Tag Archives: books

The Black Conspiracy Front Cover

The Black Conspiracy

Ancient magic has infected the Internet… is this the end for civilisation?

The ancient magic which transported Tung, a young thief, and Madrick, a has-been wizard, across a millennium has now infected the Internet and civilisation simply can’t handle the consequences.

To make matters worse, evil wizards have followed the pair through time. They’re determined to hunt them down, steal the great magic scroll and use its power to destroy our modern way of life.

Saving the world just got a whole lot harder.

The Black Conspiracy is book two of the spellbinding Dark Tidings trilogy.

A Darker Shade of Black

A Darker Shade of Black

Book three of the stunning Dark Tidings trilogy

When two inept time-travellers and an Internet genius mix up a cocktail of ancient magic and too much Tequila, disaster is inevitable.

To make matters worse, a dark conspiracy which threatens our modern way of life is set in motion when two evil wizards escape from a secure government establishment. Add in a megalomaniac Transylvanian hermit, seven cloned dwarfs and an Irish giant, and you have to ask ‘who’s going to save the world now?’

Dark Tidings Front Cover

Dark Tidings

What happens when ancient magic meets the internet? One thing is certain, modern life will never be the same again.

A thousand years ago, a young thief, Tung, and a disgraced wizard, Madrick, are thrust together in an executioner’s dungeon.

In the darkness, Madrick reveals an incredible secret about a legendary spell. The great spell helps them escape their prison cell… and eventually their century.

Catapulted into the present day, their lives collide with Michael, a computer hacker who plans to destroy the world’s largest bank. But sinister people are tracking their every move and they will stop at nothing to steal their spell.

Best opening lines of a novel… ever

I have been writing for more years than I care to remember. Mainly business writing – things like sales proposals, material for marketing collateral and web site content. I love writing.

However a few years ago I was given the opportunity to explore the world of fiction writing… and I’ve been learning more and more about the craft ever since. My first novel, Dark Tidings, was published in 2011 and since then I’ve completed and published two more.

Of course, I love my books and I think the opening lines create enough interest to make people want to read on… obviously it would be a poor show if they didn’t! But it made me wonder about the best opening lines ever… they say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ but maybe it’s OK to judge it by its first lines.

The editors of American Book Review selected what they consider the most memorable first lines of novels… 100 Best First Lines of Novels. OK, there are a lot of classics there but none which strike me as the ‘best ever’. I would nevertheless have been very proud of – “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” It’s so good that I now feel I must read the book from which that line comes; William Gibson’s Neuromancer.

All in all, I think my favorite to date is from The Stranger by Camus – “My mother died today, or perhaps it was yesterday.” You just have to read on after that.

I also very much liked how Terry Pratchett opened The Light Fantastic… “The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn’t sure it was worth all the effort.”

There are also some very special sentences in books which, had they been the first lines, would have been in contention to be the best in this particular competition e.g. Cathy Cash Spellman’s novel An Excess of Love – “He was as guarded as a virgin, but infinitely more experienced.”

And what about the worst opening lines ever? How about… how about we leave that for another time?