The Silk Thief – Cover reveal and pre-order!

The Silk Thief – Cover reveal and pre-order!

The Silk Thief cover reveal and pre-order is live! The Silk Thief is the second quirky magical mystery adventure set in the Roshaven series of humorous fantasy novels by author Claire Buss – if you like the wit and humour of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, then you’ll love The Silk Thief.

The Silk Thief releases 4th June 2021!

The Blurb
Fourteen, heir to the Empire of Roshaven, must find a new name before Theo, Lord of neighbouring Fidelia, brings his schemes to fruition.

Not only has he stolen Roshaven’s trade, but he plans to make Fourteen his own and take her empire in the bargain.

Her protector, Ned Spinks, is plagued with supernatural nightmares whilst his assistant, Jenni the sprite, has lost her magick.

Can they figure out how to thwart Theo’s dastardly plan before it’s too late for his city and her empire?

What Readers Say

“Loved the quirky banter!”

“Entirely delightful and captivating.”

“A wonderful tribute to the Late Great Sir Terry.”

“If you are a fan of the discworld you will love this book.”

“A hilariously thrilling fantasy mystery.”

The Interstellar Poker tournament

The Interspecies Poker Tournament, Prequel Novella to The Rose Thief

Ned Spinks, Chief Thief-Catcher, has a new case. A murderous moustache-wearing cult is killing off members of Roshaven’s fae community. At least that’s what he’s been led to believe by his not-so-trusty sidekick, Jenni the sprite. She has information she’s not sharing but plans to get her boss into the Interspecies Poker Tournament so he can catch the bad guy and save the day. If only Ned knew how to play!

Available in paperback and ebook everywhere: https://books2read.com/u/m2Vk0R

The Rose Thief

The Rose Thief, The Roshaven Series book 1

Someone is stealing the Emperor’s roses and if they take the magical red rose then love will be lost, to everyone, forever.

It’s up to Ned Spinks, Chief Thief Catcher, and his band of motely catchers to apprehend the thief and save the day.

But the thief isn’t exactly who they seem to be. Neither is the Emperor.

Ned and his team will have to go on a quest; defeating vampire mermaids, illusionists, estranged family members and an evil sorcerer in order to win the day. What could possibly go wrong?

Available in paperback and ebook everywhere: https://books2read.com/u/bQaxw6

About the Author

Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet based in the UK. She wanted to be Lois Lane when she grew up but work experience at her local paper was eye-opening. Instead, Claire went on to work in a variety of admin roles for over a decade but never felt quite at home. An avid reader, baker and Pinterest addict, Claire won second place in the Barking and Dagenham Pen to Print writing competition in 2015 with her debut novel, The Gaia Effect, setting her writing career in motion. She continues to write passionately and is hopelessly addicted to cake.

Meet the author on social media!

Facebook: www.facebook.com/busswriter

FB Group: www.facebook.com/groups/BussBookStop

Twitter: www.twitter.com/grasshopper2407

Instagram: www.instagram.com/grasshopper2407 

Website: www.cbvisions.co.uk

Blog: https://www.butidontlikesalad.blogspot.co.uk

The litter box inspires me

The litter box inspires me

…and when I say the litter box inspires me, I mean it inspires me to do almost anything else.

This weekend it’s been inspiring me to go way outside my comfort (and competency) zone, and make some promo graphics for the Cortii series, as well as Death is for the Living. Overall, and especially compared with the first batch, which I mostly knocked together in PowerPoint, I’m fairly happy with these, although you will see why I mostly stick with the writing and leave the graphic design to them as didn’t fail art classes on several continents.

Currently I’m using the free version of Canva, which, while irritating in that most options are paid, and if you pay for a pro graphic, you get exactly one use of it, is still better and more flexible than what I was using.

So, without further ado, here are some of the graphics you may see popping up in my social media! (Cat-box inspired…)

Through the HostageWhile at some point I do plan to save up for a do-over on the cover of Through the Hostage, particularly the figure and the title font, I do love the backdrop the cover designer found, and it is actually a different section of that backdrop that I’m using as the setting for this Twitter image.

Lesley-Ann Brandt as Mazikeen, Lucifer

 

The elevator line, for those who’ve read Through the Hostage, can be squarely blamed on Senja Ventiva, Cortiora of As’ra’tan. While I haven’t, and probably won’t, scour image sites for models of how I think the Cortiian characters look, because I prefer to leave readers their own impressions, someone did challenge me once to one of those “who would play your characters if Hollywood made the movie” games, and Lesley-Ann Brandt in the first few episodes of ‘Lucifer‘ was the best match for Senja as I see her that I’ve ever come across.

