Crystal Grids, Art, Bookpages, and Books

I’ve been incredibly busy with some serious issues, family life, and new business opportunities, so this is really a roundup of where I am right now with my work.

I launched my Crystal Grid prints in my Etsy shop Amaranth Alchemy and had a great response. Many people have asked if I will be stocking cards in the future, so that’s something I’m looking into. I’m very touched by the amount of people showing interest and supporting my new work, I’ve even had commissions and that’s been a lot of fun!

Amaranth Alchemy Crystal Grid Prints

You can find the available prints in Amaranth Alchemy right now, 8×8 inch prints on beautiful high-grade, smooth matte paper. They look amazing!

Amaranth Alchemy also stocks bookpage gifts. I rescue broken, worn and torn, and damaged books and turn them into unique bookmarks, picture frames, and gifts. #BreathingNewLifeIntoOldPages

Amaranth Alchemy Bookpage gifts

And my books are all available to buy too. Signed paperback copies which will enchant you.

My first three books the Surviving Hope series are made up of Beneath the Rainbow, Beneath the Old Oak, and Beneath the Distant Star.

Three girls, three lives, three stories composed with the melody of hope.
Freya’s death sends ripples through many lives.
Meg loses her best friend, and Jasmine, her sister.
Lost dreams need to be found, hidden family secrets need to be unearthed,
and grief must be embraced before ghosts can be laid to rest.
These beautifully composed tales of coming of age, mental health,
and the struggles of finding yourself, begin with grief and culminate with hope.

Lisa Shambrook Books

Beneath the Rainbow is currently available for FREE as a Nook eBook with Barnes and Noble, and it’s sequels are available for $0.99 each ‘til the end of April.

Beneath the Rainbow has also been chosen as one of the titles for BHCPress’s curated list celebrating National School Library Month in the US. Find it here and check out the other recommended books here.

You can find A Symphony Of Dragons and Human 76 in my Etsy shop, and at lisashambrook.com. If you love dragons then Symphony is for you, and if you crave post-apocalyptic fiction then Human 76 is something quite unique which will blow you away! All books are available at online bookshops and Amazon in both eBook and Paperback.

Counselling, Crystal Grids, Chakras, and Editing

I’m busy working through everything I learned while in counselling, creating new things, crystal grids, learning about Chakras, editing The Seren Stone Chronicles, and supporting my daughter’s new art business, please read about her work here. She’s struggling greatly with autism and tourettes right now, and art is one of the things that’s keeping her going, so please support her if you possibly can. Check out her website Bekah Rain Art and her page on Facebook. Look her up on Instagram and Tik Tok too.

Bekah Rain Art – my daughter’s Art Store

Thank you for all your support! You are all amazing!  

Bekah Rain Art – Online Shop Launch – Art to Inspire

Art is important, adding to society in many ways.
It provides decoration, talking points, culture, expression,
creativity, inspiration and so much more.
My daughter’s art at Bekah Rain Art embraces all of this.  

Yesterday, Bekah opened her first online shop to offer her art to the world – Bekah Rain Art. Please pop over and take a look and see what inspires you. Their initial pieces work with Body Positivity, Diversity, People, and Nature. Working with watercolour as her main medium, she has also used acrylics, pen, and is currently working on a large oil painting.

Their ultimate goal with their art is to inspire others to see the beauty in everything around us.

Ink in the Atmosphere – Fine Art Print – Bekah Rain Art

I asked them a few questions to celebrate their launch:

Have you always loved to draw and paint?

I have, it’s been one of the few things in my life that has been a constant love of mine. I’ve been drawing since I can remember and in school if you asked me my favourite subject it was always Art. To the point that when I studied art for my A Levels I lost focus on any other subject I was studying and put everything into my art.

Flame of the Forest, Tears of Mist, Conquer, Essence of Light – Fine Art Prints – Bekah Rain Art

What made you want to focus on body positivity?

I see a lot of nude art that focuses on one body type: skinny, abled, primarily white. I wanted to bring something new to people, every body is beautiful and they deserve to see that in art. I have painted people with different body types, perceived flaws, disabilities. I only have five pieces in my Strength Within collection available right now but I have many more in the works. This collection is about empowering people to love their bodies.

