Category Archives: Books & writing

The Week-never-end

October 6, 2023 James Collins

It’s funny how many people still ask me what I am doing for the weekend. These days, I tell them I am doing the same as I do on any day of the week. Writing a blog, writing a book, maybe taking a short walk ‘to let some air in’, then researching, chilling, and no doubt watching a film before bed at 21.00, then doing it again the next day.

Recently, we were stood on the balcony watching the harbour scene, and I asked, ‘Is it still Friday?’ to which Neil replied, ‘No, it’s still Saturday.’ I only know what day of the week it is because my pupil appears for a piano lesson on Mondays. We have to have a calendar, so I know what month we are in, and I’m lucky I don’t have to write cheques anymore, else I’d be putting the wrong year. I swear it is worse in the winter when there are no visitors to say, ‘Let’s meet on Tuesday’, forcing me to watch the calendar every day and leave myself notes so I don’t miss the event.

We used to know when it was a Wednesday because luggage would come up the Kali Strata on the back of a mule, heading for a Laskarina property, and there would be an influx of new faces. That’s changed a bit now that there are so few package holiday operators on the island, if any (talking British here). It seems people can come and go as they please with tailor-made holidays, which is all very well, but doesn’t help me know what day it is, not in the slightest.

What exactly does my Friday hold in store, you ask? To which I reply, mind your own business… No, I don’t, I reply the same as I do to the enquiry made by anyone at any time: The same as yesterday, but perhaps, today, with the added excitement of putting a second coat of varnish on the balcony woodwork if I can bring myself to open a can of the stuff with a screwdriver.

What I will also be doing, though, is a little publicity on my new series of Victorian mysteries, because book two is on its way, and I now have the cover. If you want to see it, you will have to head to www.jacksonmarsh.com and keep an eye out for the cover reveal sometime next week. If you want to know more, here’s what I bunged up in a promo group the other day, and I’ll leave you to explore while I get on with my week-never-end.

‘Finding a Way’ is book one in my new historical mystery series, The Delamere Files. The series begins in 1892, in London, and book two, ‘A Fall from Grace’ will be out in October. I have already started on book three ‘Silence and Limelight.’ (I am a full-time writer, and all my novels are full-length, 80 to 100k.)

The Delamere Files mystery series follows on from the two previous series, but there’s no need to have read the ones that went before. They are The Clearwater Mysteries (1888 to 1890), and The Larkspur Mysteries (1890 to 1891). All are historical fact/fiction mixed with MM romance/bromance, action, adventure and some humour, with ongoing characters and storylines, though with a complete mystery per book.

You can find them all under my Amazon author profile, and all are on Kindle, KU and in paperback.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFTH9855

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Books & writing

Sales Day

October 4, 2023 James Collins

Not even my OneDrive photo collection can help me with inspiration today, so allow me to do some plugging instead.

First, what’s new?

In case you’ve failed to notice the advert over there >> Neil has a new Symi Dream calendar available. This one is for next year (2024), and it’s on sale now only from Lulu.com.

The thing with this supplier is they sell in your local currency and print the products at their nearest facility to you. Things usually arrive in a couple of weeks, and I’ve never had a problem with them, and the quality is good.

Interested? Head to this link: Symi Dream 2024 calendar and there, you can have a preview before you buy.

The same goes for my venture into the same world, and The Clearwater Mysteries calendar 2024. This might appeal to readers of the series, supporters of my writing, and anyone who likes a book cover on their wall. (Yes, apparently that’s a ‘thing.’)

With this one, you have a different book cover per month, plus that book’s blurb. The trouble is, there are only 11 books in the series (only!?), so the question was, what to do about December? For that mouth, I have installed a surprise so you’ll either have to wait until the month comes along or sneak a preview at Lulu.

The link for this product is here: Clearwater Mysteries Calendar 2024

And the other stuff

As we’re on a kind of selling day today, here are the other links you need to stock up on your reading.

