Showing posts with label #book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #book. Show all posts

Tuesday, 28 April 2020

Imagination

Hi, Everyone.
Famous Scientists Who Tapped Into Magic & Imagination to Change ...
I thought I'd make a post concerning symbolic visual knowledge and imagination. I'm a pretty curious person with bundles of imagination, and so research a lot about many varied things. One of my favourite topics is origins and cosmology. When writing 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers', I wanted to create a cosmology for my beings called The Sindria and understand their environment. The mind is amazing when it's set free to wander the realm of possibility and along the way connections of patterns are made. This is where the creative mind/consciousness plays with what if's with no boundaries. If there's a problem that needs solving, imagination can take you there. Then, all you need do is research the science behind what you imagined or try and piece together scientific evidence/hypothesis that will back-up your theory to make it viable.
It's why I love Einstein's quote: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."
Building a Matrix with reinforcement learning and artificial ...
“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
― Albert Einstein

Some more on imagination:

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”
― J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.”
― Patricia Highsmith

“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.”
― Maria Montessori

“Our imagination flies -- we are its shadow on the earth.”
― Vladimir Nabokov

“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”
― Jonathan Swift

“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
― Lewis Carroll

“Children see magic because they look for it.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.”
― Mark Twain

Okay, enough with the quotes, but you see how imagination is everything.

Jonathan Wolstenholme. a book character, journals his experiences, and growing knowledge of the Sidhe, supernaturals. Through researching ancient symbolic visuals, he discovers that the ouroboros, a symbol in the form of a snake biting its own tail, used especially in ancient Egypt and in Hermetic philosophy, as an emblem of eternity meant the cycle of birth and death. That one end represented the beginning and the other, the end. 

He pondered on this a while, what would be interpreted as such in our known universe? He pictured a snake across the heavens as the Aborigines Rainbow Serpent and Dreamtime. The Dreamtime is the period in which life was created according to Aboriginal culture. Dreaming is the word used to explain how life came to be; it is the stories and beliefs behind creation. 

The Rainbow Serpent or Rainbow Snake, a creator god. What would it look like? Jonathan envisaged a massive black hole as the point of rebirth, as exploded from the belly of the snake (center of a black hole) and the pinprick black holes or possibly white holes, being the ones that haven't exploded yet. All would contain within their belly the primordial soup which makes a world. This would also match the theory of the big bang and many spiritual teachings of returning to the source, and the cycles of karma, which the Sidhe called Vo-ror-bla. He speculated that consciousness/soul were the same things, alive but untangible. What if, pieces of matter and light were sucked in from the holes and expelled at the end, creating other universes, even replicas of us as all? Parallel universes perhaps, due to the invisible information/building blocks of life being the same stuff as ours, passed through. Would these building blocks replicate our own? Was that one form of quantum entanglement connecting us all? 

Jonathan mentally noted the snake in mythology and symbols such as Yin/Yang, the infinity symbol and many more, all contained creation stories, balance of the universal power, and cycles of life and death. So, the ancients were indeed using imagery to depict the story of creation but along the way, text and literal interpretation got in the way. The spiritual interpretations of the visuals not understood by mainstream academia logic, and maybe, were classified wrongly as myth and folklore. The truth of many things concerning our histories became lost because of a logical perspective and disconnecting from ourselves spiritually, leaving that task to religion, external influence. 

Everything needs balance he concluded, including the decoding of our origins, Mind (logic), Heart (feels/spirit/essence), and Soul (spiritual consciousness). The trio that religion oft depicts, that our law courts state a thing three times, even commands are given three times in order to verify that the message is being given intentionally. Writers and artists use the rule of three. The Latin phrase "omne trium perfectum" (everything that comes in threes is perfect, or, every set of three is complete) conveys the same idea as the rule of three. Three/Thrice/Trio/Triad...the lure of three...his mind drifted to numerology and jumped to Tesla's Key to the universe...vibration, energy frequency. 3...6...9  The Universe...