Growing Ethereal – Fine Art Print – Bekah Rain Art

Do you have a favourite medium to work in?

Watercolour, if I had to pick one medium to use for the rest of my life, it would be watercolour. I love how unpredictable it can be depending on the surface I paint on. I love the loose flow it offers me, I find watercolour inspires me while I am in the process of painting.

I love to experiment with other mediums though, I’m currently working on an Oil on Canvas piece which is slow but it’s turning out beautifully. I’ve learned a lot working on that piece.

Bekah Shambrook – Bekah Rain Art

What does art mean to you?

That’s a huge question! It’s expression in its purest form, it’s inspiration and beauty. I think people don’t always value it, they consider it to be frivolous, but everything involves art. Look at architecture, television, books, cars and so on, art surrounds us all everyday and I think that is a beautiful thing. Look what we as humans can create! A world without art would be such a flat existence.

Bekah and Prints – Bekah Rain Art

Bekah is currently offering a discount of 15% off on all sales until midnight 14^th March, use code: LAUNCH15 at the checkout on her website.

Instagram GIVEWAY – BekahRainArt

She also has a Giveaway in partnership with Amaranth Alchemy, giving away a Free Print ‘Cocoa and Snowflakes’, Rose Sticker, a Winter Potion Bottle Pendant from Amaranth Alchemy,and a book ‘A Symphony of Dragons’ by Lisa Shambrook. The giveaway is over on Instagram BekahRainArt until midnight 10^th March, hurry over and join in!

So go and have a look and see what inspires you.

Follow her on Instagram and Facebook for News, Offers, and a look at new Pieces.

Books – A Different Story for Every Reader

When you pick up a book and lose yourself inside its pages,
you are creating your very own unique experience.
The way we see a book, its characters, its places,
and its plot, as we read, is exclusive to you.

Books are emotive, controversial, grounding, escapist, factual, fiction, and so much more. Books often mean different things to different people, and that’s fine. Some people have never picked up a book in their life since leaving school, some can’t live without them. I’m in the latter group. Books were everything to me as a child, and have remained a major part of my life. I was a loner, quiet and introverted, and books helped me survive the tough times. If you couldn’t find me, I’d be curled up somewhere with a book in my hand escaping into another world. I read, I drew, and I wrote.

Books became more than just reading material – they became what I wrote, and how I try to earn a living. I love creating characters, and worlds, and a tale people can escape to.

The Lord of the Rings – My writing – Of Zombies and Lies – A Symphony of Dragons, and Human 76 – © Lisa Shambrook

I recently said I have had trouble reading this year, and I have, it’s been an unsettled year, and the ability to curl up, untroubled, and read hasn’t been an easy place to find. The same could be said about my writing too, but I have opened a few books and lost myself in them. Twenty Twenty has been about finding comfort, and that’s been in both television and books. I rewatched all of Star Trek, currently rewatching Doctor Who, and I’ve been reading a Star Trek Enterprise book, and am rereading His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. The best bit is that I’m rereading (The Amber Spyglass) right now in tandem with Cait, who hasn’t read it before.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things – Clariel – His Dark Materials – My writing – © Lisa Shambrook and Bekah Shambrook

His Dark Materials, with its provocative and polemic ideas, is one of my favourite books, and alongside the books the current television series is also enchanting and enthralling me. I rarely look forward to a show as much as I do this one, we (daughter and I) literally squeal at the screen when it comes on each week, and both the casting and the adaptation’s writing has been superb. Every nuance and detail delights me.

Gormenghast – The Princess Bride – Novels – Human 76 – © Lisa Shambrook

It’s the epitome of escapism and fantasy and offers me a completely new world to live in. Cait and I were talking the other day about books and about how each book we read is different, each book is a different story to whoever reads it. When we read His Dark Materials together, what’s amazing is that inside our heads we are each seeing the story unfold in a unique way. Even alongside the television adaptation and the actors we see each week, it’s still different inside our minds. I first read the books fifteen or so years ago and the characters were unique to what I saw in my head as I read. The places, the developing narrative, everything that played out in my mind became my own interpretation. We talked about how the mulefa will be played out in the series on tv… (no spoilers please) and it’s a fascinating thought that every single person, including Philip Pullman who wrote the books, will have seen them differently. And that’s the magic of books!

