Monthly Roundup - June 2023

 Greetings one and all!

It’s the first week of June and the coming month is going to be a busy one for Yours Truly!

Well, first, Lux Æterna’s first draft is complete and I am now currently mid-major edit. I love this part of the creative process, making sure that everything works and bringing out highlights to tease and tantalise my readers. I’m still on track for an autumn release and I hope to be able to share a cover reveal with you in a month or so.

June 24th sees me book signing at CoCo Comic Con in my very own Lancaster. This was an absolute hoot last year, so I highly recommend you come along if you can. More details over at www.aschambers.co.uk. 

The biggest news, though, is that my Kickstarter for The Case of the Pillaging Pirates and Bobby Normal and the Fallen goes live on the 12th June! Sooooooo excited about this one as it’s the first time that I’ve had a double launch. Obviously, all Seraph Patreon members will receive signed copies as part of their membership, but if you want to back the Kickstarter, there are some cracking rewards. Check it out by following the link on www.aschambers.co.uk.

Right, that’s all for now. Take care and keep looking for what lurks in the shadows!

ASC.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advanced screenings of my videos and free books.

Short Story - Prodigy

 Hello and welcome to this month’s short story video.

This time around, it is the turn of Prodigy, one of the stories from 2015’s anthology All Things Dark and Dangerous (links for which you can find at www.aschambers.co.uk).

This is one of the many standalone shorts that I write whilst I’m working on my main body of Sam Spallucci stories. I love being able to just pop out something a bit different every now and again.

And, boy, is Prodigy different…

As many of my readers will know, I am quite a fan of Philip K Dick. I love his sharp, to-the-point style, which can from time to time create a feeling of detachment from the events in a story and a surreal flavour. One story which, for me, encapsulated this style was Nanny, a story about battling nanny robots. It was after I read this that my own Dick-style ideas started to bounce around. The one that came to fruition was Prodigy which took his style and laced it with a good splash of horror.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advanced screenings of my videos and free books.

Take care and keep looking out for what lurks in the shadows…

A.S.Chambers.

Spalluccipedia: DCI Jitendra Patel

Greetings and welcome to this monthly dive into characters, places and themes in the ever-expanding world of my paranormal investigator, Sam Spallucci.

This time around, I want to have a little chat about one of the interesting side characters from the Spallucciverse: DCI Jitendra Patel.

Lancaster’s fictional DCI has been a bit of a labour of love for me. Introduced right at the beginning of Sam’s adventures in The Casebook of Sam Spallucci, I kept him happily bubbling away on the creative stove for six books, occasionally adding more spices and ingredients every time we met him. 

We quickly learnt that he was a straight-laced, organised neat freak who commanded respect and loyalty from the police officers that served under him. We then discovered that he was secretly pursuing his own research into the Bloodline of Abel after his encounter with hawking in Williamson Park. This eventually led to the tragically climactic events of Sam Spallucci: Bloodline.

Part of Jitendra’s role was to act as a foil for all the supernatural shenanigans in Sam’s life. To a certain extent, like Spliff, he was an anchor for Sam, giving him a certain amount of grounding in the mundane world. Like Spliff, this anchor was eventually cut loose and we shall have to see what effect this has on Sam in the later books.

I hope you enjoy the little video about him. Please leave your thoughts and comments below.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advanced screenings of my videos and free books.

Take care and keep looking out for what lurks in the shadows…

A.S.Chambers.

 

A.S.Chambers - May Roundup

 Greetings one and all!

So here we are in the sunny first week of May. The cherry blossom is in bloom, the blackbirds are twittering in the trees and the mallards are insanely randy down on the canal…

But what does this first proper month of springtime have in store for Yours Truly and what can you expect to see from me over the coming few weeks?

