indie writer

The Day The Earth Turned Book 1: Summer is here!!!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 6 Comments

With the benefit of hindsight, I never should have scheduled a book release for a day when I would be totally exhausted from a trip to London to see a band! The Day The Earth Turned Book 1: Summer is finally here and went live yesterday. The moment it went live I was sat at a bus-stop outside Waterloo Station, after a brilliant gig by The Black Keys at the 02 Arena in London. To get there, we had to catch three trains then opted for a pleasant 43 minute walk alongside the river Thames. Once inside the arena, my husband and I grabbed a pint and settled down to enjoy the support acts followed by the band. We have loved this band for a very long time so it was a huge deal to get tickets and their performance was mind-blowing. We loved every second and it was well worth the stress of getting there and back!

After the gig ended, we had to race back to Charlton station to catch the last train there, to get us to the last train at London Bridge, knowing we had already missed the last train at Waterloo which would take us home. We stupidly thought we could just hang out and rest at the station until the morning train came at 5.30am but no, they chuck you out. With nowhere to go, we wandered around the streets of London, taking in views of The London Eye, Big Ben, the houses of Parliament, Downing Street and more…. We walked for hours but then ended up back outside the station with more hours left to kill….

I looked at Amazon and realised my book had been released! Yay!! And I’ve done a pretty good job of promoting it so far in the run up. I’ve posted various blogs about it, made numerous quote and review graphics, secured a good amount of ARC reviews and even organised my own blog tour!

But launch day fell a little flat because I was so tired….

After finally getting the train at Waterloo, we attempted to nap but were soon disrupted by a delay at Woking. The delay meant they then decided not to stop at all the stations between Brockenhurst and Bournemouth so they could make up the time! Never mind the fact that we needed to get off at Christchurch where our car was!

We swore quite a lot but there was nothing we could do and thankfully my mum came and picked us up and drove us to our car and we were home by 8.30am just in time to take our youngest to school! Phew! I walked the dogs and then collapsed on the sofa. I picked up my phone with a feeble attempt at pushing my book on release day, and I was so thrilled to see that lots of my fellow indie authors had already been posting and shouting about it!

Yay other indies – they are the BEST!!!

I had some early reviews too and I just about had the energy to share the posts and thank people and then I fell asleep!

It’s been a busy week and I should have organised some sort of Facebook launch party as I have done in the past, but I was too worn out and to be honest, I’ve never found such things particularly useful for selling books. Mostly, you end up giving away a few for free and then people don’t remember to review them.

Anyway, all that aside, I am very proud of this book and I’m thrilled to bits with what people are saying about it so far!

Here are a few review quotes:

“What I loved about this in particular are the characters, who are so well drawn I felt I knew them straight away. Chess – dealing with her grief not just for her parents but for the future way she saw her life that will never come – having to put her feelings aside to care for her little sister. Reuben – loner, victim of bullies but standing strong, bubbling with anger, but practical and compassionate. Gus – glad the adults have gone, but choosing to take control as soon as he can. George – independent, determined to go it alone, forced into a situation he couldn’t have envisaged – This book is terrifyingly believable.”

“Seriously good! A strange apocalyptic world where the adults have (almost) all been wiped out by a series of diseases and the children have to find a new way to live and survive and have divided themselves into gangs with their own territories and their suspicious outlook about others.
The absolute brilliance of this is the fact that it is not a million miles from what you can imagine as reality, especially after the unprecedented effects of covid 19 and the extreme measures we all faced ourselves with. The unsettled feelings intensify when the children in the story go back to nature and try farming the lands and making use of the animals but then nature seems to take advantage of there being fewer humans about and pushing back to the point of being sinister and the aggressor.
The story is expertly compelling and terrifying at the same time and it is definitely thought provoking and humbling – I absolutely cannot wait to see how the story progresses, although obviously with trepidation! – Terrifying but absolutely brilliant, thank you.”

