Happy Birthday Little Ghosts!

And lots of other exciting things...

Hello, I hope you’re well. Sorry as ever for not writing in a while. I actually have lots to say, and for once that might be the reason I’ve not got around to putting anything on here – it’s all been a bit overwhelming.

In a way the most exciting things are those that I can’t talk about, because we don’t have any contracts signed (yet?). But I’m far too unprofessional to not say anything, so I’ll just try to stay close to the line and drop some hints. So without naming any names, things have been busy recently with an approach from a major publisher, some very exciting developments regarding a TV adaptation, and the possibility of a collaboration with a very well-known US author. All of those things may or may not happen, but the fact they’re being talked about is making this an exciting time, and that definitely helps with the motivation to keep writing. More on that in a moment.

But that still leaves a lot that I can talk about. For example, tomorrow is the first birthday for Little Ghosts. This was the first book I published with Storm Publishing, and it’s also been my most successful for quite a while. The audio book in particular has done really well, in fact it climbed all the way to #1 in the US on Audible – which is amazing (it stayed close to the top of the charts for a long time too, which was even more amazing). As I’ve said before it was a very emotional book to write – at its heart it’s about the love between two siblings – and I’m thrilled that so many of the reviews talk about how much it’s touched readers too. As I write these words it’s on 1999 reviews – so if you’ve read it but not left a review, go and be number 2000!

If you’ve not read it yet and you’re in the UK, it’s currently an Amazon Deal of the Month for just 99p. You can also find it on Kindle Unlimited, and I wanted to share a sample of the book from Audible, because Katie Villa has done such a great job narrating it (it has higher ratings on Audible than Amazon – 4.6 stars to 4.4, which almost never happens).

Buy Little Ghosts on Audible here: https://readerlinks.com/l/559913

What else? Should you be in New Zealand or Australia, The Trap is a special offer on Sunday (12 May) for just $0.99 (I had to check whether New Zealand has dollars, but it does. Who knew? (Probably quite a few of you).

More special offers and deals: The Glass Tower is a book I wrote a few years ago, and which never really took off, despite getting really good reviews. At the time I worked with a good friend and very talented designer to create the book cover. The book is about a novelist who writes a literary sensation about a beautiful lighthouse made entirely of glass – and I wanted the book cover to show this. The problem is it’s very hard to do. You can’t just take a photograph of an all-glass lighthouse, because glass is such a stupid material to build lighthouses from that no one’s been daft enough to try it yet. And when you try to create such an image, in photoshop, or similar, it’s still difficult, because glass is transparent, so you can’t see it very well. We tried for ages, and eventually came up with the image below – but it was never quite there.

When the book failed to set the world alight, I then convinced myself that it was because it features an antihero, rather than a hero (I don’t want to give too much away, but the protagonist isn’t all good in the end). Stories with antihero’s don’t connect with people, I decided, quite ignoring the multitude of examples to the contrary (The Godfather, Breaking Bad, The Catcher in the Rye, Tom Ripley and in fact everything written by Patricia Highsmith, Gone Girl – do I need to go on?) So after a while I had another go at making a cover, but this was in my (thankfully reasonably brief) DIY cover stage. And like most of my home-made efforts it wasn’t so awful to be obviously a bad idea, but it was still pretty uninspiring. I’ve put it below, but only because to not do so would be to spare my blushes when I don’t deserve such leniency.

Anyway, fast forward a year or so, and my partner Maria translated The Glass Tower into Spanish (calling it the La Torre de Sangre y Cristal – doesn’t that sound cool?) Quite rightly she turned her nose up at both my cover efforts and instead commissioned a professional cover from a professional cover designer – now there’s an idea. I don’t claim to be a fast learner, but I do sometimes get there in the end. To cut a long story short, I went to the same designer and asked him to make me a version for the English book. And here is is:

And so, to celebrate The Glass Tower finally having a cover to be proud of, we’ve put it on special offer too. If you’re signed up to the Bookbub emails, you’ll see it’s being promoted that way this weekend, but wherever you are in the world it's available for just 0.99 (or local equivalent). Or you can get it here:

https://readerlinks.com/l/559910

Actually, one interesting point regarding this book. With the advent of AI image generators I had another attempt at creating an image of a lighthouse made of glass. I know this is a contentious topic, and artists and illustrators are rightly concerned at how this technology is both likely to put them out of business, and only possible in the first place because of work they and other humans like them have done. However, in this case the computers aren’t copying artwork but literally generating it. And it’s getting close, but maybe still not quite there. What do you think?

Anyway. If you’ve not yet read The Glass Tower, now’s a great time, and if you enjoyed any of the stories mentioned above (Gone Girl, The Talented Mr Ripley etc... – I very much had these in mind when I wrote this book).

Final points, as I’m waffling on a bit here. My brother has recently gone public on his next big adventure. Regular readers will know he’s windsurfed his away around Great Britain and then Europe. Next up is a circumnavigation of Japan, or as he puts it:  A solo windsurf round Japan's main islands. If you’ve enjoyed his previous books, or you’re curious to hear more, do check his website, and follow his adventure (he sails with a tracker, so you can see in real time exactly where he is. It’s actually a fantastic way to get a bit of a glimpse of a country. A bit like the BBC’s Race Around the World, which also started in Japan for this season.)

This all puts my adventures to shame of course, but I have been playing around with a new water sport called wingfoiling. It’s actually not that new these days, but it seems to be growing in popularity, especially with fit young people who are learning it super quick, and riding huge waves and doing enormous jumps. I’ve finally bit the bullet and bought myself some gear. And I can report it’s incredibly hard. I can sort of do it in one direction, but not the other, and after about fifty metres of ‘flying’ I invariably crash into the water with an embarrassingly meek scream. However, I do have a picture to prove I can (sort of) do it. So I proudly post it here.

That’s all for now. If you’re looking for a book to read (or listen to), please do go and check out The Glass Tower and Little Ghosts. And next time I’ll be telling you about my new book (excitingly titled Book 12 – I do need to work on the name.)

Little Ghosts

The Glass Tower

Gregg