Fighting ShadowsFighting Shadows is also up at some point for a cover re-do. This one I’m actually very fond of the initial title font, but the background image doesn’t really have anything to do with the story, even though I do love the dramatics and the camera flare. To date, it’s also one of the only storylines where you see the whole of Wildcat Cortia acting in one of the ‘bread-and-butter’ roles for Cortiian units – advance infiltration and shock troops, both areas in which the Federated Planets alliance troops are shockingly (aha) bad.

Lucy Liu in Elementary

 

I’ve never found that perfect actress to play Khyria. As several book reviewers have pointed out in varying degrees of shock, she’s female, and she doesn’t feature in one of the approved female positions in a plot, by which I mean mostly between the hero and a mattress. Because of that predominant lack of women in similar roles, I’m still looking. I wouldn’t turn down Lucy Liu, in the unlikely event that the Cortii series ever got picked up as a major event by the film-making industry, but it’s far from an exact match.

Elemental Affinity promoAside from the title font, which looks more thriller than sci-fi to me, I really do like the cover for Elemental Affinity. The cover designer took my few lines of ‘these are some of the settings, this is basically what the book’s about’ and came up with something that matches the White Mountains fort very closely.

Liam Neeson

 

I have no idea who might be suitable to play Cahan, Lord Warleader of the Golden Valleys, but I do have a potential suspect for the captain of his guard, Warron. Warron shows up as a secondary character in Elemental Affinity, Elemental Conflict, and in the Unaltered novella, and is basically responsible for making sure his lord remains mostly unperforated, a role he shares in Elemental Affinity with Khyria.

Elemental Conflict promoAnd I really do love the cover for Elemental Conflict. I don’t like the title font for a sci-fi series, but the cover image is perfect and I will fight to keep it. It was also the one where I probably cam closest to driving my long-suffering cover designer nuts, but then again, he does say ‘unlimited revisions’ in the website…

Kyle Schmid in CSI Miami

 

I have been looking for that perfect actor to play Anst an Nabat, who comes into the forefront of the series in Elemental Conflict. I haven’t seen a perfect match yet in terms of ‘if Hollywood picked up the series and money was no object’ but Kyle Schmid might be closer than some.

 

Unaltered promoAnd finally, Unaltered, the Cortii series novella I had no intention of writing until I found myself unable to concentrate on the shit I was supposed to be doing for two months straight, and on which I then wrote at least one 6,000 word day… This cover is from Covers by Robin, and it’s one of my favourites.

Irin Seviki

 

Also, since before coming across Covers by Robin I was getting desperate enough to consider trying to learn to use Gimp sufficiently well to pull my own cover together (don’t do this, really, it’s a job for an expert), I did actually spend some irritating hours scouring sites for an image I could accept for Irin Seviki, and this was the best I found.

And of course the boxset, which is also designed by Covers by Robin, which I grabbed for my post header. One day I hope print on demand will get to the point where I can actually bring out a serious boxset that looks like that, but for the time being the boxset is e-book only and due to the strain on my very limited supply of patience posed by interior formatting for multiple different platforms, it’s currently also my only Kindle Unlimited offering.

Available for pre-order: The Gaia Solution

Available for pre-order: The Gaia Solution

The Gaia Solution releases 8th November!

I’m always happy to have a friend’s book to boost, and today I’m excited to find out more about the next and final book in Claire Buss’s dystopian trilogy, The Gaia Solution, which is coming out as e-book and paperback on Amazon next month. This series has already proven to be solidly popular with readers, up to and including a Raven Award for the first book, The Gaia Effect, in 2017, and The Gaia Solution looks set to continue the trend.

So, without further ado…

The Blurb

Kira, Jed and their friends have fled New Corporation and joined the Resistance, but their relief is short-lived as they discover how decimated the human race has become and learn of an environmental crisis that threatens to destroy their existence. Kira and Jed must travel up the mountain to the New Corporation stronghold, City 50, to bargain for sanctuary while Martha and Dina risk everything to return to City 42 and save those who are left. With the last of her reserves Gaia, the fading spirit of the Earth, uses her remaining influence to guide Kira and her friends but ultimately, it’s up to humanity to make the right choice.

More about The Gaia Collection series

The Gaia Collection is Claire’s hopeful dystopian trilogy, set 200 years in the future after much of the planet and the human race have been decimated during The Event, when the world went to war with high-energy radiation weapons. In The Gaia Effect, Kira and Jed Jenkins – a young couple who were recently allocated a child – together with their closest friends, discover Corporation have been deliberately lying to them and forcing them to remain sterile. With help from Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, the group of friends begin to fight back against Corporation eventually winning and taking over the governance of City 42.

In The Gaia Project, Corporation fight back under a new, more terrifying organization called New Corp and Kira, Jed and their friends end up fleeing for their lives trying to find a safe place to live. They travel to City 36 and City 9 in vain and must go further afield.

