A Shadowy Spring

As I sit typing this, the sun is streaming through my window and spring has finally sprung. Duckings are quacking their way down the canal and lambs are starting to learn about the bogeyman spoken of in hushed tones as “mint sauce”. Spring always brings a feeling of rebirth and renewal, a shot in the arm of patent vim and vigour. It makes you feel that perhaps everything can be all right with the world.

Oh, that things could be that simple for my dearly beloved investigator of the paranormal, Sam Spallucci! I am now two cases into his next outing, Sam Spallucci: Troubled Souls, and things are, as usual, spiralling rather out of control for him. Following the same format as Casebook and Shadows of Lancaster, the latest book will be compiled of five interlinked cases: The Case of The Cherokee Checkout, The Case of The Distressed Demoniac, The Case of The Time-Travelling Tea Rooms, The Case of The Dabbling Dominion and The Case of The Bare Lane Butcher. We will see Sam encounter love-stricken spectres, lost creatures from another realm, an interfering angel and not one, but two, serial killers stalking the back streets of Lancaster and Morecambe. 

I am enjoying this outing for numerous reasons. As well as exploring the ever increasing interference in Sam’s life by the mysterious Kanor, bringer of the apocalyptic Divergence, I will also be using Sam’s lodger Alec a lot more and delving into his family. 

Plus, on top of all this, I am delighted to be working with the marvellous Peter Cakebread. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of reading his novel The Morecambe Medium which is set in Victorian Morecambe and I asked him at the time whether or not he fancied penning a joint effort. The Case of The Time-Travelling Tea Rooms will be my half of this venture. Sam, accompanied by his bohemian best friend Spliff, will find themselves teamed up with Peter’s detectorators Mulberry and Touchstone, tracking down the original Bare Lane Butcher. As usual in Sam’s world, not everything is as it seems and there will be repercussions later on in Troubled Souls.

Upcoming Events:

As well as scribbling away, I shall be making a few appearances over the next few weeks. Saturday 13th April sees me in Wakefield at the Pagan Federation North East Conference. Then, on the very next day, I shall be just down the road in Doncaster for the Doncaster Unleashed Comic Con. The 4th and 5th May see my return to the ever popular EM-Con (where I hope to successfully stalk cast members of Star Trek: The Next Generation) and on the 11th May I shall be at the annual Oldham Comic Con. Feel free to come along and say, “Hello!”

All the best,

A.S.Chambers (April 2019).

www.aschambers.co.uk

Facebook Page

Facebook Group

Twitter

Instagram

YouTube

Pinterest

Amazon

Something to get your teeth into!

February (and indeed early march) have been insanely busy. This has been in main due to my work on the novella Songbird. When I was working on Sam Spallucci: Dark Justice, I decided that I wasn’t quite finished with the vampires just yet. First saw the publication in January of my Children of Cain omnibus which collected together all the vampire shorts that I had previously published in my anthologies. Then came the idea that I wanted to concentrate on just one of the vampires from Sam’s world. Namely, Nightingale. Songbird, for want of a better term, is an origins story for the regent of the Children of Cain. It tells of her time as a servant to the brutal vicar of All Saints in Wellington where she encounters the mysterious watery force that dwells beneath the church before the cataclysmic event that leads to the destruction of the church’s interior, leading to the installation of the new font with its infamous inscription. We then join her in her early weeks as a vampire, having been birthed and rescued by the troubled Doulos. With Nightingale, we meet Marcus, who would become her long term partner then we travel over to the Wild West and follow her through the tragic story as previously told in Family. 

I’ve always had a soft spot for Justice’s sister. In fact, she was one of the first of the children of Cain that I created when I wrote Fallen Angel. We actually meet her and Marcus there, right at the very end of her life. She came across then, as she does in the following stories, as still very human, and I think that’s why she has become a firm fan favourite as, unlike many fictional vampires, readers can relate to her and what she goes through.

Songbird was finished last week and is now at the formatting stage and I eagerly wait artwork from the incredibly talented Liam Shaw who created the covers for Mourning Has Broken and Children of Cain. I’m hoping to publish it some point during April although, before then, I’m thinking about running a Kickstarter campaign to help with costs of publishing and promoting. Watch this space and all my various social media sites for details as there will be nice little deals to be had for those who help out.

