The Time Bubble

The annual Ayres family holiday is in full swing and this year we are up in the North West - Hesketh Bank, near Preston, to be precise. That might not sound like the most glamorous of holiday destinations but there is method in my madness. Whilst I may love Cornwall and Tenby and all those other tried and tested places, they don't expand my horizons and it's a desire of mine to see as much of these islands we call home as I can. This is quite a challenge. Britain looks pretty titchy on the world map, but there's so much of it! I'd like to say I saw a lot of it when I was working for Nielsen and cruising round the country in the company car, which sounds glamorous, but really it isn't. I could tell you I've been to Thetford, Faversham, Blandford and hundreds of other places, but the truth is, in many cases I saw nothing much of these places at all. In most cases it amounted to driving to some nondescript office building on the local industrial estate, spendin...

As I sit here on the decking in the garden of my dream home that I bought last year, on the umpteenth night of the best summer in over 40 years, I have to reflect that life can't get much better. If there was one thing I could change? I wish that I didn't live so far from the sea. I have always felt drawn to the coast, and am so envious of those that live close to it. Bicester was just about as far as you can get from the sea and Evesham is only marginally nearer. With temperatures of 30+ forecast for today, I declared to the Ayres family last night that we would be going on a road trip. I've been sat in my office working away on my latest novel and various other projects for weeks and felt in need of a well deserved day off. So with the car packed up with everything needed for a day at the beach, we set sail from sunny Evesham around 9.15am this morning, with the dulcet tones of Ken Bruce to help us along the way. Where to go? Well the nearest seaside spot to us is...

It's been a busy few weeks here at Chapel Street Press - which is the name I gave to my modest little publishing empire when I set it up two house moves ago. It was back in those heady days at Chapel Street in Bicester where the concept of the Time Bubble first burst into print. I've been beavering away on the fifth book in The Time Bubble series recently. It is in fact my ninth novel in this series overall when you take the spin-offs into account. You know I love to come up with original concepts for my books and I'm quite confident that I've come up with another new twist with this story. Whilst I've been writing about Josh's latest adventure in 1992, I've also been working on another long term project to bring my books to life via the medium of audio books. I already dipped my toe into the waters of this area a while back when I got together with Paul Messingham, a voice actor from Brighton, to record the audio book of My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday. ...

For those of you that hate football look away now. I haven't posted excessively about it. so you're just going to have to forgive me this one post when it pops up on Facebook. It's only fair, after all. I mean, the World Cup is only once every four years, and England doing well at it is only about once every quarter century. Compare that to the endless shite that has dribbled down my news feed year after year about The X-Factor, Love Island and Strictly Come Wanking or whatever it's called, and I think you can cut me some slack this one time. Actually none of that stuff does come down my news feed anymore as I automatically unfollow anyone who mentions it. So if I haven't liked or commented on any of your statuses since about 2013, that's probably why. Sorry about that. Now I find myself in a bit of a quandary. Thus far, I have watched the England games mostly in the comfort of my own home and with my family, but now things are getting serious, the stakes ...

Hi all! I hope you are enjoying Happy New Year . It's going great guns and ranking high in the Kindle store so thank-you for your continued support. Now it's time for me to start thinking about the next novel and the rest of May will be taken up with the planning process. As you can imagine, with time travel I have to map everything out very carefully to ensure it all ties up - not only within the current story but also with all the others. It's quite a task keeping track of it all! Here's what I have so far. It will be book #5 in The Time Bubble series and will be set predominantly in 1992. Nostalgia always seems to be about a generation behind in my experience. When I was a kid, everyone used to go on about the fifties. In recent years, it's all been about the eighties. So I think it's high time for an appreciation of that somewhat overlooked decade, the nineties. This book will give me a good opportunity to kick-start that. Cornmarket Street in 1...

Music is such a personal thing, isn’t it? Some people will say they are into rock, others into metal, but the truth is that even if we identify with a genre each of us will have our own unique soundtrack to our lives. I don’t have a particular genre as such, but objectively, if anyone was looking at what I have been listening to now and over the past few decades, they might define it as a cross between electronica and shoegazing (also known as dream pop). Neither of these are particularly popular these days in the UK (if they ever were) and they certainly aren’t fashionable but I don’t care one iota about that. I’ve always believed that one’s musical tastes should be true to one’s self and not what’s “cool” or to fit in. I should add that I also like lots of other stuff that doesn’t belong to those genres. It’s why I go down The Red Lion most Fridays as they have all sorts of live singers on down there doing different stuff. I started doing one of those “ten albums in ten...

Yes, it's that time again. The release of my latest time travel novel is upon us and as on previous occasions I've a little sneak preview to whet your appetite. The good news is that you won't have to wait long for the main course. The paperback edition is available as of today and ready to order with the Kindle edition going live this Friday (27th April). So what's this one about? It's another spin-off novel in my Second Chances series. Unlike my Time Bubble series, all the books in this series can be read standalone. If you've never read a book of mine before, you can pick this one up without having to have knowledge of what happened in any of the other books. I know that many of you that have eagerly devoured all of my earlier books enjoy the way that characters and situations cross over between the different stories and this one is no exception. In my most recent release, Splinters in Time , you'll recall that Josh, the main protagonist, crea...

Residents of a picturesque Worcestershire town were preparing to go to the polls last night to decide an issue that has divided the town like no other. In fact, one local historian went so far as to say that tensions had not run so high since the Battle of Evesham in 1265. The issue that has caused such a huge rift all revolves around local celebrity "Cooper", a seven year old cat who has been greeting visitors to the local Morrison's supermarket now for several years. Whilst bringing delight to some shoppers, others are not so keen. The situation has now escalated to a point where only a local referendum to decide whether Cooper should stay or leave can decide the issue. Souper Cooper's deal of the day! Fans of Cooper have been gathering outside the store, bringing him treats, and holding up banners in his support. One lady we interviewed said. "Coops is lovely and the reason I come to Morrisons each day for my shopping. He's a little ray of sunsh...