Well, first, Lux Æterna’s first draft is tantalisingly near completion. I am currently working on a  section in the Case of the Crying Crucifix where Sam, Alec and Lucifer (that’s right, the fallen seraph is going to feature as a main character…) are transported forwards in time to the Divergent Lands. So far, Sam has been betrayed by the Abyss, tortured by Asmodeus and rescued by… Hmmmm… actually, that one might be a touch spoilery. All I’ll say is that it is a certain female character from another series of mine who has aged a touch. If you get it, give yourself a pat on the back.

What else am I up to?

Well, The Case of the Pillaging Pirates has now been formatted for its paperback release in a couple of months’ time. Look out for a joint Kickstarter for that and Bobby Normal 4 - Bobby Normal and the Fallen. Also, look out for the cover reveals for both books later this month or early next month.

No signings planned for this month, but I will be at the local CoCo Comic Con in June. More details next month.

Right, that’s all for now. Take care and keep looking for what lurks in the shadows!

ASC.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advanced screenings of my videos and free books.

One Minute Writing Workshop - Speech-to-text

 Hello and welcome to this little one-minute writing workshop.

This month, I want to have a little chat about something that I use A LOT! Speech-to-text software. 

For me, this has to be one of the most useful gadgets on my phone. I don’t know about you, but I seem to get most of my ideas when I’m out and about, normally walking. As a result, it can be extremely fiddly to fish out my phone and start tapping away, especially if it’s somewhat nippy and I’m wearing gloves.

Speech-to-text makes this process of note-taking so much easier. I just tap the mike button and gabble away for the next few minutes.

Obviously, there can be drawbacks, the main one being its mis-spelling of proper nouns, but this encourages me to go through my notes at a later date, refresh my memory over what I jotted down and tweak my ideas.

If you haven't used this function on your phone, I suggest you give it a go.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advanced screenings of my videos and free books.

Take care and keep looking out for what lurks in the shadows…

A.S.Chambers.

Short Story: First Hunt - Now

 Hello and welcome to this month’s short story video.

This time around, it is the turn of First Hunt: Now, one of two short vampire stories from 2015’s anthology All Things Dark and Dangerous (links for which you can find at www.aschambers.co.uk).

As I said last month, I’ve always been a fan of vampires; more so than werewolves. This is why they feature as heroic figures in the Spallucciverse. First Hunt: Now really illustrates how I give them a human spin, so to speak. I find it quite tedious and monotonous when vamps are all ubered-up and practically invincible or all-knowing. This short story shows how they have to learn their skils, just as they would have learnt things when they were human.

Also, it ties in nicely with a novella that I’m working on and will be published in late 2023, Child of Light. The location is the same as in the novella and the battle with constructs that is referred to here at the start of the story is in fact the climax of that tale.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advanced screenings of my videos and free books.

Take care and keep looking out for what lurks in the shadows…

A.S.Chambers.

Spalluccipedia: Justice

 Greetings and welcome to this monthly dive into characters, places and themes in the ever-expanding world of my paranormal investigator, Sam Spallucci.

This time around, I want to have a little chat about one of my favourite side characters: Justice the Vampire.

Way, way back in the dim distant past of 2011, when I was working on The Casebook of Sam Spallucci, I sat down and wrote in practically one sitting, the short vampire story High Moon. The premise was that an unnamed vampire wanders into a Wild West town and eliminates the corrupt sheriff who happened to be a construct, one of the big bad golems from my Spallucciverse. The short was heavily influenced by my love of the Dollars trilogy and, if you read the description of the taciturn vampire, you can see that his look is clearly influenced by the late, great Lee Van Cleef. 

Interestingly, I didn’t give the vampire a name at that time. It wasn’t until his second outing in First Hunt: Then that we discovered he was called Justice. In fact, my whole use of vampires was still in its infancy. However, it was his striking appearance in the town of Salem that made me want to do more with him. As a result, he developed into the role of the King of the Children of Cain with a deep and complex back history that would explode into Sam’s fourth outing, Dark Justice.

I hope you enjoy the little video about him. Please leave your thoughts and comments below.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advanced screenings of my videos and free books.

Take care and keep looking out for what lurks in the shadows…

A.S.Chambers.