Upcoming Events:

One for the diary this month is Lancaster Litfest. On the 17th March I shall be reading a few excerpts and chatting about my books at Pizza Margherita on Moor Lane in Lancaster. More details can be found over at the Litfest website.

All the best,

A.S.Chambers (March 2019).

www.aschambers.co.uk

Facebook Page

Facebook Group

Twitter

Instagram

YouTube

Pinterest

Amazon

At last, an update!

At last, an update from A.S.Chambers. 

    January has been a fantastic month at Chambers Towers. Normally, once the ice hits and my beard starts to freeze, I make like a grizzly and hibernate, emerging only to mauling to a painful death anyone who is daft enough to wake me. This year, however, has been surprisingly productive.

     First, Children of Cain – A Vampire Omnibus has seen the light of day. Compiling all the short stories

surrounding the vampires that exist in Sam Spallucci’s world, it makes a tidy little anthology and is a must buy for the avid collector of my books or anyone who wants to have a taster of my work outside the life of Lancaster’s beleaguered investigator of the paranormal.

     It was wonderful to work with the amazingly talented Liam Shaw once more as he transformed the vision of constant reader Ann Daniel when she won the competition to design the cover for the book. This is the second time that I have collaborated with Liam as he brought the cover to Mourning Has Broken into life back in 2018. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with for Songbird.

   Speaking of which, I am just about at the end of the second draft of the origins story for Nightingale the vampire. A firm favourite with my readers, it was only right that I go back and explore certain elements of her history. These include: her life before being turned; her time at All Saints church (which she refers to in Sam Spallucci: Dark Justice); her relationship with her and Justice’s vampire father, Doulos and of course the cataclysmic events of the short story Family. It has been an absolute joy to work on Songbird and I know that many of my readers can’t wait for its release.

     January has also seen something quite momentous for me. On the whole, most of my books have been published through Amazon’s KDP platform, which is easy to use and provides a good online marketplace for them. However, I have now re-released the third edition of The Casebook of Sam Spallucci through a platform that will reach high street stores. I intend to do the same for all the other Sam books and, later on this year, I shall be approaching the likes of Waterstones and W.H.Smiths. Watch this space.

     Well, that’s all for now. There will be another post here in a few weeks. I’ll share it out on social media, so keep your eyes peeled. In the meantime, I had better crack on with the fifth Sam Spallucci novel Troubled Souls.

All the best and keep looking in the shadows,

Austin.

Don't forget to visit my website: www.aschambers.co.uk

Stresses And Smiles.

It is fair to say that the last two weeks have been somewhat manic. What with the start of exam season (which meant lots of invigilating for Yours Truly), visitors from antipodean lands and preparations for EM-con, there has been very little time to squeeze in writing or blogging let alone any running to clear the mind.

So, you might feel that I've been somewhat stressed and anxious. True, the invigilating takes it out of me. Hour upon hour of mind-numbing seriousness does tend to cause a certain amount of atrophy in the cerebral area. This followed by maniacally running around the house eliminating every last piece of dust and detritus before an old childhood friend comes to visit can raise ones blood pressure as can the comment, “You have a cat. I die if I go near cats.” But a cup of tea in the garden can soon relax one's nerves and belay any fatal asthma attacks.

As for one of the largest comic cons in the East Midlands: yes, this took an insane amount of preparation which in turn led to anxious nausea, dizziness, tears and tantrums. But what an event it was! I had a great time meeting up with readers of my Sam Spallucci books and making new friends and acquaintances.

One such person was a delightful young lady by the name of Frances. She came up to my stall, supported by her crutches, and we got talking. It turned out that we had a major life issue in common: defunct ears! However, whereas mine require, at the most, a day or two in bed or the occasional use of a walking stick, this young woman's auditory issues dominated her life completely, so much in fact that her balance was almost completely non-existent and she had been forced to have one of her inner ears removed and replaced with a cranial induction hearing aid.

However, what is the one thing that I shall remember most about her? Is it her wobbling from side to side as we spoke? Is it her telling me how she had dreaded the surgeon removing part of her skull?

No, it's neither of these. It's her infectious smile. This brave young woman refuses to let her physical disability ruin her life. She takes what she has and and just runs with it.

She is a shining example to us all.

Don't forget, you can catch up with my writing bits and pieces at the following places:

My Website,

Facebook,

Twitter,

Amazon,

Goodreads.

Hail The Conquering Hero!

