New Releases, Audiobooks and an Early Easter Sale!

One Summer in Montmartre audiobook is live! I thought about doing an audiobook for a long time, but hesitated to take the plunge. However, after a reviewer's encouragement (thank you, Steve!) I finally went for it. As my first audiobook it was a real learning curve, but I’m thrilled with the final result. One Summer in Montmartre was also the first book I published on Amazon in 2014 and has a special place in my heart. There's also a large print version for those who are visually impaired but still enjoy reading. 

Here’s the blurb:
Paris 1873: Despite being a devoted husband and father, Luc Marteille, a charismatic Impressionist artist, becomes obsessed with his young model, Hélène. Flattered by his attentions, she becomes torn between Luc and her fiancé; and faces a decision that could destroy the lives of everyone around them.
Paris, 2007: Grieving over the death of her son, and with her marriage in trouble, Anna's life is falling apart. When a long-hidden love letter is discovered in the back of her favorite painting, she seizes the opportunity to go to Paris. Intending to research Hélène, the mysterious recipient of the letter, she is thrown together with the arrogant François. Dependent on his help, Anna realizes the tension between them is attraction. Should she continue a lifetime of playing it safe or listen to her heart?
 

You can download the audiobook as one of two books in a free trial with Audible: 

https://www.audible.co.uk/       or        https://www.audible.com/

I hadn't planned to publish another new book this week, but I recently pulled together and polished some short stories I’d written, and my marvelous editor returned them sooner than expected. So I'm thrilled that my first short story collection, Untender Lives, is live!

 

Here’s the blurb:
Five compelling stories about five women who face very different challenges—some more common, some less so. From a young rock singer, who wonders if her dream of success is about to disappear, to a billionaire, who’s looking for a shortcut to salvation, this entertaining mix of genres is perfect for a quick read.

The book is now available at all amazon stores and free with Kindle Unlimited. 

And last, but by no means least...an EARLY EASTER SALE!!

If you want to grab a bunch of my books to read immediately or over the Easter break, now’s the time to go for it. From today Saturday 24th March to 26th March the following books are free or part of a kindle countdown deal.  

Happy Easter reading!

To download:  go to your country's amazon page, type in Teagan Kearney in the search box, click on the book(s) you want, and when you arrive on the book's page, download and enjoy!

This weekend, the following books are FREE :

The following two books are part of KIndle Countdown Deals:

The Kala Trilogy countdown deal starts 24th March. One Summer in Montmartre countdown starts 25th March.
Both books are 99 cents the first day.

That's all for now, folks. I'm off to start Book Three of the Saoirse Saga, and in the meantime, a genuine thank you for your invaluable support. Have a great Easter break.

Stay well, keep reading and best wishes,
Teagan.

Fantasy: why do I write in this genre?

Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true;

Real becomes not-real where the unreal's real.

The above quote is from the Chinese classic, Dream of the Red Chamber, and if you look at Wikipedia's list of top selling books of all time, six out of the top eight are fantasy, or have strong fantasy elements, so I'm not alone in being a fan of the genre. But why is fantasy, and I'm using the term loosely as there are many sub-genres, so popular?

I'm taking it as a given that genre delineation is a marketing tool used to direct readers to a particular type of book, because all stories, irrespective of genre, share the same basic requirements: a protagonist, a plot, and a setting.

Human protagonists experience a range of emotions, which enables readers to engage with them, and even those that are not, for example, robots or little furry animals, exhibit some or all of the same feelings. Whether your character is Leopold Bloom, Bilbo Baggins, Scarlett O'Hara or Miss Marples, readers must want to follow their journey, and find out what happens to them. A character's relationships, and their success or failure in this area of life are part of the emotional appeal of a story.

The term plot is used to describe the sequential events that take place within a story, and follows the standard dramatic arc of increasing internal and external tension, climax and resolution. From folk tales and myths to Greek tragedy, through Shakespeare's comedies to modernist novels, you find this convention. The reader's expectations about character and plot are present whether you read or write crime/detective, magic realism, rom-com, fantasy, fan fiction, or the genre known as literary fiction, and if you tick these boxes, you have a chance of satisfying readers.

For me, the setting of a fantasy novel offers a greater opportunity to bend the rules, although sub-genres such as urban fantasy or postcyberpunk, take place in the world as we know it, or use elements of our world with plenty of gritty kitchen sink realism thrown in. We owe a great debt to the myths and folklore of our ancestors, which we are adapting and passing on to the next generation. Tolkien's use of Norse mythology in Lord of the Rings springs to mind.

A more tricky aspect of genre writing is the framework created by established books which generates limitations. Fairies, elves, and space explorers are generally good, whereas trolls, goblins, and aliens are the standard baddies (except E.T. of course). On the other hand, you could have fun playing with these accepted norms, and feature a teenage troll worried about his complexion, although I'm sure the robot who constantly cracks bad jokes has been done. It's a delicate balance for genre writers to follow these conventions and yet introduce something new and original. If a writer is successful in doing so, their contribution is added to the cannon for later writers to follow.

As a reader and a writer, it's the otherness of fantasy that is its greatest appeal to me, and because the genre is generous, it can include romance, mystery, and be a thrilling tale of suspense on as epic or small a scale as the writer wishes. Sometimes the further we travel in our imagination away from the external world perceived by our senses, the more understanding we gain.

Writing Update:
In January I'll start outlining book three of my urban fantasy trilogy, Samsara, (Books One and Two are available), and until then, I'm editing a science-fiction/fantasy nanowrimo novel. Some years ago, I wrote a fantasy novel, and digging the manuscript out from the depths of a drawer, and reworking it is on the to do list. Although I've written in other genres, I keep returning to fantasy and my first love—sci-fi.

I was very happy to be interviewed earlier this month by the fantasy author, Kellie Steele, and you can find the interview on her website, as well as information about her debut novel, White Ghost and the Poison Arrow.

Useful Links:
http://kellie-steele.weebly.com/blog/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_writing_genres

Today's haiku:

snow lies on the ground

one red apple left hanging -

blackbird finds a feast.

Join me on Twitter at: @teagankearney

Thanks for visiting my blog, and please do leave a comment.

To all story lovers out there, good reading, and to those of you who write, good writing.