Beneath the Rainbow – Windchime Cafe – Dead Sea Games – Tell a Beautiful Story – © Lisa Shambrook

I commented that maybe the writers of the current series will have to go to Pullman to decide exactly how to portray them, I mean, who better than the author – who imagined them up in the first place – to go to for advice? But it reminded me of a recent tweet Pullman posted saying:  ‘I can join in discussions about my books, because I too have read them, but my opinions have no greater authority than anyone else’s just because I wrote them.’

I love this!

I can join in discussions about my books, because I too have read them, but my opinions have no greater authority than anyone else's just because I wrote them.

— Philip Pullman (@PhilipPullman) December 9, 2020

Books are magic, they create worlds in your head, and if it’s different to someone else’s interpretation that’s okay. Your reading experience is yours, it belongs to you. And every book out there is a new world for whoever picks it up! What beauty there lies in that!

The Surviving Hope Novels – I found my family in a book – Under Rose Tainted Skies – A Symphony of Dragons – © Lisa Shambrook

So, if you’re inclined, go and pick up a book and lose yourself in the story, the description, the characters, and disappear into a new world for a bit. We all need a bit of escapism.

The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse – Ghostbird – The Castle of Adventure – A Symphony of Dragons – © Lisa Shambrook

Do you have a favourite book?
What do you read when you need to live somewhere else for a while?

My Writer’s Life – how plans go awry…

I thought you might be interested to know how I plan and achieve (ahem) my writing strategies. I enjoyed writing this Writer’s Lives piece for IASD (Indie Author Support and Discussion) group and decided to share my squirrely ways with you too.

I’m a creature of habit, but like a squirrel I’m jittery and anxious. I like routine, but have a degree in procrastination. So, my writing habits are well planned with the best intentions, but not always successfully carried out.

© Lisa Shambrook

I begin my day with plans that fit my control freak personality, but go awry as soon as I hit social media. It always starts with ‘just checking my notifications’, but finishes a few hours later after having been distracted by posts, blogs, and shiny things… My problem is beginning, but once I’m there the words flow and I easily slip away into another world.

© Lisa Shambrook

My laptop – on my lap, where else? – is where I begin, in my lounge with my German Shepherd at my feet, a hot chocolate in my squirrel mug, and chocolate within reach. I like being surrounded by pretty things and though my house is a chaotic array of disorder and a carpet full of dog fluff, I like sensory things to keep me focused. I always have acorn cups or hazelnut shells beside me, sounds odd, but I did say I’m a squirrel… actually I deal with several mental health disorders including anxiety, panic, depression, and Sensory Processing Disorder, and acorn cups are my stim of choice. Rolling a polished hazelnut shell or acorn cup between my fingers calms and grounds me. I also like having a scented candle alight, and flowers and crystals close by.

Out in the forest with Kira © Lisa Shambrook

You’re probably noticing that I ramble a fair bit… give me an inch and I’ll take a mile, but only with those I’m close to, otherwise I’ll keep my mouth shut and listen. Listening is fun – sometimes it’s what gives you a kernel of a story idea. Not just listening to people, but to everything. I let my mind wander, dog walks in the forest are perfect for this, and once an idea spins in my head I’ll be desperate to get it down onto paper. I fill notebooks with untidy notes and sketches. I’ll make maps, paint characters, and keep intricate detailed summaries, research, and annotations of every chapter that I write. I flip through these pages all the time as I write, and they are invaluable during edits and rewrites.

I’m a plotter, I like to know the beginning, middle, and end before I start, but as authors will tell you, our characters like to improvise and take us on journeys we didn’t expect, so you have to allow for digressions and detours. In real life I don’t like change, but in my writing life changes are exciting and inspiring! We writers are nothing if not a mass of contradictions. My first three published works were inspired by emotional issues and became a trilogy of three girls, three lives, three stories composed with the melody of hope. As grief is faced, hope becomes the only force to cling to and build upon.

Beneath the Rainbow, Beneath the Old Oak, and Beneath the Distant Star

Since then, I have put together a lyrical collection of dragon themed short stories, and a unique collection of post-apocalyptic tales that weave together into a larger story with fourteen other lovely authors. Right now, I am rewriting and editing a fantasy series set two thousand years in the future where the landscape of Wales has turned into a whole new country… and the rumble of dragons has returned.