James Collins: this is me and a list of all my titles as available on Amazon. All of them come with an Amazon sales page and blurb, so you can see what they are about, and they are all there on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and in paperback.

Jackson Marsh: this is also me, and these books will appeal to anyone who likes a good story, a bit of romance, adventure, and mystery. The Clearwater, Larkspur and Delamere series are my best sellers (and they get better the more you read), and again, all titles are ready for Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and they can be ordered in paperback.

That’s it. Sorry to turn up at your door like a stray carpet salesman, but I overslept, didn’t wake up until 4.30 and am not discombobulated and unable to think of anything funny.

Except for lemurs and meerkats. They are pretty funny.

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Books & writing, Day to day on Symi

End of the Week

September 29, 2023 James Collins

Friday, so a look back on what’s been going on this week.

The weather is finally starting to become more like its old self for this time of year. A short, sharp thunderstorm early on Thursday morning cleared some humidity and brought temperatures down to a more late-September level. The winds are still calm, so transport is not a problem, and we’ve still got windows open at night, but now, I put on a shirt during the morning, much to the relief of anyone passing, I am sure.

The early mornings are quiet. Today at around four, all I could hear from the balcony was one lone cricket and the waves lapping at the quayside wall. The moon, behind the house, was so bright the sky was grey — when it came up last night, it was huge and full over the Pedi hills.

We’ve had very busy days and nights in the village cafés, but now the September regulars are starting to leave. This doesn’t mean things will quieten down because October is also a popular month, and I just heard Tui are extending their charters into November. Not sure if that will affect us here, but it will hopefully be good news for someone.

In wider news, there’s a new leader of the leftist political opposition party and apparently, he’s gay, so that will be an interesting story to follow. While here, the island is gearing up for mayoral elections next month. Right here, at this desk, I have sent my next novel to my proofreader, and the cover is with my cover designer, so I hope to have the book released by the end of October. Meanwhile, I can start on the next one. (I already have, actually, and have a cracking plot with a sideline of angst, several twists, and some fun scenes already plotted in my head.)

I’ve been out and about a couple of times, up the hill and down the hill for the sake of it in the mornings after work, but only as long as I haven’t been up since one in the morning as I was yesterday. I’ve looked into putting a PayPal donate button here on the blog to help with running costs, but to do that, you need to have a business account and that gets complicated, so I can’t. Not to worry. We’ve managed all these years.

And so, into the weekend which, for my part, will hopefully be another quiet one where I can march onto the next story while seeing to my chores. In this case, I have the courtyard to sweep today to clear it of the dead vine leaves blown about during that rain, and that’s about it. As I said, a quiet time ahead, I hope, leaving me headspace for something more creative, like putting mastic on the gaps in the porch cover so the rain doesn’t drip through; I’d forgotten I had to do that. It’ll take me five minutes, he says. It’s bound to go wrong, and I’ll chop my finger off somehow, or bring the whole roof crashing down, but it will be fun trying to be Mr DIY.

Assuming all goes well, I’ll see you back here on Monday, and leave you now with a reminder that the Symi Dream Calendar is on sale.

For anyone who has read my Clearwater Mysteries, there’s also a Clearwater calendar on sale this year (as asked for by readers), so if you can’t decide between the two, you can have both.

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Books & writing

Not That Exciting After All.

August 31, 2023 James Collins

I can now return to the story of how, 21 years ago, it took us 11 days to reach Symi. This has been made possible by Wonder Woman sending me a couple of screenshots, and me working out that it was the ‘translate this page’ command on my browsers that was kicking me out of the tax system. I got there in the end, and all is right with that part of the world. Meanwhile…

This time 21 years ago, we were in Athens enjoying the sights through the eye-watering smog of late August. It’s much better now, I am told. We were on the lookout for somewhere to stay and had decided to try some other places rather than just jog down here where we’d been before. So, after a couple of days in the city, we took the underground to Piraeus and boarded a boat that stopped at Paros. We were travelling with a rucksack each and a laptop, and that was it, and it was no trouble to find accommodation as soon as we stepped off the boat. We stayed in Paros for a couple of days before looking at Antiparos just over the water, and we found accommodation there before we’d even boarded the ferry. Not via a travel agency (and we had no travelling internet in those days), but by walking towards the boat with rucksacks.

