears!’

‘I’ve only just woken up, the same as you,’ Tess assures her, stepping back, ‘I don’t know anything, dear…’

Ruby’s next outburst is interrupted by scratching. Whining. The sounds we know well; the sounds that we fear. The sounds that Sophia has whimpering nightmares about. But this time, they don’t stop. The scratching becomes louder as the whining becomes barking.

Bark. Scratch. Bark. Splinter. Scrape.

Flying to Sophia, I put a paw over her and keep her close. Sapphire flees to Ruby, the two almost becoming one.

Howl. Rip. Shred.

Tess begins to near the kitchen door even as I meow at her to stop. She needs to get back before she is torn to pieces. I can see it playing out in my mind: the monster flying out in a storm of wood and rubbish, right into Tess—

With a final crash, he appears. White skin stretches across his ribs so that you can see every bone. His eyes are wide, with the bright whites showing. His paws shovel buckets of rubbish away as he picks himself up off the floor and rushes out of the crater he’s created. No! He’s heading straight towards the brave dog who stands between him and us.

Tess!

But he stops, panting. His short ears are flopped over and one of his huge eyes is splashed with brown. He has a body that should be built like a barrel, but it’s all bone and hair. Desperation burns in his eyes, brighter than any emotion I’ve ever seen before. His tail bats against the kitchen door: thud, thud, thud.

No one breathes. I can’t blink. This is it. Joseph is gone and the monster is unleashed. Everything has spiralled into chaos and there’s nothing I can do but watch.

The Background

As I mentioned above, Cats Alone was the first book I ever published. At first, it was only available in print and I think it sold one or two copies in the few years that it took me to start looking at writing and publishing books as a serious thing. Obviously, it was nowhere near the level that I expect my current books to be at during that time, so I’m glad that only a few people read it in that state, but regardless, I’m still proud of it. It also had my previous or deadname initials on the front, which definitely doesn’t feel great to look back on, but I still have a copy hanging around my bookshelf. Oddly enough, the first print edition was also larger (in height) than any of my other books – still not sure why that happened, haha. Cats Alone taught me a lot about what I can accomplish when I set my mind to something, and the fact that I revamped and picked up the series and then finished it is just a personal testament, for me, to the fact that this is my true passion. I always intended for Cats Alone to have two sequels, and I think I had the names in mind as well back then, but seeing it completed is just an amazing feeling. I’m going to be releasing a special print edition with all three books in one in it too, soon, which is definitely going to look great, so watch out for that! I also like that the first edition was dedicated to my brother, and each following edition of each of the books has been dedicated to Kassidy, one of my really good friends who I met in college. I think that’s one of the loveliest parts of being an author – I can preserve shards of my relationships with my loved ones in the written art that I create. I’ve also included the first edition covers of Cats Alone below, which obviously aren’t the best-looking, but I think it’s an interesting visual marker of how far I’ve come in my publishing journey.

Is It Right For You?

The Cats Collection is a really interesting one with regard to audience. Although it’s intended for a middle-grade audience (i.e. slightly younger than YA, for others from the UK I was using the space between Year Six and Year Seven as a general guiding point), both teenagers and adults have read the books and enjoyed them, so I really don’t think there’s a definite limit here. As a prerequisite, I would say that liking cats in general is probably a good idea if you’re planning to dive into this series, and being okay with extending your suspension of disbelief to include those cats being able to talk to each other and other animals. Trust me, I considered writing Cats Alone as a completely dialogue-free novel for this purpose, and I really think including speech was the best way to go.

But hey, why not get started with the first book and let me know what you think?

Cats Alone can be read for free here or purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)

Look At A Book: Everything Under The Rainbow

This week, I’m highlighting my most popular print book and third most popular ebook (behind Lighter Fluid, which I covered last week, and Cats Alone). This is probably the book that I’m most proud of out of all of my releases and the one that has had the most positive impact on my readers, that I know of (if you’ve read and enjoyed this book, feel free to let me know in a comment below!). It’s also my only short story collection as of right now, so that makes it even more special! Without any further ado, let’s take a closer look at Everything Under The Rainbow!

Everything Under The RainbowThe Essentials

A short story/advice collection for LGBT+ teens in the UK.

