Boxed Set Trilogy now on Pre-Order

After hours of fun last week, the digital boxed set of the three Torc of Moonlight novels is finally available for pre-order - launching 8th December.

The novels concern the resurrection of a Celtic water deity in an area of what is now the North York Moors in England. Ritual deposits in water courses are a given in archaeology, and I use the ultimate - a sword - in Book 1 to kick off the trilogy. Yet ritual deposits are not simply something of far off history; they continue to this day. Have you never tossed coins into water hoping for 'good luck'? 

If you live in the UK and stand still long enough to consider your own surroundings, you'll find it uncannily easy to discover echoes of water worship close by. I live on the coast in East Yorkshire. Within a few miles, in one village there is a Bugg Lane leading to a quintessential village duck pond - Bugg, like Boggle, is an old word for ghost or apparition - while in another village the written history mentions remembered folklore of a White Lady appearing by the local spring-head. 

Is there a medieval Christian church in your vicinity named All Saints or All Souls? Their dedicated feast days are 1st and 2nd November, All Hallows Eve, a time of vigil, being 31st October. Close by there will be, or will have been, a community water source used for autumnal divination rites as well as everyday drinking. Their pre-Christian deities, demonised so long ago, give us modern Halloween. Even the celebrated summer Well Dressings in parts of Derbyshire and Staffordshire, now a tourist industry of its own, cannot truly camouflage their ancient origins.

History is mere inches beneath our feet, and the flow of water is used as the flow of time in these contemporary novels:

Book 1: Torc Of Moonlight - set in Hull with a Celtic resonance

Book 2: The Bull At The Gate - set in York with a Roman resonance

Book 3: Pilgrims Of The Pool - set in Durham with a Mediaeval resonance

Read more about the individual novels here, or on the trilogy's retailer pages:

Kindle  ¦  iBooks  ¦  Nook  ¦  Kobo  ¦  All formats

Guest Blogging Today

I don't know about guest-blogging, I should concentrate on my own. Where did the month go to? Well, for a start, I had a holiday: a river cruise down the Rhine from Cologne (Koln) to Strasbourg. I was very good and took with me my Notebook, current chapter and short-term outline. I was even better than good and never opened any of it. There are times when a break IS a rest, and much needed. I've written two chapters since I returned, to which many writers would raise a disparaging eyebrow, but for me it is decent going.

Today, though, I am guest blogging on the paranormal romance blog owned by the industrious Felicity Heaton, The subject is The British have always embraced the Paranormal. Well, we have. From MR James and Charles Dickens back to 'Nessie' the Loch Ness Monster, to King Arthur and the Lady of the Lake. And even now, just because we 'don't believe in that sort of thing', doesn't mean that we don't believe in that sort of thing.

Do drop by. You'll see what I mean in the comments.

Use either  http://bit.ly/15JBBxN   or

http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/blog/2013/08/guest-blogger-linda-acaster-the-british-have-always-embraced-the-paranormal/#more-2514