One more year, one more birthday celebration. This one marks the halfway point through another decade, with my last milestone during lockdown in 2021. Another loop around the sun, and I’m still feeling full of fun. Yep, I’m going to forget the first part of my age and focus on the ‘five’. I’m still quite playful at heart, something that my child loves, until such a time comes when he may find my childlike spirit embarrassing. May such a time never come!
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Happy Sunday everyone. We’re just over halfway through January and I’ve nowt much to show for it, ha ha. I’ve had a lazy start to this year, making progress on my current novel WIP at snail’s pace, and barely a dent in my TBR pile.
Actually, there’s good reason for the lack of progress on personal reading and writing projects, since term time at work in secondary education always tends to dominate my time. I’ve been in the swing of editing and giving feedback to the young writers in the creative writing class I teach, as well as busy with work in my library day job.
At least I have built up a significant back catalogue of books to tide me over, while I make time for chipping away at my own writing projects. My latest promo video showcases all twelve of my books, one for each month of 2026. Here goes:
January = Toebirds & Woodlice
February = The Redundancy of Tautology
March = Diabolical Dreamscapes
April = The Blue Man
May = Pseudologia Fantastica
June = The Fairy Lights
July = Matthew’s Twin
August = Love you to Death
September = The Buddha’s Bone
October = The Wabi-sabi Doll
November = Gods of Avalon Road
December = A Model Archaeologist
Can’t go wrong with a mix of ghost horror, psychological fiction and experimental poetry, eh?
Happy Sunday, folks! It’s a horrible, rainy day over here in Northern Ireland and that means a perfect day for reading. This weekend I started reading my Christmas present that my lovely literary hubby got me. In Ghostly Japan, by Lefcadio Hearn set the tone with a good dash of existential horror in the first story about a man and a Buddhist monk climbing a mountain of skulls.
As for my own books, November and December are always the busiest for sales, with things quietening down after Christmas. With only a handful of sponsored sales so far in January that means it’s time to gear up for more promo. Since Valentine’s Day is only a month away, I’ve decided to start with excerpts from Love you to Death. Here’s my latest video reading, with a snippet from the first story, White Day Whispers. White Day, for those not in the know, is a date celebrated in Japan on March 14th; basically on Valentine’s Day, ladies will give a man chocolates if they like him, and will receive a response one month later on White Day. If he accepts her proposal, he gives her white chocolates and if he rejects her, she gets cookies. Either way, it’s confectionery heaven for the ladies!
Happy New Year 2026, everyone! Hope this year brings good things for us all. Are you setting any new year resolutions? At the start of every year I like to set a couple of resolutions: a health goal, a writing goal and a reading goal.
Writing goal for 2026
In 2025 I had writer’s block a grand total of two times with ghost novel WIP#7. The only option left to me was to print a paperback draft of my WIP to read it in book format and get the story back in my head. This has helped to give me a fresh perspective on the story, especially as I changed a major character, which impacted all the relationships and even the protagonist’s journey.
My goal for 2026 is to actually get the manuscript finished, and take it from there. I’m not going to say much else for now, as I feel this project has stalled enough. Needless to say, it’ll be a big celebration when it’s finally done.
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Today is the first full moon of 2026. It’s still at its perigee (closest in its elliptical to earth), making this a super moon, a time when the moon appears larger and brighter in the sky. After this, the next super moon won’t be until October 2026, so it’s definitely an occasion to celebrate. Saturday 3 January 2026 is also Earth Perihelion day (closest to the sun).
The Blue Man, book 1 in my Belfast Ghosts trilogy, is perfect for such a celestial celebration. They say he comes across the mudflats when the mist rolls in. They say he comes under the cloak of darkness and a bright full moon…
A spooky book for an atmospheric night. Enjoy the Super Wolf Moon!
Title: White Witch’s Hat & Other Yuletide Ghost StoriesAuthor: Heavenly Flower Publishing Authors Publisher: Heavenly Flower PublishingPages: 179Genre: Paranormal/Ghost StoriesRating: 4/5 Book Blurb: White Witch’s Hat & other Yuletide ghost stories is a collection of spooky seasonal stories by 21 authors just in time for the short days and long nights as the winter solstice draws […]
White Witch’s Hat & Other Yuletide Ghost Stories by Heavenly Flower Publishing Authors
Many thanks to Hannah for this fantastic review of White Witch’s Hat & other Yuletide ghost stories! What an awesome New Year surprise and the first review for the anthology in 2026! 🥳
Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone! The end of the year is a time for reflection and as a horror author, a huge part of my life revolves around books. I’ve had several books published this year, and my journey in publishing is always full of ups and downs. Want to know my book winners and losers of 2025? Here’s my book summary of a year in the life of a horror author…
The winner? Love you to Death, my collection of ghost stories for Valentine’s Day was my biggest seller of 2025. It was published in February 2025. At the time I wasn’t sure what to expect, considering ghosts and romance don’t tend to go hand in hand, but it did better than I could have hoped for and continues to sell copies all year round, so this was a nice surprise.
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With only a few days left in 2025 (yikes, where has this year gone?) I’ve managed to achieve my Goodreads goal of 30 books on my author account. The great thing about being off work for 2 weeks on a winter break is that I’ve been able to read a lot more than I manage during the daily grind.
My Author Goodreads account is one that I use for writing research books, or ones that I read in the library where I work to be included in book displays.
However, 30 books is not all I have read this year. Aside from my author account, I have a reader account on Goodreads, which I use for books that I read for pleasure. I’ve had this account longer than I’ve had my author account, but it’s a handy way to keep my writing research and day job books separate from those I read for fun.
Anyway, long story short, I have also achieved my Goodreads goal of 30 books on my reader account. This makes a grand total of 60 books read in 2025. Woohoo!
Hey everyone, hope you all had a Merry Christmas. I certainly did. I normally limit myself to one glass of wine on occasion with meals, since more than that would knock me out of ketosis, but what the hey… there are no limits for Crimbo, right?
We spent Christmas Eve in the pub and apart from a few photos (as above) it was the start of a family digital detox, so our phones disappeared for a few days. Yule is the season for community spirit and spending time with family, and we did just that.
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Leilanie Stewart 
Apologies to some readers and followers of my blog
Today’s post is a message of apology to some readers and followers of my blog. I only just realised yesterday of a mishap, where a number of comments had been left unanswered and pending approval on my website, and I hadn’t been aware of this. Some of the comments had been posted as far back as half a year ago.
The fault is my own; I had set notifications for my website on my phone, and was perhaps relying on this feature too much without actually checking for comments via my email notifications instead. It turned out I had missed many comments by folks who weren’t regular followers; a couple of these included invites to author events and I’m especially regretful about not only those missed opportunities, but the unprofessional impression that some people might have of me after receiving no response to their comments.
As an author, I’m also a business person, and I aim to respond to all legitimate comments on my website and social media accounts as a general rule. Rest assured I am working hard to get back to everyone who commented; I value your messages and I appreciate that you took the time to leave comments for me.
This blog post isn’t an excuse, it’s simply an explanation; what can I say other than offer my humble apology. Sorry.
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Posted by Leilanie Stewart on January 14, 2026 in Random stuff and tagged author followers, blog followers, blog update, reaching new readers, reader comments.
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