Keeping Covid Busy: Part 1

Showing The Literary Love

Are you bored? Is Covid-19 driving you mad?

Well here are some people who are literary gems that you should check out…

Icy Sedgwick: Fabulous Folklore Podcast

The great and talented Icy Sedgwick is a great UK writer whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for a few years now. She is the author of tonnes of brilliant books (not least The Necromancer’s Apprentice and it’s successor). But that isn’t the only string she has to her dark bow.

Icy is the hostess of the Fabulous Folklore podcast and blog. If you want to anything about the lore surrounding popular holidays like Easter or Halloween then this is the place to go. Her podcasts and blogs aren’t just great for authors and aspiring writers, though.

If you have any interest in gardening, she also explores flower folklore – did you know that periwinkle was once used in love potions? The podcast and blog also dip into various bizarre superstitions surrounding creatures that are considered bad omens or portentous of future events.

So, if you’re fed up of QI and you’re a devourer of facts, check out Icy Sedgwick’s Fabulous Folklore to keep boredom at bay during lockdown!

Rachel Hobbs: Debut Author

These aren’t the best times to be a debut author. With that in mind, I want you guys to know all about Rachel Hobbs and her new novel Shadow-Stained. I’m certain my readers will love her book, so I thought I’d cheer on a new author right here!

And here’s the book blurb:

‘To her, it’s her late grandma’s legacy. For him, the mother of all black arts spoils, granting one demon the power of a God. Immortality.
When occult-magnet Ruby falls victim to Demon Lord Drayvex’s viperous allure, she loses a sentient dark relic to his light fingers and appetite for power. Like calls to like. But when Drayvex himself loses it to a nemesis with a festering grudge, Ruby coerces him – the tryant demon king with a soft spot for humanity – into helping her save her pokey old world village from becoming ground zero of mass demonic carnage.
Both invested in reclaiming the relic, the one thing Ruby and Drayvex agree on is that it’s in the wrong hands. Co-existing in a precarious arrangement between predator and prey, to save the planet they both love for different reasons, they must become a formidable double-team in the face of an apocalyptic takeover. Now, the fate of both human and demon alike rests with a killer that walks between worlds, and the woman with a curse in her bloodline.’

What are you waiting for? Grab Shadow-Stained right now!!!

K. R. Max: Erotic Shorts

If you haven’t heard of her, K R Max is a fabulous lady. When she’s not keeping me amused and full of cheer with her facebook posts throughout this horrible coronavirus quarantine, she’s writing some awesome erotic fiction.

Some of it is shifter fiction, but all of it is amazing and you need to get your hands on it. If you haven’t, yet, then why not?

Her back catalogue on Amazon is the stuff of some pretty damn good dreams. I’d suggest getting stuck in one of her collections, like Her Dominant Boss series, to make these hazy covid-19 days move by just that little bit faster.

Miranda Kate: The Purple Flash Fiction Queen

Miranda Kate (AKA M K Boers) is a writer from the UK that I have followed on twitter and facebook for a long time. She lives in the Netherlands and runs the #MidWeekFlash challenge.

If you haven’t heard of a flash challenge before, I promise you it isn’t anything about getting naked. It’s actually a fantastic writing prompt competition where you have to craft a story with an extremely short amount of words based on a phrase or an image.

Miranda runs the #MidWeekFlash challenge every week. She also writes her own entries to each challenge. They are amazing entries, so go ahead and have a read. Maybe it will inspire you to join in and get your creative juices going.

I know that when I started out honing my craft, flash fiction challenges were a fabulous way of learning how to edit down a piece. Not to mention, you make a lot of writing friends along the way. But, if you don’t feel like joining in after you’ve read some entries, maybe it will at least inspire you to pick up one of Miranda’s books.