A Symphony of Dragons, Human 76, The Seren Stone Chronicles

I love writing and, as a skittish introvert, disappearing into an imaginary world is a solace that I’ve enjoyed since I first picked up a book as a child and vanished into my imagination. Come and join me!

How do you settle into writing, reading, or whatever you love doing?

BHC Press Online Book Store Launch

My publisher launches their online book store today
accessible at their website BHC Press and at their Storefont 
to help support Independant Bookstores.

‘BHC Press is pleased to announce they have launched their new online storefront in conjunction with Bookshop.org to help support the independent bookstore community … and make their books more accessible to readers.

“We’re always looking for ways to help support the book community, independent bookstores, and libraries,” stated Joni Firestone, co-founder and co-publisher at BHC Press. “That’s why we’re so excited about Bookshop.org and the benefits and support they are providing to independent bookstores. There’s nothing more magical than a book, and we’re thrilled to lend our support and help to the book community.”

Over 200 titles are available for purchase at the BHC Press storefront, including many award-winning books for both adults and young adults. Books are available to purchase in both hardcover and trade softcover. Every purchase through their storefront benefits and supports independent booksellers.’

Read more at the BHC Press Blog…

You can find my books in the bookstore too – Beneath the Rainbow, Beneath the Old Oak, and Beneath the Distant Star, and A Symphony of Dragons, plus anthologies that I have contributed to, and a copy of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for which I wrote the forward and an original short story.

Find your next book and your next favourite read… 

Reviews – Why they mean so much to Authors and Artists

Review: to think again. It’s about considering, assessing, and to offer an opinion, and how many of us love offering an opinion? Social media is all about reviews… we’re posting about our lives, reviewing what we’ve done, where we’ve been, and sharing our thoughts about it. These days, reviewing is just another part of our life.

So, since we’re doing it all the time, how about taking a few minutes – the time to write a status update – to offer a review to those who need them?

It’s my birthday week this week and when I’m asked “What would you like?” – right now, I’d just love a review.

Not a review of me, I think I’m open enough for everyone to know who I am, and I don’t need a rate! I’d love a book review or an Amaranth Alchemy Etsy review.

If you love and buy books, art, and jewellery you will appreciate the time, energy,
love, and passion that goes into writing a book or creating something magical.
This is how you can pay it back and forward…

The Suviving Hope Novels © Lisa Shambrook

Add to that list angst, frustration, low financial reward, and you’ve got what it means to be an author or an artist. There’s plenty of love and passion, days of writing and sculpting, or painting and crafting, with your muse whispering in your ear and the true wonder of watching a story, an adventure, unfold, or creating an item of beauty beneath your fingertips, but there are days and weeks when your muse goes AWOL, when your fingers bleed (figuratively), and you hate everything you write or create. Novel writing and art is not easy, but it is extremely rewarding.

You will have heard how writers and artists don’t have a choice in their craft, it’s intrinsic, it’s a part of us and we have to do it. Escaping into a world of writing or of intricate design is just what we do to survive. The wonder of it is that we end up with something beautiful and we can’t wait to share it with the world. Whether it’s a novel, or a painting, or sculpted silver, glass, or a piece of jewellery to treasure, we want to share our skills and talents with you.

Time is money, it’s a necessary evil, and we can’t give our talents away for free. Most eBooks are the price of a coffee and they last… your coffee is satisfying and gone within half an hour, but a book can satisfy for years for the same price. Books are significantly cheaper than video games, and comparable with your monthly payment to Netflix or Prime – create a literary library as well as a streaming library.

© Lisa Shambrook

Most authors and artists are introverts, we love hiding away writing and creating, but we also know that to sell our wares we need to market them. Marketing doesn’t come naturally to those of us who prefer to squirrel ourselves away and just create. Our publishers help, but many authors are independent – doing it all on their own – artists too, and we need help to promote our work. Even with a publisher, unless you are one of the very few who have huge Big Five Publisher budgets and promotion, you’ll be doing most of it yourself.