“Where did I find it: having read this author before, and it was a post apocalyptic story, I jumped at the chance to have an advanced copy.

What I liked: the whole concept for this genre. It was different. Having children in charge changed things as they see life differently. In places the story is dark, mentioning things I didn’t want to dwell on. All the while I felt glued to the page eager to know what would happen next. Other things added to the suspense – not all adults died, and something sinister was happening with nature.

What I didn’t like: that this is a brand new book, which means I have to wait for the next one. I can’t wait!

Overall: this is a brilliantly conceived story. I love things that are slightly different to what you expect. There are several different elements to this story and I constantly wanted to answers. What was really going on? What did it mean? This is a book you need to read, and it will be a hot contender for my book of the year. I absolutely loved it.”

And the book is available here – paperback coming soon!!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Day-Earth-Turned-Book-Summer-ebook/dp/B0C5MP91J7/ref=pd_ci_mcx_mh_mcx_views_0?pd_rd_w=KYqXM&content-id=amzn1.sym.6aea875e-359f-49f3-864f-cff62d586b6a&pf_rd_p=6aea875e-359f-49f3-864f-cff62d586b6a&pf_rd_r=C5GDYYVB846J1K97XMBN&pd_rd_wg=LmAZU&pd_rd_r=293d83fc-ad68-40f9-8453-5c20bb1d05a3&pd_rd_i=B0C5MP91J7: The Day The Earth Turned Book 1: Summer is here!!!

Character Interview: Phenex from Whispers Of Nowhere

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to a new feature on The Glorious Outsiders where I’ll be interviewing unique characters from other people’s books! You’ll find a character interview at the start of each month and today, I am chatting to Phenex from Whispers of Nowhere by Shannon Rohrer. You can find Shannon’s links at the end of the interview!

1.How old are you? – That depends on whether we’re talking about my current life, or all of them put together. Three-hundred and thirty-one as of this year; pushing nine-hundred altogether. Give or take a few decades.

2. Where do you come from? – The sun, in a manner of speaking. A solar flare birthed me. Ra saw it happen, and came to my rescue as I was plummeting towards Earth. You could say he was my first parent, though definitely not my last.

3.Where do you live? Describe it to us. – The Spectrum. I never know how to answer this question, because it’s always just been, y’know? I mean, not literally, but it’s been around longer than I have. You could ask five different entities this same question, and they’d all give you a different answer: a world between worlds, a waystation, a tactical base, a place of refuge from the ravages taking place in other realms, a political forum… Imagine living inside a world instead of on its surface. Now imagine if this place was filled with a network of crystal walkways—railings of which are few and far between—winding staircases, and an ever-present aurora borealis, all branching off from a single point. There are rooms that don’t resemble anything close to that description; rooms that open into gardens, that change on command from forests to celestial bodies, places that lead to only the gods-know-where. The Spectrum is home. That’s all there is to it.

4.Do you have a family? If so, tell us about them – I have the Regulations Force and the High Council; they are my family, dysfunctional as it is. If we’re talking about actual parental figures? As I told you before, Ra was my first father, and his grandson Horus my second—but by far the god I’m closest to is Apollo. His son, Asclepius, is like a brother to me. Asc and I have a something of a rocky history, but we’re learning to work through it. Mostly.

5.What are your talents? -Let’s just say I have a penchant for fire, and all it entails. I’m also no slouch in hand-to-hand combat, and thanks to both my natural abilities and Asclepius’s training, I’m one of a handful skilled in healing magic. It’s kind of annoying, actually; who do you think gets summoned every time one of the units comes back from a battle, bloodied and broken? It’s a good thing I don’t need to sleep much…

6.What are your flaws? – If you ask me, none. If you ask anyone else? I suspect they’d say my temper. Or that I’m apparently reckless on missions—like I’m the only operative that’s blown up half a city block! Hey, don’t look at me like that—it was already evacuated. Oh, and I’m sure they’d also tell you I’m lousy at covert operations, despite the fact that I carried one out for a decade. Successfully, I might add.