The cousin of a brother’s cousin’s friend’s second koumbaros’ fourth cousin just happened to have a nice one-bed apartment for €20 a night, and we struck the deal before we boarded. Sure enough, at the other end of the short journey was a chap waiting to whisk us to this very nice flat on the edge of the main village, only a few minutes walk into town one way and out to the beach the other, and it was so nice we stayed there for about five days.

Although we made enquiries about possible work the next season and rental prices, Antiparos was too small for our needs, so we decided to keep on heading south and go back to Symi. Which is probably where we both knew we’d end up anyway. We booked tickets for the Marina which was due to depart from Paros the following night at 11.59. Yes, I thought that was rather precise too, but that’s what it said. However, as we sat opposite the port gates at 21.45 and having just ordered an ouzo, I read the name on the side of a ferry just pulling in, MAPINA. One minute to midnight my aspidistra! A quick dash, no time for the ouzo, and on board as the tailgate was going up.

We arrived in Symi via Rhodes and a hydrofoil the next day (September 8^th, Neil’s birthday), and here we still are. Not a very exciting tale, but that’s why it took 11 days, 21 years ago. I have no photos of the trip that I can easily find, they are in a box somewhere in the storeroom, and wouldn’t be very good anyway. I’m sure I have told this story in more detail and with more enthusiasm in ‘Symi, Stuff & Nonsense’ if you want to find out more.

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Books & writing

Finding a Way

August 17, 2023 James Collins

Today’s news comes lukewarm on the heels of yesterday’s news that Neil has released his Symi Dream calendar for 2024. (Scroll down to read more details.) My news is that, also yesterday, I released the first book in a new series of Victorian mysteries. That is, mysteries set in Victorian times (1892).

As I have all the follow-up work to do on it this morning, the various uploads to publicity sites, listings and so on, I thought I’d give you the blurb and the link, and let you explore the rest for yourself. So, here you go.

‘Finding a Way’ The Delamere Files, book one.

It began with a man sobbing in the night.

When he is robbed by a fare, London cabman, Jack Merrit, thinks his life is over, but then he meets the dashing writer of social observations, Larkin Chase, a man in search of love.

Larkin sees the chance for Jack to earn a twenty-pound reward. All Jack has to do is identify the pair of crooks that robbed him, but the crooks are part of a notorious East End gang who know no boundaries when silencing a witness.

Despite the possibilities Larkin offers, Jack’s world begins to crumble. He must either deny or allow his unnatural desire and decide if he is to see justice done and win his reward. But when an equally dashing young detective arrives on the scene, Jack’s life becomes even more complicated.

Finding a Way is the first of a new series of thrilling Victorian mysteries. If you enjoyed the Clearwater Mysteries and Larkspur Mysteries, you’ll love this book. There is no need to read them first.

Finding a Way on Amazon

All my books as both me and Jackson Marsh are available in paperback, Kindle and are on Kindle Unlimited, if you subscribe. This link takes to you to the .com version of Amazon, but you can also find it in your country’s Amazon store.

Meanwhile… We continue to enjoy good August weather with the temperature in the early to mid-30s, some humidity, plenty of sunshine and no clouds. The harbour is full of visiting boats and, during the day, busy with day trip boats and visitors, and everything is as it should be. The Symi Festival continues, as do the daily excursions, boat trips and other summer events, and I for one have nothing to complain about. So, come back tomorrow, because you never know what I might be chatting about.

Random photo of a chicken taking a stroll in the upper village.

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Writing on a Greek island