I’ve just released a Box Set of The Secret of the Tirthas, my adventure mystery series for ages 11+. Over the next week or two I’m planning a few posts about the people and places that inspired me to write it. Today, I want to focus on Kashi, or Varanasi, the first portal that Lizzie discovers in her garden.
Of all the things that impressed me most about Kashi, it was the ordinary people going down to the river each day and dropping off the final step, or ghat, into the broad, flowing river Ganges. There was a practical reason for it – they would wash and some would even brush their teeth in the water. But then many would finish by cupping their hands in the river and lifting the water up above their shoulders, facing towards the rising sun.
I found out that this was their morning puja, or worship, and the aim was to catch a glimpse of blue and shining Shiva, whose city Kashi is. I found this astonishing, inspiring, the way the religious, the sacred, was woven into day-to-day life.
And what an idea. Poetry to me is an attempt to catch a glimpse of deeper meanings, attune to a resonance that is in us but seldom heard, rarely understood. It’s a way of surprising ourselves, of using words to sneak a peek at something that is both nebulous and more solid and important than anything else we think about in the midst of our normal, everyday lives. And here were these people, making that transcendent shiver a part of their daily routine. This was an integral part of the City of Light, and I was awed.
You can get a copy of The Secret of the Tirthas Box Set here:
FOR THE FIRST TIME – TOGETHER IN ONE BOX SET – ALL 5 BOOKS OF THE SECRET OF THE TIRTHAS!
What would you do if you inherited a garden full of magical portals – only to find a killer was using them?
NOW – TOGETHER IN ONE BOX SET – ALL 5 BOOKS OF THE SECRET OF THE TIRTHAS!
The Secret of the Tirthas follows the thrilling adventures of Lizzie Jones as she explores a garden in a remote corner of England that hides mysterious portals, or tirthas, to exotic places all over the world. The tirthas take Lizzie to Kashi, the Indian City of Light, the eerie swamplands of Louisiana, and the treacherous jungle of Cameroon – and many more amazing places.
But soon she finds the power of the tirthas is being exploited by hideous demons and their servants, trying to prevent their summons to the shadowy Unknown Realms. Can Lizzie and her new friends – the elephant rider, Pandu, and police inspector, Raj Faruwallah – stop them before they achieve their evil ends?
The ultimate binge read, The Secret of the Tirthas is a breath-taking adventure mystery series, perfect for lovers of His Dark Material and Harry Potter.
What readers say about The Secret of the Tirthas:
“An entertaining and exciting book… I can’t wait to read the next adventure!” The Guardian on Book 1, The City of Light
“I started reading this book last week and could not put it down”
“A thrilling, fast paced and wild ride… filled with portals, secrets, mystical creatures, demons, magic, Wicca, and a mongrel of a dog named Mr. Tubs”
“The plot was original and unpredictable and I loved the characters, especially Lizzie”
“I was enthralled by the fluidity of the writing and the vivid descriptions of Kashi”
“A great read for children and adults alike and very reminiscent of books I loved as a child such as The Secret Garden, Tom’s Midnight Garden, the books of Alan Garner and, of course, The Chronicles of Narnia”
“The writing is pacy, precise and evocative… a wonderful mystery book for anyone, not just kids, who likes to read about history, myths, legends and paranormal creatures”
“By far the best middle grade series I have read in a long time”
“The best book I’ve read this year.”
“A fantastic finale that really gripped us to the end!”
THE COMPLETE SERIES INCLUDES ALL 5 BOOKS IN THE SERIES:
The City of Light
The Book of Life
The Dreamer Falls
The Lady in the Moon Moth Mask
The Unknown Realms
Get your copy for HALF the price of the individual books here:
My final list of books that I’ve prepared for Shepherd.com is the best ghost mystery stories.
Why I love horror stories
We try and pretend the world is not mysterious, in the vague hope of exerting some control over our lives. But that’s a doomed endeavour. Everything will always slip away from our grasp, plummeting into a chasm that we can only fill with two human responses: awe or terror. Sometimes – perhaps most often – both.
