Tag Archives: When Joe Met Alice

Truth Won’t Die – New Song For Halloween

Halloween GraveyardIt’s Halloween!! Also called Samhain and my favourite festival of the year, the night when the veil between realms is thinnest and magic feels close enough to touch. The night when anything is possible…

And to celebrate that and also the fact that it’s a year since my first title ‘When Joe Met Alice’ was published (now that was a magical day!) I am honoured and very proud to be party to the release of Truth Won’t Die, the song from the story.

I may have written the lyrics but the song as a whole was written and performed, mixed and Jedmastered by my son Jed. He took my words and a couple of suggestions that I made as to the direction that Joe would have taken them in, and has come up with a song that is just perfectly in tune with the story. (Yes, pun intended, sorry Jed!).

It has taken him hours of painstaking work. I don’t think most of us realise, when we listen to a song, just how much time, care and attention to detail goes into the creation of it. From the development of the melody and the guitar riffs, the keyboards and additional effects, the vocal line and accompanying harmonies, and of course the bass line and the drums that are the glue which holds it all together; each is created separately but written to fit into a perfect whole.

Then the recording; Jed put the drum track down using a keyboard and some specialist sequencing software then recorded keyboards, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, lead vocals and lastly backing vocals, each in separate tracks layering on top of the drums. He played and sang all the tracks himself, a pretty impressive achievement, and mixed and mastered it afterwards. I’d like to say a huge thank you to him for all his work, and also thank his friend George Hunt for acting as studio engineer when Jed was doing the vocals.

So below is the link to Soundcloud; enjoy Truth Won’t Die. And as you light your candle this Samhain let it feed your inner flame and open up the magic inside.

A Song From When Joe Met Alice

When Joe Met Alice coverI can hardly believe that it’s almost a year since my first short e-book ‘When Joe Met Alice’ was published and appeared on digital shelves in virtual bookstores across the web. I still remember the sheer excitement of seeing the story I had written out there in the public domain; thrilling and scary at the same time. But it certainly spurred me on and the characters for other tales have been kind enough to wander into my head and say hi. They’ve kept me busy and have resulted in one novel that will be coming out early next year and another that is still a work in progress. Magic Oxygen have also published my second short e-book ‘Catching Up With the Past’. All in all, a fairly eventful twelve months on the literary front.

So, how to celebrate? Well, I am lucky to have a creative family and both my sons are very into music; playing, writing and listening. I was talking to Jed (older son, 16) about song writing and asked if he’d ever consider writing music for an existing set of lyrics. When he said yes, I asked him if he would write something for the lyrics at the end of ‘When Joe Met Alice’ and he agreed.

He’s been working away at it for some time now; writing the music, then sequencing the drum track and recording the keyboards, bass, rhythm and lead guitars and vocals (all of which he played/sang himself). Called Truth Won’t Die, it’s almost finished and you will be able to listen to it from a link here a little closer to Halloween. I’m as excited about this as I was when the story came out.

So watch this space, and perhaps if you’re wondering why Halloween is relevant, you might like to pop over to the Magic Oxygen shop to get your copy of “When Joe Met Alice”. And while you’re there, check out the other fantastic titles they have.

Dreaming the Moon

crescent moon over seaI am delighted and very excited to say that my first novel, Dreaming the Moon, will be coming out in paperback on 25th August 2014. The fantastic cover photograph was taken by the very talented Alex Smith (thank you so much) and formatted by the amazing web wizard, Simon West (again, thank you).

It’s a modern fantasy that follows Robyn, heartbroken and haunted by strange dreams, who discovers that this world is not the only one, but is separated from another magical realm by a protective shield that is failing. Thrown into a desperate situation, she and her friends are pitted against time and dark forces in a seemingly impossible task, the search for a lost fragment that will restore the shield and save both worlds.

If you like to look at life a little sideways, if you ask yourself sometimes ‘Was that only a bird rustling in the hedge or was it something else?’, or ‘Did I misplace my keys or is something otherworldly teasing me?’; If you’ve ever thought that the woods seem darker than they should when you’re walking alone at dusk, or wondered if it was just coincidence that you called your best friend at exactly the same time as he/she called you, then I hope that this will appeal to you. And if you’re not familiar with my work, may I (very cheekily) say that I have two ‘snack-size’ stories out as e-books: When Joe Met Alice and Catching Up With The Past, available from Magic Oxygen and Amazon, just in case you fancy an appetiser.

Izzy