7.What do you think people think of you? – I can’t say that I worry too much what anyone thinks. Okay, that’s not true—I care sometimes. I care what the High Council thinks, since they kinda determine whether I remain an operative or not. I care what my closest friend (that’s Forneus) thinks. But humans? I can’t really afford to worry about their opinions; you get stared at enough because of your eyes, or because of any number of things that make you stand out, you sort of have to build up a thick skin. Mostly I figure they’re either afraid of me, or intrigued. Sometimes both.

8.What do you wish people knew about you? – Can’t say that I really wish for them to know anything. Anybody close to me knows all there is to know, or at least as much as I permit them to. Everyone else? In the grand scheme of things, they don’t matter. But for those afraid of me, maybe I’d just want them to stop seeing me as a monster. I’m not; if anything, I’m the defensive line between them and the real monsters out there.

9.What’s your biggest fear? – You expect me to just bare my soul like that? Do I look like the type of guy who goes around sharing his feelings with every person nosy enough to ask? Tch, oh, all right. I guess I can throw you a bone, at least this once. I’m afraid of being unmade, coming completely undone. It’s a dark place, going through the things I’ve gone through. Never again.

10.What’s your biggest hope? – You know, I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before. I’m more of a “here and now” guy. I don’t focus too much on the future—just on what I can do today. I guess if I had to pick something to hope for, it would be that everything I’ve done, everything I’ve suffered, every setback and accomplishment… It wouldn’t all be for nothing.

11.What’s your biggest secret? – Heh, bold of you. That would be telling, wouldn’t it? And if I did that, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.

12.-What’s the worst things you’ve ever done to another person? – Depends on who you ask. If you ask Reeves, it’s that I locked him away in Nowhere—never mind that he had it coming. If you knew the things he’d done, the kinds of experiments he performed on humans…well, you’d have wanted him locked away, too. Or worse. But if we’re talking about someone undeserving… Well, I’m not proud of it, but I was a pretty big asshole to Gwen when we first met; much harder on her than I should have been, projecting a lot of my anger from…well, other things. But we won’t talk about any of that.

13.What kind of friend are you? – I’m not perfect, if that’s what you’re asking. But once I’ve made up my mind that I trust someone, especially if they’ve shown me that I can… Well, there isn’t a damn thing I won’t do for them.

14.Is there anything about your life you would change? – Honestly, no. It’s not that I don’t have past regrets, I do—but I’m where I am now because of those mistakes, because of my choices. I had to make them in order to learn from them, and hey, I think the lessons finally stuck after all these centuries. So no, there’s nothing I’d change. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and even if I can still feel the anger burning beneath the surface sometimes? That’s fine, because I’ve got beings in my corner, those who would go to bat for me—and have—if/when the chips are down.

15.-Where would you like to be in five years time? – This kind of goes with my whole “hopes” thing. I don’t really know where I’d like to be, and five years is a blink to my kind. I’m happy with my position in the Regulations Force, First Unit, and I’m damn good at what I do. I can’t imagine being anywhere else—beings like me don’t really do the whole retirement thing, you know?

16.Do you have any regrets? – Of course I do. Anyone who’s ever lived does. If they say otherwise, they either haven’t done that much living, or they’re lying. But like I said before, I don’t let myself get bogged down by past mistakes—I’ve got too much to do, too many other beings relying on me to let myself dwell.

17.How would you like to be remembered? – If the whole death thing ever becomes permanent for me, I guess I’d want to be remembered as someone who tried: tried to help, tried to protect, tried to heal… And hopefully, succeeded enough times to outweigh all the times where I’ve failed.

18.What are your hobbies? – You’d think for a nearly-immortal being, I’d have more of those, but I really don’t. I train a lot—with ops in my unit, and quite a few outside of it. Forneus and I get together in the Lounge sometimes (it’s one of few recreational places in the Spectrum we get to use), talk over drinks. Sometimes if enough of us get together, we play cards. Nothing too exciting really, but with our work, I’d say our lives are plenty exciting as is.

