The Afterlife of Darkmares - kindle edition.

Yay and Ta Da!!! My new book is now in kindle form!
The Afterlife of Darkmares is a supernatural thriller set partly in 16th century England and partly in contemporary modern life.  Here is the back cover blurb:

When single mum Kate Linden’s disabled daughter dies unexpectedly she is stunned to find she is under suspicion of harming her. But Kate still has a 12year old son, Grif, who refuses to speak and is grappling with issues of his own – not least of which is his attachment to a supposedly imaginary friend. Kate’s relationship with her son is fraught as she struggles to make some kind of connection with him and also deal with her own intense grief.

Unbeknown to Kate, in 1665, a disastrous event - the plague - in a small Derbyshire village - has consequences that stretch into the 21^st Century and she is blind to the fact that her son (feeling estranged from all around him) has unwittingly allowed an evil entity to awaken and threaten them all.

 Kate must now fight her own demons and accept help from unlikely sources if she is to save her son from a fate worse than death. The help finally comes from a sleep therapist, an elderly bereaved lady and Jeremiah, an old man who hovers between life and death on a life support machine…

Please forgive my plug - I don't usually push my books on here other than mentioning them from time to time...
So if you feel like reading something a little different give it a go!!

Also availble on kindle is my book "The Witcheye Gene".

So there you have - it my offerings plugged!! Hope no one is offended?

Do you plug your books regularly on your blog or only when they are first out?

The Afterlife of Darkmares

Nightmares, Darkmares and Demons

What a wonderful, fascinating  place the world of dreams appears to be. But an even more extraordinary place is the world of nightmares.

For the stuff of nightmares - or night terrors, as they are often called in children - is where many horror/supernatural stories appear to emanate from.  Of course, the scientists amongst us know perfectly well that nightmares or bad dreams are simply the subconscious mind making sense of scary, worrying things that happen to us. They are no more a precursor of bad things to come nor an evil sign of impending doom than dreams about fairies or paradise are harbingers of marvellous happenings. Ah, but here’s the rub – no one can actually prove that and so the workings of the subconscious mind remain a wonderful fertile ground for paranormal thrillers.

Nightmares in and of themselves are basically bad dreams that often can and do cause much distress. But the nightmare has it’s origins in folklore. The night part is easily explained but what of the other word mare? What is that? In Norway the Mare is a female shape shifter who can take the form of an animal or dwarf and who can change into a wind that can slip through windows and keyholes to get to intended victims whilst they are sleeping. By day the Mare is a normal woman but at night the urge to find and control victims is strong. The Mare enters a person’s bedroom and sits on their chests, causing tightness, troubled breathing and horrible dreams. In American folklore this Mare spirit eventually became the nightmare of which we are all familiar.

For myself, I used this motif in my latest book but called the nightmare a ‘darkmare’ as the character was not only troubled at nighttime.  My book - "The Afterlife of Darkmares" by PJ Newcombe - is now available from http://www.lulu.com/

Have you ever used folklore/mythology to garnish or deepen your stories? Have you ever used nightmares as a major part of your story?



The Afterlife of Darkmares

Hip hip hooray! My new novel  "The Afterlife of Darkmares" is now out!

Today I'm going to ski-p my A-Z posts in favour of telling you about my latest publication. So I am officially anouncing my new thriller here...

The novel is available on http://www.lulu.com/ at present ( at a reduced price) but will soon be out on amazon too ( full price).

For anyone who is interested here is the back cover blurb:

When single mum Kate Linden’s disabled daughter dies unexpectedly she is stunned to find she is under suspicion of harming her. But Kate still has a 12year old son, Grif, who refuses to speak and is grappling with issues of his own – not least of which is his attachment to a supposedly imaginary friend. Kate’s relationship with her son is fraught as she struggles to make some kind of connection with him and also deal with her own intense grief.

Unbeknown to Kate, in 1665, a disastrous event - the plague - in a small Derbyshire village - has consequences that stretch into the 21^st Century and Kate is blind to the fact that her son (feeling estranged from all around him) has unwittingly allowed an evil entity to awaken and threaten them all.

 Kate must now fight her own demons and accept help from unlikely sources if she is to save her son from a fate worse than death. The help finally comes from a sleep therapist, an elderly bereaved lady and Jeremiah, an old man who hovers between life and death on a life support machine…

So, does the cover say 'spooky' to you or not?

All opinions very welcome...

