Kris Pearson's Blog, page 3

All my books reduced in the UK

The UK government has just taken to 20% VAT off books, so I've burrowed around in the Amazon files and reduced all my prices accordingly. What a job! 31 pages to find, half a dozen clicks each to get to the right place, then some more to delete the old price, fill in the new one, and confirm. Around 430 clicks! They're basically two pounds and fifty pence now, and four pounds and ninety-nine pence for the box-sets of three. A nice saving for you. 

Romancing the Summer - a new box-set

 

I was lucky enough to be part of the team who wrote the Christmas-themed box-set ROMANCING THE HOLIDAYS. We released it as a short-term project early November 2019. It went off like a rocket and stayed amazingly high in the Amazon charts for many weeks.

Well, the same group of friends, minus a couple, plus a couple, has been hard at work again, inspired by the beautiful cover our designer Charmaine created for us. The set is now on pre-order at Amazon for a mid-July launch.

It’s real fun working as a group! I’m not saying it gets lonely writing on your own but there’s a special bond among us now, and we’re all happy to put in extra effort and not let the others down.

We hope you enjoy our widely differing novellas – different locations and characters of course – and we’d love to hear your comments in reviews on the Amazon page, or on Goodreads.

A drive in the countryside

Our lockdown is over so my sister could finally move house. Philip and I loaded up the van and travelled north for four hours to check out the new abode and install curtain tracks and curtains for her. It was a fast but pretty trip. Here’s the view from the van window as we bowled along the grandly-named Centennial Highway, not far north of Wellington. A lovely fine day, and with the longest, thinnest cloud I’ve ever seen. The South Island isn’t far away – you can catch a glimpse of snow on the Kaikoura mountains there.

There’d just been a 3-day holiday weekend, and enough traffic on the roads to have accidents again. (At least Covid-19 had one good effect.) Anyway, we kept clear of the holiday traffic, and on weekdays it seemed almost everyone else did too. This is the main highway north – not many people wanted it except us.

It was so nice to catch up with my sis again. What with having a knee too bad to drive with, and then a new joint so I couldn’t, and then lockdown, it felt like ages since I’d seen her. The house is a 1930’s timber bungalow. Ours was built in 1914. We like old houses in this family.

News for May 23 - Serenity has a broomstick!

This week’s best news is a delightfully different series of books by my friend Serenity Woods.  I’ll bet you know her for her contemporary romances – sizzling hot stories, mostly set in the sub-tropical north of New Zealand.

Well, we authors like a change sometimes, and Serenity has embarked on a new series called The Avalon Café. This makes great use of her love of history, and because they’re so different from her other books, she’s written them as Hermione Moon.  The covers tell you why – yes, witches! And King Arthur!

  

Because she and I swap notes quite often, and generally act as part of each other’s proof-reading team, I can guarantee you they’re a lovely read.  Here’s the teaser for the first one:

Every girl needs a knight in shining armour…

When kitchen witch Gwen Young discovers the spirit of King Arthur in the suit of armour that stands in her café only an hour after finding a dead body in the library, she knows it’s going to be a very strange day…

Yes, strange things definitely happen in The Avalon Café. Gorgeously strange things. Read on for the rest.

A new novella for you, and a free book

There's two for the price of one this week. Well, sort of.

We start with the Bennett twins who spelled double trouble for Gabriella Clifton. A year of study in London with the handsome brothers ended with souvenirs she never expected.

Twenty years later, home in New Zealand, a surprise visit from Donny Bennett turns her world upside down. Can she trust his words? Can she believe her eyes? Can she guard her heart against his unrelenting charm offensive?

As the Christmas sun shines down on the big old house by the sea, Gabi must decide the shape of her future.

Exclusive to Amazon for now, and FREE to read on Amazon Unlimited

I loved writing this. Apart from anything else it gave me the chance to re-visit London, and I even sneaked the location of my old flat into the story.

Memories! Did I ever meet anyone with as much charisma as the Bennett boys? Maybe yes - but I'm not saying more. I can't give all my secrets away...

* * * * 

Second piece of news: Resisting Nick is FREE for five days.

An oldie but a goodie. 