The above isn't in the books, it's research and philosophical ramblings. I create Jonathan's journals to better understand the character/the realms/origins through concepts/theories that come to me. Without imagination, all stories would be the same. It is the perspective of the writer which creates a new idea for a story told millions of times already but from different eyes. This, to me, is imagination connecting the dots/patterns to a very ancient puzzle where pieces were destroyed/lost /misinterpreted during the linear time. Imagination fills these lost spaces in the puzzle, and from different writers, we see the many aspects of the same/origin puzzle piece.
Imagination is Actually Magic. Seriously. – Action Plan Marketing
 “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely, but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

― Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review
5 Reasons Imagination Is More Important Than Knowledge
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Monday, 11 March 2019

Free on Amazon Kindle - A Second Edition with New Cover - Ends Today.

A Carpet of Purple Flowers: Book One on Kindle 
(Second Edition - includes an extra chapter)


Two Worlds - Three Hearts - Four Souls.

Editorial Reviews -

A truly unique premise that merges the spiritual with the paranormal in a very interesting way. I highly recommend. 
— Cate Hogan, Developmental Editor, Washington Post & USA Today

Fantasy fans will wait eagerly for the next instalment in McCartney’s series, enchanted by the complicated love story and the surprising ending. 
— Amy Dittmeier, Booklist, American Library Association

This is the first paranormal romance I have ever read and found it an enjoyable introduction to the genre. It has an original premise and a collection of strong characters. The ending is packed with drama and the ultimate resolution is a surprise. The plot and subplots are strong. 
~ Honey Badger's Bookclub

love and light,
Trace
xoxo


Tuesday, 13 June 2017

Book of Kolbrin ~ Truth or Fiction?

Source ~ HERE
If you’ve even heard of the Kolbrin, you’re in a minority. It has been languishing quietly in print for just a couple of decades. The Kolbrin is a collection of eleven books, six Egyptian and five Celtic, first published in New Zealand in 1994 by the Hope Trust (now dissolved) and the Culdian Trust, a metaphysical organisation based loosely on the original ‘Culdees’ or Celtic followers of Christianity brought to south-west Britain by Joseph of Arimathea in the 1st century AD.
Source ~ HERE
No-one knows what the word ‘Kolbrin’ means. It’s probably a garbled version of the Welsh word Coelbren, meaning either the name of a village south-west of the Brecon Beacons National Park, or Coelbren y Beirdd, a supposed ‘druidic’ alphabet allegedly invented by the writer Iolo Morganwg (1747-1826) whose validity has been questioned by scholars. Some have suggested that Iolo Morganwg himself forged the Kolbrin.
People also say the Kolbrin and its accompanying book the Kailedy (an ancient British term meaning ‘wise strangers’) are channelled. Not so, says the Culdian Trust. The Trust publishes a number of channelled texts, but insists that both the Kolbrin and the Kailedy come from another source altogether: they were brought over to New Zealand from the UK as typescripts and set out with an introductory history by an elderly merchant seaman who attended gorsedds (councils of Welsh or other Celtic bards and Druids), belonged to a hermetic organisation, and died in the 1990s.
The Nine Unknown Men ~ a secret society founded by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka around 270 BC to preserve and develop knowledge that would be dangerous to humanity if it fell into the wrong hands. The nine unknown men were entrusted with guarding nine books of secret knowledge.
Lake Como, Italy
A hardback cloth version of the Kolbrin is available online direct from Goodeys Bookshop in Auckland and via a web link on the Culdian Trust’s website. The advantage of this New Zealand version is that it carries the all-important Dedication, Foreword, Introduction, Salutation and end-matter (which can also be read on the website).
In 2005 the Kolbrin was pirated and published in paperback as a ‘bible’ by Your Own World Books in Nevada, USA. Yowbooks’ versions are available online in laminated hardback and paperback and include:

  • The Kolbrin Bible: 21st Century Master Edition (complete edition)
  • Egyptian Texts of the Bronzebook: the first six books
  • Celtic Texts of the Coelbook: the last five books
  • Kindle edition.

These paperbacks have numbered paragraphs for easy reference, but do not include the all-important preliminary and end material. Instead, the US publishers have tried to reconstruct the history of the Kolbrin text. They think it might have been written in Egyptian hieratic script after the Exodus of the Jews, then translated into Phoenician script and taken to Britain (among other ports of call) on trading ships; from there it would have been rendered into Old Celtic/Brythonic, then Old English, then Biblical English and on into modern English. They reckon that the Celtic books were written between 20 and 500 AD. The historical accuracy of their introduction has been questioned.
If you were to sit down and read the Kolbrin from start to finish, chances are you’d be utterly baffled, because what now exists is only a patchwork remnant of the original.

