I’m thrilled to be able to announce a hat-trick of ‘firsts’—including a forthcoming new eBook of a fantasy novel I wrote many years ago, and which has never been published before in any form! The book is THE ANGEL OF VENGEANCE—a title which I know will ring a bell with one or two readers. I wrote it in the late 1970s, and the rights were bought by Sphere Books, who had already published the original Lord Of No Time. However, shortly before publication Sphere decided to pull it from their schedule, and it never appeared on the shelves. The years that followed brought all kinds of changes and upheavals in my life, including several house moves, during which the typescript of the book went missing. I knew I had it somewhere—at least, I thought I did—but I couldn’t find it. Now, however, it’s finally come to light again. And Cas and I plan to publish it as an eBook under our Dancing Mackerel imprint.It will take a while. The typescript is what its name suggests—typed, and to make matters worse it’s a faded carbon copy that is a severe challenge for even the most sophisticated OCR software. Much of it, in fact, needs to be keyed in again; there are also a couple of pages missing which I will have to rewrite, and I want to edit it to a degree—it was written thirty years ago, after all! J But it’s a very Louise Cooper kind of story, involving rebellion, injustice, love and the intervention of supernatural and potentially highly dangerous archetypes. I’ve started on the task of putting the eBook together, and hope that it will be available later this year.
First Number Two involves music. Did you know that as well as being a novelist I’m also a songwriter? Neither did I! J Or at least I’d forgotten. But someone remembered, and a few months ago I was contacted, through the website, by an old friend whom I hadn’t seen for the best part of 40 years. Ken Okines is an absolutely terrific singer and musician (who also teaches guitar); he came across this website, suspected that I was the same Louise he used to sing with on occasion in the 1960s, and got in touch. I was astonished and delighted to hear from him, and even more so when he asked my permission to record, on his new album, a song I wrote in 1967, called Harbour Of Days Gone By. To my eternal shame, though the title sounded familiar I couldn’t recall the song at all. To jog my memory Ken sent me an MP3 file of his recording… and it all came back to mind.Of course I said an eager ‘Yes!’ to the recording request—and the song is now the title track on Ken’s latest album, HARBOUR OF DAYS, which he launched at the recent Falmouth Sea Shanty Festival where he and his lovely wife, Barbie, came as our guests. I know I’m biased, but I think the album is really fabulous. If you want to see what you think, you can listen to clips from the tracks—including the only Louise Cooper song ever recorded! J—on Ken’s website. Go to:
http://web.mac.com/okines
and click on the Harbour Shop page. There’s a player button just below the album cover photo. I think you’ll be impressed! And I’m very proud to be a recorded songwriter for the first time ever!
Still on the subject of music, First Number Three is the new CD by Falmouth Shout, the shanty group that Cas and I sing with. It’s the first professional recording of my singing voice! This CD, too, was launched at the Sea Shanty Festival last weekend—and though we all sez it usselves, me ‘earties, we’re pretty chuffed with it! The title is FALMOUTH FOR ORDERS, and it has the honour to be the official souvenir CD for the 2008 Funchal Tall Ships Regatta, which will set sail from Falmouth, amid much celebration, in September. For a taster of some of the tracks, go to: www.falmouthshout.com. Oh, and that’s me duetting with shantyman Nigel on A Sailor Ain’t A Sailor ! (I also lead another shanty on the album, Skipper Jan Riebec) Have a listen and tell me what you think! (Isn’t that brave of me???)
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