Scary - or what? Ghosts and Other Entities

G – Ghosts (and other entities)

“Now, about those ghosts... I'm sure they're here and I'm not half so alarmed at meeting up with any of them as I am at having to meet the live nuts I have to see every day.”
Bess Truman

As a writer of paranormal thrillers, the world of the occult fascinates me.  On looking at the dictionary definition of the word occult, I can see that it can mean esoteric knowledge, secretive mystery and supernatural.
To me the world of occult is mainly associated with the supernatural. It can include such things as Extra sensory perception, spirits, special powers, demons and devils, doppelgangers, possession and special powers ( such as telekinesis, telepathy etc). All these things are great fodder for the supernatural thriller writer. However one thing that is uppermost in my mind when I write is that, irrespective of the supernatural elements, the story must still hold together as a well plotted tale with good, believable characters. It must have the elements of a thriller with rising tension, conflict and suspense and a character in jeopardy.
I also do believe that stories centred on the occult world should grip readers and the supernatural element should be unnerving, scary and even a little terrible. Readers of these kinds of stories expect to be transported to an alternate reality where supernatural abound and yet are still pretty scary.
In the readers mind a little voice poses the question, at least for the duration of the story,”could this possibly happen?”
Suspension of disbelief is what keeps horror and supernatural writers going, as well as the enjoyment of heightened sensations if the story scares as much as it should. The fear, I believe comes from the not knowing.
After all, we really don’t know what awaits us in the afterlife and the possibility of spirits, ghosts etc is not that unbelievable to many people. And lots of perfectly rational folk do indeed believe in the Devil and Demons (for that matter many religions do too). I guess it is this notion of belief and the outside possibility of these things actually happening that captures the imagination of so many supernatural thriller readers – including me!

 

 So, does the occult world scare you? Or are you more scared of the nuts you meet every day?

Things that go bump in the night!

The Occult Story World

As a writer of paranormal thrillers, the world of the occult fascinates me.  On looking at the dictionary definition of the word occult, I can see that it can mean esoteric knowledge, secretive mystery and supernatural.

To me the world of occult is mainly associated with the supernatural. It can include such things as Extra sensory perception, spirits, special powers, demons and devils, doppelgangers, possession and special powers ( such as telekinesis, telepathy etc). All these things are great fodder for the supernatural thriller writer. However one thing that is uppermost in my mind when I write is that, irrespective of the supernatural elements, the story must still hold together as a well plotted tale with good, believable characters. It must have the elements of a thriller with rising tension, conflict and suspense and a character in jeopardy.

I also do believe that stories centred on the occult world should grip readers and the supernatural element should be unnerving, scary and even a little terrible. Readers of these kinds of stories expect to be transported to an alternate reality where supernatural abound and yet are still pretty scary.

In the readers mind a little voice poses the question, at least for the duration of the story,”could this possibly happen?” Suspension of disbelief is what keeps horror and supernatural writers going, as well as the enjoyment of heightened sensations if the story scares as much as it should. The fear, I believe comes from the not knowing.

After all, we really don’t know what awaits us in the afterlife and the possibility of spirits, ghosts etc is not that unbelievable to many people. And lots of perfectly rational folk do indeed believe in the Devil and Demons (for that matter many religions do too). I guess it is this notion of belief and the outside possibility of these things actually happening that captures the imagination of so many supernatural thriller readers – including me!

So can you suspend disbelief to read a supernatural thriller? Does the occult world scare you?

Big Bold and Whacky

A Perfect Hero?

In deciding on a /hero/protagonist in my thriller writing, I always try to go for a character who seems to be larger than life; in other words a memorable character. Whether I succeed or not is, of course, up to the reader but I do think long and hard about what he or she is - as a person.

The most memorable characters in classic literature are usually big, bold and maybe a little whacky. They are generally beset by inner conflict and most certainly have to deal with outward conflict/tension as befits the story.  The hero is striving for something: He either desperately needs something or must accomplish something to save others. But he is thwarted by the antagonist (evil one) along the way. This may make certain character traits more inevitable than others. For example a willingness to persevere despite all the odds is often a trait that many story hero’s share. So that their persistence eventually pays off at the end of the story.

But I think it goes much deeper than that. If a character has a certain trait it must be believable and come from somewhere in their past. This is where I find doing background stories so fascinating.

For example, a hero may be dogged because he learnt early in life that staying the course pays off. Maybe his father was a patient fisherman and taught him likewise. Or he may have had to stand up to bullies over and over again in defence of a mild-mannered friend. All similar incidences go into my background memoire of the character and some may even end up in the story.

I try to make my hero/character imperfect, faulty and with some human frailties as well as admirable traits that my reader can root for.  In this way I can make the transformation at the end of the story, much more realistic. I think this enables the reader to identify with and empathise with the main character. After all no one is perfect.

So how do you decide what kind of person your main character will be? Do you do background stories or wing it as you go along?

For samples of my fiction please visit http://www.patricianewcombe.webnode.com/

Or see my latest thriller novel:

My book 'The Witcheye Gene' now available on Kindle at £2.99

Demons, devils and other deadly spirits...

The Devil's in the detail.

“Willingly, I too say Hail! To the awful unknown powers which transcend the ken of understanding.” Ralph Waldo Emmerson

Demons are subversive spirits. They exist in the folklore of every society on earth so whatever your religious convictions there are many ordinary people who think that in the natural world there are things which defy explanation. What a rich source of material for a fiction writer to mine!

