SECRETS OF THE GRIMOIRE

Published by Nightingale,
imprint of Pegasus Elliott MacKenzie, 2008

ISBN: 978 1 903491 77 5

A signed copy is available £7.99 + £2.80 pp



I always wanted to write children's stories, to bring out that child within. And this was my first ... and last ... forage into this field. The book never really had a chance. Because my long term partner left me just as it was published and I had a severe breakdown.

Sometimes when you write a book, you can read and re-read the book, and then, after it's published, you know you should completely have revamped it. Different publishers have different ideas of how they want it to be. And you adjust the writing accordingly. In the end, this book was re-hashed too many times. I also realised that the second in the Trilogy was so much stronger, it had so much more oomph. Now the second has taken over from the first. Entitled: LEGEND I have a young reader, Lissy, who is giving me so much feedback which I appreciate. And just like my first reader, Luke, she has been able to choose the name of a main character in this second book: Eli-Beth. Thank you Luke ... and Lissy. I value you both.

Imagine ... being asked to create a kingdom from nothing ... what would it be like? What kind of land might it be? What manner of people would it hold? And how would you safeguard all that you have, all you love and own?

The Trilogy is about such a Kingdom, a perfect Kingdom, fashioned by a young boy. His wizard parents searched the planet for the right place, the right time, and for decades it was a happy place. The story follows the family down through the generations, culminating in a fight between good and evil ... somehow there is always the shadow of evil however much we don't want it to be. And there is the poison sitting just beneath the surface waiting to erupt, to erode all the things which were whole, and perfect and pure.

POISONED EARTH, the third and final in this series, runs like a ship's log, and is completely underground, filled with horror and adventure, seeking out the poison which has manifested itself into The Darke Syde, a creature with no beginning and no end, founded on everything that is negative ... even people's feelings such as greed and jealousy and hate are drawn into its shadow.

Many many years ago, I made a contract with myself that out of every negative would come a positive, and the worse the negative the better that positive had to be. The Trilogy is therefore about empowerment. It draws on my own feelings of depression.and breakdown and dis-association and uses them in a positive way, creating a parallel storyline where ultimately good overcomes bad, and people find a way to work and live together in harmony, in peace.

All three books are based in North Yorkshire ... making use of local legend.

Included in this website is a sample of the artwork I did as an Exhibition to go with the book. A launch didn't really happen because of my breakdown, but I did manage 'Journey Through Brokenness .. Celebration of Life!', an Exhibition held in Scarborough in August 2009. I am including other art work on this website also.

The books draw on my own life experience and in a strange way are autobiographical. After all, it's best to write about what you know well! Until the age of nine I lived in Caterham, Surrey, and all I knew about the world was there. It was a safe haven, a harbour filled with love. They were my heady, happy days. We didn't have much money. We didn't have television or a fridge or that many toys, and we definitely didn't have computers. Technology was still a long way away. At least in my world. And yet we were rich in so many different ways. But from nine years old, suddenly, we crossed the boundary of that world into another, and life was never the same. My father became a minister of religion. It changed my identity to being a minister's daughter. I was expected to be all these things expected of me, and to know the Bible ... not swearing, not smoking, a good little girl. I was naive, innocent, vulnerable, and it shattered my illuion of what the world was like outside. Suddenly evil penetrated. I didn't know how to respond. No-one was there for me. And in a very real way it meant delving deep, underneath the surface, to uncover secrets of the past, and the poison that in truth had always been a part of my world since its beginning.