This is why I’ve always preferred the gothic and sublime to the classical and ordered. Both are necessary, but the gothic like the church spire always points to the infinite, to the profound mystery that envelops us. That’s why I’ve liked horror movies and books ever since I was a kid. You’re forever clutching at a cushion, guessing – or rather fearing – what lies ahead, just around that corner…
And that’s why I started writing ghost stories, books that major in suspense and make you realise, as Stephen King’s narrator says in Bag of Bones, that “reality is thin, you know, thin as lake ice after a thaw, and we fill our lives with noise and light and motion to hide that thinness from ourselves.”
My favourite ghost mystery stories
So if you’re hankering after a shot of terror (often with a smidgeon of awe thrown in), check out my best ghost mystery stories here. And if you think I’ve missed a treat, let me know your favourite ghost story in the comments below. (You can also check out my other book lists for Shepherd, the best books with portals for children and young adults, and the best books with nature poems to make you think and feel.)
And while you’re here, why not take a look at my own ghost mystery stories, The Boy in the Burgundy Hood and The Girl in the Ivory Dress – the two standalone novels in The Ghosts of Alice series, about a young women who has a very strange connection to the dead:
Is spring filling you with inspiration and making you want to discover some of the best books with nature poems? Then this post is for you!
I began writing poetry in my twenties when I was doing environmental studies at Stirling University. At the weekends I often went hillwalking in the Scottish Highlands with friends. Inspired by the majestic scenery, I picked up a copy of Wordsworth and began reading poetry for the first time since my English degree. Soon after, I began to write my own poems.
When I got a job in South Wales I started sending poems to magazines such as Orbis and The New Welsh Review. Coming downstairs one Saturday morning to find a letter accepting three poems in the latter – along with a payment of £60! – was one of the best moments of my life. It gave a massive boost to my confidence as a writer.
A few weeks ago, I was approached by new book recommendation website Shepherd to share my favourite books on subjects I write about. I created my five favourites for ghost mysteries, books with portals for children and young adults – and for poetry books with nature poems that make you think and feel. I write all kinds of poetry, but I particularly love poems about the nature and landscapes of Britain.
So why not check out my list here, which includes books by awesome poets including Ted Hughes, Alice Oswald, Sherry Ross and Barbara Lennox.
And you can always check out my own collections if you love nature poetry:
I was asked by the people at new book recommendation site Shepherd to share my favourite books on things I’m passionate and write about. As many of you will know, The Secret of the Tirthas is about Lizzie Jones, a teenager who inherits a magical ‘garden of rooms’ deep in the Herefordshire countryside and then discovers each of the rooms has a portal to a special place on the planet.
I always thought it would be great if you could step outside your back door and travel instantaneously to somewhere on the other side of the planet. And, of course, portals are a neat analogy for the power of the imagination.
So my first selection of books for Shepherd is my five favourite books with portals for children and young adults. They include books by Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman and you can check them out here.
Do you like portals in books? If so, which are your favourites?
Photos have a big impact on my writing. Often, they can inspire a scene that inspires a whole book. This picture of my son looking across a landscape has morphed into the opening scene of my current work in progress, Alice and the Devil, the third book inThe Ghosts of Alice series.
Shortly after I took it, I set it as my wallpaper on my laptop. It was a few weeks before it began working its magic on me. Initially I had an idea for a wholly different book, a piece of speculative fiction, but then I realised it could fit with a ghost story. Who is the boy? Why is he on his own? What’s with the sheep in his backpack? And that barn to the right – doesn’t it look a bit like a pair of eyes, the dark, disembodied eyes of the farm? Just add a torrential rainstorm and the whole Alice and the Devil story came to life…
Here’s a few more photos that have worked their way deep into my imagination for other books:
#picsthatinspiredbooks – The Boy in The Burgundy Hood
This is the fabulous Ightham Mote, the fourteenth-century house that inspired Bramley Manor in the first Ghosts of Alice novel, The Boy in the Burgundy Hood.
As soon as I saw it, I knew that this medieval house was the perfect setting for my ghost story. I’d already been inspired by the strange story of a job interview that my wife had gone to at another old house (see here). It wasn’t long before I overlaid the two elements and started to evolve my plot.
