This Too Shall Pass

This is not the blog I thought I’d be writing. What a difference a month makes. We find ourselves in very strange times – and very scary. The march of Covid-19 across the world makes it seem as if we’re living in the pages of a book. Except this isn’t fiction any more. This is reality. I suppose we can only be grateful that we still have books to escape into.

With that in mind, I read this article from the Guardian the other day about all those people out there in self isolation who now have the opportunity to write the book they always meant to write. Obviously, time remains a precious commodity for many and, if you have young children at home, you probably have even less of it than you used to, even if you’re not out at work any longer. However, if writing is something you always wished you could do and you do have spare hours in the day, then there’s no time like the present. Writing can be both cathartic and all-encompassing. There are occasions when I’m so wholly involved in a story I’m producing that I can think of nothing else. I feel my characters so deeply that I cry when they hurt and smile when they achieve success (we won’t go into that time when I was dabbling in dictation and, while deep in a sex scene, was interrupted by a friend at the door).

If you’d rather read than write, then this is a great time to hit that TBR list. I have a series that was published last year, imagining an entire city going into lockdown because of an outbreak of dangerous magic. You can check it out here.  If that's too close to home, however, and like me you’re looking for something to take you away from reality rather than remind you of it, there are lots of other wonderful books out there.

Jennifer Estep has just released the third book in her A Crown of Shards series. It’s an “action-packed adventure full of magic, murderous machinations, courtly intrigue, and pulse-pounding romance.” Click here for more details. 

Perhaps you'd rather potter around while listening to an audiobook. If you have Spotify, you can listen to CN Crawford’s Dark King series here.

For those of you who’d like a longer series to really get stuck into, there are eleven books in Debra Dunbar’s fabulously funny and irreverent Imp series. The first three are right here. 

Annie Bellet has also just completed her long running, highly acclaimed 20 Sided Sorceress series. The first book, Justice Calling, is available here, and both it and the second book, Murder of Crows, are currently available for only 99c each.

And if you’re looking for a whole host of different titles, there are plenty of multi-author titles out there, just like Urban Mythic here!

Comment below with other titles you’d recommend, or let us know if you’re starting to write yourself. And in the meantime, please stay safe.

Helen xxx

Happy birthday to me!? - Erin Zarro

Today is my forty-fourth birthday. Forty-four years in this world.

Feels like forever, but it also feels like a blink. Why does time seem to go by faster as we age? There's a theory that if you're ten, for an example, one year is one tenth of your life — so it seems to go by slower. But once you hit, say, forty, one year is one fortieth of your life — a smaller piece of time, so it goes by faster. I'm not sure if that's the reason, but it is an interesting idea.

The thing about being born today is that I'm on the cusp of winter and spring. So, more often than not, the weather isn't so great. I love spring, when the world wakes up from its long slumber. The snow melts, flowers bloom, and birds fly overhead. It's a magical time.

I'm an Aries. Very typically Aries — passionate, fiery, a leader, not a follower. Sometimes I think the fire of my birth sign is actually within me because I can get very passionate and I can burn hotter than the sun when I'm angry. I actually have a phobia/fascination with fire that has intrigued me for years. I can't strike a match, but fire finds its way into my stories. Maybe I was burned in a past life? I've got huge birthmark running from my feet to my thigh and from my shoulder to my hand on the left side only. Things to ponder.

Another interesting fact about me is that I was actually due on my grandmother's birthday, April 12. What makes this truly amazing is that she and I have so much in common — she was a writer/poet, she was chronically ill, and she and I have some of the same personality traits. She passed when I was eleven, so I didn't know her as well as I wish I did, but I still feel a very strong connection to her, even now.

So today we're taking our cat to the vet to get fluids. We've been trying for eight weeks with limited success. Yesterday was impossible. The vet will take her out of the car and bring her back after, so it's pretty low risk. I feel like we failed. :( But truly, she's so damn feisty, even for a senior cat.