Since investment is near impossible in this awful climate, and we all need to make a living, Phoenix Ark will publish David Clement-Davies’ most loved novels digitally, certainly Fire Bringer and The Sight, and two new novels virtually, POD, or Publish on Demand, via Lulu, Amazon, and Kindle. They are the vampire thriller, The Blood Garden, and Michelangelo’s Mouse, both by David Clement-Davies. Although The Blood Garden is David’s first and newest incarnation as an adult thriller writer, in a long artistic struggle with today’s obsessive branding. In announcing this, Phoenix have to come clean, with knowing literary apologies, that previously published names were intended pen names! For Young Adult fans who have waited patiently for Scream of The White Bear, although it is far from ideal, we will also make it available in the not too distant future, POD. Books stand on their merits, but getting heard about too, so if any are to fly, again we depend on the word of mouth support of avid readers, for a brave if struggling little publisher!
The Blood Garden, by David C Davies, the adult pen name of the award winning Fantasy and Young Adult writer, David Clement-Davies, virtually creates a new genre, a vampire/detective novel, set in modern London. It is a departure from his Young Adult work, with powerfully adult themes, and a musing on love, death, fiction and vampires. Definately not one for children. Paul Romantin, a stylish but mysterious American actor, visiting the capital to star in The Witches of Eastwick, haunts more than the stage of the Lyceum Theatre. He is obsessed with the beautiful Russian Ballerina, Tatiana Chelakova. The dancer is in rehearsal for a performance of The Sleeping Beauty, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, perhaps London’s greatest artistic holy of holies, steeped in its rich, red velvet. Meanwhile, a series of brutal murders begin, that seem to have a terrifying ritual purpose, as one of the lesser dancers is sucked into a tragic world of vice, sado-masochism and addiction. Adam First, a failing DCI with The Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crimes Directorate, is called in to investigate, but soon begins to experience visions, that call into question his very sanity. Can a modern policeman really be seeing spectres in the great capital, ghosts from the bloody days of Jack the Ripper, or is he simply having a breakdown? Days on the cusp of scientific discoveries, that both shaped the modern police force, to usher in our ‘free’ but media obsessed and violent, unbelieving world, and helped form the troubled imagination of the creator of Dracula himself, Bram Stoker. Or was his bestselling tale of a murderous and evil Count imagination at all? (400 pages – Published by Phoenix Ark Press)
Michalengelo’s Mouse is an enchanting fable for younger readers, from the days of Renaissance Italy. Giotto is a mouse, but a mouse with a talent for art and drawing perfect circles. As the little Church of Popolo is closed for repairs, Giotto sets off to Florence, for an encounter with brigands, artists, cut-throats, princes, and none other than the great Michelangelo himself. (75 Pages – Published by Phoenix Ark Press)
We’re very miffed, me and the tea pot, with the miserable respone to Young Poets, but Dragon Post will also continue, so check it out
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