Pics that inspired The Secret of the Tirthas
Now here’s some photos of the amazing garden of hedged ‘rooms’ in Herefordshire that inspired my young adult adventure mystery series, The Secret of the Tirthas.
Many of the rooms had sculptures or statues, often from different religions. I thought it would be great if they were all secret portals to related sites across the world. Imagine just having to step outside your back door to go to all these fabulous places!
The discovery of these new places through the portals by Lizzie Jones became a ‘fantasy’ element in itself. That, plus the demonic killer also using the portals to prey on street children in the first place Lizzie discovers, Kashi, the Indian City of Light…?
Photos that inspired The City of Light
Finally, here’s the incredible city of Varanasi, or Kashi, in India, which inspired the first novel in The Secret of the Tirthas, The City of Light. I went backpacking in my twenties and came down into India from Nepal. This was the second place I stayed and I was stunned.
I kind of knew straight away that this would inspire my writing. But it was only many years later, after discovering the hidden gem of a garden in Herefordshire, that I had the idea for The Secret of the Tirthas. And I decided on Kashi as the first place our hero Lizzie Jones would come after discovering the garden’s magical portals.
Here’s a taster from The City of Light, when Lizzie emerges from the portal:
“[She] stopped, stunned, finding herself looking at the most extraordinary sight she’d ever seen.
An ancient sun-bleached city sprawled before her, stretched along the bank of an enormous river. The city’s buildings were a bright, exotic mix of colours – red, ochre, sand, and white – and many had domes or intricate beehive towers. Some sat at the top of broad flights of steps that ran down into the water, whilst others were perched on the river’s edge. A few tilted forward precariously, appearing as if they were about to collapse into the swirling waters and be lost forever. And everywhere, on the steps and in the buildings and out in small boats, the city’s inhabitants went about their business in the soft, hazy sunlight.
Lizzie stood in awe, absorbing the view. If only all her dreams were as impressive as this…”
So where am I at with the writing, you ask? (You didn’t? Click away now, no one will notice.)
2021 Review
2021 has been a big year for my writing. It was the first year I had a bestseller and the first year I sold over 2,000 copies of one book (nearing 2,500 now). The average book sells 250 copies according to my Gurus, Prophets and Market Analysts (Google), so I’m very happy.
So what was the book? It was the first in my Ghosts of Alice series, The Boy in the Burgundy Hood. It’s been a strong seller since November 2019 when I published it. But it really took off in February 2021 after a promotion on Bookbub, which led to the #1 spot in Amazon’s Ghost Story categories in the UK, US, Canada and Australia. (If you’re a keen ebook reader and like good deals, I recommend signing up for Bookbub.) The reviews that followed were good so the sales continued. When you’ve been writing for a few years, getting that level of reader response is a real joy!
My next writing achievement in 2021 was publishing the second book in the Ghosts of Alice series, The Girl in the Ivory Dress. It follows on from the first, developing the relationship between Alice and one of her old school friends. The reviews have been almost all good so far (there’s always one…), with some saying they like it even more than the first. It reminded me of how enjoyable it was to write the second book in my young adult series, The Secret of the Tirthas. Whilst the first, The City of Life, was mostly fun, learning how to plot and integrate storylines, as well as setting up a whole new fantasy scenario, was challenging. There were many rewrites. It felt so much easier when the groundwork was done, when everything was already established. The Book of Life flew from the keyboard.
My third writing milestone just missed the end of the year. I finished a draft of the latest Ghosts of Alice book on the 3rd January. It’s working title is Alice and the Devil. It has a distinctive atmosphere and setting and I’m pleased with it. However, it’s going to need a few stiff edits because I wrote it without a plot, with only a few key scenes and characters in my head. It was my first time writing like this but it seems to have turned out well. I’ll probably find a lot of holes when I reread it, but for now I’m just pleased to have completed it.
2022 Writing Goals
My main writing goal for 2022 is to publish this third Ghosts of Alice book. I’m aiming for it to be out in the spring.