How did so much of the text get lost? Well, according to the Introduction, the Kolbrin manuscripts were salvaged from Glastonbury Abbey at the time of the great 1184 fire which destroyed virtually all the buildings and many of its treasures. We are told that the fire was arson intended to destroy the heretical manuscripts in the library, but the Kolbrin manuscripts – which have been considered heretical on many levels – were secretly housed elsewhere at the time and preserved.
Note: King Arthur's Tomb ~ READ HERE

Jumping forward several hundred years, we know that the manuscripts were looked after by a group called the Culdians who were descended from a 14th-century Scottish community led by a man called John Culdy. These later Culdians were travelling smiths and craftsmen, sometimes known as ‘Koferils’, who followed the beliefs of those Celtic Culdees I mentioned earlier, (from the Gaelic Culdich/Domesday Book quidam advanae Culdich or ‘certain strangers’). At an unknown date some of the manuscripts were transcribed on to metal plates and became known as The Bronzebook of Britain; under this title they were written down in book form in the 17th century. The text was modernised in the late 19th/early 20th century, incorporating some salvaged Celtic manuscripts which had not been transcribed on to metal plates, known as the Coelbook. We also know that for a period of time the Kolbrin was buried under a stone cairn in the mountains of Wales.
Asthma History: 2000 B.C.: Chaldeans introduce physicians to Babylon
During the 1920s and 1930s these books were kept by a little-known religious group. During World War II the books were thrown out as worthless junk, then salvaged.

Originally, the Introduction tells us, there were five great book-boxes containing 132 scrolls and five ring-bound volumes which comprised The Great Book of the Egyptians. But over the centuries many of the books have been lost or destroyed – the Lesser Book of the Egyptians, the Book of the Trial of the Great God, the Sacred Register, the Book of Establishment, the Book of Magical Concoctions, the Book of Songs, the Book of Creation and Destruction, and the Book of Tribulation have all gone.
The introduction to the Kolbrin states, ‘it has not been easy to reconstitute them [the remaining books], even with the assistance of a more knowledgeable co-worker who filled in the few gaps with compatible references to modern works’. The Introduction goes on to say, ‘every possible fragment has been retained; some of the proper names are spelt wrong and some of the original correct ones replaced by others; no claim is made regarding historical accuracy, and the biblical form of English has been modernised by one who has no scholarly pretensions whatsoever.’

The underlying story

Beneath its overriding metaphysical texts, The Kolbrin carries an underlying story – and it’s a fascinating one, with its themes of genetics, global catastrophes and the search for immortality.

The story in the Egyptian Books

At the very beginning of human life, different species of men exist in the world. The Book of Origins states that there were two species:
– ‘The Children of God’. They ‘struggled harder, were more disciplined, because their forefathers had crossed the great dark void’ from ‘another unearthly place far distant’ [outer space?], and they do not ‘inherit death’.
Wodewose ~ TheTaymouth Hours
– A primitive indigenous species called ‘the Children of Earth’, known as ‘Yoslings’, ‘half-folk’, ‘not true men’, ‘Sons of Bothas’, and ‘kinsfolk to the beasts of the forest’. They are also called ‘Men of Zumat’, meaning ‘they who inherit death’ [descended from a highly developed ape?].


(The Book of Gleanings, set later in time, lists even more species:

– ‘The Grand Company’, who subsequently withdraw in disgust at the behaviour of mankind.

– ‘The Children of God’, led by a wise father, who ‘knew Truth and lived in the midst of peace and plenty’.

– ‘The Children of Men’, a primitive indigenous species who were wild and savage, clothed in the skins of beasts.

– ‘The Men of Zumat (Yoslings) who were even wilder.)

