Authorpreneur Dashboard – Keith Austin
SNOW
Teens
Fee, fi, fo, fum …
John Creed doesn’t know how much danger he’s in. All he knows is that his dreams about the white wolf are getting worse. The sparrows are multiplying, there are too many crows in the sky, and it’s getting cold, Deathly cold.
Can secretive, white-haired Fyre King help John unravel the mysteries of his past?
Or will the bloodthirsty wolves finally descend while the snow falls and the whole world sleeps?
Book Bubbles from SNOW
The storm begins...
Poor Deryk doesn't last long as the giant white wolf tears off his head. And from then on things only get weirder and more dangerous for scarred, stuttering teenager John Creed and his friend Fyre as a massive snowstorm envelopes the country and, gradually, the population falls asleep. Well, not everyone ... there are the sparrows, the one-eyed crows and the mad Kitten Tapper. I liked making John Creed a stutterer as I was one in my younger days (still am at moments) and this was partially my way of getting my own back.
JAGO
Teens
Henry Williams is a multi-millionaire cosmetics company boss; his life is charmed and happy – at least until a mysterious, timeworn woman turns up unannounced at his offices and shows him an old manuscript that will change his world forever.
The document purports to tell the story of Demelza Cotton, a young street urchin from 19th century London, and her daily struggle to survive in the notorious Old Nicholl slums alongside the wild and wonderfully dangerous Jago Quinn.
They didn’t think life could get any worse – until they found a hypnotic, rainbow-coloured lizard and attracted the attention not only of the vicious Cray Twins, the homicidal heads of the criminal underworld, but also of the mysterious Adamina Wollondilly and her bizarre Eyeballers. Suddenly everyone’s out for their blood, but they’re not giving their beautiful creature back, not for all the tea in China. And that’s when things start to get really weird.
A roller-coaster romp through one of the most notorious true-life slums in old England, Jago features wonderfully revolting characters and enough twists to keep you wrong-footed right to the very end.
Book Bubbles from JAGO
Jago and Demelza find the lizard
As if the crafty street urchins Jago Quinn and Demelza Cotton aren't in enough trouble from the vicious underworld criminals the Cray twins, their own pickpocket scam has led them to encounter an iridescent, rainbow-colored lizard in their secret hiding place. Little do they know that this moment is the turning point - the moment when this cute, hypnotic animal turns their world upside down. I like this scene because it's where two children whose lives are nothing but dirt and grunge and grey and struggle suddenly find that there's magic and wonder beneath the relentless squalor of their world. It's where the black and white of a Victorian London slum is literally split apart by beauty and color and, eventually, love. And who doesn't yearn for that to be true? It's also the bit where things started to get REALLY weird and I was able to bring to life the wonderfully weird and wacky Adamina Wollondilly and her mysterious Eyeballers. Little-known fact: the ending to JAGO came to me, quite literally, in a dream. I was stuck on the ending and I woke up one morning with it in my head. Of course! You'll never guess it in a million years - unless you dream it too...
