Exciting news! The one month countdown is on until my next book is published. Diabolical Dreamscapes is a short story collection, most of which were previously published in literary magazines in the UK, US and elsewhere worldwide between 2009 and 2018. The Kindle eBook is available now for pre-order.
Want to know a bit more? Here’s the back cover blurb.
Reader beware! From the hallucinatory imagination of Leilanie Stewart, author of award-winning ghost horror novel, The Blue Man, comes twenty-one previously published short stories and flash fiction, now entombed between the covers of a new darkly themed collection.
In Part 1: Dark and Surreal Tales of Death… Corpses find new purposes in death while fated to walk the earth and surreal journeys of the afterlife abound, involving trips to far-reaching corners of the earth, the moon, or Venus during the last throes of life.
In Part 2: Strange and Hallucinatory Stories of the Mind… Cats, rabbits, dogs, birds and spiders have a role to play in these dreamlike journeys through the mind, helping the characters of each tale unravel their fears and anxiety, while facing their darkness, depression and demons.
I’ve set myself a Goodreads challenge of 20 books for 2023 under my Leilanie Stewart Author page on Goodreads and 50 books on my anonymous Indie reader Goodreads account. Basically the difference between these accounts is that the books I review on my author Goodreads page are mainly related to writing research, or are mainstream traditionally published accounts and my anonymous Indie reader account is to review awesome mainly self-published books on both Goodreads and Amazon. Why anonymous? For the simple reason that it allows me to stay honest in my feedback, helping fellow authors, while keeping things separate from my main author pages. Before I begin today’s blog post, a disclaimer: these books are my own personal recommendation and opinion. The authors are most likely unaware that I’m promoting their books – I do so because, frankly, I’m blown away at the standard of writing and I would honestly say, these Indie authors should be nominating their books for some independent prizes (Bath novel award, Rubery book prize, etc).
With all that in mind, here are the books and trilogies that I have read over the past year that have blown me away, and that I absolutely, highly recommend:
Amanda Sheridan – Rapid Eye Movement series
If you have not read Sheridan’s Rapid Eye Movement trilogy, then I highly recommend that you do. Her books fall under the paranormal suspense and psychological thriller categories and follow the story of two women, Jennifer and Lucy, who connect in their dreams through remote viewing, seeing each other’s contrasting lifestyles as Lucy lives in England and Jennifer lives in Cyprus, married to an Israeli spy. As the series progresses, we follow Jennifer and her Israeli spy husband Ilan, and learn more about her powerful gift of lucid dreaming. The trilogy is incredibly well researched making a topic that is often regarded as in the realm of sci-fi seem very believable. There’s a good deal of hot romance too, which will satisfy those eager for some sauciness within the action. Not only that, but the writing is tight, making for a page-turning series.
Ashleigh Reverie – Almost Human series
The Almost Human series is as the title would suggest: a sci-fi drama set in the 22nd century. It follows Edel, a genetically modified human who, with the help of Jay, is able to learn more about her own past by connecting with a fellow GM human called Danny, raised as a regular person away from the facility that experiments on people. What she learns is terrifying and brings the reader in a journey that touches on social justice and ethics, while set in a realistic dystopian future.
Tom Flynn – A girl called Dara
I happened upon this book as a Kindle recommendation and I’m glad I tried it as it turned out to be the best literary fiction book I’ve read in a long time. It starts out as we follow Jeff, who develops an infatuation with a beautiful and mysterious woman in his poetry class. Dara sends mixed signals, getting close and affectionate at times, and aloof at other moments. When she suddenly stops coming to class and disappears from his life, Jeff seeks to find out more about her background – with devastating consequences. This is a stunning literary novel with a coming of age theme that covers dreams and disillusionment beautifully.
Iseult Murphy – All of Me
This novella follows the tale of a woman struggling with weight issues and low self-esteem. When a neighbour offers a strange vegetable that he claims will help, desperate Margaret tries it and soon after, splits into three women: Dot, Peggy and Daisy. All of Me is a unique body horror that covers themes of overcoming eating disorder issues in an original, and sometimes metaphorical way.
I’ve been writing professionally (defined here by a goal of publication) for 14 years. In that time, I have to say the art of sticking pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, doesn’t get any easier. Some days I simply don’t feel it. I struggle to get the words out. When I have those moments, you know what I do? I write anyway. I put a few words on the screen and come back to it later. Even if I end up chopping the work I did, it’s still progress. Moving forward sometimes means taking one or two steps back, but keeping the flow in my head is the most important thing.
For that reason I try not to go longer than a couple of weeks without writing something new. I don’t mean editing, as that’s a separate skill; I’m talking drafting new prose. If I’m sick for a week or two, or on holiday, I tend to skim-read back through everything I had written beforehand, just to get the story back in my head again. Skim reading doesn’t take longer than an hour; not all the details, but just to find out where to pick up in the story.
By the way, my motivational t-shirt above helps, along with a strong coffee. As a writer, I’m a weirdo. I much prefer living in the fantasy world inside my head than dealing with real life. I daydream – often. At school I got in trouble many, many times for looking out the window and fantasising about UFOs, then doodling the images from my imagination onto my school books, to the disgruntlement of my teachers. As an adult I still often zone-out when I should be paying attention. Hey, there’s a lot going on in my internal world that needs to make its way out onto paper. I guess that’s my way of giving back for all those many months, or possibly years, when I seemed like I was living in the real world, but actually it was only my blank face while my mind was elsewhere.
On Valentine’s Day I found out that The Blue Man has received a Chill with a Book Premier Readers’ Award. Winning an award for any of my books is a first in my author career, so to say I’m thrilled is an understatement.