According to the Kolbrin, the different species should always have stayed separate. But when, eventually, matings start to occur, this is described as the first ‘defilement’. The Children of God are then banished from the gardenland and it becomes a desert.The first Yosling man to mate with a woman of the Children of God dies of his illness, but his lover gives birth to a daughter. This hybrid offspring is described as ‘a cuckoo-child’. She is an unusual female with long red hair – never seen before – and she lives by herself in the forest as a sorceress, preferring the company of Yoslings. Eventually she marries a great hero of the Children of God in the land of Krowkasis (the Caucasus). Versions of her story appear in both the Egyptian and the Celtic books.
The second defilement happens later when woman is tempted by ‘the strength and wildness of the beast, which dwelt in the forest’. We are told that ‘because of the wickedness that was done, there are among men those who are the Children of the Beast, and they are a different people.’
The Kolbrin makes clear that it is woman, and woman alone, who is responsible for the two genetic defilements of the race of the Children of God, for it is she who weakens and mates, first, with a Yosling, then with the beasts of the forest. By defiling her race, she does herself a great disfavour, for the Children of God regard woman as the equal of man – whereas the Children of Men use her as a sex-slave and a chattel, which over time becomes the norm throughout the human race.
Over thousands of generations and endless intermingling, distinctions between the species gradually disappear and the resulting mixture becomes the shorter-lived, disease-prone human beings we are now. The Earth is destroyed by fire. Man survives, but he is not the same. The sun is not as it was before, and a moon disappears. A subsequent destruction splits apart the eastern and western mountains so that they stand up in the sea, and tilts the northern land mass over on its side. The lands of the Little People, the Giants, the Neckless Ones, and the land of Marshes and Mists are all destroyed.

In the intensely cold age that follows, human beings survive by hiding in caves. They are terrorised by giant beasts until, following ‘heavenly rebellion and turmoil’, a cataclysm hardens the face of the Earth and turns the beasts to stone. Subsequently, the Earth is destroyed by the Flood of Atuma, then by the Deluge.
The Deluge story is followed by a lengthy version of the Gilgamesh story with a hero called Hurmanetar.

When Osireh/Yosira the Great One comes from the West with the People of Light seeking refuge in Egypt after the destruction of his own land, Ramakui of the seven cities, Land of Copper, he finds a population living in holes in the ground; following the cataclysm, a plague has wiped out all the adult population and with it all knowledge of basic living skills. The remaining population includes ‘men who were blood kindred with the beasts of the forest or with fowl or with serpent’, who ‘dwelt together according to their kinship, and were divided thereby’.
Dagda on the Gundestrup Cauldron.
Osireh teaches the lost generation how to grow corn, to spin and to carve stone, as well as writing and numbers. But when he tries to teach the people about God, they do not understand him, so he invents signs and simple tales (the first-ever myths) to help them understand. He tells them that when he dies, the sun will become their adoptive parent in his place. He is much beloved by the common people. Osireh has brought with him from Ramakui amazing technology: the Sacred Eye and the Firestone ‘which gathers the light of the sun’– forms of knowledge lost to us now, just as we have lost ‘the rituals of sea shells’ and ‘the song of the stars’; above all, he brings with him, out of his people’s transparent temples, ‘the light that shines when darkness falls without being lit’.
Osharian Celtic Druids.
Osireh is not like other men. Wearing robes of black linen and a red headdress, he has ‘the likeness of a god’ and his bones are ‘not as those of others’. When eventually he dies ‘in the manner of men’, he leaves behind him a flourishing civilisation.

Later, wise men come to Egypt from Zaidor , another land recently destroyed. They are great astronomers, they reject the idea of the sun as a god, and they have a unique mummification practice of covering the bodies of their dead with potter’s clay and leaving it to harden.
Over subsequent centuries, Egyptian scribes wonder where their Motherland could have been. They consider all the geographical options where strange races live, and speculate whether the Motherland might have been Ramakui, Zaidor or some earlier civilisation. The Book of Origins states unequivocably that their cradleland was Krowkasis [the Caucasus. Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia derives the name ‘Caucasus’ from the Scythian kroy-khasis – “ice-shining, white with snow”. In August 2011, scientists at the Zurich DNA genealogy centre iGENEA reconstructed the DNA profile of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Results showed that he belonged to a genetic profile group known as haplogroup R1b1a2, to which 70% of British, 70% of Spanish and 60% of French men also belong. Roman Scholz, director of the iGENEA Centre, said, “We think the common ancestor lived in the Caucasus about 9,500 years ago.”]
Lost Fortresses of Sahara Revealed by Satellites.
The Libyan Desert.
Source: More HERE

The narrative continues. It has now become the story of the Sons of Fire, whose quest is to guard the Great Book of Egypt and find a safe home for themselves. The Sons of Fire are said to be highly skilled metalworkers of Tyre, people of the ‘twin cities’ [Tyre and Sidon?]. Knowing they must go north, the Sons of Fire make their scrolls and metal-plate texts watertight, load their provisions and set sail. But the place where they try to settle first and build a city is full of wild men; it is on the edge of the known world and the now-destroyed Land of Mists and Kingdom of the Trees, where the dampness causes sickness and many of them die.

