Short Story: Humble Pie

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

This time around, it is the turn of Humble Pie, a tiny bit of flash fiction

I hope you enjoy it. Please leave your thoughts 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.

One Minute Writing Workshop: Music

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

This month, I want to have a little chat about something that helps me with my writing. Music.

I always have music playing when I’m writing. I find that the background noise really helps get the creative juices going.

What do you like to listen to? Let me know in the 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.

Spalluccipedia: Lancaster

 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 Lancaster itself.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with my city of residence, Lancaster is a small city in the Northwest of England, situated in the heart of Morecambe Bay. The earliest known settlement here was Roman and I came here to study back in 1990. 

I never left.

It is a glorious little city with wonderful views of Morecambe Bay and the Lake District. Containing two universities, it is a cultural hub and well worth a visit for those in the area.

Lancaster has a marvellous history and I draw on this quite a bit when dealing with Sam. 

I hope you enjoy the little accompanying video. 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 Monthly Roundup - July 2023

 Greetings one and all!

It’s the first week of July and the summer seems to be getting busier and busier for Yours Truly!

Well, first, Lux Æterna is now in the final editing phase. It has two more run-throughs (one listening; one reading) until I can start dropping extracts for the Seraph members of my book club. It has been an absolute beast to write as I’ve had to make sure that lots of threads have been tied off whilst making sure that it fits in sequence with events bubbling away in Fallen Angel (more on that one in a minute or so…)

Also in the pipeline is Child of Light. This novella will be released alongside Lux Æterna and will fill in some backstory for both Alec and Lucifer. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing both of these and I know that you will devour them both when they are published in October. 

So, I mentioned Fallen Angel. As many of you will know, this is sort of the book that kicked everything off. I first wrote it back in my mid-teens and it bubbled around for a number of years until I finalised what I wanted it to look like back in about 2009. However, I never published it because I felt it was the middle of a story rather than the beginning. There were characters in there that I knew a lot about but the readers wouldn’t. So, I shelved it and set off writing Sam’s adventures and building the Spallucciverse where FA would sit like a spider spinning a web of plots and characters around it. 

This summer, once Lux Æterna is finished, I will be revisiting my FA manuscript and will start the job of bringing it up to speed so that it matches all the books (28 of them…) that I’ve written since. It’s going to be a mammoth undertaking, but I am sitting here rubbing my hands with glee. I, unlike many authors, relish the art of editing. Give me a manuscript and I am a pig in the proverbial finding mistakes and polishing rough diamonds. Things which need to be included are the likes of the Potency in her weirdling shape. She wasn’t even a glimmer in my creative eye back in 2009 and now she is a major player in the Spallucciverse, along with her mother, the Abyss, who did not possess her interactive form back then either. Alongside this, motivations for certain characters have changed and evolved, so I need to go back and make sure that everything just fits. 

It’s going to be a blast.

Alongside this, I’ll be preparing for Stockport comic con on the 30th of July. There’s a link for the details over at www.aschambers.co.uk. Pop over and have a look. It would be great to see you there.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

Have a great one!

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 - My Divergent Lands

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

This time around, it is the turn of My Divergent Lands, one of the stories from 2016’s anthology Let All Mortal Flesh (links for which you can find at www.aschambers.co.uk).

This is one of the many shorts I’ve written that tie in with the stories of Sam Spallucci. 

However, this one is a bit different…

What we have here is the shadowy Black Dragon Kanor looking out over the Divergent Lands and revelling in his obliteration of the human race. For once we get to see the world from this devastator of humanity.

I hope you enjoy it. Please leave your thoughts 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.

One Minute Writing Workshop: Filing

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

This month, I want to have a little chat about something that is crucial in keeping your work organised. Filing! 

As creative types, it can be very tempting for us to scratch things out in a book or on a random bit of paper, but this can be a nightmare when it comes to trying to find that amazing idea we had six months ago. 

It is crucial to keep a good filing system, both a paper one and a digital one. It just makes the whole creative process so much easier. We don’t have to keep worrying about things that we inadvertently lose.

So, if you haven’t already done so, go through your bits of paper and random files on your computer and get them nicely ordered.

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: Dalton Square

 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 a location: Dalton Square in Lancaster.

Dalton Square is the location that I use the most in my Sam Spallucci books, mainly because that’s where his base of operations is located. He has an office and a flat above the Chinese restaurant there, the Paradise Dragon. Both of them he has rent-free because of the supernatural pickles he got the proprietor out of. 

In real life, there is indeed a Chinese restaurant in the square. I frequent the Fortune Star quite a lot myself. It is well worth a visit. As is the Borough, the pub which I use as Sam’s drinking hole. 