Genre: Contemporary, LGBT+, Short Stories

Age Range: Young Adult

Length: Twenty Short Stories

Themes: LGBT+ issues for young people in the UK (family, bullying, identity, friends, school, mental health, etc.)

Excerpt – From ‘Smoke Rings & Pride Flags’

“So, what are you here for?” Incredibly grateful for Leo’s question, I leapt out of my depressing thoughts and rushed to find an answer for him.

“I’m bisexual!” For a few seconds, I didn’t understand why he was laughing. I didn’t really mind—his laughter was nice to listen to, just like his voice but with an added helping of joy. Then, it hit me.

“Thanks for telling me, but I sort of meant ‘I’m here to make friends’ or ‘I’m here to change the world’,” he used air quotes for each little reason, “like, I’m here because a youth worker dragged me here. ‘Beneficial for my mental health’, or something like that. So, wanna try that again?”

“I—uh, they came into school. Shirley and Mike,” he nodded, so I kept going, “and, at the end of the assembly, I sort of went and asked if I could join. I think—I think I just wanted to make friends.”

“Support system,” he said knowingly, taking another drag from the half-gone cigarette, “that makes sense. You automatically have something in common with everyone here. Even those lot,” he pointed his cigarette at the crowd, who had started arguing over who got to wear the pride flag, “if you can believe it. Yeah, that’s fair enough. You’ll fit in just fine, give it a couple weeks.”

“Did you…” not really knowing how to phrase the question, I thought for a few seconds, giving Leo the chance to take a long, long drag on his cigarette, before puffing out something which looked sort of like a deformed ring, “did you feel scared, or sort of alone, when you first came here?”

“I mean, I was here when it all started, so everyone was a bit new and nervous,” his eyes became a little distant, maybe looking into memories from long ago, “it’s probably worse for you, joining when everyone already knows each other. It’s the difference between going from primary to high school and going to a new school in the middle of the year, you know?”

“That makes sense,” I leaned back onto the bench a little, regretting it as the cold metal sent a chill through my back. Leo glanced over.

“Bring a coat next week,” he advised me, the knowledgeable tone back in his voice.

Casually, he draped his arm around me.

Blinking a little, I wondered what to do for a second. It only took that second for my nervousness to be shouted over by a need for warmth. Leaning my head onto his chest, I fell into a warm embrace which smelled like cigarettes and the boys’ changing rooms at school: cheap deodorant. Somewhat reassuringly, there was nothing ‘else’ about the interaction—no roaming hands, no close face, no whispered words. Just a hug. A sideways hug, but a hug nonetheless.

I hadn’t been hugged in years.

The Background

Everything Under The Rainbow actually came about in a quite interesting way. In my second year of college, I chose to do an Extended Project Qualification alongside my three A-Levels, initially intending to release the second edition of Twisted Bloodlines for the project. The teacher in charge of the elective advised me to really go out of my comfort zone and do something a bit different, but I was still dead set on writing a book for this EPQ, so I decided to go with a short story collection. Then, I thought about what I could add to it – whether it could be a genuinely helpful resource, as well as some entertaining and relatable fiction. After a lot of research and many drafts (and a ridiculously long final report, which I didn’t realise was going to be printed out by my teacher and could probably be used as a weapon due to its weight), Everything Under The Rainbow was released into the world! It’s dedicated to BYOU, my local youth LGBT+ voice group, and, to my delight, led to a couple of articles and even an interview on BBC Radio Manchester! Below, you can see some of the early drafts for covers of Everything Under The Rainbow.

Is It Right For You?

Although I have a pretty specific target audience of LGBT+ teens in the UK for this short story collection, I think the fiction and advice can be enjoyed and appreciated by a wide variety of people. If you’re the parent or carer of an LGBT+ young person, you might like the insight into a teen’s perspective and the resources in the collection could be helpful too. Equally, this is why I think it might be a good read for teachers and other people who work with young people. But really, regardless of your closeness with the LGBT+ community, it’s always interesting to see different perspectives, and this collection follows twenty different perspectives associated with the LGBT+ community – so why not give it a try?

Lighter Fluid can be read for free here or purchased here, if you’d like to support me!

(You can also tip me on my Ko-Fi page if you’d like to help out more directly!)