After some years, knowing they will all die if they stay there any longer, the Sons of Fire set sail again northwards. They come across a group of Greek refugees from Troy and travel together. Eventually, they arrive on the south coast of Britain. At this time, post-Ice Age Britain is still an empty land inhabited by Painted Men (small, tattooed Picts) and a few 6-cubit/9-foot giants – survivors of the cataclysm that destroyed most of the race of giants.
Brutus of Troy, the Brutus Stone in Totnes
The Trojans sail on to Dadana [later called Dodonesse in Holinshed’s Chronicle, now known as Totnes.] with their leader Corineus and, after slaying the few remaining giants still living in Belharia [St Michael’s Bay?] −‘The same giants are builders of great temples and they are six cubits tall’ − the migrants settle in what is now Cornwall. Several different languages are known to have been spoken in Britain at this time.
The legendary Corineus and Gogmagog the giant

The story in the Celtic Books ~ HERE

Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Thursday, 27 April 2017

Youtube Book Review by Laura 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers'

Book Review
I was sent this book from the lovely Author to read and do an honest review on.. can I just say how LOVELY Tracey-Anne is! I have been talking with her on Twitter and she's been sweet and friendly!
This book was sooooo GOOD! Mystical..magical..spiritual.. romantic ... liked the way magic and the real world mixed together. the characters were great esp. Bea the main girl. Lots of Twists and turns and emotional. This is book 1 in the series and I am soooo excited to read book 2! The ending was a real twist which I loved! This book is really great :) (Source)
Where Laura can be found ~ 
MinxLaura123's Wacky World - Youtube Channel ~ HERE
Twitter ~ HERE

I was blown away by Laura's kind review posting. Such kind words. Thank you so much, it really lifted my writing spirit. I've never received a youtube review, absolutely wonderful. 😍 
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Sunday, 18 December 2016

Christmas Writing

Claíomh Solais  (Shining Sword) first draft in Progress
Book Three ~ The Future
More HERE
 
Book Three ~ The Past
More HERE


Love and light
Trace
xoxo

Monday, 31 October 2016

A Wandering Soul


Crossing the veil between worlds...

A light bright
a loud cry in the night
makes way for a soul in the dark
gliding through time
a passage ethereal sublime
a story forgotten renewed

Mingling the past into the future
a haze blinding most
glamour hides a host
the spiritual warrior has eyes to see
but not until he falls to his knees

The figure in shadow feels the heart of the broken
crushing love not forgotten
gripping mist 
chasing dreams
karma eludes or so it seems

Circles and cycles
souls entwined
something at work
possibly divine

Love and light,
Trace
xoxo


Sunday, 18 September 2016

Book Stuff. How important is a book blurb?

Often it is the editor or some other person from the publishing house who writes the book blurb/jacket description. The publisher usually has a better idea of what elements of the story will most appeal to readers who pick up the book at a glance.
Below is an example of how important it is to get the blurb right. A professional reviewer and author, Christina Philippou, gave ACoPF a wonderful 5-star rating and listed it in among the top 10 books of 2015 on her blog - Wow! But this shows how the blurb can give a wrong impression that could ultimately repel potential readers ~

'From the blurb, I expected a kind of ‘Twilight for adults’. What I got was intricately-imagined fantasy, suspenseful action, two beautifully interwoven love stories (not the kind of paranormal love triangle I was anticipating), and a lot of well-crafted drama. Brilliant – I want more!'

Read HERE

In hindsight, I should've definitely re-written the book's blurb - shown below:

‘Every Unknown is a Beginning’

Bea lives a simple life residing in a South London second-hand bookshop. It had been an especially difficult year, first with Bea’s uncle dying, then splitting up with Brandon, her philandering, druggie boyfriend. The shop's trivial daily conversations, local faces and calm were all she desired, but that was all about to change.

