The Angel Mountain Blog

  Only two books to go in the new audiobook collection!  All on schedule -- here is the great new cover for "Sacrifice"  -- very atmospheric.......

  Posted on Facebook -- a great painting of the Old Bridge, Haverfordwest, looking up towards the castle.  This is where Martha was incarcerated for a crime she did not commit, as described in the pages of "On Angel Mountain."

One of the biggest challenges in writing a series of 8 novels with more than a million words is to keep track of the characters, and the relationships that they have with one another.  In some novels there are just a handful of characters -- but in the Angel Mountain Saga there are more than 200, many of whom play important roles in the narrative as it develops.  They all have their back stories. During the writing process I kept a comprehensive list, with much more information than is contained in the "character list" below.  I needed to hold in my mind details of where these people lived, how old they were,  what they looked like, who their friends and enemies were, what they wore, and what their characteristics were -- even down to their manner of speaking.  Every now and then I made mistakes, and failed to get away with it. Every author needs to remember that if your novel -- or novels -- strike a chord and acquire a following, there will be some people out ...

At last, our new web site, timed to coincide with the new logo and with Martha Morgan's 21st anniversary, is published and is live on the web.  It contains information on all 8 of the books (including the audiobooks) and some of the background to the stories.   But we have deliberately kept it clean and rather sparse.  There are also links to our associated web sites.  Enjoy!  And please share....... https://www.angelmountainsaga.com  

 

Here is the new cover design for "Flying with Angels",  created by my son Martin as a replacement for the old jacket, which was looking seriously dated.  It's also a homage to the Bolinda audiobooks which are coming along steadily, on schedule. (One of their jackets has the same female image featured on it........)   In the background is the REAL Carningli, and I like the flock of ravens.  So all 8 of the novels now use the same house style, apart from "Sacrifice" which is a one-off.  

  This is the new jacket for "Dark Angel", recently designed by my son Martin.  It's quite a powerful and mysterious image -- as befites the contents of the book!   And it fits the "house style" very well indeed.  So this will replace the old jacket next time a reprint is due, and it will be used very soon for  the Kindle edition of the book.

 To celebrate the publication of the new Bolinda audiobook, here is a review that appeared when the paperback was published: This is the sixth novel in the hugely popular Martha Morgan series. It begins with Martha’s death, but if you are a fan of the character, don’t be put off, as I'm sure you'll like the new heroine just as much. As a prologue to the main story, there is a very entertaining chapter of how a long forgotten manuscript is found in offices of the London publishers Pickersniff and Jebson. This script is by a Susanna Ravenhill, and it is set in Newport and on Carningli or ‘Angel Mountain’, the setting of the other novels. Susanna Ravenhill is an assumed name, but who is the attractive older woman determined to protect the mountain at all costs? It is hard to describe the main plot without giving away the first big surprise of the novel. The book is as warm-hearted and heartfelt as all of Brian John’s series. It is at its best on the mountain and in the tight knot ...

This is our new logo for the Angel Mountain Saga. A lot of thought has gone into it, including consultations........ with the help of Steve and Martin, we played about with various concepts, and out of that Martin came up with something that was almost there. So we employed a logo designer for the final tweaking -- and this is the result. We are delighted with it -- it's visually attractive and sophisticated, and suggests some sort of narrative. The raven is in there, to induce a spirit of enquiry on the part of the observer, and the shapes of the letters suggest a mountainous terrain, with sweeping curves going up to heaven and down into the lowlands. Very stylish lettering too. So this will now be used all over the place........