This unknown quantity (and a belief in greater powers we know little about) has led some to believe in all sorts of mythical creatures. In this scientific day and age, those beliefs are less common than they were centuries ago but they still thrive today on every continent in the world.

Fiction writers – and especially horror, supernatural writers - have used those beliefs to good effect in their writing. If you cannot disprove a belief then you have to acknowledge that there is always the slim chance that the belief is true! Enter the world of ‘what if’! A world of fairies, angels and demons.  These kinds of scenarios are common in tales of horror

A demon/evil spirit of some kind may be wreaking havoc in a story or it could even be that a demon is the main protagonist. Or perhaps a demon is simply a messenger - the henchman of the devil, carrying out his will. These kinds of scenarios are common in tales of the supernatural and, indeed, horror in general.  

Throughout the history of the world, demons have been held responsible for every natural disaster that ever befell humankind. Whatever a demon is or does there is a certain categorisation of them in folklore that may be worth looking at. Every demon has their own relevant characteristic according to patterns and habits and what they stand for. For example there are demons associated with water, mountains, deserts, buildings etc. They are as invisible as bacteria, slipping inside people’s minds and commandeering their will. They are full of trickery and deceit and can be vengeful and destructive.   They are also used as a signpost for morality – underlining the fight between good and evil.

In the traditional story telling of ancient times the demon was usually the villain of the piece. Nowadays, we are a bit more discerning and take a rather more cynical view of such things but if we appeal to the deep subconscious part of our minds the primal fear of demons and all things evil are still there.

In my opinion, to write about such things as demons, evil spirits or similar entities and to construct a tale so powerful that readers will suspend disbelief and enter your story world, is a thrill indeed. This is the challenge for writers of the supernatural thriller.

Do you read these kinds of stories? Do you find them a bit too much?

Ta! Da! 'The Witcheye Gene' now in kindle form!



Hi everyone

Three cheers! I have finally got my book ( The Witcheye Gene' by P J Newcombe) into e-book form and it is released today on Amazon kindle. it is of course, still availble as hard copy on amazon but now you can download it too. Brilliant! The book is a supernatural thriller and it would be great if anyone feels they could take a look at the free sample or even, dare I say it, buy?

Here is the blurb to try and tempt you:

'Kendal MacIntyre has fought long and hard to overcome the emotional scars of an unhappy childhood to create the successful boutique business she now has. Having lost her husband to cancer she is driven by one thing only – to see her daughter April have all the advantages in life that she herself was denied. So when someone appears to be snooping, she is terrified that her shameful secret will wreck April’s chances in life and she stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the hereditary trait of ‘special’ sight. But when an evil killer threatens the very existence of her family, she knows she must face her demons if she is to save the one thing she cares about.'

Do let me know what you think? All comments - good or bad - are most welcome. 

Making the supernatural natural?

Turning the supernatural into the superbelievable? That, as I see it, is the challenge to all paranormal thriller writers.

Making supernatural elements fit into a thriller story so seamlessly that the reader accepts them without question, is not easy.

After all the vast majority of readers who enjoy this kind of fiction are perfectly reasonable sane individuals who do not necessarily believe in ghosts, spirits and things that go ‘whooo’ in the night. But just like sci-fi readers, they want to wonder and ponder the unanswerable questions. Just for the time it takes to engage with the story readers will willingly believe if we give them a good reason to.

That’s not to say that once the book is read the reader will believe any of it but just for that book the reader suspends disbelief. This, of course must happen with all stories but it is so much more difficult when dealing with the paranormal.

Of course making the world the characters inhabit detailed and colourful and having the characters themselves rich in human traits and emotions (even if they are spirits or whatever) helps. If the people in the story believe in the other-worldly elements and do so right from the beginning as a matter of course, then the reader will too. Events follow in a normal and accepted way and lo! - the supernatural becomes the natural for that story.

For me the furthest I will go into using the supernatural is to introduce elements of ‘what if’ into a story. What if someone’s soul/spirit does not die with them but carries on in someone else’s body? What if a spirit wilfully inhabits someone else’s body and makes them do things they would never normally do? What if someone has the power to read certain people’s minds? What if this power is hereditary and a child is unaware they have it? What if someone believes that if they preserve a person’s body after death they will gain power over life and death and eventually become immortal themselves? What if a person really does have a double and the double/doppelganger bends the person’s will to make them murder their own child?

I know, I know. All of these have been done before but not by me and my imagination. I had fun with these stories and will continue to use similar scenarios in my writing. But apart from the paranormal additions my plots have conflict, suspense and follow normal storytelling rules and my imagination, with the help of my muse, adds width, depth and a sprinkling of magic – at least I hope it does…

Happy Writing!

So what do you think? Do you have a favourite genre? Do you read paranormal thrillers?

For a sample of my writing visit www.patricianewcombe.webnode.com