In the final book, The Gaia Solution, the main characters have ended up with the Resistance and not only do they have to deal with surviving against New Corp but an extinction environmental event is looming on the horizon and they’re running out of time to save what’s left of the human race.

About the Author

Claire Buss is a multi-genre author and poet based in the UK. She wanted to be Lois Lane when she grew up but work experience at her local paper was eye-opening. Instead, Claire went on to work in a variety of admin roles for over a decade but never felt quite at home. An avid reader, baker and Pinterest addict Claire won second place in the Barking and Dagenham Pen to Print writing competition in 2015 with her debut novel, The Gaia Effect, setting her writing career in motion. She continues to write passionately and is hopelessly addicted to cake.

I was also lucky enough to have Claire over for an interview a little while ago, and she confessed to me that she usually has multiple writing projects on the go, so fans shouldn’t be concerned about the series finale: I’m pretty sure there’s lots more coming soon from this author.

You can confirm that with Claire in person wherever you like to hang out online:

What does Eostre have to do with it, anyway?

What does Eostre have to do with it, anyway?

Easter, Eostre, Ostern

Easter. Bunnies in pink waistcoats. Eggs everywhere in a gamut of unlikely colours. It’s part of the season, and very few people stop to ask themselves – what the bunny duck do rabbits, eggs, and chocolate have to do with the death and rebirth of Christ?

…actually, nothing at all. Rabbits and eggs are spring and fertility symbols, and while there’s learned argument over whether Eostre, Ostara, or even Freya was the original spring / dawn goddess who inspired the various traditions, you will note that unlike Christmas, the birth of Christ, which has a fixed date in the calendar (despite the calendar having changed a couple of times in 2,000 years), Easter wanders all over the place. You’d really think that the date of Christ’s death would be at least as fixed as his birth date, right?

In actual fact, reasonably solid rumour indicates that Easter was originally a pagan spring festival (take your pick), and the Christian Church wallpapered a ceremony over the top of it. The simplest line between two points involves a Germanic fertility / spring / dawn goddess named Eostre, and a lot of spring and fertility imagery (rabbits, eggs, daffodils…please don’t make me draw you a diagram).

Which is why you have one of the most solemn celebrations in the Christian calendar stuck rather cockeyed over the bright colours and chocolate-infested imagery of Easter, and at random points in the calendar any time from end of March to end of April.

Personally, I’m in for festivals that involve hunting down chocolate and then holing up somewhere comfy to eat it. I’m very culturally flexible for festivals that involve food.

May the chocolate-distributing bunny be good to you.

Eostre

Egging on Easter traditions

Egging on Easter traditions

Egging on Easter – some of the less traditional traditions

I’m a big fan of any festival that involves bright colours and good things to eat. Chinese New Year is one of my personal favourites, since it includes firecrackers as well as all of the above. Christmas, too, is a great excuse for competitive gluttony followed by a food coma with a mound of new books by my side.

However, the one currently up on the roster is Easter, that icon of the Christian calendar, marking the death and resurrection of Christ. Which, for some reason, is widely celebrated with chocolate bunnies and eggs in weird colours (more on that later). As I’d be struck dead if I tried to claim I was a devout anything, I thought I’d have a look at some of the lesser-known Easter traditions and where they came from.

Pretty much everyone’s familiar with the bunnies and the dyed hard-boiled eggs. So how about fashion shows, kites, and murder mysteries?

Well, the fashion show apparently started in New York, according to Mental Floss, sometime in the mid-1800s. Traditionally, it’s considered lucky to wear new clothes on Easter (no real idea why, but I’d posit some link between new beginnings and new clothes…), and apparently some of the New York upper crust felt they should be displayed for a bit more than just the Easter church service. The tradition’s broadened a bit over the years, but still exists today in the Easter Parade.

And I mentioned kites, too, didn’t I? Well, in Bermuda they fly kites to symbolise Jesus’s ascension to Heaven. The kites are brightly coloured, and designed both to fly and to make noise in the air; a great tradition for an island where the Trade Wind blows from the East 364 days of the 365.

Murder mysteries. Well, I have no idea why murder mysteries, but in the Nordic areas, Easter is celebrated with murder mystery TV shows, book releases, and even short mysteries on the sides of the milk cartons. The Visit Norway site thinks it started as a marketing stunt in the early 1900s by a couple of young authors, but whether they’re right or not, Easter in most of the Nordic countries means crime mysteries galore. (And, may I say, Nordic crime shows are fantastic? Generally I have an issue with crime shows, because I figure out whodunnit it five minutes in and spend the remaining 40 minutes being sarcastic, but there’s a couple of Nordic ones that knocked my socks off: check out Trapped and Border Town.)

So… what’s your favourite weird and off-beat Easter tradition? (Beat kites and murder mysteries, I dare ya.)

Easter 2019 Sparkly Badgers