Dear Readers,
In short, I have a Hallowe’en present for you!
How It All Began
It all started with a hiccup, a rough patch in the road, a glitch, a jam. We all get them, and some we can brush off and some … well, for a moment, can leave us staring into space. And this one did.
But I had (and still have) a good friend who made an absolutely inspired suggestion. She is the sort of friend who knows you so well that they know exactly what you need. What she prescribed was this: write a novella about the back story of one of your minor characters. A short book or long short story or short short story, that no one would be expecting, penned behind the scenes, unannounced, so with zero pressure … turned out to be the perfect cure.
Now, if you’re a fiction author, you will hear this advice from Day One. Not the write-it-in-secret bit so much but to write about a minor character. The first Amanda Cadabra book came out in 2018, so I’ve been reading and hearing this recommendation for 6 years. And it’s excellent advice. There was just one problem.
The Crucial Missing Ingredient
I couldn’t call it writer’s block because the books for the main series have continued to flow. So, I will call it a gestation period. The short story simply wasn’t ready. And then the glitch happened. But that was just part of the process. The second prompt for my imagination was this: the dear friend who made this brilliant suggestion also hit a bump in the road, and I wanted to help. Now, she lives a long way away from me, so the one thing I could do was make something to distract and entertain her while she dealt with her own glitch. And so, it was born.
Suddenly
I knew. I knew which character the story was about. The plot began to come to me. It fleshed out. It fizzled through my fingers onto the keyboard and told itself until it was done. Twenty-two thousand words woven into a tale of magic and mystery, a whodunnit with no ordinary explanation for a death in a locked room.
Whenever I see a person of advanced years in a café or on a street, sometimes I get a sudden picture of them in their childhood or youth or young adulthood. Ever since I was little, I was always drawn, not to my peers but to my grandparents’ generation (so you can see where Perran and Senara Cadabra come from!) and loved to hear the stories of their past. So what were the most elderly members of Amanda’s quaint, peculiar, English village of Sunken Madley, now over 90, like in the 1950s, in their twenties?
In particular, what was the story of Gwendolen Armstrong-Witworth, boon companion to Cynthia de Havillande, of The Grange? What was her first encounter with the strange world of magic? Now, to be truthful, I actually got an incident of another character’s past muddled up with hers, but as it’s not unique, it played out amazingly well!
Who You’ll Meet
In 1950s North London, you’ll encounter not just the young Gwendolen, but, of course, others who were in her life at the time, both from Sunken Madley and elsewhere in the Amanda Cadabra novels. Philip Rayke? If you’ve read Amanda Cadabra and The Strange Case of Lucy Penlowr, Book 6 in the series, you’ll know who he is. You may even recall an obscure reference to a certain person in Cornwall, who Philip journeys to meet. I won’t say any more!
The Big Question
So, book written, it went through the editing process and was carefully checked by the splendid VIP Readers who do the beta-reading for me. But what should I do with the new book? I could put it up for sale on online booksellers like Amazon, Kobo, Apple Books, and so on. Or … I could use it as a thank you present. (And at what better time to deliver a mystery than Hallowe’en?)
Thank You
As I explained earlier this year, and I had always kept this to myself, I have a history of a health issue which had a nasty relapse at the end of last year with a burn-out. As a result, the new sequel, Book 9, in the Amanda Cadabra series has been a longer time coming than any of the others. And yet.
And yet thousands of you have stayed with me, and I wanted to thank you. In particular, the over two thousand subscribers to my monthly-ish newsletter, with whom I share the inside track of Amanda’s World and my part in creating that, who get to hear news before anyone else, and some things that I never make public. So if you are one of them, you will have a letter in your email inbox with a private link to Gwendolen – A Philip Rayke Mystery.
Here It Is
If you’re not yet a subscriber, you can access by clicking on the link or image below, and I hope that you will, because I know that many of you dear readers come here to read my blog who are not yet one of those who receive my e-letters, and I want to thank you just as much, even if you’re here for the first time.
Now, you can just have the book, but I do hope that you’ll tick that little box which permits me to write to you about once a month with something special to share. (You can withdraw it at any time. Promise.)
Once you have the new book, please share the link with your bookish friends.
Finally, please let me know what you think of the story, on Facebook, or make my day by writing to me at hollybell@amandacadabra.com. Because there are going to be more. In fact, two more, and the three will combine to make … a certain trilogy, which will become available on Amazon and elsewhere.
https://amandacadabra.com/free-book-gwendolen
Sequel?
What about the sequel to Amanda Cadabra? That is 20,000 words in. I have the notes in a folder (yellow) behind me, so it’s not far away. It will happen, but with the health situation, everything has to be as and when. Nevertheless, it is my earnest desire for the ‘when’ to be soon. As always, I’ll let you know about its progress here, in the newsletter, on the Holly Bell Facebook Page (come and join) and or The Bell Tower Readers Group, also on Facebook, so please check in, and or follow me there.
Cozy Paranormal Mystery or Urban Fantasy?
Why does the front of the new book (and the new Amanda Cadabra Book 1) cover say Urban Fantasy? I began as a cozy paranormal mystery writer. That’s what I thought my books were. But my wise editor, Kim Brockway, saw beyond that. She said even the first book fitted the genre of ‘urban fantasy’ just as well. What’s the difference? Not a lot. In fact, many novels fit in both.
You see, I always imagined that the ‘urban’ meant taking place in a city, but I was mistaken. Urban Fantasy just means a story set in the real world, as the Amanda Cadabra tales are, but with a fantasy element central to the story, for example, a vampire, a werewolf or … wait for it … a witch. The story has a mystery and includes humour.
Urban fantasies tend to be edgier than cozies, and from the very first book, a darker vein introduced itself to the story arc in the shape of the witch-clans Cardiubarn and Flamgoyne that haunt Amanda and Detective Inspector Thomas Trelawny’s past and finally dangerously intrude into their present.
As this rich seam has grown, I began to realise that a whole audience of urban fantasy readers was yet to be reached. That’s why the subtitle of the books has morphed from cozy paranormal into urban fantasy so that they will find the novels and join us on the Amanda Cadabra journey.
One More thing For You
At last the video in the first chapter of each book read aloud by me has been filled, in case you haven’t fond it:
So here it is, read by yours truly, Chapter 1 of Amanda Cadabra and the Hanging Tree
https://amandacadabra.com/ac1-trailer/chapter-1-the-hanging-tree/
Next?
Next time, I’ll be back with news of the sequel to Gwendolen – A Philip Rayke Mystery, and, hopefully, ‘Book 9’. And maybe even … Something Else.
Happy Hallowe’en,
Holly
PS If you want to start the series now:
