Christmas Reading List

December 24, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

Wow, Christmas is here already! How quick was that? Seems like only the other day it was Summer (such as it was here in Ireland!)!

While things wind down and we have a bit of time off, we can relax and finally gorge on… food, yes… but more importantly reading!

Reading copious amounts of books sometimes feels like eating cakes; you wolf them down and then are left thinking; ‘why did I do that?! It’s gone now!’. Of course there’s always another cake during the holidays!

With that in mind, we’ve decided to put together a wee list of books we are planning on gorging on this Christmas!

Late to the game, we are both going to read Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth – you could say very up and coming – or already up and came, and we are just very late to the show!

Latimer: My understanding of this series – dystopia (buzz word at the moment, like an –omics, ha, science joke), hmm, there’s sure to be a romance in it and hmm, something about lots of factions and fighting. Okay, honestly, I might be going into this one a little blind!

Ridley: I’m looking forward to this one, the reviews have been good and it seems interesting!!

Latimer: I finally bought The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (finally because I think I have been looking at this one for years thinking ‘I must get that book’). The story is; a boy, called Nobody (I like that already), is raised in a graveyard by ghosts. That’s pretty much all I know; I’m looking forward to it! I’ve only read one Gaiman book (which was a co-authorship with Terry Pratchett; Good Omens, a very good book!). I like the humorous writing style of these two authors, so really looking forward to this book (on a side note, I really want to read Gaiman’s Sandman comics… another story that!).

Ah yes, I’m going to give Delirium by Lauren Oliver a go too… All I know; love is a disease and you can’t love people in this dystopia world (I’m not a massive dystopia fan, but seems most of my loot this year is dystopic in origin!). I absolutely hate the cover of this book (the picture is the cover I have); but that aside, I think the book sounds very interesting!

And I will finally… FINALLY read Angelfall by Susan Ee (again dystopia!), which has a massive Ridley Stamp of Approval (RSA) and therefore, I have no doubt, it will be excellent and so, you should definitely seek out this book out if you haven’t read it yet!

Ridley: And why, pray tell, is this not first on your list!? Thoroughly disgusted I am that you haven’t read this yet! (My RSAs usually have Latimer running out to grab the book-and vice versa I might add- though I know she’s been busy….publishing, editing, working, writing, sleeping, eating, drawing…PAH!) *crosses arms with a pout**

Latimer: Also plan to do a spot of manga reading if I can 🙂 (in English, not Japanese!)

Then I have to do a bit of writing (ah, more than a bit really, I’m behind on a few things! Eep! :(). And eating; currently I have located a packet of ‘Irish Shortbread Biscuits’ and am wolfing them down happily (by myself, I glare if anyone touches them!) with tea in my Moomin cup of an evening 🙂 I love Christmas… food food food… yums (we might be having a cheese board this year, I’m excited haha :))

20121222_232309 — Yes, the biscuits are shaped like shamrocks, which is a little obvious, but that’s alright they are delicious 🙂

As Christmas ticks on, we’ve been working on editing a short story we wrote; it’s called Temperance (meaning moderation and self-restraint :)) and is a moment in the past of our character, Temperance Levinthal from Legend Unleashed. It’s going to be free and we hope to have it out as soon as it’s fit to be seen! But we can share this with you (cover time…)

Ridley: Ah Temperance, we’re working away on this little story, we hope to share it with you in the new year! Fingers crossed you like it!

And now, some of my books for this Christmas include…

Seraphina, I’ve had my eye on this one for a bit. I just love the old school, sketchy cover. I’ve been on the YA train for so long, it’ll be good to get back to my fantasy roots with this! There are dragons in this world that can shape shift into humans…intriguing, no?

Again, more fantasy, another one on my list to get, Shadow and Bone. I can’t wait!! Our friend on deviantart, mseregon, also recommended this! She gave us loads of fantastic ideas for our next book too!

