When you’re living through a tough time, do you go somewhere lovely in your mind?
I do. I experienced two periods of unhappiness in the navy. One was on my first ship, when the captain allowed his first lieutenant free rein to make everyone’s life hell, and I was too young and inexperienced to do anything but endure my two years on there. The other was later in my career, when I worked for three years in a small team doing dangerous work in bad conditions, only saw my wife and our little ones for a few weeks each year, and had no communications with them while I was away.
Five bad years out of twenty isn’t a bad ratio, but they were grim at the time. That’s when I developed the ability to be elsewhere in my mind when I didn’t have to focus hard on the immediate present. I lived in the happy past and the hopeful future, sometimes both at once, and always with my loved ones. It was their presence that made the place lovely.
In my urban fantasy Quarter Square, lovers Joe and Min do the comforting memories thing while living through a dark and dangerous time. Min is immortal. Joe is her reincarnated lover. War in the magical realm is spilling over into our world; everyone the lovers hold dear is in danger; and a crazed immortal werewolf is hunting them to murder Joe again. They’re on the run, and to jog Joe’s memory and help him recover the strengths he had in the past, Min tells him stories of his lives. The oldest story is of their time together in Atlantis, thousands of years ago.
Atlantis is the happy place Min and Joe go to when their world turns hellish.
Do you have an Atlantis? What’s yours like?
Tell us about it and enter the draw for a free copy of Quarter Square. Leave me a comment and I’ll draw a name at 8am GMT tomorrow and post the winner’s name in the comments!
English carpenter Joe Walker thinks his life is over when he discovers his wife and best friend having an affair. Restoring an abandoned theatre offers little hope for a fresh start…until he follows a group of strangers through a hidden door into a world he never could have imagined.
In the haven known as Quarter Square, Joe encounters a community of supernatural street performers who straddle the mortal world and the magic realm known as the Wild. Here, Joe finds a sense of belonging he’s never known before—and a chance to uncover the truth behind the frightening visions that have haunted him since childhood. He also meets Min, an enchanting singer who quickly captures his heart.
But as Joe settles into Quarter Square, he learns their haven is under attack, while an ancient enemy threatens to tear him and Min apart. Now, Joe must learn to wield his own powers in order to save the life he’s come to love…
David Bridger settled with his family and their two monstrous hounds in England’s West Country after twenty years of ocean-based fun, during which he worked as a lifeguard, a sailor, an intelligence gatherer and an investigator. He writes urban fantasy and paranormal novels, and you can find him on his blog, Twitter and Facebook.
Princesses are everywhere. You can’t avoid them, can’t escape them. Cinderella, Snow White, Waity Katie. There are 
When you have to brush your teeth with bottled water and rely on a hand-cranked radio just to hear another human voice, you begin to get some sense of what it is to lose everything in a matter of minutes. The recent tragedies here in the states, Japan and Australia reminded me how lucky I’ve been.
Rita tore out entire trees by the roots, taking the underground water lines with them. The fence surrounding our five acres hung on twisted posts, or were buried under trees and debris. Over a hundred pines were snapped in half like toothpicks. The power line to our house lay tangled in tree limbs, and our town was almost entirely deserted by the time we returned from our exodus.
We got to work as soon as we arrived, clearing brush and moving trees off the house and shop from dawn until dark. When it was too dark to work outside, I cleaned house by lantern light. The worst job of all was emptying and disinfecting the refrigerator and freezers of spoiled food. Not a job for the weak of stomach. I probably used an entire gallon of bleach in the kitchen alone.
I knew I was getting close to the typical response time for Carina, and Angela was teasing on Twitter about making calls, after sending, like, 329 rejections. I didn’t get a rejection, and Carina Press was following me on Twitter. So I actually bated my breath and waited for the phone to ring.
John Murphy was never meant to be a hero. He has a poet’s soul, sees imaginary friends and has whole worlds in his head. But the abuse he suffered growing up forced him to become what nature never intended. Hands that were designed to create clenched into angry fists. An open heart that believed in magic was broken until it hardened and shut people out. Eyes that saw wonder in every cloud and possibility in every sunbeam pinched tight in hatred.
