The Wolf Has No Pillow - Out Now

Bree McDonald and her Grandfather are the sole survivors of their immediate family. Following their eviction from the family home during the Highland Clearances in 1792, they decide to walk to London to plead their case with the absentee landlord.

Related from the point of view of eleven-year-old Bree, the tale is told with a charming simplicity and humour and one cannot but empathise with the plight of the girl and her Grandfather.

Can they reach London in safety? If they do, will the new owner of their land have any sympathy for them or any understanding of their troubles?

A story of real courage and determination in the face of adversity.
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Read an extract from The Wolf Has No Pillow

About the Author

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Title: The Wolf Has No Pillow
Author: Ben Z. Grant
Print ISBN: 978-1-906609-06-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-906609-07-8
Page count: 130
Release Date: 8th July 2009

Distributors: Bertram Books, Gardners, Baker & Taylor, Ingrams

BeWrite Books are available from: BeWrite Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones and other online booksellers and to order from high street bookshops

New Bee-Keeper for BeWrite Books

BeWrite Books is delighted to break the exiting news that a new keeper will be tending the buzzing beehive when BB publisher Cait Myers leaves the company after ten years at the end of July for new adventures in far-flung places.

Geoff Nelder – based in Chester, England – is already working along with Cait as she helps smooth the transition to be sure that BeWrite Books doesn’t falter in its established commitment to stability and reliability. And she’ll remain informally on call for several months to help keep the house in order while Geoff gets into his stride.

But Geoff – an award-winning author in his own right – is already well versed in many of the considerable duties Cait so expertly covered over the years. Qualified to handle accountancy and admin and with a firm grasp of modern technology and publishing practice, Geoff is also dynamic and innovative in the promotion and marketing of books, and a top-notch networker at important publishing events.

He accepted early retirement from his lifetime job as a senior educator recently so is now free to dedicate to his new position the time and energy it requires.

Geoff said: “I’m thrilled to be taking over – It’s a challenge to become the new Cait Myers. I’ve been involved with, and have closely watched BeWrite’s development over the past ten years. Cait’s input and expertise has been impressive ... and so modestly behind-the-scenes.
“We’re all old friends now. In fact, Editor Neil Marr is my daily online Scrabble opponent (it’s our coffee break from work). And, no, he doesn’t always win ... he generously allows me success now and then.
“My first job, of course, is – with Cait’s kind help – to make sure there’s solid continuity so that the internal change-over at BB doesn’t adversely affect anyone, especially authors and readers. Later, when my learning curve levels, I’m sure I’ll brainstorm with the others and we’ll talk over new ideas to enhance the house. Maybe trying short-run, maybe opening the door to new genres and imprints. We’ll see.
“For now, I’m just happy to be here. BeWrite has always seemed more like a nuclear family than a business, so I feel a bit like I’ve been adopted. Others in the extended family are the authors and readers. I’ll try hard to be as welcoming to them as Cait has always been. She laid out the red carpet to them; I just have to keep it swept.”

BeWrite Books Editor, Neil Marr, said: “Sad as I am that Cait is moving on, I’m tickled pink to now be working with Geoff at the helm. We’ve been friends for years and – not only because he often beats me in online Scrabble – I have unbounded confidence in him as a wordsmith and administrator. Cait is leaving the house she helped create in capable hands.
“We’ll share an interesting future. And I know our warm stable of authors and editors will very quickly take Geoff to heart. Apart from being so darned efficient that it’s frightening, he’s one of the nicest chaps on this third rock from the sun.”

Cait, who is leaving her BB Munich desk for new, international adventures, said: “It’s sad to be leaving BeWrite Books after all this time, it has really felt like a family. I wish everyone the best of luck with their projects and look forward to reading lots more excellent books from BeWrite.”

A Brief Biography of Geoff Nelder
Geoff Nelder lives in the ancient and quaint English city of Chester. Born in Germany to British parents, he has lived all but four years of his life in England.

A former high school teacher of geography and information technology, Geoff has had non-fiction books on microclimates in the UK published along with several articles in academic journals such as Weather, Geographical Magazine and the Times Educational Supplement. Geoff is a part-time journalist contributing humorous travel accounts to Cycling World.

His love of teaching and the environment is reflected in his Bachelor of Education degree and Master of Science for climatology, research for which he was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Meteorological Society. More important to him is his family. His physicist wife is invaluable for her love but also helps in the technical aspects of Geoff’s science fiction writing. They have two grown children, whose intelligence and warmth go beyond Geoff’s expectations. Now they’ve started to collect grandchildren, too.