According to the Chill Awards website, a Premier Readers’ Award is only honoured to books that receive exceptionally high evaluations from Chill Readers. Books are given to a panel of readers who evaluate them based on questions, assigning points per answer. The Blue Man was given to three readers in the UK and Spain, as part of a pool of books of – I don’t know what size – all I can say is, the six months wait since I had submitted my book was definitely worth it! It was evaluated based on the following questions:
1. Were the characters strong and engaging? 2. Was the book well written? 3. Did the story/plot have you turning the page to find out what happened next? 4. Was the ending satisfying? 5. Would you recommend to someone who reads this kind of story?
Getting feedback from the readers was marked as optional, but I was very grateful that all of the readers who evaluated my book left comments, which I enjoyed reading.
Receiving a Premier Readers’ Award means that The Blue Man is now in the shortlist for Book of the Month for February 2023. Whether it wins or not, I’m delighted that it’s now an award-winning book, and the news definitely made Valentine’s Day extra special – and indeed my whole week so far!
To celebrate Valentine’s Day tomorrow, The Buddha’s Bone is on a $0.99 offer. Grab a discounted copy of the Kindle eBook until 17th February.
So, what’s The Buddha’s Bone about? My second novel is set in rural Japan. Kimberly Thatcher is a Londoner who sets off to teach English in Japan on a one year contract. After escaping her abusive boyfriend back in London, she soon finds herself pursued by a colleague – with even more sinister intentions than her ex. Kimberly soon learns the darker nature of her relationships, forcing her on a soul-searching journey through darkness to find the light. What happens when you look into the abyss?
Last week on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter I discovered that statistics from a blog post I wrote a year ago (How many people who write a novel finish it and how many get published?) were circulating without a link to my website. I’m not the first person to research these stats, though I very kindly cite the websites where I got the mix of data, which I then condensed into a concise post for ease of access; however, since my blog post appears as the top search hit on Google if you look for the phrase ‘how many people publish a novel‘, it’s most likely the people involved got the information from my blog.
Please, if you are reading this, fellow Indie authors who used the statistics from my March 2022 post without referencing it, or crediting the other sources I used – a polite request to give credit where it is due. My post made difficult-to-find statistics more visible through a Google search – believe me this took many hours of work finding the relevant articles, which I had to trawl for, doing various keyword searches. I am happy that my post is easy for others seeking info, as it was my intention to make it concise for others to find. By all means, share the information in my post – but like me, please link to the sources you use, as I did. Please, please always link to your sources, especially when using them to promote yourself. Fellow authors will appreciate it, and you will keep yourself safe from plagiarism.
I’m always incredibly thankful to readers of my books who leave reviews, but this one of The Fairy Lights really impressed me, as the reviewer totally understood some of the more subtle characterisation of my main character Aisling that I had threaded throughout the story. There are always layers to my plots, and if you’ve read my books you’ll know I like to leave some room for the reader to have their own interpretation of what’s really going on.
If there are any authors out there reading this post, I’m sure you’ll know that reviews are more geared towards other readers rather than directly intended for the author. But don’t you love it when you read a review of your book that really seems to get what your story is actually about? I’m not talking in an ego-flattering sense, but a way that shows how deeply they connected with your story.
Thanks to M.H for this lovely review on Amazon UK. I read every review of my books, and value them all, but I’m really blown away by this one as an amazing literary analysis of my story. Thank you!
If you’re an Indie author, then you’ll know that depending on what stage of the publishing process you’re at, you’re going to have to adopt a different role: writer; editor; graphic designer; publicist; the list goes on. After your ebook and/or paperback and hardcover versions are ready to upload onto KDP, Draft2Digital, Ingramspark or whichever distributor you’re using, you’ll know it’s time to price your books. After all, as your own self-publisher, it’s up to you to do the job that a traditional publisher would do, supposing you had chosen that route. But, how to choose the right competitive price for your books? In this post, I want to share how I choose my prices, what I have learned from regular pricing and promotional pricing and my opinion on competitive pricing.
I had an interesting conversation with some bookish friends the other day about books we’re currently reading and we got onto the topic of how new books that we have recently read tended to have strong main characters, often ‘perfect’ or tough protagonists who can handle anything thrown at them. It was something that, admittedly, I hadn’t given much thought too beforehand, even as an author. Once I started thinking of this topic, it occurred to me that more often than not on social media lately, I had seen authors displaying their books with arrows and advertising labels such as “strong female lead”. It got me thinking about a few things, from a writing point of view, regarding protagonists in fiction, which inspired my blog post today.
Last week I finally reached 40,865 words on novel wip #6 after one year of working on this manuscript. This draft will become Book 3 of my Belfast Ghosts Series alongside Book 1: The Blue Man and Book 2: The Fairy Lights, and will complete the trilogy.
Why do I consider 40k words a benchmark? Simply because after this point in a draft, a MS reaches novel territory and is no longer in novella range.
Out of the trilogy, I’m finding this manuscript draft the hardest to write. Normally I find writing the easiest, editing harder and marketing hardest, but this manuscript requires much more historical research than The Blue Man and The Fairy Lights and the medieval sources are scant at best. I may have to arrange an archaeological field trip for myself soon as the latter half of my book will involve much more action and although it’s a ghost horror, not a historical novel, I want the historical aspects to ring true.
But, enough spoilers for now. I’ll be sharing the blurb and other promotional teasers before too long. My short-term goal for this year is to have the draft finished by summer so that I can pass it over to my editor and proofreader for checks. Will I manage my goal of publication by October? Let’s see…
Leilanie Stewart 