No-one expects to bump into supernatural beings, let alone two opposing sects of a forgotten race. Bea’s quiet existence turns into turmoil as she slowly starts to unravel a secret past. A lost history in which love, revenge, betrayal, magic, power and karma are not mere cycles of a soul, but a sacred journey upon a web of many possibilities.

The future is not set in stone and the choices that Bea makes ripple through the cosmos. As the secret unfolds she realises that no matter what form your soul takes there are consequences for one's actions in which time has no relevance – we call it karma, they call it Vororbla.

Will she cope with the heartbreak and truths before her?
What would you do if your very existence came into question?
Join Bea as she uncovers the truth of her past via A Carpet of Purple Flowers.

To something like this, perhaps?

Discover a new fantasy world with a unique love story.

'Four Souls & Three Hearts' 

No-one expects to bump into supernatural beings, let alone two opposing sects of an otherworldly race. Bea’s quiet existence as a bookshop owner in SW London turns into turmoil as she starts to unravel a lost history. Reality quickly becomes blurred with folklore, and as the secrets unfold, she realises that no matter what form your soul takes, there are consequences for past actions in which time has no relevance – we call it karma, they call it Vororbla.

What would you do if your very existence came into question? 

Hmm. I'm going to work on book two's.

FICTION BLURB TIPS - T K. H

Note that the goal of the blurb is NOT to summarise the book. Rather, the goals are to:

  • Implicitly reveal the genre or subject. This should reinforce the message conveyed through the title and visually by the cover.
  • Entice the reader to look inside.

That’s it!

Here is a fiction blurb checklist:

  • Be concise. Did you say anything that was unnecessary?
  • Arouse curiosity. Did you give anything away? Does it read like a summary?
  • Genre. If strangers can’t read the blurb and guess the precise sub-genre or have some idea as to the content, your blurb has miserably and utterly failed to be an effective sales tool.
  • Engage. You need to draw interest immediately; most customers won’t be patient and let you build things up (true of your Look Inside, too). Come out swinging with your best stuff, but also pack enough punches so that you can engage interest throughout. When you run out of punches, stop writing your blurb.
  • Flow. Check that it flows well. A hiccup, such as when a reader has to stop and figure out how to correctly parse a long idea, is like stumbling on your way to the cash register.
  • Spellcheck, aisle three. If you can’t get the spelling and grammar right in a hundred words or so… Look, it’s not an option. You have to get it right.
  • Vocabulary. It needs to match your target audience. Words they don’t understand can scare them away (but if such words are common in the prose, you also don’t want to create false expectations).
  • Research. Do your homework. Check out blurbs of successful books similar to yours.

Feedback. Ask for opinions on your blurb. Before you publish, this can help you generate buzz.

Did you know Amazon has 30,000,000 different books to choose from? Wow! 

Love and light,
Trace
xoxo

Tuesday, 13 September 2016

"The veil between the worlds is thin"

A lovely review for
Book One
This is a most entrancing and captivating story. Bea, as the central character, weathers every emotional storm you can imagine, and as we get to know her, we feel for her plight, and one is torn on her behalf as she herself is torn, between two men, two identities, two realms of reality.

Bea is living a fairly ordinary life, running a small, somewhat esoteric, bookshop in London, left to her by her much-missed uncle. Into her somewhat muted existence burst beings from another realm, and why they are so interested in her gradually becomes apparent.

Tracey-anne McCartney introduces us to a richly-detailed and dramatic cosmology drawn from Irish folktales, mythology, and magic, and it is by virtue of this age-old relationship between the world of the Sidhe and that of humans that we find ourselves drawn in most strongly. It is the skilful, often humorous, blend of supernatural and spiritual elements with that of ordinary life; the hopes and disappointments of the ordinary person, as experienced by Bea, which makes this novel so charming, and makes us experience Bea’s emotional maelstrom as our own. We want the best for her, even if deciding what that may be seems near impossible.

The final scene in Coldfall Woods is magnificently achieved, and the writing overall has the right balance of lyricism and restraint and is peppered with moments of levity when appropriate. The narration allows one not only to viscerally experience the events described but also to be privy to the internal life of the principal characters, sensing their doubts, their confusion, their pain and joy – Bea's in particular.

