Indie Books We Love – Grimly Darkwood

More Signed Copies of Stranger Days to be Won!

If you didn’t get lucky in our previous competition, there’s now a new chance to win one of three signed copies of the paperback edition of Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill, this time courtesy of Lovereading4kids You can find out all about how to enter on the lovereading4kids website here, where you’ll also find the Lovereading4kids review of the book.

This is of course the second in the Vale of Strange series, the sequel to The Shop on Peculiar Hill. Lovereading4kids points out that it’s also a stand-alone novel which works very well even if you haven’t read the previous book. They say: ‘this is an exciting book which will certainly be a page turner for those who love all things weird and wonderful’.

The book is one of the Lovereading4kids ‘indie books that we love’ and also one of their featured books. There’s lots more about the book, including more reviews, on our own special page here and you can read some free sample chapters here. Good luck in the competition!

More Reviews of Stranger Days

As I mentioned in the last post (which was, ahem, a few weeks ago now but then we’ve all been busy not meeting people and not going anywhere, haven’t we?) Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill has been chosen as one of the lovereading4kids Indie Books We Love. This means it features on the front page of their website, and to add to the excitement, it is also one of their featured books for 9+ and 11+ readers this month, listed together with other titles such as Liz Flanagan’s exciting Rise of the Shadow Dragons and the new illustrated edition of Ted Hughes’ classic story The Iron Man.

To celebrate, we’ve updated the Stranger Days page here on grimlydarkwood.com with all the latest reviews, many of them five star including this one that’s just come in from an Amazon UK customer called JG, who says: “Weird and wonderful escape from reality. Genuinely new and surprising in its inventiveness. I should have been warned about the big spider.”

I’m glad you enjoyed it, JG. I’m sorry if you were startled by the spider (and actually there were three of them but maybe you looked away at that point) but we did say that the Vale of Strange books contain monsters, I seem to remember, so I would have thought that was warning enough. Ok, they were actually giant spiders with really strange webs and the kids almost ran out of unctuous splodger so Amanda almost got eaten but it seems to me that ‘warning – contains monsters!’ just about covers all that, doesn’t it?

What do you think? Should we put more warnings on Vale of Strange books? In which case, what should we warn about? “Caution – contains Uncle Bob!” maybe? Or: “This book mentions chocolate cake rather a lot” Or even: “This book may disturb the balance of the weirdosphere!” What do you think is scary in the books? Write and tell me….

You can contact me, Grimly, via the ‘contact Grimly‘ page (see link in sidebar) or just email me directly at grimlydarkwood03 (at) gmail.com It will be great to hear from you. While I’m waiting, though, there’s something else I need to work out: if something scares you, should I put more of it or less of it in the next book?

(Don’t forget that as well as reading the reviews on the Stranger Days page, you can ‘try before you buy’. Read two free sample chapters here.)

Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill – ‘a LoveReading4Kids Indie Book We Love’

We’re very happy to announce that, like The Shop on Peculiar Hill before it, Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill, the second book in the Vale of Strange series, has been chosen by Lovereading4kids as one of their ‘Indie Books We Love’.

Reviewer Charlotte Walker writes “Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill is a new adventure that develops the brilliant ideas firmly established in Grimly Darkwood’s first Vale of Strange book… It follows on from the end of The Shop on Peculiar Hill but recaps the previous events and there’s enough detail for it to be read as a standalone story… After reading, I’m sure children will be racing to enjoy the adventure in The Shop on Peculiar Hill if they haven’t read it already.”

And if you prefer to start reading with the first book, don’t forget that the eBook version of The Shop on Peculiar Hill is still available for only 99p from Amazon UK or 99 cents from Amazon.Com

You can read the whole of Charlotte’s review here.

We’ve also updated our Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill page here on grimlydarkwood.com with all the latest reviews of the book, including this one from an Amazon UK reader: “Absolutely loved this book. Very funny, exciting, and a real page turner. Can’t wait for the next.”

A Perfectly Peculiar Page-turner

(Just in case you were wondering, The Shop on Peculiar Hill is available from Amazon UK and other online retailers, in either paperback or Kindle format. For US readers, it is also on Amazon.com, again in paperback or Kindle format.)

Grimly is very excited again today because The Shop on Peculiar Hill just got an excellent review from the prestigious lovereading4kids.co.uk site. Here’s a taste of what they had to say:

“A riotously imaginative feast of fantastical adventure with lashings of larger-than-life characters and curious goings-on… This book’s whimsical, jaunty language and characterisation make it marvellous for reading aloud. In fact, as you read the dialogue, it’s easy to hear and see the characters in action, replete with tone of voice and physical quirks. Brilliantly bonkers, this perfectly peculiar page-turner comes heartily recommended for fans of Mr Gum and Philip Ardagh.”

– Joanne Owen, review of ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’ for lovereading4kids.co.uk

You can read the entire review on the lovereading4kids site, and you may be interested to see what other books the site recommends. They’re certainly worth bookmarking for the next time you’re prodding around for an entertaining read.

The Shop on Peculiar Hill is featured on their front page as one of the site’s ‘Indie Books We Love’! It also appears in numerous other lists on the site, including ‘featured books for age 7+’ , ‘featured books for age 9+’ and ‘fantasy and magic books’, where it rubs shoulders with titles by JK Rowling, David Walliams, and the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ books.

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It’s nice to be listed amongst such famous writers. Up until now, The Shop on Peculiar Hill has been mainly getting great reviews but in terms of sales, it’s not been rivalling the popularity of, say, hot cakes, mainly because not many people know about us yet. So we’re hoping that more people will notice us while we’re on lovereading4kids

In her review (see above) Joanne mentions Philip Ardagh and Mr Gum. This is interesting, because Grimly was inspired to write The Shop on Peculiar Hill by reading a Philip Ardagh book which his nephew lent him. This was one of the Eddie Dickens trilogy. Grimly loved the style of the writing and wanted to use a similar style to describe the events in the Vale of Strange that he saw through his telescope. We still love Philip Ardagh. We’re completely new to Mr Gum though. Have you read him? If you like The Shop on Peculiar Hill, you should give Mr Gum a try. His books, which are written by Andy Stanton, are a bit like The Vale of Strange with all the sensible bits taken out – and I mean that in a nice way.

So if you enjoyed The Shop on Peculiar Hill, what other authors do you like? And who would you recommend to people who have finished Grimly’s first book and are sitting around impatiently waiting for the next (which is due later this year, don’t forget!) Do write and tell us! Grimly’s email address is grimlydarkwood03 (at) gmail (dot) com

And finally, if you enjoyed The Shop on Peculiar Hill, do spread the word about it. There are plenty of poor people out there who’ve never heard of us – don’t let them miss out!

And finally, finally, one – two – three, don’t forget your hat!