I’m also finalising a novella prequel to The Secret of the Tirthas. It focuses on the discovery of the tirthas and the creation of the magical garden of rooms at the turn of the 19th century. It’s called Swift: The Story of a Witch (I’m fairly sure that one’s going to stick). It might become a freebie to my email subscribers.
And finally, I’m going to start and – hopefully – complete another book! I’ve got a few ideas bubbling away already…
The Christmas tree is up in the Griffin house and the boys are writing their lists for Santa! (Yes, it’s true, we’ve somehow managed to keep them believing in Father Christmas despite them becoming cynical about pretty much everything else in the world. I have no idea how, but I guess it’s something to do with believing what you want to believe…?)
So here’s a quick post to wish you as much happiness as possible throughout this festive season and to hope you leap any hurdles that might come your way.
Have a wonderful, peaceful time and I hope to see you next year,
Steve
Because Christmas isn’t Christmas without:
…a good ghost story – or two (click on images to go to Amazon book pages):
…an exciting fantasy series for younger readers (11-14):
That’s the one thing I wish I’d known before I started writing, or at least publishing, as an independent writer – a question I was recently posed on Instagram.
As an indie author, we’re already set back by a lack of professional support and – all importantly – distribution. We’re not in the bookshops generally, or if we are it’s only through local relationships. Therefore online distribution is critical to us.
Like most indie writers, I started off trying to get published traditionally. I had interest from a few agents, and my book The City of Light was loved by a Children’s Rights manager in Random House and spent 6 months going up through their editorial hurdles – before finally being rejected on the basis of the market shrinking for that kind of fantasy (it was post Harry Potter, and gritty realism was in).
My big mistake
When I decided to publish independently, I thought it best to ‘go wide’, using both Amazon and Smashwords, who distribute to most the other online distributors (Apple, Nook etc). But that’s where I think I made my big mistake. Smashwords took much longer to format and produce, but my sales were pitiful everywhere except Amazon. It also meant that I couldn’t participate in Kindle Unlimited (KU).
The reason I can say with confidence that going exclusive to Amazon would have been better for me is that’s what I did with my second, current, series of The Ghosts of Alice. KU has been a third of my sales, and every time someone downloads it for KU it springs back up the sales ranks. I would almost certainly have done better with my first series by putting it exclusively in Amazon and running KU from the start.
Amazon needs help
But Amazon does need help to sell your book. Most importantly, it needs other people who read books like it to look at it and hopefully buy it. Then it can start throwing it across the path of readers who might be interested in it. I know this because, whilst I advertise with Amazon, only a fraction of the sales come from the advertising (there is a dashboard that tells me this). So Amazon must be placing my book as one of its suggestions once people buy or finish similar books, or elsewhere.
Whilst I can’t prove this, where else are these sales coming from? Some from my social media platform, for sure – but not that many. I suspect you can get a good idea whether your book is primed for Amazon algorithms by the list of ‘Customers who viewed / bought this also viewed’, or whatever it’s called at the moment. If they’re all in your genre, you’re probably doing well.
I know other authors who have had different journeys, and for whom Amazon has not been so great. There are many reasons not to go exclusive, especially in those countries where Amazon isn’t so dominant. But I wish I’d gone exclusive from day one.
Now, setting all that aside, and looking at the ethics and risk of throwing all your eggs in the basket of one quasi-monopolising tech giant… OK that one’s for another day.
I’ve been interviewed by talented US fantasy author Jessica Cantwell on her blog. Here’s her intro, click the link at the bottom of the page for the full interview. (And while I’m here, a quick reminder that both The Boy in the Burgundy Hood and The Girl in the Ivory Dress are on Kindle sale over Halloween – hurry!)
Halloween is days away. Now is the perfect time for a ghost story!
Enter The Boy with the Burgundy Hood, a fantastic book by Steve Griffin. This is an entertaining read with a sprinkle of paranormal activity. If you are a fan of The Haunting of Hill House or The Haunting of Bly Manor, then this is the book for you!
You can learn more about The Boy in the Burgundy Hood by reading an interview with the author, Steve Griffin, on my blog. Link is in the bio.
We talk about ghosts and psychopaths. This is a fun interview you won’t want to miss!
