Not quite end of year thoughts

The leaves are mostly all gone from the deciduous trees and plants, heralding the start of winter. We don’t often get snow in England, but when we do everything comes to a standstill even it’s just a light covering. Mostly, it rains. This year we do need lots of rain. Even though I live in what’s often called Wet Yorkshire, it’s predicted that we’ll still have a hosepipe ban through next summer. It rained heavily one morning when we were staying in Borrowdale in Cumbria last month. By lunchtime, the water levels had risen to swamp the low-lying pathways by the river’s edge, driving walkers onto the road.

Derwent River rising

So, this is the time of year for comfort reading. My go to selection for these long wet days in the run up to Christmas is The Chronicles of Alsea – a ten book science fiction series by Fletcher Delancey.

The Chronicles of Alsea by Fletcher Delancey

Back in the days of my youth, it would have been an annual reread of The Lord of the Rings (starting with The Hobbit, of course). Further back (and on occasion nowadays) it was The Chronicles of Narnia and visits to the Lake District with Swallows and Amazons.

My latest novel has been out for six weeks now. Maybe not exactly in the comfort reading category – but it’s a romance, so of course there’s a happy ever after ending.

Changing Times by Jen Silver

Changing Times – published 1 October 2022: Affinity Rainbow Publications / Amazon UK / Amazon US / Amazon CA / Amazon AU / Bella Books / Barnes & Noble / Google Play / Smashwords / Apple Books


Print and eBooks by Jen Silver are available from Affinity Rainbow Publications / Amazon, Bella Books, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple Books

Audiobooks – narrated by Nicola Victoria Vincent:

Darcy Comes Home: Audible UK / Amazon UK / Amazon US / iTunes

Starting Over: Audible UK / Audible US / Audible DE / Audible CA / Audible AU / Amazon UK / Amazon US  / iTunes

Changing Perspectives: Audible / Amazon / iTunes / Beek / Chirp / Scribd / Google Play / Kobo / Nook

Audio books

My summer reading

In my last blog post I gave an overview of what I’ve been up to this summer with activities and events. So now I thought I would take a look at what I’ve been reading over the last few months.

The science fiction bug has bitten me this year:

planet

The title of the first book in Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer series intrigued me: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. And I wasn’t disappointed. The author captures the differing species and personalities aboard a spaceship very well. It made me wonder how well any of us would cope having to interact at close quarters with different-bodied aliens when the small differences in human aspects seem to be a challenge on our own small angry planet.

producer

Although I’ve read the Chronicles of Alsea series on my kindle, I’ve enjoyed rereading the stories in paperback format (very well produced by Heartsome Publishing). Earlier this year I reread The Caphenon (Book1), Outcaste (Book 6), Resilience (Book 7), and Uprising (Book 8). I’ve now gone back to Without a Front: The Producer’s Challenge (Book 2). The first time I read it, I think I missed a lot of the detail. I can take it more slowly now, as I know what happens later on. The challenges faced by the characters populating Fletcher Delancey’s complex Alsean society is worth the revisit. (Next up: Without a Front: The Warrior’s Challenge)

After visiting other worlds, it was time for some down-to-earth romance. However, not being able to decide on a new lesfic book to read, led me to rereading some of my own.

trilogy_promo

Revisiting them after a gap of almost five years was a pleasant revelation. I really enjoyed them. Starting Over was my debut novel, which spawned two more books to form the Starling Hill trilogy. The archaeological aspect of the stories was something I enjoyed researching and continued to be a real life interest with the five seasons spent as a volunteer excavator at Vindolanda.

digging

Having just released my first audio book, Changing Perspectives, I’ve been pondering which of my other books could be the next one to be produced and I’m thinking Starting Over would do nicely. Any thoughts from readers on that idea are most welcome.


Books by Jen Silver…available from Affinity Rainbow Publications, Amazon, Bella Books, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple iTunes

Changing Perspectives audio book is available from: Audible / Amazon / iTunes / Beek / Chirp / Scribd / Google Play / Kobo / Nook