The main character is whisked off to a royal court after it’s discovered that she has dormant powers. There’s also a bit of a possible love interest in her best friend too. So yes please!

I loved the first book in this series, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor, her world building is just beautiful. Prague is such a fantastic setting for her book. And there was a great mystery woven throughout it, so really looking forward to what’s going to happen in this next instalment as there was a bit of a cliff hanger in the last one. I was left going (O_O) at the end! Haha.

In The Assassin’s Curse, there is, obviously, a curse! It forces the two main characters together. There’s a possible love triangle (i think) and better yet, pirates! How could you not want to read this? Plus the cover is beautiful. I’m a sucker for a good cover!

So finally everybody, have a lovely Christmas and New Year (if we don’t see you before then!)!

Enjoy your reading time, and let us know if you come across any book gems!!

MLR 🙂

Happiness Curve

December 7, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

Latimer and I have a happiness curve. Well, it should be a happiness slope really. It goes from the lofty level of the thrilled ‘Huzzah’ and plummets down to the blue depths of the ‘Bleugh’. We thought we were great, making up the name, ‘happiness curve’ but after a quick Google search, it turns out it’s already in existence…darn it. But! This is our version, and it’s a little different.

While both ends represent happiness in the usual curve, with ours, one end is total happiness and the other is…not. Both points are so extreme, only sounds can truly express them. There are, of course, little steps along the sloping road, the ‘that was epic!’ the ‘yay, yay!’, the ‘oh noo!’ and the ‘why me!’.

Throughout the process of our book being published, Latimer and I have swung from both extremes, pinged and ponged from one to the other. From when we finished writing it with premature ‘huzzahs’ to the double synchronised ‘bleughs’ as we forced ourselves to format, ‘one more time’.

Despite this though, skating up and down the slope has to be one of the most exhilarating and fun experiences that we’ve had in our short lives. We’ve had the ecstatic arrival of our book cover, where we spent over a week frequently wandering around staring at the image with dopey smiles while bumping into people, poles, bins and getting tangled in dog leads. To the following week where we nursed the resulting bruises, and started the brain-hurting job of teasing out the tangles within our manuscript.

But publishing is not the only place you’ll find happiness curves; there are those that occur within a really good book, well mini ones anyway. Actually, it is always more of a happiness squiggle. Once sucked into another world, you can roll along through moments of sqwee-ing, jealousy, danger, action and sadness. It can often be like a rollercoaster. This fantastic ride is something we’ve always strived to achieve in our own writing. So we hope you enjoy the skating along the happiness squiggle within our book, Legend Unleashed (which you could win in our new giveaway, see below!).

Huzzah!! Free things! 😀

Don’t forget to click and enter the LEGEND UNLEASHED GIVEAWAY, ah go on, you know you want to. Click it! Haha. 😀

Do you have a happiness curve, squiggle, line or circle? We love to hear about all your different shapes and where you are on them!

Giveaway

December 2, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

We’ve off on our blog tour, in the mean time, here’s a great giveaway!

LEGEND UNLEASHED GIVEAWAY

While you’re here, if you’re free, why not follow along on our tour!

You can use our portkeys (otherwise known as linkys!) or apparate if you are of age!!

Virtual Book Tour December 1 – December 15

December 1 – Reading Addiction Blog Tours – Meet and Greet

December 2 – Paulette’s Papers – Guest Post/PROMO

December 3 – My Cozie Corner– Review

December 4 – Little Book Star – PROMO

December 5 – Read Review Smile – Review

December 6 – Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews – Review/Interview

December 7 – Pure Textuality – Guest Post/PROMO

December 8 – Fuonlyknew – Review/PROMO (Thank you to Laura for having us and letting us do a giveaway! :))

December 10 – A Dream Within a Dream – Review

December 11 – Magical Manuscripts – Review

December 12 – Rolling With the Moments

December 15 – James T Kelly – Interview (Thank you to James for letting us gate-crash his blog for an interview!)