We can shout from the rooftops about our books and art, but visibility is key. If our work isn’t visible, no one knows it’s out there. Reviews on Amazon, Good Reads, Etsy, Ebay, and Blogs, or Facebook and Twitter statuses, photos on Instagram – they all help and offer visibility. The more reviews we garner on Amazon, for instance, will change algorithms and our books will be promoted more. You don’t have to like Amazon, but we have to deal with them, so any help is appreciated – more than you could ever know. On Etsy and other craft sites it’s important to share and help others decide if our products are worth purchasing.

A Symphony of Dragons and Human 76 © Lisa Shambrook

This is where YOU come in. If you buy our book, and read it, and you love it – or you buy our art, and display it and love it every day – or you buy and wear our jewellery, then the best way you can thank us for those days, months, or years of hard work is to write a review. Let the world know that the book or art is out there, that you loved it, and why you loved it.

You don’t have to write much, literally, just a sentence or two is worth everything to an author. Just award your stars and say what you loved. That works. Or you can write a paragraph or an essay, it’s up to you!

Amaranth Alchemy on Etsy © Lisa Shambrook

Over the last few years I’ve bought lots of glass beads and jewellery from Etsy and Ebay, the reviews I leave help those artisans to continue and to sell more. I tend to leave photos of pieces so other prospective customers can see them in a different setting too. I also have an Etsy shop Amaranth Alchemy and I know just how important reviews are to new customers.

Books I’ve read and reviewed: The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss, Of Lies and Zombies by Angela Lynn, Under Rose-Tainted Skies by Louise Gornall, Ghostbird by Carol Lovekin, The Raven’s Wing by Michael Wombat, Dead Sea Games by J Whitworth Hazzard, The Reaper’s Bride by A J Richmond © Lisa Shambrook

I have read a lovely selection of books and part of my reading process is to leave a review for the authors on the platforms used to sell. I have written blog posts celebrating wonderful books and stories and I am so glad that I can help promote wonderful people sharing their amazing talents.

So, like I said, it’s my birthday week, and all I want is a review…

I know my book sales figures, but the number of reviews I have pales in comparison to the sales. Of course, not everyone who’s bought my books will have read them – I have hundreds of books at home and it’ll take years to read them all, but if you’ve bought and read one of mine, then a sentence shared on Amazon or Good Reads is a gift for me that I will appreciate forever!

© Lisa Shambrook

Support those who create the art that allows you to escape into adventures
and other worlds, and those who give you beauty to enrich your lives.

Take a moment, just ten minutes, to leave a review for a struggling author or artist
– it will mean the world to them.

Narberth Book Fair 2019

This weekend sees the annual Book Fair at Narberth, West Wales.
It’s also the same weekend as the Narberth Food Fair,
so if you’re looking for something to do…
kill two birds with one stone and find food for your belly and food for your mind.

It’s less than 100 days ’til Christmas, so this is the ideal place to find books for the Bookworms in your life. Signed novels as stocking fillers, what could be better?

The postcode for the venue, Queens Hall, is SA67 7AS, and is half an hour or so from Carmarthen. We have Free entry to the Book Fair, so if you’ve paid for the food fair, get a bit more value for your money and pop next door to us too!

There will be 50+ authors, competitions, workshops, and lots more. I will be there on Saturday 28th September, sharing a table with Thérésa Hedges-Webb, and you’ll find us with plenty to offer you. Between us you’ll find YA, contemporary, short stories, dragons, vampires, sci-fi, and more.

Thérésa Hedges-Webb and Lisa Shambrook 2018

Here’s an interview with Thérésa. Check out the Narberth Book Fair website and find out about our authors, here’s my page. And you can read an interview with me here. Narberth Book Fair has its own blog with interviews and posts about our authors and books.

Have a look at the Book Fair’s Facebook page to find out about all the attending authors. There’ll be someone to suit you and your reading tastes.

I will be showcasing my new covers since becoming published by BHC Press and check out my Special Offers, only available at Narberth this weekend. Come and see us and tell us what you love to read!

Surviving Hope trilogy, A Symphony of Dragons, and Human76 by Lisa Shambrook

 Come and see us, find your new favourite book and meet the author.

Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th September 2019

10am to 4pm – Free Entry.

Narberth Book Fair

Bringing Books to Life – Painting Surviving Hope Covers

I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream – Vincent Van Gogh
I loved creating cover art for the Surviving Hope novels.
Picking up my paint brushes was an inspiration
as much as writing the books themselves.

