Lonely house
I know horror stories are not everyone’s cup of tea, but this one isn’t too bloody. Well, okay, so there are some slightly gruesome bits in it, but it’s more of a thriller than a blood and guts rip’em up horror. I’m just showcasing it today in case you have friends or family who might fancy a copy for Crimbo, something dark and menacing to read by the fire on a cold winter’s night…

Here are parts of some reviews: “Having served up the excellent The Judas Inheritance which has been made into a film set on the wonderful Greek island of Symi, he now invites the reader to the Birthday Party from Hell. This excellent story has a very satisfactory outcome – depending on your moral compass. You will not be disappointed if you are a fan of the macabre.”

“A very good thriller. I loved it.”

“A real page turner and kept me guessing right to the end.”

Here’s the blurb:

Drover and Pete are two hopeful drifters looking for a better life. Desperate for food, they break into an isolated house deep in a forest. There they accidentally shoot an old man just as the rest of his family arrive for a birthday gathering.

Under intense suspicion from the family, the boys attempt to cover up the accident. But they are not the only ones keeping a murderous secret. Mistrust and deception unearth a primeval ritual as the lies give way to a terrifying truth.

With time running out and a deadly force closing in, Drover and Pete’s survival rests on the strength of their friendship, but they must face some horrific choices in order to stay alive.

Click to buy a copy: Lonely house

James Collins is the author of The Judas Inheritance on which is based the forthcoming feature film The Thirteenth, starring Kurtis Stacey, Rebecca Grant, Wookie Meyer, Richard Syms, and Lorna Doyle. He lives and works in Greece. This is his ninth novel and second horror-thriller.

(BTW: I just checked the 1066 Production website, the company making ‘the Thirteenth’ and it still shows ‘The Judas Curse,’ which was the original name for the film that was based on The Judas Inheritance. I know a lot of people are waiting to hear about the money they gave to this project and are wondering what is happening with it. Last I heard, it was still in post-production waiting for some edits, but the editor they found was working for free and now is on a contract with someone else and hasn’t got the time to finish the final visual edits; so that’s holding up the sound and music process. I suggest anyone wanting to know more contacts 1066 Productions directly as this is all I know. Their contact page is here: 1066 Productions contact.

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The Judas Inheritance
I had a very helpful email in from Amazon yesterday morning. It read: ‘How did this item meet your expectations?’ and the item in question was:

Well, I thought to myself, I knew I wrote it pretty fast but it was in the planning stage for a long time and actually I thought it was pretty good. I expect there are some typos left in there even though it went through a couple of proof readers. I thought the cover was a bit nifty, particularly as I did it myself and actually, it was exactly as I expected it to be so thanks for your interest but it met my expectations well. They weren’t Great Expectations, I am not Dickens after all, but all said and done I was pretty happy. Why do you ask?

Ah, they ask because I ordered a copy for my niece and sent it to her in Australia, so now Amazon thinks that I might be interested in similar items which include not only my own novels and books (about Symi) but titles by Anne Zouroudi and Rick Stein, plus a map of the island (all of which I have, apart from the Rick Stein book). How very thoughtful.

Enough of that. I took the photos of the boat today mainly to show you the sky. It’s very blue today and has been for a while now, with only a little cloud around. It’s hot in the sun, colder in the shade of course, but still there’s no need for jackets when you go out at night. Unless you are a Greek man, in which case you need a vest and shirt and a jumper and a jacket, but then you’ve been wearing all that since the end of August anyway, just in case. I don’ know how they stand it. But, yes, lovely weather thank you for asking.

Nice weather but not a lot of other news from around here, I’ve not been out an about much, I’ve been getting ready for the trip on Monday and that kind of includes buying cat food and cat litter and getting the washing done and deliberating over what bag to take and wondering what on earth I am going to wear to the Opera? I have put away my summer clothes leaving my wardrobe free for my three shirts, two trousers, four T-shirts and two hoodies. Methinks a shopping trip is in order.

The Judas Inheritance is a horror/thriller inspired by the runs on Symi. More details here. The Judas inheritance

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Todays’ post is going be about two things: My next novel and pictures of People. Well, other things may creep in as I write but we’re having a break from ‘Greece as it happens’ today because things are not going to be happening until tonight. So I won’t know what’s happening until later or tomorrow by which time it would have happened, or not.

But I do know James has his friend James arriving later and we’re off to Yialos to meet them off the evening boat. So that is happening. And I will be printing pages this afternoon so that is happening too. I finished the first draft of ‘Straight Swap’ finally, yesterday afternoon around 5pm on roughly 130,000 words.

The story is a ‘body-swap’ comedy drama and is a bit complicated but basically: two ex-best friends are both in line to appear in TVs latest heightened-reality talent show, the one that has been rocking the nation. ‘So you think we’re remotely interested?’ is coming to Middlestone-on-Sea, to the Majestic theatre and Gary and Stag both have the chance to fulfil their dreams and appear on stage and TV, one as an actor one as a musician. But…

The celebrity Jude of the grand finale to season one of ‘Remotely’, a mysterious lady known only as Miss P, sees that there is a problem and these two need to be friends again in order for Middlestone to stand a chance. So, a few days before the live TV stream from the Majestic theatre, Gary and Stag wake up to find themselves in each other’s bodies. This is not going to be straightforward particularly as their fall out three years ago was over the fact that Gary came out as gay, and Stag is straight.