The finale does not give up all the secrets hinted at during the novel. Who exactly is Jonathan? What does Bea’s future hold? And other questions, which I will not pose here for fear of spoiling the many surprises and revelations this artfully-plotted novel offers us en route.

A Carpet of Purple Flowers is an original, entertaining, and sophisticated blend of romance, the paranormal, and the spiritual.

~ By Mark Mayes 

Mark has a new book release set for 2017 ~ More HERE The Gift Maker 

Mark has published numerous stories and poems in magazines and anthologies in the UK, Eire, and Italy, and in particular, has had several stories published in (or accepted for) the celebrated Unthology series (Unthank Books). His work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. He has been shortlisted for literary prizes, including the prestigious Bridport Prize.

In 2009, Mark graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in English (Creative Writing and Critical Practice) from Ruskin College, Oxford.

Currently living in South Wales, Mark is also a musician and songwriter, and some of his songs may be found here: HTTPS://SOUNDCLOUD.COM/PUMPSTREETSONGS

Thank you, Mark. ;o) 


Sunday, 14 August 2016

Update ~ Book Two

Great News...
The first draft of 'Book Two' is almost complete. 
The manuscript is 85k so far, but there's still a little more writing to do before the edits begin.
I'm happy, happy. :o) 
I've also added more to the Book Companion Pages
Book Bible
My 'Bible Companion' is a compendium of all things relating to 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers' Book Series (#ACoPF). It contains information such as backstories of characters, in-depth character analysis from shoes to furnishings, scars, how they like to wear their hair, etc. Each of 'The Orders' and the 'Houses' are recorded, from symbols relating to that sect and why they use them, to clothing worn and how that Order began. I don't add all of these details to the books, but they're areas that I need to know/understand to write informatively about the realms and the different beings that live there. I've also created a journal in which one of my characters records their experiences, mentioned in the books, which helps me view this new world through a character's eyes and experiences. It's a fun way to explore new ideas combining writing and art, a process that sparks my muse. 
See more over at the website - HERE
When I first began playing around with the idea of writing 'A Carpet of Purple Flowers' (first book), my initial choice for the main character (the protagonist) was a young Jonathan. The starting point, Coldfall Woods where he studied the Rosebay Willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium).
In the German tradition, naturphilosophie or nature philosophy persisted into the 18th and 19th centuries as an attempt to achieve a speculative unity of nature and spirit. 
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin philosophia naturalis) was the philosophical study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science. Natural philosophy was the precursor of natural sciences.
Jonathan acknowledges indigenous wisdom as a global knowledge bank held by humans from all races and countries. Primitive skills are the original survival skills which all humans once used in order to live in harmony with the earth. Nature Philosophy helps to share these skills and keep them alive in the modern day. He is a seeker of the ancient knowledge. 

Jonathan dresses out style compared to the attire of modern-day humans,
 wearing high collars and a cravat. He jitters quite a bit when nervous and has many secrets.
He questions everything and records his findings in journals.
 Who are we? What are we? Where did we begin?
To find these answers and more I must follow the fading trail left by our ancestors. I must not seek with only my eyes, but learn to listen with my heart, hear the low mutterings of my soul, seeking inside and outside of myself. The path to truth is perilous and one I walk alone. ~ Jonathan's  journals
Lifprasira (Lif-pra-si-ra) symbols ~ Otherworldly Hieroglyphs
Once the eyes have been opened to all that's hidden,
you can never go back to the person you were. 
I understand what was. I understand my purpose. I understand what needs to be done.
 ~ Jonathan's journals
Our very being, our purpose, and our past, can only be understood through the combination of knowledge, thought, and contemplation. The latter, of course, is the most important. Unfortunately, there is little time to reflect in the modern world, and time passes too quickly to dwell on what was. Imagination and expansion of the mind are the keys which unlock concealment, cleverly disguised, mostly as a feeling. There is a knowing within us all, it's where our history resides, spoken in a language we have forgotten. Learn to look in the spaces in-between and not at the obvious options presented, it is where the truth lives. A tree grows, you see its beauty yet see no roots, dig and they will be revealed. The inner rings of history remain out of sight too, but look beyond, open it up and peer inside. The answers have always been there. ~ Jonathan's journals
Love and light,
Trace
xoxo