But I Smile Anyway…

Our wonderful fellow blogger, and author, Geoff LePard, fondly known as His Geoffleship to me, anyway, has a fabulous new release, out now. His first romance, no less!

It’s called The Art of Spirit Capture, and sounds fabulous!

Now, His Geoffleship, as I mentioned earlier, has penned a romance.

Jason Hales is at his lowest ebb: his brother is in a coma; his long-term partner has left him; he’s been sacked; and Christmas is round the corner to remind him how bad his life has become. 

After receiving an unexpected call telling him he’s a beneficiary of his Great Aunt Heather’s estate, he visits the town he vaguely recalls from his childhood, where his great aunt lived. Wanting to find out more, he’s soon sucked into local politics revolving around his great uncle’s extraordinary glass ornaments, his ‘Captures’, and their future. 

While trying to piece his life back together, he’ll have to confront a number of questions: What actually are these Captures and what is the mystery of the old wartime huts where his uncle fashioned them? Why is his surly neighbour so antagonistic? Can he trust anyone, especially the local doctor Owen Marsh and Charlotte Taylor, once a childhood adversary, but now the lawyer dealing with the estate? His worries pile up, with his ex in trouble, his flat rendered uninhabitable and his brother’s condition worsening. Will Christmas bring him any joy?

Set in the Sussex countryside, this is a modern novel with mystery, romance and magic at its core, as well as a smattering of hope, redemption and good cooking.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

I asked him where the story came from…

I imagine most writers are asked how they uncover their stories. And as a supplemental, how
do they decide one has the legs to be an 80,000 plus novel against a 10,000 short story or 500
piece of flash?
In the case of the Art, it all began with a prompt. The late Sue Vincent began a series of
prompts she titled #writephoto. She would post on a Thursday and try and reblog the stories
she received during the week, ending with a collection the following Thursday and a new
prompt. Her photos were often taken from her visits to the wild and wooly places in England,
her beloved Albion and led me down many a weird and wacky path.
In one she posted a picture of a crow in flight. That led me to my trainee exorcist Pearl Barley
who is now the subject of two draft novels and a third I hope to at least begin this November.
The picture that started me on the road to The Art was a Christmas decoration through which
a rainbow of refracted light showed. Some of you may remember it. There was something
beautiful yet otherworldly about it – a lot of Sue’s prompts had that otherworldliness.
What, I mused as my fingers hovered over the keys, if that wasn’t just a simple decoration
splitting white light into its spectrum of colours? What instead if that bauble gave off more
than mere refracted light? Some sort of essence?
I wrote maybe 500 words that day, imagining a glass blower working away in a remote shack
known only to a few. He had discovered a way of capturing the spirit of someone in the act of
dying and implanting it into a glass decoration. Glass is fluid, even though it appears solid.
What if some of that spirit could escape and create a miasma around close relatives, bringing
succor to the recently bereaved?
It was a little piece, in the run up to Christmas and, for me, surprisingly romantic.
When I started writing seriously I tried not to limit myself in what I wrote. One way to avoid
such limitations was to challenge myself to write in different genres. I tend to default to
humour or mysteries in my longer works, fantasy in my shorter pieces.
Could I write a romantic novel, a romance? A Feelgood book?
I think I have; now it is over to you to decide…

Geoff Le Pard

Geoff Le Pard started writing to entertain in 2006. He hasn’t left his keyboard since. When he’s not churning out novels he writes some maudlin self-indulgent poetry, short fiction and blogs at geofflepard.com. He walks the dog for mutual inspiration and most of his best ideas come out of these strolls. He also cooks with passion if not precision.

Check out Geoff’s other crackers!

My Father and Other Liars is a thriller set in the near future and takes its heroes, Maurice and Lori-Ann on a helter-skelter chase across continents.

Smashwords

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Dead Flies and Sherry Trifle is a coming of age story. Set in 1976 the hero Harry Spittle is home from university for the holidays. He has three goals: to keep away from his family, earn money and hopefully have sex. Inevitably his summer turns out to be very different to that anticipated.

Smashwords

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

In this, the second book in the Harry Spittle Sagas, it’s 1981 and Harry is training to be a solicitor. His private life is a bit of a mess and he’s far from convinced the law is for him. Then an old acquaintance from his hotel days appears demanding Harry write his will. When he dies somewhat mysteriously a few days later and leaves Harry in charge of sorting out his affairs, Harry soon realises this will be no ordinary piece of work. After all, his now deceased client inherited a criminal empire and several people are very interested in what is to become of it.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

The third instalment of the Harry Spittle Sagas moves on the 1987. Harry is now a senior lawyer with a well-regarded City of London firm, aspiring to a partnership. However, one evening Harry finds the head of the Private Client department dead over his desk, in a very compromising situation. The senior partner offers to sort things out, to avoid Harry embarrassment but soon matters take a sinister turn and Harry is fighting for his career, his freedom and eventually his life as he wrestles with dilemma on dilemma. Will Harry save the day? Will he save himself? 

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Life in a Grain of Sand is a 30 story anthology covering many genres: fantasy, romance, humour, thriller, espionage, conspiracy theories, MG and indeed something for everyone. All the stories were written during Nano 2015 

Smashwords

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Salisbury Square is a dark thriller set in present day London where a homeless woman and a Polish man, escaping the police at home, form an unlikely alliance to save themselves. 

This is available here 

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Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Buster & Moo is about about two couples and the dog whose ownership passes from one to the other. When the couples meet, via the dog, the previously hidden cracks in their relationships surface and events begin to spiral out of control. If the relationships are to survive there is room for only one hero but who will that be?

Smashwords

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Life in a Flash is a set of super short fiction, flash and micro fiction that should keep you engaged and amused for ages 

Amazon.co.uk 

Amazon.com 

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Apprenticed To My Mother describes the period after my father died when I thought I was to play the role of dutiful son, while Mum wanted a new, improved version of her husband – a sort of Desmond 2.0. We both had a lot to learn in those five years, with a lot of laughs and a few tears as we went.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Life in a Conversation is an anthology of short and super short fiction that explores connections through humour, speech and everything besides. If you enjoy the funny, the weird and the heart-rending then you’ll be sure to find something here.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

When Martin suggests to Pete and Chris that they spend a week walking, the Cotswolds Way, ostensibly it’s to help Chris overcome the loss of his wife, Diane. Each of them, though, has their own agenda and, as the week progresses, cracks in their friendship widen with unseen and horrifying consequences.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Famous poets reimagined, sonnets of all kinds, this poerty selection has something for all tastes, from the funny, to the poignant to the thought-provoking and always written with love and passion.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Geoff Le Pard’s Amazon Author Page

Don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to reading this one!