Obviously there is a lot more to it than that, there are various subplots and side-lines and all kinds of mayhem ensues before we reach the climax which happens on stage during the live show. One challenge I’ve set myself, apart from editing at least 10% off this first draft, is to start each chapter with a quote, as I mentioned a few weeks ago. ‘That family is so in-bred they don’t have ancestors, they have incestors.’ That kind of thing. I’ve got 44 chapters at the moment and about 15 quotes done so far.

I’ve already got the cover in mind and will be approaching photographer friends of mine before too long with a possible commission – but before all that I have to print out the rest of the pages and read through them before starting work on draft two. And before that, I am going to give it and myself a rest for a few weeks, and start on something else.

So that’s my great news from Symi for today. Hope you liked these photos that Neil has taken showing some of the folk who are out and about on Symi these days. Have a great weekend. A few more photos:

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Friday morning – awoke to some clouds about and a cooler air temperature, but the clouds started to disperse through the morning and now, at around 11.00 the view from the office is quite acceptable.

Not that I have much planned for the weekend, only: taking as much out of the office as I can, watching while Neil redecorates it for me, and then putting it all back in again. That’s Saturday. Sunday I plan to cook a lunch for a couple of friends who are coming over, and then take the rest of the day off. And before I know it, it will be Monday and back to the last few chapters of ‘Straight Swap,’ the new comedy novel, first draft, which is reaching its climax. I hope to get the draft finished in the next couple of weeks so I can put it to one side and do something else for a while. I’ll then come back to it and see where we are at.

I can’t remember exactly when the idea for ‘Straight Swap’ first occurred to me but I can remember where. I was crossing the sitting room in the old house on my way to get ready for work at the bar (in 2013) and Neil was watching a film about a boy and a girl who magically swapped bodies. It’s an old concept. I had one of those, “what if it was a gay/straight swap, how would that pan out?” moments. I started it as a film script idea, which is always a way of honing in on the actual story, but I gave up on that idea as there are a million film scripts out there doing nothing, and as I am not in a position to actually pitch and sell, and as I didn’t want to own the million-and-oneth unread film script, I decided on a novel. Someone else can adapt it after they send me the contract and option fee.

But that’s for later down the line (I wish!) – Oh that’s another title that would make a good film, ‘You Wish!’ available from Amazon, but only read it if you like kind of student, bawdy and a little bit raunchy, silly comedy set in Brighton. Meanwhile, another 20,000 words should see me at the end of ‘Straight Swap’ draft one. And in the meantime, have you heard of the new Amazon Kindle Paperwhite? Here’s in an unbridled advertisement for it which you might like to investigate. Follow the link – buy the product and you will be contributing 0.50p towards the Greek economy, which will probably make you the majority shareholder. Have a good weekend!

Amazon say:

• Unsurpassed high-resolution 300 ppi display – reads like real paper
• Now with Bookerly, our exclusive font, designed to read easily and comfortably at all sizes
• Built-in adjustable light – to read day and night
• Unlike tablets, no screen glare, even in bright sunlight
• A single battery charge lasts weeks, not hours
• Massive selection, low prices – over 1.5 million books less than £3.99 each
• Lighter than a paperback, holds thousands of books
• Without leaving the page, exclusive features help you build your vocabulary and learn about characters
• With Kindle Unlimited, you can read as much as you want, choosing from over 800,000 titles and thousands of audiobooks

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Today we are forgetting all about Grexits and grubby British newspapers and turning our attention to an altogether much more palatable subject. Horror-Thriller novels. And mine in particular.

What’s that got to do with Symi? I hear you shout in a mass outcry of, ‘Oh Lord! What’s he going on about today?’ Well, it was written here, though it’s set somewhere else. And it is now published and available on Amazon (UK, Europe and Com) and also on Lulu and on Kindle. You can find it on Amazon.co.uk Kindle edition here.

And you can find the paperback version here.

Yes, it is a thriller and yes, there are some yucky bits in it, but nothing too yucky. In fact, I’ve been told by my ‘beta readers’ (hate that expression) that it’s more creepy/scary then gory horror. But still, make what you will of it. And if you do get a copy and read it please consider writing a review as the reviews on Amazon really do help. (Some for ‘the Judas Inheritance’ are quoted on the back of ‘Lonely House’ so you might end up in print yourself.

That’s it for today, a plug for the new novel. I will be away now to carry on with the next one which is far funnier, far less horrific and a lot gayer than Lonely House. But, just so you know: here’s the blurb for LH:

“Drover and Pete are two hopeful drifters looking for a better life. Desperate for food, they break into an isolated house deep in a forest. There they accidentally shoot an old man just as the rest of his family arrive for a birthday gathering.

Under intense suspicion from the family, the boys attempt to cover up the accident. But they are not the only ones keeping a murderous secret. Mistrust and deception unearth a primeval ritual as the lies give way to a terrifying truth.

With time running out and a deadly force closing in, Drover and Pete’s survival rests on the strength of their friendship, but they must face some horrific choices in order to stay alive.”

James Collins is the author of The Judas Inheritance on which is based the forthcoming feature film The Thirteenth, starring Kurtis Stacey, Rebecca Grant, Wookie Meyer, Richard Syms, and Lorna Doyle. He lives and works in Greece. This is his ninth novel and second horror-thriller.

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