Category Archives: Writing

July 19, 2025 · 1:47 pm

Grab a free summer read!

Ah, the summer. Lazy days languishing poolside, drink in one hand, book in the other…OK if you’re in England like me, that could well involve a thunderstorm or three and an alternative indoor location, but what the hey!! Wherever you are or are going to be, there’s nothing like knowing that you’ve set aside some time to relax with a book.

Whisper War is a Kindle-only publication, which means providing you have your Kindle with you or even the app on your phone, the wartime adventures of Eddie Bleakledge will always be at your fingertips! Eddie is mentioned in passing in my debut novella Whisper Wood and Whisper War is designed to work as a standalone story but there is something sinister linking the stories together…

Want to find out more? Well Whisper War will be available for free between August 1st and August 3rd right here, so make a note, or bookmark this blog and get on to some free book download joy in the middle of the holiday season!

After you’ve read Whisper War (and maybe even Whisper Wood too!) I’d be really grateful of your reviews, as they really do help self-published authors like me to get our stories out there.

Anyway, take care and have a sizzling summer!

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May 20, 2025 · 10:49 am

May I ask what you’re reading?

I’m not sure if it’s been the same where you live, but May has brought us some of the continuously warmest weather we’ve ever had here in the UK! For me, the sun is always synonymous with reading – there’s nothing like relaxing with a paperback outdoors with a cool (or warm – yes I’m that crazy!) drink and letting time take on a different meaning as the book’s narrative carries you away.

OK, I’m aware it doesn’t have to be a paperback. It could be a hardback. And, OK yes, a Kindle or Kindle app. Pretty remiss of me not to mention that format when it’s the one that I use to publish my stuff. But a paperback is always my go-to. That’s not to say I don’t read on my Kindle app – in fact, it’s my habit these days to always have a self-published book on the go on my phone so I can read it on my lunch, or if I’m ever waiting for public transport, or indeed, on said public transport, when I haven’t brought a book with me.

Maybe you’re a bit like me and do this already? It’s a great way to support indie authors like myself, but still work your way through the list of latest best-sellers or classics that are lining up on your bookshelf. So, get out there, get reading and get supporting!

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April 10, 2025 · 7:37 pm

Indie April is upon us!

Now, I’ve got a confession to make. I didn’t realise that Indie April was a thing until this year.

Yeah I know.

That’s not to say I hadn’t probably seen things about it before in previous years, but it just didn’t register with me. In fact, it was a newsletter by the incredibly hard-working indie author Lee Hall that got me thinking. He’s always been (and continues to be) very supportive of fellow indie authors and makes it his business to read and review as many indie authors as he can.

In my own small way, Since last year, I’ve started to consciously read more stuff by fellow indie authors too, by dedicating my lunch break read on my phone to solely self-published books. As well as this being something relevant to say for Indie April, it also gives me a chance to shout out to some of the awesome indie authors who have been supportive of me – either by writing cool stuff for me to read, beta reading my work, reviewing it or by sharing posts like these.

So first of all thanks to Lee Hall. Thanks for keeping my lunches lively (and vampy!) with the excellent Darke books – I’m looking forward to reading more of your work soon!

That’s right after I finish the excellent Echo books by the dirty sci-fi budda himself, Kent Wayne – some mind-bending science fiction going on here, as well as bucketloads of action to boot!

My first actual indie read was probably the Tabitha books by Andrew Hall – a superbly written and realised sci-fi trilogy brimming with imagination, humour and killer characters.

And then there’s the tireless Stephen William Hannah, who seemingly reads more books than any man alive, which means I’m even more grateful that he managed to find time to read and review mine!

So there you have it – my little mention of a few authors who have been kind enough to give me the time of day. I urge you to follow then, subscribe to newsletters and check out their work.

Keep writing, keep reading, keep kind!

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January 7, 2025 · 4:51 pm

New year, new newsletter!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you enjoyed the festive season and built in plenty of reading (and even writing) time too!

If you’re already a subscriber to this blog, you may have noticed an extra email in your inbox from myself, explaining my intrusion and also talking a bit about what I have planned for 2025. That mainly amounts to working away at book three of my ‘Whisper’ trilogy, as well as trying my best to market my existing books without spending a small fortune on advertising!

And that’s where you come in! Liking and sharing this blog really does help me spread the word and by signing up to my newsletter, you’ll be the first to hear about everything that’s going on in the world of whispers and also when my next promo is coming up. That’s when I give my existing books away for free, just for a limited time.

I’ll also be sharing other relevant content, like free fiction on my website, reading recommendations and author tips. So come on, unsubscribe to that marketing email you know you’ll never read, and let mine take it’s place! (No-one will ever know).

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December 7, 2024 · 1:29 pm

Do you like yule reads?

It’s beginning to look a lot like…yes, I know, you’re already sick of all the festive talk, I’m sure. However, bear with me.

I don’t know about you, but Christmas always reminds me of reading. As a child, I’d quite often get books as gifts and spend some of the Christmas holidays. This trend continues into adulthood, and although I’m still a ‘surprise me’ child at heart, when asked for a few gift ideas, there’ll always be a book or two on there!

If you’re an author, depending on your work pattern, it can sometimes be a time to get some writing done as well. Rainy day? No problem. Same Christmas films on TV? To the keyboard we go. If we happen to get snow, that great! It’s an excuse to either get out and enjoy an inspirational snow-laiden vista, or stay in, tell everyone we’re snowed-in and write. Or read. Or both.

Whatever your plans are over the festive period, I hope you have a peaceful, rewarding and joyful time. (And I also hope your stocking is bulging with lovely hardbacks.)

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October 31, 2024 · 9:00 am

Halloween Whispers – for free!