This was a really intriguing interview with an unusual character and if you’d like to find out more, here is the Amazon link to Whispers of Nowhere:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whispers-Nowhere-Shannon-Rohrer-ebook/dp/B079ZJTWM3/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Shannon+Rohrer&qid=1685693984&sr=8-1: Character Interview: Phenex from Whispers Of Nowhere

When Gwen, a curator’s daughter unwittingly breaks the seals on a mythical prison realm, she is whisked away by the watchful Forneus and the hot-blooded Phenex, and into a world beyond her wildest imaginings. With malevolent forces now on the rampage, intent on revenge against the gods whom imprisoned them, Gwen and her two mysterious allies must reclaim the lost artifacts before someone far more sinister does…

You can also follow Shannon on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SRsRamblings/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17736308.Shannon_Rohrer

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorshannonrohrer/

The Day The Earth Turned (On Us) – From Concept To Series

~ ChanAtkins ~ 6 Comments

I can’t remember the specific day or time I got the idea for my new YA post-apocalyptic series, The Day The Earth Turned – but I do know the place.

From my house, if you come out of the gate and turn left you are standing beside a busy road but if you turn right you head down a pleasant leafy lane, lined by ancient oaks. Beyond the oaks are fields and farmland, a small copse, and as we reach the end of Mill Lane and turn left, the Moors river ripples peacefully through.

Heading this way, the thick hawthorn hedging on your right gives glimpses of the fields beyond – fields that have been quarried one by one over the years, each one taking their turn to be ripped up and then eventually, left to recover. And recover they do. The field behind our house was a field when we first moved in – then months later it was quarried for sand and looked awful. The grass gone, the earth overturned, huge machines ripping up the land. Once they had finished, they moved on and the grass and wildflowers grew back.

down the lane

About four years ago we heard that the quarrying had reached its end and the fields were earmarked for development. The landowner, who happens to also be our landlord, was considering various options that would continue to make the fields profitable for him and one proposal was a fake lagoon or water park.

We listened in horror. Not only would the land be built over, but tons of concrete would be poured on top of it, then thousands of visitors would be encouraged to flock to this new leisure facility daily. As residents of a semi-rural village that already has an airport to contend with, we felt the look, feel and pace of our home would be ruined forever. The busy road I mentioned is always busy and it only takes one accident, or one local event, and the whole area gets gridlocked. Thankfuly, the lanes linking around the village are relatively quiet and peaceful which means they and the surrounding fields, rivers and woods are a haven for wildlife.

The plot of land they want to develop is beautiful. Its mostly fields, surrounded by thick hedging and trees with a long copse in the centre. We see small herds of deer on the fields behind our house almost daily. We also have barn owls and tawny owls, buzzards and sparrowhawks, stoats and weasels, rabbits, badgers and even hares in the area. I felt devastated when I pictured those fields built on. Not even for much needed housing, but for a water park when we live ten minutes from the beach?

fields behind our house

Where would the wildlife go? They wouldn’t stay, that was for sure. The quiet lanes would become a nightmare of jammed cars or they would have to be widened and that would mean more trees being felled and ancient hedges being ripped out.

It was a horrifying thought and it still is.

I was almost thankful for Covid putting a brake on it all. The village was even more beautiful and peaceful during lockdowns.

At the moment, not much has happened. The land has been left untouched and as far as I know the planning proposal for the fake lagoon never went through. But something will one day. After all, rich people who already own land and houses, need more money, right? Poor things.

Anyway, I think that was the spark that set this series in motion. I was so pissed off. I walked down the lane thinking about how under threat it all was, how everything is constantly under threat from mankind, how humans just rip it all up, tear it down, stamp all over it, pollute and ruin it. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries in the world…

It’s shameful.