A new novella for you

The Bennett twins spell double trouble for Gabriella Clifton. A year of study in London with the handsome brothers ends with souvenirs she never expected.

Twenty years later, home in New Zealand, a surprise visit from Donny Bennett turns her world upside down. Can she trust his words? Can she believe her eyes? Can she guard her heart against his unrelenting charm offensive?

As the Christmas sun shines down on the big old house by the sea, Gabi must decide the shape of her future.

Exclusive to Amazon for now, and FREE to read on Amazon Unlimited

I loved writing this. Apart from anything else it gave me the chance to re-visit London, and I even sneaked the location of my old flat into the story.

Memories! Did I ever meet anyone with as much charisma as the Bennett boys? Maybe yes - but I'm not saying more. I can't give all my secrets away...

All for one, and one for all.

This is nice! Our friend Leeanna Morgan decided to cheer up all the local locked-in authors and their locked-in readers by co-ordinating a range of forty-plus books and putting them on a special page of her website. You might find authors here you’ve never heard of. Or new books from favourite authors.

 

So if you’re looking for crazy Scotsmen, dragons, historical romance, women’s fiction, psychological thrillers and cozy mysteries, click on https://bit.ly/34TIdlf  and that will take you through to more than 40 books to have a look at. Don’t leave it too long though – the selection won’t be there forever.

Some of the authors are right here - this is me and Leeanna and Diana K Holmes and Moira Kay all waiting for a plane to a conference a while ago. We're not going anywhere now...

 

News on April 25 - Apple Shortcake

It's funny what attracts peoples’ attention. I made the briefest of mentions in my recent newsletter that our tree was full of apples and I was baking Apple Shortcake.  Pandemonium – lots of you wanted the recipe, so if you’d like to make it, here it is:

Years ago, at an advertising agency where I worked, our Scottish accounts lady turned on a spectacular farewell morning tea. Her Apple Shortcake was so nice that I asked for the recipe - and this is what she gave me, scrawled out quickly in pencil. It has been tucked into my favourite recipes folder for maybe forty years.

However, I do realise it’s a little short on detail, so I’ve written you out a better version below. For guidance, the flan dish in the photo is 20cm or 8 inches wide. I’ve also made double in a much bigger one.

OK, you’ll need stewed apples or canned apple pie filling, well drained. Add sugar to taste, and a good sprinkle of powdered cloves.

Saying goodbye to the begonias

The days are drawing in. The leaves are falling off (or more likely being ripped off by the wind.) My pots of tuberous begonias – out on the sunny deck and in the conservatory – are now past their best.

I’ve gathered up the prettiest of what’s left for this photo for you.  The colours are fantastic, and I couldn’t resist putting a few bright coleus leaves around the edges. I’m a big fan of colourful. You can tell that from my website! But over the next few days I need to cut the remaining tops off and lay all the pots on their sides to dry out. Then I’ll dig the tubers out with whatever roots remain and store them in the garden shed until the weather warms up again.

I never fail to be astonished they can go months without water and then pop out tiny juicy buds as a signal to me to plant them up again. And off they go – as this older shot shows.

The ones I grow year after year in the conservatory are the hanging variety. I bought those tubers at the Camellia Convention in Blenheim in our South Island. That means they’re at least thirty years old, which is a pretty shattering thought. Begonias are good value for money – see what you can find next spring.

The Amazing Life of my Spanish Translator

I often get emails from readers. It’s always interesting to hear what’s going on in their lives. Several years ago I received a message saying, “I’d love to translate your books into Spanish. It’s one of the world’s most widely spoken languages, and I’m sure Spanish-speaking people would enjoy your stories.”

I’d been looking at translation costs, and to do a proper job there’s A LOT of work involved, and therefore a lot of money.

Then she wrote again, telling me she was a conference translator for the EU, travelling most weeks between her home in Barcelona and the EU headquarters in Brussels. That she’d also translated documents for the Vatican, and that she’d make me a nice price because she’d really like to get further into book translating. Here she is, speaking at a very special event at the United Arab Emirates Consulate in Barcelona. The Dalai Lama was among the guests.

Going backwards a few years, my books had been doing well and there was some spare cash. Off we went. I could afford four to start with, and over the time it took to translate them, she and I developed a real friendship.