Historically, Dalton Square as it is now was developed in the late Victorian era with the Town Hall and the statue of Victoria herself following after the monarch’s death. It is named after the Dalton family who lived out at Thurnam Hall to the southwest of Lancaster. In fact, many of the streets around the square are named after members of the Dalton family, who were one of the richest families in the area.

I hope you enjoy the little accompanying video about. 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.

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.

A.S.Chambers - April Roundup

 Good morning one and all! 

Well, didn’t March go quickly? I thought February shot off like a rocket, but March seems to have done likewise. The daffodils are starting to give way to tulips, the forsythia is in bloom and the sparrows are getting randy. Spring is certainly starting to make itself felt here in Lancaster.

So, where am I at as the nights get longer and the warmth creeps in?

Well, currently, I’m in my sick bed! I was rather ill in early March with something that looks like it was Covid and it has absolutely knocked me for six. I dragged myself up to Carlisle Comic Con last weekend by use of paracetamol and sheer bloody-mindedness, but I am certainly feeling the after-effects now. 

However, I refuse to let a small matter of illness halt my creativity. I’ve spent the last week re-reading all the material I’ve written so far for Lux Æterna and I’m really happy with how it’s turning out. There’s about half a case to go and the book is twisting and turning left and right, keeping the reader guessing about the big picture while tying in nicely to all the expanded universe stories that surround it. Health permitting, the first major draft should be finished by the end of April and I’m looking at a Hallowe’en launch date.

In the meantime, Out Of The Depths is due for publication later this month. I just need to finish the final bits of formatting (when I’m not running a sky-high temperature…) popping in the dedication for all my lovely Patrons and Kickstarter backers who chose that reward. Keep your eyes peeled for updates. Don’t forget that all Seraph Tier Book Club members will receive a free signed copy as part of their membership.

Also, watch out for updates on a double release this summer! That’s right, not one, but two books will be heading your way, probably in August. The fourth outing for Bobby Normal, Bobby Normal and the Fallen will be team tagging with Sam Spallucci: The Case of the Pillaging Pirates.  BNTF will be the penultimate solo (hmmmm… I wonder why I stressed that???) outing for Bobby with Bobby Normal and the Black Dragon following next year. PP is a quick little short set just a week or so before the events of Casebook. 

What else is coming this month?

Well, two conventions, that’s what! On Easter Monday (10th April), I’ll be at Morecambe Comic Con and on the 30th of the month, I’ll be at Hull Comic Con. Links for both can be found on my website: www.aschambers.co.uk.

And finally… So, the sharp-eyed of you might notice some new bits of material here in the Book Club. There are now new daily pieces for those of you who subscribe to the £1 Poltergeist Tier and above: the sixty seconds roundup, the Tuesday teaser, the Wednesday word, Schroedinger says and the Spalluccipedia Short. I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoy making them. If there’s anything else that you’d like to see, please let me know.

Righty-ho! I’m off for a nice warm Lemsip.

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.

One Minute Writing Workshop: If In Doubt, Read It Out

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

This month, I want to have a little chat about something that I do a lot when I’m editing my work: reading it out aloud.

Sometimes, we can write a passage down and there’s this little voice niggling away at the back of our head saying, “You know what, that’s not quite right.” Then, we read it over and over and darned if we can’t work out what’s actually wrong.

Well, in this situation, I find it very helpful to just take a moment and read the infernal passage aloud. Quite often, sentences can sound different when spoken aloud compared to that quiet voice we use in our heads. We can pick up tones, inflections, stray punctuation… all sorts of things.

So, the next time you type up something and think to yourself, “That doesn’t look right,” just take a moment to read it out loud. You might find it helps.

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 - Then

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

This time around, it is the turn of First Hunt: Then, 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).

I’ve always been a fan of vampires; more so than werewolves. This is why they feature as heroic figures in the Spallucciverse. However, I’ve always despaired somewhat at stories where they’re put up on untouchable pedestals. When I read vampire fiction that basically regurgitates the same language and tropes as Dracula (which I hasten to add is one of my favourite books), I sigh in despair. That iconic novel was written over one hundred and twenty years ago. Surely, vampires, like humans need to move with the times?

So, when we see my vampires, the Children of Cain, they are very much characters of their own time periods. They neither ravish virgins nor laze around in an armchair in a “sanguine haze”. They are still rather human, with all our human problems.

The two First Hunt short stories really illustrate this, showing how vampires who take waifs and strays under their wings are just as must at sea as a human counterpart would be.

I hope you enjoy this one. First Hunt: Now will follow next month.

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.