December 17- Magical Manuscript Interview – Interview (Return to Magical Manuscripts for a belated interview – thank you to Sandy for having us again! Hope we didn’t wreck the place :))

Out Now!

November 4, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

Latimer and Ridley: So we’re done, it’s out!

What’s out you asked? Our book, Legend Unleashed! We’ve pushed the button!

It’s available now, as an e-book, see the links below if you’re interested!

The paperback will follow on soon enough, we’re just waiting on the proof copy to arrive in the post so we can look over it and make sure there are no issues.

It’s been such a steep learning curve, but really worth it! It was fantastic that we had full control over every part of the process. It’s also been hard work though, with long hours put in and full ‘bookwork’ weekends, so don’t let anyone fool you into thinking self-publishing is an easy task! We finished writing the book many many many months ago. In the time since we’d typed ‘the end’, we’ve spent the rest of our days editing, agonising, formatting, fist shaking, commissioning our cover design, smiling, book trailers, grinning and that was just the start!

In the past, we’ve been asked how the two of go about writing a book together (we’re also fascinated by how other writing duos work together, so we love these explanations. Skip down through this part if you don’t care though!!) We always start with a single idea, whether it’s a scene, a ‘what if’ scenario, or a character. We seem to have plenty of these knocking around! More often than not, it’s a character. After this comes the fun part, world building! We love this, picking character names, places and plotting the story.

We let our imaginations run free scribbling it all down on an A4 pad as we sip on endless cups of tea; what would happen if we…? If he did this….? If she went there…? Wouldn’t it be great if…? If you read this part, what would you want him to do…? It’s the ultimate freedom, we just run wild! After this, we tease out any issues, then we divide them into chapter summaries. Each summary has bullet points, information taken from the plot and any extras we think of as we’re going along, with exactly what we need to have happen. Then these summaries get divided out, we get two chapters each at a time and usually one of us starts the book and the other ends it. This gives us the chance to experience at least part of the book as readers, rather than just the authors. We give each other constant feedback after each chapter stint. In this way, we’ve written six books together, Legend Unleashed is our fifth book and the most polished. So we decided to bite the bullet and self-publish it.

So far it’s been a great decision! Has it been the same for others who have followed the same path? We’d love to hear their tales!

We’re staring into the dark void, not knowing what’s to come, but either way we look forward to what the future might bring!

Sample chapters:

Legend Unleashed Prologue-Chapter 4

Author: M. Latimer-Ridley

Publisher: Cranmer Publishing

Available to buy:

E-book: Amazon US

E-book: Amazon UK

Paperback: Amazon UK

Paperback: CreateSpace Page

Legend Unleashed Chapters 1 & 2

October 8, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

Latimer and Ridley: The clock is ticking down to our publishing date! Soon!!

Following on from the prologue in our last post, which if you haven’t read you can find it here, this week we’re posting chapters one and two of our book, Legend Unleashed! We hope you like them! We’d love all and any feedback. Stay tuned, as more chapters will follow these in the next couple of weeks. We’ve also created another shorter teaser trailer, with new scenes in it, which will be released later in the week!

Legend Unleashed Chapter 1&2

For those of you who prefer our rambling posts on random things than our current ones (we know not everyone is interested in all things bookie!), we will get back to those!!

The Bram Stoker festival is coming up soon, which we will both be attending and we’ll report back! We’re also going to a small gig by the band, Bastille, this week (our excellent friend Orbie says they’re on the up and up, one to watch! It’s great to be ‘in the know’ about these things!! Haha 😀 )

So we’ll keep you posted!

MLR

Legend Unleashed Prologue

September 30, 2012March 9, 2022 | mlatimerridley

Latimer and Ridley have had a surprisingly busy weekend.

Latimer and Ridley: We got our book-proofs back on Saturday morning and have been working hard getting them ready to be sent back to our editor for ebook formatting!