Yes yes yes! I did it. I am practically bouncing up and down as I devour my well earned celebratory beans on toast. What might you ask is this achievement of which also proud? Have I discovered the meaning of life? Have I successfully split an atom using nothing but a Stanley knife, a g-clamp and duct tape? Have I finally completed my life long dream to sing bare chested in a boy band to a horde of screaming fans.

Well it's none of these. This morning I accomplished something far greater.

I ran non-stop for 4.7 kilometres.

Okay, I can here the bemused silence from here so I had better explain. 4.7 kilometres is the distance from my house to the local Sainsburys whilst travelling along the river Lune. I have been running along this path now roughly twice a week since the beginning of the year. As the months have progressed my running distance has steadily increased so that the amount I run supersedes the amount that I walk.

Well, today saw me run the whole length of the path with no walking or breaks whatsoever. What's more, I managed it in a sweet thirty minutes.

Now I know that's no record breaking feat and I don't think I'll be booking into the London marathon just yet, but let me put this into context. Before January I had never run consistently like this before. My Ménière's disease would not let me. I would jog along to the end of the street and the world would spin as Quasimodo played a bell concerto in my ears. Today however, I feel totally upright and high on endorphins. The tinnitus is still there but rather than Big Ben I hear the gentle tintinnabulation of gentle summer wind chimes.

This is a victory. The sight of my triumphal arch (the gate into Sainsburys) marked a turning point in my life. This my body; it does not belong to Mister Meniere's. With effort, grit and determination I can make sure that he never claims ownership of it ever again!  

Don't forget, you can catch up with my writing bits and pieces at the following places:

My Website,

Facebook,

Twitter,

Amazon,

Goodreads.

Bring On The Cartoon Bluebirds!

It's amazing what a little drop of sunshine can do to lift one’s spirits. For the last few days weather here in Lancaster has been dull, damp and downright depressing.

Today, however, I woke to find a bright sky, flowers nodding in the garden and cartoon bluebirds serenading Schroedinger, my kitten, through the kitchen window. Okay, so I made that last bit up, but you get the idea.

While the weather has been grim, I've been curled up on the sofa trying to concentrate on the latest adventures of Daredevil whilst Mister Meniere's has been dancing round the living room, shaking his ample booty in my face and calling me a loser.

So today, accompanied by the first of the spring sunshine, I have donned my fedora and headed into town to find a sunny seat and start on my next Sam Spallucci book, Dark Justice. As I sit upstairs in a local coffee shop, I can see people going about their day-to-day business with a a lot more bounce in their steps. Their heads are up, looking around at the newly-illuminated city and gone are the large hoods protecting them from the elements. Like the first flowers poking up from warming earth, people are crawling out from under the covers to finally start enjoying the new year.

This puts me in a good mood so, in the eternal fight with Mister Meniere's, this round belongs to me (and those sweet little cartoon bluebirds…)

Don't forget, you can catch up with my writing bits and pieces at the following places:

My Website,

Facebook,

Twitter,

Amazon,

Goodreads.

A Tale Of Inspiration

I do enjoy my morning runs by the River Lune as it snakes it's way through the centre of Lancaster. Not only is the fresh morning air exhilarating but I actually find running by the sleeping dragon quite inspirational in my constant battle with Meniere's Disease.

When I first arrived here as a student back in 1990 I was told about how the Romans founded the city. The story went that they decided that the hill by the Lune would be an ideal point to set up shop as it had a perfect view all around for keeping an eye on pesky Celts and possibly a few sneaky Picts.

However, there was just one little problem.

The river was in the wrong place.

In order to ensure that they were firmly secured, the river needed to go around the base of the hill and not in its existing straight path. So it was that the Romans did to this force of nature what they did to just about everything else: they subjugated it and bent it to their will. They dug a new path for the Lune that gave the river it's familiar kink around the base of Castle Hill, they settled Lancaster and the rest, as they say, was history.

There is, however, one problem with this story.

It never happened.

Recent archaeology has shown that the river was never moved. It has always been in the position that it occupies and resolutely flows from hill to shore blithely ignoring all who stand in its path.

So this is the true inspiration for me. A river that refuses to be cowed by the actions of others stands as an example for me in my constant battle against Mister Menieres. My journey may twist or turn, but as I continue I shall build in strength and power until one day I shall overcome and see the ocean blue.

Don't forget, you can catch up with my writing bits and pieces at the following places:

My Website,

Facebook,

Twitter,

Amazon,

Goodreads.