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It occurred to me recently that I write reviews for hotels, but not for books. I have an account with Goodreads and at best, I sometimes leave a star rating. I have been thinking why this is. I write stories and I publish them. Surely I should review books too? Well I have come to the conclusion that books change as I change, but that hotel experience will always stay the same. I remember reading Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City as a teenager and it hitting a chord. It made me realise that there are people out there, people on the edge of society, who are trying to lead their lives and be happy. I so wanted to live in Mrs Madrigal’s apartment building. They were all young, starting out, making mistakes and having fun. The book inspired me in many ways. To go out into the world and meet people who are not the same as me. To move to different places that were not the same as where I grew up. I wanted to open my mind to it all and be independent. I started to reread Tales of the City recently and it bought back nostalgia of time I once I had, but that was all. I could see clearly that today I want different things. I have moved on in my life. I still want independence and an open mind, but I want my own home and a family, next door to Mrs Madrigal. Ha ha! Okay, perhaps I have not moved on that much. I expect Mrs Madrigal would be a great neighbour. The series is still good, but it means something different to me today. How could I put a star rating on that? The Tales of the City also inspired a dream all those years ago. That was to one day visit San Francisco. This is a dream I fulfilled a few weeks ago. Flying over California into San Francisco’s airport was just amazing. There is a great sense of achievement arriving somewhere after 12 hours of rattling away in a tin can over the Atlantic Ocean. My second sense of achievement was cycling through mad San Fran rush hour traffic. Cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge was a breeze in comparison. We spent two weeks travelling down Highway 1, from San Francisco to Los Angeles. My favourite stop was in Pismo Beach. It is described as a nostalgic Californian town and I wished I could have stayed an extra day. Pismo is a place of surf, sun and cool signs   Now I am back in Sweden and I have recovered from the jet lag. The trip seems a bit unreal, a blur even. This is what big trips are like. It takes time to take it all in. I have a few more weeks to relax before going back to school. There is sunshine forecast and I will be making the most of beaches, hanging out in cafes and even a boat trip out to the Gothenburg archipelago. I will be squeezing in a few posts too and some editing on a short story I have written. It is good to be back.
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I would like to introduce Anela Deen. I know Anela through her book review blog https://amidtheimaginary.wordpress.com/ I contacted Anela about my books asking if she would like to review them, which she did. Luckily she liked them too. I loved her bio explaining that she is a 'Hapa Haole Hawaiian girl living in chilly Minnesota.' I have always seen beautiful pictures of Hawaii and one the best things about publishing is making contact with people from all around the world. Anela contacted me in June to let me know that she had written and published some stories. I know from experience how much work this takes. Writing, redrafting, editing, getting beta readers, finding a good editor, book covers, formatting, publicising the work and the list goes on. So today, I lend a hand of support to someone who taken their first steps into publishing and I wish her well. From conflicts in space to battles of blade and flame, explore Anela Deen’s speculative fiction below.  In a not so distant future, an unprepared humanity barely managed to repel the Locusts when they invaded Earth. But the long war left its mark on mankind and the Establishment was founded to ensure it would never come so close to destruction from an alien force again. Now, decades later, the world is run by this single governing entity. Loyalty is rewarded. Disloyalty is met with corrective action. As an inquisitor for the past twenty years Gemson used torture and interrogation to root out subversives. He’d worked hard to earn his cold, hard reputation. Now he finds himself on the subject’s side of the interrogation table. Loyalty? Some bonds transcend the laws of state.  In a not so distant future, an unprepared humanity barely managed to repel the Locusts when they invaded Earth. But the long war left its mark on mankind and the Establishment was founded to ensure it would never come so close to destruction from an alien force again. Now, decades later, the world is run by this single governing entity. Loyalty is rewarded. Disloyalty is met with corrective action. For Ellie, the job of an analyst was simple: Evaluate her target’s patterns, make a virtual connection, garner trust, and ascertain identity and location. Falling in love with the Albatross — the Establishment’s most notorious subversive and leader of the insurgency — complicates matters. Now she’ll have to decide which to betray: her duty or her heart.  In a not so distant future, an unprepared humanity barely managed to repel the Locusts when they invaded Earth. But the long war left its mark on mankind and the Establishment was founded to ensure it would never come so close to destruction from an alien force again. Now, decades later, the world is run by this single governing entity. Loyalty is rewarded. Disloyalty is met with corrective action.  A mysterious blight devastates the world of Aeden. The Vehlek–dark, immortal guardians of Aeden–have used their power to combat it through a blood sacrifice, one given every season from each of the four peoples. For generations this has diminished the Blight’s destructive force. Now their power wanes and the sickness worsens. Their scripture speaks of Providence, of mortals whose blood, combined with their power, can end it. But as yet, there has been no sign of them. On the secluded islands of Malua, the Blight rots the land and destroys the harvests. The change of the tide marks the new season, and with it, the need for a blood sacrifice. For Maleia, daughter of a murdered king, wife to a usurper’s son, her hopes to reclaim her father’s throne are dashed when her child is stillborn. To her horror, the usurper king intends to use her daughter’s remains as the blood offering, condemning her small spirit to wander lost and alone. As the Vehlek emerge from their fiery underground caverns to claim the sacrifice, she commits a desperate act to take her daughter’s place, an act that unintentionally binds her to one of these strange, immortal men, and later reveals her to be an integral part of Providence as foretold by their scriptures. While seeking out others like her, the Vehlek will guide her on her journey to the mainland to fulfill her destiny.The road is perilous, not least because her father’s murderer travels with her, and the Blight haunts their steps at every turn. With the lives of all hanging in the balance, and time running out, they will either cure their failing world through blood and flame, or see it fall to ruin.  A child of two cultures, this hapa haole Hawaiian girl is currently landlocked in the Midwest. After exploring the world for a chunk of years, she hunkered down in Minnesota and now fills her days with family, fiction, and the occasional snowstorm. With a house full of lovable toddlers, a three legged cat, and one handsome Dutchman, she prowls the keyboard late at night while the minions sleep. Coffee? Nah, she prefers tea with copious amounts of sarcasm. |
AuthorA.J. York is a middle grade and children's writer. Author of Delilah Dusticle, Eliza Bluebell and A Fairy Extraordinary Christmas Story. A.J York has a Swedish and British background and currently lives in Gothenburg, Sweden. Archives
December 2017
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