Yes, it’s that time of year where your inbox, social media feeds and pretty much everything else are filled with talk of the spooky season, whether that be ‘spook-tacular deals’ or ‘frightfully good reads’. And while I’ve not yet written a horror story of such, there’s plenty of unsettling secrets to discover within the pages of Whisper Wood, which is why I’m giving it away for free from Halloween through to the following weekend!

If you’ve not yet read this tale of life, loss, regret and erm, grisly murders, what the devil are you waiting for! Head on over to Amazon and download it to your kindle or whichever device you use for your e-reading and get stuck in! I also have a couple of unsettling fiction shorts on this very website which you can also have a read of.

And, if you enjoy Whisper Wood, you can jump straight into the action of its sequel, Whisper War, currently available for 99p (or dollar equivalent) on Amazon as well.

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself some free Halloween reading today!

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August 16, 2024 · 10:00 am

Grab a free holiday read!

Who doesn’t love a holiday read? Although we’re officially in late summer, there’s still plenty of time to get stuck in, especially if you’ve booked a getaway at the end of August. Even if you haven’t, heading off to the beach, a local park or even your own garden if you’re fortunate enough to have one, is a simple pleasure and a great way to escape.

Let’s go with the late summer holiday scenario. You’re thinking seriously about which books to pack to keep the weight of your case down, lest you fall victim of those pesky airline rules.

“A-ha!” I hear you cry. “One step ahead of you there, my friend, for I have my trusty Kindle app!”

Of course you do, you’re savvy. You’re my kind of people! I know you’ll have every book you could ever want potentially at your fingertips, which is why novellas are great for holidays! Morning by the pool? Job done. Beach break before lunch? Perfect.

I recently launched Whisper War, book 2 in my whisper trilogy, and it’s available for the very affable sum of 99p. Because I’d love it if you’d read it, I’m offering book one, Whisper Wood, totally for free this weekend – Friday 16th-Sunday 18th August inclusive! That’s potentially two great reads for 99p, or one for absolutely nothing!

So go on, do yourself a favour and grab a nice novella or two for your holiday, with no worries about luggage allowance!

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April 26, 2024 · 12:53 pm

Whisper War is here!

Whisper War is here!

If you read my last post, you’ll remember that Whisper War, the second part of my genre-hopping trilogy of novellas, was soon to be released. Well, now that it’s out and available on Amazon kindle I thought I’d tell you a little more about a man called Eddie Bleakledge.

He’s the protagonist of Whisper War, and if you’ve read Whisper Wood, you’ll have heard a certain Rose Constantine speak his name. He’s her older brother, and as we found out while following the life of that book’s main protagonist Frank, she spent most of her troubled days in Sunnyvale either wondering about his whereabouts or believing that one of her fellow residents was Eddie.

Well, it turns out that maybe Rose did know something we didn’t. We learned in Whisper Wood that Eddie went to war, but what exactly happened to him? And how does all this link up with those mysterious voices that we also heard from in Whisper Wood?

The story of the voices continues to unfold, and this latest chapter is filled with wartime drama and action as well as a generous helping of paranormal mystery. We join Eddie as he lives through devastating conflict, both on the battlefield and in his mind, and learns more about his purpose.

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October 30, 2023 · 9:00 am

Shameless book promotion time!

#Halloween is of course a time where everyone promotes their spooky reads, so why should I be any exception? Though my novella Whisper Wood isn’t a straight-up horror, it’s darn creepy and unsettling in places, and woods can be spooky, right?

It also gives me the opportunity to mention its sequel, Whisper War, which is well on the way to emerging through the smoke on the beleaguered battlefield that is online publishing sometime soon! The book picks up the thread of a story only hinted at in Whisper Wood and takes it to a whole new place!

So, if you haven’t read Whisper Wood yet, grab it while it’s free on October 30-31st!

It’s available here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whisper-Wood-Simon-Lee-ebook/dp/B099FH9PNR

I’d be really grateful of your comments and reviews too! It really does help self-published authors like myself who are on the endless quest for some reads!

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June 15, 2023 · 4:42 pm

It’s all in the edit

I finished my second draft of the sequel to Whisper Wood a while back, and subsequently sent it on its merry way to my beta readers with a slap on the back and a packed lunch. After a couple of polite nudges, it came slinking back, looking a little older and a little wiser.

One of my readers is exactly that – someone with a monstrous reading appetite who reads lots of stuff. He can spot a narrative that flows and good characters a mile off and anything that doesn’t work, he’ll see right away. The other one is very different, in that he reads hardly any fiction. He is however, a history teacher, amateur historian and published author and he really knows his stuff. I needed him to get this one under his microscope because there’s a lot of historic war material in it and if there’s one thing he’s clued up on, it’s war history.

Thinking I’d meticulously researched already, I was surprised to see some lengthy mark-ups on my returned proof. It turned out that though I had thankfully got a lot of things right, there were a couple of things I was a bit off the mark on. Problem was, they weren’t just the blast radius of a S Mine and the name of the first British tank. They involved some re-thinking and re-writing in a couple of places, which though not massive, were important, because I wanted to be accurate but not lose the narrative flow.

That’s why it’s important to have an editor and a second pair of eyes. I thought about which beta readers to ask for this book, because I wanted to be challenged on the authenticity of my war narratives. For the third book in what has now become a multi-genre novella trilogy, I’ll be asking at least one different reader again. Why? Because it’s important to get the right person for the job!

So, once you’ve got your readers lined up and are at the stage where you’ve knocked your book into shape and are looking for an editor of that second pair of eyes, just give me a call. Actually don’t. It may be night time here, or I might be in the supermarket. Just check out more about my editing services.

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