When the Surviving Hope novels: Beneath the Rainbow, Beneath the Old Oak, and Beneath the Distant Star, were rereleased, my new publisher BHC Press requested cover art in a similar style to A Symphony of Dragons.

© Lisa Shambrook

I had to do something I’ve already done within my writing, and that was to find my art voice, my style. When I see an image in my head it’s like a photo, and I had to accept that the realism in my head was not what would end up on the canvas. My style is like my writing, swirly, romantic, and poetic, but mine.

I’d painted my Symphony dragon a year earlier and I set up an art studio on my dining room table and began sketching. The most testing thing was discovering how to paint rainbows. The majority of painted rainbows are bright childlike bows full of block colour and that wasn’t what I wanted. I had to find several tutorials to get an idea, and the trick is to stipple dry white paint across the arc of the bow before you build with colour. Rainbows are faint, translucent, and very difficult to capture! I was using acrylics, and with hindsight, as I’m currently painting in watercolour, a translucent media would have been easier.

© Lisa Shambrook

My rainbow is not a recreation of anyone else’s… it iridises with chalky pastel light above my bluebells. Bluebells feature within Freya’s story and the hours I spent breathing life into them were very enjoyable.

© Lisa Shambrook

Beneath the Old Oak’s cover was always going to be an oak with acorns, and was my most confident subject. I’ve painted trees before, and the sturdy oak would protect Meg when life got unbearable. Acorns always represent new life and strength to me and it was comforting to paint them.

© Lisa Shambrook

Then I had to create stars. It became my favourite painting, and after pages of failed dusk skies I finally got one that worked. Jasmine would stare up at the stars, trying to live up to her sister on one hand and battling to vanquish her memory on the other. I’ve stared up at many twinkling indigo skies trying to defeat my demons and harness wonder in much the same way in my own life.

Artists often lack confidence in their work and it wasn’t until I saw the covers, framed and titled, that I loved them. They brought the three books together, weaving the stories of three girls and their lives with the melody of hope.

© Lisa Shambrook

Right now I’m working on The Seren Stone Chronicles, and while the first book has been with beta readers I’ve been painting again. The Seren Stone covers will need to coordinate and follow my branding and I’m loving developing images for them. This time I’ve been working with watercolour instead of acrylics and it’s been beautiful to discover a forgiving and radiant medium to bring my dragons to life.

© Lisa Shambrook

The Surviving Hope novels are available in eBook and paperback from most online retailers, all links are found on my website and at BHC Press. You can also buy signed and discounted paperbacks from my own Etsy shop, Amaranth Alchemy, too.

Three girls, three lives, three stories composed with the melody of hope.

Freya’s death sends ripples through many lives as Meg loses her best friend, and Jasmine, her sister. Lost dreams need to be found, hidden family secrets need to be unearthed, and grief must be embraced before ghosts can be laid to rest.

These beautifully composed tales of coming of age, mental health, and the struggles of finding yourself, begin with grief and culminate with hope. As grief is faced, hope becomes the only force to cling to and build upon. Freya, Meg, and Jasmine need to survive with hope.

Your Ideal Heaven – Your Choice…

I’ve been musing on the idea of heaven
and wondering what I’d like in the hereafter.
What would be your ideal version of heaven?

In J Edward Neill’s book 101 Questions for Humanity he asks: Set aside your existing belief system. Describe the afterlife as the way you want it to be.
And this is what I’m asking. If you had no current beliefs, and an afterlife was a valid possibility, how would you choose to live your forever?

In Beneath the Rainbow Freya is still a child when she passes over and finds herself in heaven. Very quickly she’s told that her heaven can be whatever she wants it to be. She’s in a place of limbo, somewhere to come to terms with the fact of death and take a figurative breath.

In this excerpt Freya finds out what she can do:

“These flowers, this garden, they’re all yours.”

“Mine?”

“Can’t you see the flowers aren’t normal? They’re all flowering together even though they shouldn’t be.”

She hadn’t noticed, but now she did. She remembered Mum’s grief when the bluebells finished and recalled how Mum always said it was sad when one season finished, but the next always brought another swathe of beauty with its own flowers. Mum loved every season, even the crunchy carpet of leaves in the autumn and winter’s snowdrops had her enthusing all over again.

