Authors Electric

My challenge to review a random book for every month of this year ends with a suitably snowy read for the holidays.  Nevertell  by Katharine Orton   was originally published for young readers, which usually means a good read for adults too, and this book delivers a magical story for anyone aged 10+. Nevertell by Katharine Orton Lina and her mother are prisoners in a Siberian labour camp, the only home she's ever known. When a group of daring escapees recruit Lina to steal food from the greenhouse, she finds herself stranded in a snowstorm with desperate men she doesn't trust. Only her best friend Bogdan, who follows them with his smuggled maps, can help Lina find her grandmother in far-off Moscow and rescue her mother. But first they must cross snowy wastes haunted by ghostly hounds and an evil sorceress, who wants to know why she can't enchant Lina. The magical elements creep gently into this book, drawing the reader from its historical Soviet setting into an enchan...

Wild Hunt by Peter Nicolai Arbo However you celebrate this season, midwinter feels like a magical time. It's a turning point of the year, the shortest day and longest night, after which light returns to the world. To mark this solstice, the ancient festival of Yule is still celebrated in many places, particularly where days are shortest in the northern hemisphere. It is a time for the dead to rejoin the living, for supernatural forces to awaken, and it is the traditional time for the Wild Hunt to ride. The Wild Hunt appears in many European folk tales. In Scandinavia, it is associated with Odin and the Norse legends. In Germany, it involves dragons and werewolves. Here in Britain, it features hounds, evil spirits, fairies and King Arthur... an irresistible combination for a fantasy author. In the first book of my Pendragon Legacy series, King Arthur's daughter Rhianna confronts the leader of the Wild Hunt, who in my version of the legend is Lord Avallach, fairy king of mystica...

King Arthur's daughter... Rhianna Pendragon Four Lights stand against the Dark: The Sword Excalibur that was forged in Avalon, The Lance of Truth made by the hands of men, The Crown of Dreams that hides the Jewel of Annwn, And the Grail said to hold all the stars in Heaven. This series for young readers begins with a famous sword named Excalibur, which according to legend was thrown into a lake at King Arthur's request while he lies dying of wounds gained in battle against his evil nephew Mordred. It would have been a lot easier if he'd told his knights to keep the sword safe for his daughter Rhianna, but she's hiding in Fairyland and they aren't supposed to know anything about her. Besides, if they just gave her the sword there wouldn't be much of a story, and then we wouldn't get to meet Nimue, mermaid of the lake (who is not quite as sweet as you might think). Mordred, crippled in the duel with Arthur and plotting his revenge, soon finds out where the gir...

Don't panic... I haven't heard any horrible new rumour that Lockdown is going last quite  that long! But it's interesting to see how science fiction writers often get things uncannily right, sometimes hundreds of years before the actual events become part of our history. So here are three classic reads - one from each of the past three centuries - which are reflected in some way by current events. If you have your own favourites, feel free to add them to the comments below. War of the Worlds by H G Wells (1897) " Yet across the gulf of space intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us..." A tale of Martian invasion that was so realistic when first broadcast over the radio it caused many people to panic, thinking aliens were indeed attacking the Earth. These 19th century Martians land in individual pods and set about building themselves giant metal fighting machines...

According to legend, when King Arthur fell in battle fighting the dark knight Mordred, his body was taken to the mystical Isle of Avalon, where he sleeps under enchantment until Britain needs him again... and considering the current situation here in the UK, this seems the perfect time to raise him from his slumbers! My Pendragon Legacy series for young readers, featuring King Arthur's daughter Rhianna and her friends, 'died' in book terms when it went out of print last year, which means the books have been similarly slumbering ever since. Templar (now part of Bonnier) sadly no longer publishes fiction, so I reverted the rights and am using this period of house arrest to resurrect all four titles digitally in the form of ebooks and print-on-demand paperbacks. I loved Templar's covers with artwork by the talented Scott Altmann, but these are the publisher's covers so cannot be reused - at least not without negotiating the proper permissions. I decided it would be ...

Yes, I know I'm about five years behind everyone else, but I've finally discovered the most addictive fantasy series to hit our screens this century - namely Game of Thrones , based on George R R Martin's series of best-selling fantasy novels "A Song of Ice and Fire". Briefly, for those of you who haven't come across this series yet, there is a scary looking THRONE made from the swords of enemies of the state, which powerful families known as HOUSES are fighting tooth and nail for the privilege of sitting on to become supreme ruler of a fantasy kingdom named WESTEROS. Needless to say, those who succeed don't tend to stay sitting there very long, which makes me wonder why they are all fighting so hard to sit there in the first place? Though I must admit the throne room with its stained glass windows is magnificent, and there must be a certain satisfaction in being able to order your fiercest rivals' heads sliced from their bodies so you can add t...