Month: July 2020 (Page 2 of 3)

And now, I wait

July 25, 2020 / T. A. Belshaw / 0 Comments

Unspoken.

After the excitement of publication day, today is the day the nerves really set in.

Unspoken, my new baby, has flown the nest and is now out there in the wild world learning to fend for itself. There can be no questioning the thoughts of others. Readers are the most important people in any writer’s life outside of family. What they think matters. If they don’t like the look of the work you have slaved over for months, they are fully entitled to say so, and publicly.

So, I sit here, constantly updating the Unspoken Amazon page before clicking onto my KDP reports to see how sales are going. Late last night I had a message from my author friend, Pam Howes, informing me that the book was in the 300s in all three Saga charts. I was encouraged by this as I have never written in this genre before and I spent an unsettled night, fighting the desire to go pick up my phone to check the ratings. The book has a chance of doing well in a very crowded field although many of the best selling authors write for this category. The cover, created by the uber-talented, Jane Dixon Smith, is a big selling point, I also believe I have a very good blurb and my fab long-time, editor, Maureen Vincent Northam says the book is an intricately woven, and beautifully told story.

So, why the nerves when everything seems to be going so well?

Reviews.

It is every author’s nightmare. You log onto Amazon and find that there is a new review waiting to be read. You close your eyes, then click away from the page, make a strong coffee, grab your box of Kleenex before pulling on your big writer’s pants, taking a deep breath and clicking the back button to refresh your book page.

Before clicking on the review link, you pray to all known deities that it will be at least a 3 star rating but you are convinced that it will be a 1 with a headline of ‘dreadful,’ or merely, ‘don’t bother.’

Most authors would be delighted with a 4, but a 3 would do just to let prospective readers know that the book isn’t going to end up in the charity shop, unread, or deleted from the Kindle after the first chapter.

Because of the length of Unspoken, I might have to wait until the middle of next week before I face that prospect. Until then I’ll just keep replying to the wonderful Facebook messages I’ve been receiving and wallowing in the glow of being a published author once again.

Amazon U.K. link

Unspoken Released!

July 24, 2020 / T. A. Belshaw / 2 Comments

I am delighted to announce the release, in Kindle format, of my new Family Saga, Unspoken.
As many of my Facebook and Twitter friends know, this novel has been a long time coming. My last book was a noir, suspense novella, Out of Control, which was published back in August 2015.
Following the sudden, unexpected death of my wife, three days later, I pretty much decided to give up writing. She was my muse, my first reader, someone who would tell me straight, how the story was progressing and I was lost without her.
Fast forward to March 2020 and after several false starts, the circumstances of Lockdown and an unfortunate, very painful injury which meant a short stay in hospital, and a long recovery process ahead, I found myself stuck inside, with only the TV and my rescue cat, Mia for company.

So, I decided to see if I could pick up where I left off all those years ago.
There were several part-started projects I could work with and I did think seriously about finishing one of them, but in the end, I decided that the virtually unlimited writing time that lay ahead, actually warranted a brand new project, something different, something outside of my comfort zone, something that would provide a fresh challenge.
I telephoned my fab editor, Maureen Vincent Northam and had the first of many chats about the new project. Maureen was keen for me to start and with her constant encouragement, via email and telephone, she eased me through the doubts, the plot holes and the comma-ridden chapters that I sent her on an almost daily basis.

The result, some sixteen weeks later, is Unspoken, the first of a series of three novels that will detail the history of the Mollison family from 1938 to 2019.

Unspoken is a story of secrets, love and revenge. In this novel, we meet, Alice, a young girl forced into adulthood before she could properly enjoy her late teenage years.
Alice is fast approaching her one hundredth birthday and she has a secret. One she has kept to herself for some eighty years. She is aware that she has very little time left and wants to unburden herself to her great granddaughter, Jessica, a young woman who could have been mistaken for Alice had they been born in the same era. Unfortunately, Jessica has the same, dreadful tastes in men as Alice. Her partner, Calvin, once a kind, funny boyfriend has turned into a controlling narcissist.

Alice sends Jessica to the attic of the old farmhouse to retrieve her handwritten memoirs and her own relationship with a brutal, controlling man is finally brought into the light.

Unspoken is now available on Kindle at the price of £2.99 but is free for members of Kindle Unlimited. The paperback version is ready, and will follow soon.

You can buy/Download the Kinde version by clicking the link below..

UNSPOKEN

Unspoken Paperback Cover.

July 24, 2020 / T. A. Belshaw / 0 Comments

More fabulous work by the very talented, Jane Dixon Smith of J.D.Smith Design

The paperback is ready to go and will be published soon.

Unspoken. Cover Reveal

July 24, 2020 / T. A. Belshaw / 0 Comments

I am delighted to reveal the cover for my new Family Saga novel, Unspoken.

The fabulous cover was designed by the extremely talented, Jane Dixon Smith, of J. D. Smith Design. http://janedixonsmith.com/

Unspoken will be published in Kindle EBook format later today but it may take a day or so to appear on Amazon. Paperback to follow in short order.

Keep checking back to this website for further news of the release.

Unspoken is something that cannot be uttered aloud. Unspoken is the dark secret a woman must keep, for life.

Unspoken

A dramatic family saga, Unspoken is a tale of secrets, love, betrayal and revenge.

Alice is fast approaching her one hundredth birthday and she is dying. Her strange, graphic dreams of ghostly figures trying to pull her into a tunnel of blinding light are becoming more and more vivid and terrifying. Alice knows she only has a short time left and is desperate to unburden herself of a dark secret, one she has lived with for eighty years.
Jessica, a journalist, is her great granddaughter and a mirror image of a young Alice. They share dreadful luck in the types of men that come into their lives.
Alice decides to share her terrible secret with Jessica and sends her to the attic to retrieve a set of handwritten notebooks detailing her young life during the late 1930s. Following the death of her invalid mother and her father’s decline into depression and alcoholism, she is forced, at 18 to take over control of the farm. On her birthday, she meets Frank, a man with a drink problem and a violent temper.
When Frank’s abusive behaviour steps up a level. Alice seeks solace in the arms of her smooth, ‘gangster lawyer’ Godfrey, and when Frank discovers her in another man’s arms, he vows to get revenge.
Unspoken. A tale that spans two eras and binds two women, born eighty years apart.