Geoff has had many short stories widely published and won a commendation for a story in the Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Competition. Besides his 2005 released humour novel, Escaping Reality, published by Brambling Books, he won a Prix d’Argent in 2007 and the Prix d’Or in 2009 for mystery thriller, Hot Air, to be published by a Dutch Arts Academy in 2009, and a Science Fiction novel, Left Luggage, is in the hands of an agent. Double Dragon Publishing published Geoff’s Exit, Pursued by a Bee science fiction mystery in 2008.

Geoff is a co-editor for Adventure Books of Seattle, working mainly on Escape Velocity, a print and ezine magazine of science fact and fiction. He has been a freelance editor of novels and short stories for several years. He is also the 2009 short-fiction judge for the Whittaker Prize.

Publisher Caitlin Myers to leave BeWrite Books

BeWrite Books Publisher Caitlin Myers will be leaving the company at the end of July to start a new life in the UK.

Cait, 35, was one of a trio that brought in the first day of the millennium with a promise to somehow help new authors find their place. She kept the promise ... and then some.

Within weeks, she – along with writer/editor Neil Marr and his IT expert son, Alex – launched BeWrite.net, a non-commercial writers’ site that edited, showcased and promoted struggling authors. The site attracted a membership of over 3,000 and its lively forum became one of the busiest on the net under her guidance.

Just a couple of years later Cait, Neil and Alex launched BeWrite Books paperback and eBook publishing house. With Neil concentrating entirely on editorial matters and Alex on the technical side of things, Cait became Publisher. But she was much more than that. A list of the jobs she so expertly took upon her own shoulders would fill pages. They included: technical work, proof reading, cover design, accounts – including chasing retailers for payment and making sure author royalty cheques were accurate and arrived on time – maintaining the BeWrite.net website and blog, dealing with printers, handling author and reader mail, first-screening submissions, proof reading, overseeing distribution and promotion, supervising legal work ... and a score of other unsung but vital tasks.

And she always found time to network with the giants of publishing at international book fairs in London and Frankfurt ... and even to attend every year the smaller but thriving book fair she and BeWrite Books helped establish five years ago in the northern English towns of Wigan and Leigh.

She happily met BB authors whenever an opportunity arose. And her winning smile and unstinting generosity in time and effort earned her an international group of appreciative literary friends.

Working mainly, though, by personal email and phone (even when undergoing the suffering and heartache of radio- and chemotherapy for cancer recently), her time with BeWrite saw her based in England, France, Switzerland and Germany. Her motto has always been: Have laptop, will travel.

UK-born Cait took BeWrite from a vague idea over New Year midnight drinks nearly ten years ago to its position as a well respected, internationally known small independent press with, already, over 120 fine titles under its belt. Along the way, she signed new professional editors like Hugh McCracken in Canada, John Grant in the USA, poetry editors Heather Grace Stewart in Canada, Heather Bryant in the USA and Sam Smith in the UK.

When she leaves her desk for the last time, it could take an office full of new staff to cover everything she put into the company in terms of expertise, accuracy, reliability, fair-mindedness, enthusiasm, energy ... and that always-present personal touch so rare in modern publishing.

Cait’s reasons for leaving her Munich-based BeWrite Books desk and moving to the UK on July 24 are personal.

She said: “It’s sad to be leaving BeWrite Books after all this time, it has really felt like a family. I wish everyone the best of luck with their projects and look forward to reading lots more excellent books from BeWrite.”

BeWrite Books Editor Neil Marr said: “It’s difficult to imagine BB without Cait. Her hard work, enthusiasm, professional approach to every aspect of the job, her constant desire and ability to stay on top of a drastically changing publishing industry, and her natural flare, imagination and sheer good taste helped shape the whole thing. I’m very sorry to see her go, but I’m certainly glad she was here at all. Without her, there would not be a BeWrite Books.”

Riders of the Seven Hills - Out Now

Lad Moore tells tales ... some of them long, some of them short and some of them - by his own admission - pretty tall. All of them re-create a world of recent yesterdays to set some folks to rememberin' and others to dreamin'.

They're down home yarns of East Texas and dazzling adventure stories set in the mysterious Far East, they're of store-stove conferences and dark murders, of the good, the bad and the ugly who've crossed his many paths.

