The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones....

I'm very excited to announce that my brother in law's first novel is now available for pre-order, here! So of course I am shamelessly plugging it! Jack showed us the bound proof copy today which looks amazing.... quite a hefty volume too with Jack's name on every page header!
Here's how the publishers described Jack's book...

"An explosive, transgressive, ambitious, wildly imaginative debut from a major new writer"

How's that for an introduction! It's been so exciting watching Jack going through the process from being picked out by a major agent during his MA to finally seeing this work in print!

Here's the Synopsis from Amazon's site:

The year is 1750.

Meet Tristan Hart, precociously talented student of medicine practising under the legendary Dr William Hunter. His obsession is the nature of pain and preventing it; the relationship between mind and matter and the existence of God. A product of the Age of Enlightenment, he is a rational man on a quest to cut through darkness and superstition with the brilliant blade of science.

Meet Tristan Hart, madman and deviant. His obsession is the nature of pain, and causing it. A product of an age of faeries and goblins, gnomes and shape-shifting gypsies, he is on a quest to arouse the perfect scream and slay the daemon Raw Head who torments his dark days and long nights.

Troubled visionary, twisted genius, loving sadist. What is real and what imagined in Tristan Hart's brutal, beautiful, complex world?

I believe it will be released in January, can't wait to get my copy!

I am not in Jack's league, but I took my wordhoard gathering out into the woods the other day, notebook in pocket, eyes, ears and heart open to gather the skeins of thought blown on the wind.

 I took my camera too and must show you this Rhododendron hidden in a dark and shady hollow that seems more flesh than wood. Its the most human looking tree I have seen...

 The boughs look muscular, arched back, arms up raised, breast, armpit, navel....

 It made me think of all the myths and tales of people who have taken root and transformed into trees, either driven by grief or trapped by a curse or pitied by the Gods...

  Amazing nature, strange indeed...!
I ended up gathering some good stanzas that I thought to share here, but afterall I might hang onto them a while yet to weave into my story that is gaining its own flesh but needs yet to re-order its bones. I feel its becoming poised like an indrawn breath, leaves all a tremble waiting for the lightning to strike. Other things keep emerging too, wanting to become a part of the story, almost like it has a life of its own beginning to awaken. I think there will be much of the woods in this story...

 I seemed to have chosen the wettest, muddiest path home through the woods with my wellies that have split all the way round and are no longer water tight! But was truly rewarded by following briefly a jay, flitting bright-winged from tree to tree ahead of me, a jewelled flash of colour in a dancing game.
But best of all, in the low green valley between the enclosing arms of the woods, I saw two beautiful Buzzards sky dancing overhead.
They circled one another on languid wings before clasping each other's talons and spiralling gracefully together, down, down, down, faster and faster, with the sun flashing on their wings.... then at the last possible moment they separated and skimmed apart, wing tips brushing the very tops of the wheat. They circled away and rose back into the sky to soar one after the other above my head.
That I stored in a quiet place next to my heart.

 And before the drenching rains returned, we managed a last picnic tea in the woods after school yesterday beneath a gathering of oaks overlooking that same valley. Much better than cooking if you ask me!