Walking down the lane to the river usually fills me with peace and gratitude, but sometimes it makes me sad and angry too. It’s a hot spot for fly tipping and its even worse when you find they have chucked it in the river. I can’t understand people abusing the earth they depend on. I can’t understand people who chuck rubbish out of car windows. I cannot understand seeing a beautiful plot of land and wanting to build something so ridiculous on it.

I felt angry and I felt like nature was angry too. Or it should be if it could be. I started thinking, if only Mother Nature was a real conscious entity, what would she do to us? She would perceive us as a threat to her life and she would seek to eliminate us, I’m sure.

That’s where the idea came from. Almost wishing nature could do this, almost wishing wildlife would turn on us for a change. When you consider what we have done to the natural world and to animals over the centuries, we ought to be ashamed, and we deserve to be punished for it. I’ve often wondered how different our relationship with animals would be if they could talk. If they were to go up a level in consciousness, intelligence and self-awareness, for instance. Would we still find it so easy to destroy them and their homes?

And funnily enough, recent years have seen an increase in wild animal attacks on human populations, probably partly due to humans encroaching more and more on their territory and of course, made worse by the effects of climate change. Just yesterday I was reading an article about an orca who seems to have trained her pod to hunt and destroy fishing boats after she was injured by one.

In The Day The Earth Turned series, I delve into a world where the adults have been culled by nature itself. She has shaken them free, destroyed them to save herself. The children remain, but can they figure out how to survive in this new world without enraging Mother Nature again? In this new world, animals have reached new levels of aggression and consciousness. This turns out well for a character called George who befriends an otter, but not so well for another character called Gus when he is ambushed by crows and a dog at the same time. Even tiny robins can cause problems and everyone needs to stay out of the path of the furious stag.

The animals are angry. They are filled with rage. This is their world once again, and the children need to learn fast to survive.

I wrote my ideas down in a tiny notebook four years ago, and then two years ago I finally started writing the books. It was a stop-start process at first as I was also finishing up The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, but once that was done I dedicated myself to this new post-apocalyptic series. It was hard to write! But more on that another day.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about where the idea for this series came from.

The book is available for preorder on Amazon right now and I’d really love it if you gave it a go!

Here is the link!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Day-Earth-Turned-Book-Summer-ebook/dp/B0C5MP91J7/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=chantelle+atkins&qid=1685093948&sr=8-2: The Day The Earth Turned (On Us) – From Concept To Series

The End of The World Is Here…

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

I’m hoping that got your attention.

Maybe. Maybe not.

But really I just wanted to let you know that my new YA post-apocalyptic series is nearly here!

The Day The Earth Turned is a four-book series set immediately after a huge apocalyptic event. Not just one pandemic, but several, have decimated the population and only the children remain.

Here is the blurb:

The adults are all dead. Society has collapsed.

Two groups of teenagers emerge on either side of a rural village, traumatised, bereaved and determined to survive.

As tribes form and territorial lines are drawn, can they overcome their differences and find a way to rebuild?

Or will gang warfare end this emerging new world before its even begun?

Each of them have their theories about what killed the adults and as the dust settles on the old world, a far bigger, darker, and angrier threat is bursting to life all around them.

It’s taken a long time to get here! Over four years of jotting ideas down, creating characters, writing each book in the first draft one after the other, then going over them again and again, changing the tense from past to present and constantly feeling like I would never get there! This was definitely the hardest writing project I’ve ever worked on. I loved it from the start but just kept feeling like I couldn’t do the idea justice. I’m happy with how it all turned out though!

“Summer” can now be preordered on Amazon for just 99p for the ebook. Paperback coming soon! I would really love to share these books with you so if you have any interest in apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, disasters and stories about survival and the environment then please give book 1 a go and see what you think. I’ll be blogging more about the book and the characters as we head towards release day!

Here is the link to Amazon!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C5MP91J7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3S22CL8I39EPH&keywords=chantelle+atkins&qid=1684488101&sprefix=c%2Caps%2C809&sr=8-1: The End of The World Is Here…