Tag: Radzy

Happy New Year!

Best Wishes to you all for a Strangely Happy New Year in 2020 from us all here at Grimly HQ!

Here’s your checklist of Really Important Things for the New Year:

1) Are you new to The Vale of Strange? Then make sure you get your copy of ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’ the first book in this remarkable series, on Kindle for the bargain price of only 99p (UK) or 99c (US) or for a similarly small amount if you live elsewhere in the world. Note: if you’re on Kindle Direct you can read it for free!!

Ian Eagleton, Creator of The Reading Realm app, said: “Thrilling, dark, utterly barmy, funny and surprisingly moving… if you haven’t read it already, please do. What a hidden gem!”

Joanne Owen, Reviewer at lovereading4kids, said: “A riotously imaginative feast of fantastical adventure with lashings of larger-than-life characters and curious goings-on.… Brilliantly bonkers.”

2) If you’ve already read the first book, have you got your copy of the newly published sequel, ‘Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill’, available in paperback or Kindle from Amazon UK, Amazon.com and other Amazon sites worldwide.

John Guy Collick, author of the Book of the Colossus series said: “Stranger, more peculiar, and utterly delightful, Grimly Darkwood’s sequel to ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’ perfectly combines outlandish scares with adventure and wild imagination”

Radzy Writes and Reviews said: “In honesty, as soon as I’d finished ‘Shop on Peculiar Hill’, I was desperate to get my hands on ‘Stranger Days’ – this is a world with absolutely no finite end point, and I hope this series just keeps going.”

3) Having bought your book, don’t forget to read it!

4) Having read it, please let us (or someone else) know what you think about it! We’ve had almost entirely good feedback on the books so far but it takes a lot of banging and shouting to get the message about them out there. So please do a favour to all those who haven’t yet heard about the Vale of Strange books by helping to spread the word.

5) Most important of all: there are bogeys about – please don’t forget your hat!

Stranger Days – First Review!

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“If you have read ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’…. then this will be a real treat… We meet new friends, see familar faces, and above all, dive further into this world where nothing is entirely as it appears. In all honesty, as soon as I’d finished ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’, I was desperate to get my hands on ‘Stranger Days’ – this is a world with absolutely no finite end point, and I hope this series just keeps going!”

This is a quote from the very first substantial review of ‘Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill’ by the blogger Radzy (aka Em) who you may remember also reviewed ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’. You can read the whole of her new review here – and the rest of this blog post of mine may make more sense if you do that now…

As with her previous review, I find this fascinating. Radzy finds things in my writing that I didn’t know were there! It is encouraging to realise that these stories may work in a way of which I wasn’t consciously aware. I simply describe the children interacting in a way that seems natural – often hearing them whisper the dialogue into my ear in the helpful way they sometimes do – trying to amuse or otherwise entertain in the process. But if this can help readers cope with a similar situation in their own lives, then that is quite a bonus.

It makes me wonder what else may be hiding there in the book that I don’t remember putting there. Perhaps there are new kinds of monsters I don’t remember creating… I’d better go and read it again just in case.

Many thanks to Radzy for the review – and for opening my eyes to my own book!

I’m sorry there’s still no paperback edition by the way. It was supposed to be out yesterday. I’m sure they’re staying up late at Amazon HQ to try to get it fiished. I’ll let you know when I hear.

Radzy’s Review of ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’

Hi, Grimly here! Yes, I know it’s the first time I’ve shown my face in a while but I’ve been busy putting the finishing touches to my new book ‘Stranger Days on Peculiar Hill’. I’ll be sending it off to our publisher, Jennifer, at Journey Fiction any day now so it should be out in good time for Christmas. Don’t forget to put it on Santa’s shopping list…

As you might have guessed, it’s all about the further adventures of Peter and Amanda on Peculiar Hill, this time joined by another young friend called Mala, whose father, the hapless explorer Augustus Flipper, has gone mysteriously missing. Is there a chance that in the course of their investigations they will wander into the Vale of Strange, you may be asking? It may be best not to exclude this possibility.

You’ll be able to read much more about the new book here on the blog in the buildup to publication, so don’t forget to follow us to make sure you get notification of new posts as they come out. You can do this either by email (see the form in the sidebar) or through Facebook. If you have a WordPress account, you can also follow us through them.

To add to the excitement, there’s another new review of ‘The Shop on Peculiar Hill’ just out, this time by blogger Radzy who writes: “I can only imagine the creative impact this will have on young minds, and cannot recommend this book enough for yourself, the wee ones in your world, or just anyone you know who will enjoy a quirky, meaningful novel.”

As you can tell, she really likes the book and it’s a very thoughtful, perceptive review, well worth a read in full on her excellent blog, ‘Radzy Writes and Reviews‘. I strongly suggest you take a look at it now…

Thank you, Radzy!

Finally, the usual piece of fashion advice: Uncle Bob may say you don’t really need one for bogeys at this time of year, but if you’re here in the UK, you’ll need one to keep out the rain. So do the smart thing and don’t forget your hat!

(This column has Aunt Maggie’s Official Seal of Approval.)