Lad's writing has appeared in countless journals and anthologies and Riders of the Seven Hills is the third of his popular collections, each of which - although skillfully presented in dozens of bite-sized chunks - leave his reader with that satisfying, well-fed feeling of someone who's just devoured an epic novel.

His cast of players come and go; sometimes with a character taking center stage, sometimes with him or her merely in the chorus. Just as you'd expect in real life. But the creeping result is real life people who grow familiar as the stories unfold, events that are fully explored, and places that almost miraculously achieve solid form as the pages swiftly turn.

Lad's short works take shape like the tiny dabs of seemingly random color in an impressionist painting. The colors combine to create a living landscape because the brush is held by a master of his art. Now let's take the time to step back a little and admire the broad canvas.
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Read an extract from Riders of the Seven Hills

About the Author

Purchase: paperback | eBook

Title: Riders of the Seven Hills
Author: Lad Moore
Print ISBN: 978-1-906609-02-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-906609-03-0
Page count: 244
Release Date: 31st May 2009

Distributors: Bertram Books, Gardners, Baker & Taylor, Ingrams

BeWrite Books are available from: BeWrite Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones and other online booksellers and to order from high street bookshops

Review: Until the Skies Fall by Liza Granville

Delightful book, very interesting and provides a good idea of where genetic engineering is going to take the world. Too bad the scientists don't consider the future when they begin playing god.

At a future time, after our world is nearly destroyed by genetic experimentation, it is now faced with the possibility of destruction by a Death Star. Arthur, who has no surname and who looks the perfect human, is sent out into the world to search for four beings who have the ‘fire’ ability that will wake the Magic Stone. The Magic Stone will in turn destroy the Death Star and result in the earth being saved. When Arthur reaches Homestead West, Laz, part animal, part human, learns he has the ‘fire’ and must go with Arthur back to the far North where the Magic Stone rests.

Laz’s brothers and Ferrik, Laz’s adopted father, insists on accompanying them. A friend of Laz’s, Dann, and an old female healer, Wyc, decides to go with them. Time is short and confusion is rife, but the group sets out on the long journey. On the way, they must look for others who have the ‘fire’ ability. Death, heartbreak, near starvation, battles involving earth elements gone awry decreases the number in the group, yet they trudge onward. The entire world depends on them now.

I really liked this story. Not only does it involve a group of people and what happens to them on a long trip, but it also explores the ways various people react to the same incidents, the same danger. It explores the innermost feelings that can fill the mind as a result of these happenings. Liza Granville does a great job bringing Laz and his brothers, mentally, from youth to adulthood and yet leaving them with the sense of playfulness that makes life so much fun no matter how old one gets. She shows the dirty side of discrimination and how it hurts us and others. A good book for those who like to read of family trials with a touch of magic and the weird.

Lucille P Robinson

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If I had more than 5 stars to give, I would give them to this book.

Lisa Granville has written a wonderful story in which she has created a totally believable alternate world with characters for whom the reader develops a real affinity.

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world. At some time in the past, scientists began to experiment with genetic engineering, creating many people and animals which were very different in appearance from the norm. People and animals with extra limbs and wings are commonplace, but looked down upon, in this world, by people known as Perfects or Near-Perfects, those who are genetically most like humans once were. At some point, a huge battle arose between the religious right and the scientists, which caused the destruction of most of civilization.

Now, the earth is threatened again, this time by a "death star" from space. Only a few people can stop the death star and save the earth, and among them are Laz, his father Farrik, his brothers Rom and Longshanks, his friend Dann, and an old wise woman named Wye. Together, they set out on a quest to save the world, led by a perfect human who turns out not to be "folk" at all, Arthur, who must be an android.

At no point does Granville give us a full description of Laz, his family or friends. She gives us tantalizing hints as to their looks, but the only way we know how truly different they are is by the reactions of others to them. To themselves, they are just "folk," and differences in appearance mean nothing.

Every detail of their actions and personalities are perfectly suited to the setting and the story. The travellers encounter places called Yell and Purgtree, and travel through land inhabited by creatures called Howls and Ships. They endure hunger, loss, injury, and high adventure.

In the end, Granville leaves plenty of room for a sequel. I, personally, can't wait to read it. Any time a writer leaves a reader hungry for more of the story, that is a book worth more than 5 stars.

starmac at ijustfinished.com

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Read an excerpt

Click here for more information about Liza Granville

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