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Must-Read Books!

Hooray! Many thanks to the ever-supportive Ian Eagleton, developer of the fabulous Reading Realm app, for including The Vale of Strange amongst his top five must-read children’s books! At any rate, he did yesterday. He admits he may change his mind from time to time but, hey, we’re relaxed about that, aren’t we guys?

In case you were wondering, the other books that Ian chose were The Tunnels Below by Nadine Wild-Palmer, Poems the Wind Blew In by Karmelo C Iribarren and others, Look Up! by Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola, The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson and Elisa Paganelli, and The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell, which actually makes six in all but who’s counting?

Oh, and er, Happy New Year! Sorry you haven’t heard much from us recently but what with having to remember to wash our hands and wear a mask as well as wearing sturdy boots and a hat here in the Vale, we’ve been kept rather busy. We hope to have more news for you soon so, if you haven’t already done so, subscribe to the blog or like us on Facebook to make sure you stay up to date, ok? And do stay safe! – love from Grimly and the Team.

The Shop on Peculiar Hill – now on YouTube!

If you missed the great reading of The Shop on Peculiar Hill Chapter One by Ian Eagleton, developer of the terrific The Reading Realm app, you can now catch it on YouTube.

The video is set to start at 14 min and 40 seconds in, which is about where Ian starts reading Chapter One, but the whole video is fun. Amongst other things, Ian reads a poem called The Owl and The Pussycat in sign language plus a snippet of my biography!

Ian is continuing to do readings, quizzes etc while the schools are out, about a couple of times a week at 11am, so do take a look at them. If you want to catch them live, you can find them on the Reading Realm Facebook page.

The Shop on Peculiar Hill – Live from The Reading Realm!

There was a brilliant online reading of the opening chapter of The Shop on Peculiar Hill yesterday by Ian Eagleton (developer of The Reading Realm). He really brought the characters to life (I mean even more than they usually are!) I wish I could do all those voices like he can. I particularly liked his Mr Grimble…

Anyway, it’s all still online so it’s well worth a look and a listen. The Reading Realm live readings are going out daily at 11am while the schools are out. You’ll find them on the Reading Realm Facebook page.

As well as the readings, there’s lots more entertainment for kids including competitions, quizzes, and a chance to learn sign language. They produced a brilliant Shop on Peculiar Hill themed activity pack yesterday which included instructions for designing your own version of Evil Island! You can find it – along with a full recording of yesterday’s live event (The Shop on Peculiar Hill Reading included) here.

And of course, don’t forget the Reading Realm app for iPad itself, full of lots of excerpts from books (including The Shop on Peculiar Hill) and fun and games to play around them!

The Shop on Peculiar Hill – Live Reading!

That nice Ian Eagleton, developer of the ReadingRealm app, is running a series of live readings and other activities to entertain the kids during these challenging times. Here’s his schedule for the week ahead and I’m delighted to report that Tuesday’s session will include a read along extract from none other than that exciting and mysterious fantasy adventure, The Shop on Peculiar Hill by Grimly Darkwood. Do tune in or synchronise your algorithms or whatever it is you do these days and join in the fun. You will find the live readings over at the Reading Realm Facebook page (as opposed to the Reading Realm Group Facebook page where you won’t find them, this being an entirely different kettle of strange creatures). Ian helpfully points out that the Ebook version of The Shop on Peculiar Hill is currently available from Amazon for just 99p, so if the reading whets your appetite for further strangeness, you know where to go…

Number One

As we were saying earlier today on the Grimly Facebook page, it’s encouraging to learn that, though our success at selling books so far has been limited, we seem to have some talent at giving them away. Our five day ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’ free Kindle offer seems to have proved very popular. Since we reported this success on Facebook this morning, we’ve climbed even further up the charts. ‘TSOPH’ is now the ‘best-selling’ free childrens’ fantasy book at both Amazon.com and Amazon UK. – and that is now for all types of children’s fantasy. Yippee!

If you haven’t yet read the book and haven’t downloaded your free copy yet, then don’t delay! The offer has to end after tomorrow. It would be a shame if you missed out. So get yourself to the relevant link without delay!

Amazon.com link

Amazon UK link

Or check at your local Amazon site worldwide….

Revealed At Last!

Well it’s been tense and time got a little bit tight for a while, but I’m pleased to announce that we now have a definite publication date for ‘Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill’, the eagerly awaited second book in the ‘Vale of Strange’ series and sequel to ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’. It’s going to be released in good time for Christmas: on 1st December. Not only that, but copies of the eBook can be ordered right now. They will then be auto-downloaded to your Kindle device or app on 1st December.

You can order here if you are in the UK and here for the US. The paperback version can’t be pre-ordered but it can be purchased at Amazon from 1st December. The book will also be available in both formats from Amazon sites worldwide.

To add to the excitement, we can now announce that the book’s splendid cover by Pete Lyon, which we enthused about in a previous post, is being revealed right now at Mani’s Book Corner. You may remember that Mani was the first blogger to review The Shop on Peculiar Hill and she has always been very enthusiastic and supportive so we decided that she was the ideal person to do the Cover Reveal, especially as her blog has a lot more regular readers than ours does! So I strongly suggest you get over there right now and take a look at the cover. Prepare to have your breath taken away by this remarkably detailed imagining of a scene from ‘Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill’.

One more thing before you go: if you don’t already follow this blog, we suggest you sign up now. You’ll then be assured of getting all the latest news on the new book and all other Vale of Strange-related matters. Just pop your email in the box you will find in the sidebar. Or if you have a WordPress account, you can sign up to follow through WP. You will also find us on Facebook and Twitter of course.

A very important reason for signing up is that you’ll be informed as soon as the free sample chapters become available online. That will be very shortly, well before publication date. So don’t miss out on your chance to take an advance peek into this latest mind-boggling adventure…

Oh yes, in all the excitement. I almost forgot to remind you of the most important thing: One! – Two! – Three! – Don’t forget your hat!