Now Freya gazed across the clusters of flowers and understood, not only were the plants out of season, but each held a meaning for her.

Primroses, tiny lemon-yellow ones pushed up through the grass as she recalled how both she and her mum preferred plants that were natural and old-fashioned. As she watched primroses surface, their tough, wrinkled leaves unfurling and thin stalks revealing buds that quickly opened, her smile deepened. She raised her hands and grinned. “Watch this!” she commanded.

She swung her hands upwards like a conductor before his orchestra and loosed her mind. Bright orange geums burst forth, intermingled with bronze irises, more irises appeared, rising up through sword-like clumps of silver leaves, their buds unfurling to reveal huge silken flowers in an array of colours. Amongst these were black tulips, pink tulips and white tulips. Daisies the colour of butter cream, paeonies seemingly made of bowls of crinkled petals, gossamer-haired pulsatillas, pink, shaggy dianthus, the palest yellow daffodils, more roses and plum-coloured poppies.

Columbine and clematis climbed up into the trees and sweet peas twisted around trunks.

Foxgloves, verbena and sky-blue delphiniums grew tall, whilst snowdrops, cyclamen and delicate violas carpeted the woodland floor.

Jake kept his trademark grin as he sidestepped a patch of fuchsias, and avoided decapitation from a whippy willow branch, could you still get decapitated if you were already dead?

And Freya hadn’t finished adding sweet-smelling philadelphus, a wine-coloured magnolia and a Christmas tree.

“Any more?” asked Jake.

She folded her arms across her chest surveying her work. “Nope, I think that’s it…for now.” She nodded with a broad, satisfied smile that matched Jake’s and appraised her heaven. She nodded again. “It’s good.”

Freya’s heaven is made up of memories of flowers that she connects with her mother and happiness. She creates meadows and gardens of flowers, and oh, how I can relate!

Excerpt from Beneath the Rainbow © Lisa Shambrook

When I’ve given my book presentation to groups of readers, I’ve often asked this question; What would your heaven be?

The answers have been many and varied:

“Somewhere with my horses and cats; eternal sleep; a tropical beach with lemonade fountain, pears and chips; anywhere my pets are; music studio; somewhere with all my friends and family; a cottage from the 1600’s with a kitchen with an art studio and my family, a pool and a theatre; a bookstore with a farmer’s market and a log cabin; a field of sunflowers and poppies and a never-ending day with my family and pets and fireworks; a garden with my family and friends and dogs and lots of water; two scantily clad men in a mineral water hot tub with coffee; my family, friends and all pets past and present, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, sea, hills, mountains and valleys.”

Another heaven in Beneath the Rainbow is Alice’s and she conjures castles and clouds… so, what would you choose?

Excerpt from Beneath the Rainbow © Lisa Shambrook

I like to think that I’ll have a say in my heaven. Life is tough and my own upbringing has prepared me for an afterlife, but there are so many versions amongst many who believe. Some believe it will be full of duty and continuation of spiritual learning and work, others believe it will be a time to relax and enjoy reward. Some believe in an old fashioned heaven of angels and clouds, some in a life similar to earth with progression and growth. Many believe other ideas such as reincarnation, or becoming one with the earth’s life stream, or that this life is it, but just imagine you could choose…

© Lisa Shambrook

If life after death requires yet more conforming and duty, then right now I can do without it! I’m looking to escape into the hereafter with romance and nature and endless mountains and waterfalls… I plan Scottish mountains and lochs, Welsh valleys and autumn weather. Time and access with those I love and time to be creative, whether that’s spiritual, emotional, or even some kind of physical.

Oh, and I want dragons… There have to be dragons…

I don’t want what happens after death to be linear, I’m happy with time differences, travel, movement, and much more. I want to discover my full potential, something I doubt will happen in life.

Autumn Dragons © Lisa Shambrook

So, if you had a choice and weren’t limited to your belief system,
what would you choose?

How would you choose to live your forever?

Freya won’t let anything stand in the way of her dreams – not even her death.
Now her family will need to uncover the clues to her secrets before it’s too late.

Beneath the Rainbow is published by BHC Press and is a novel that will completely enchant you.

“I highly recommend reading this touching and moving story of acceptance and unending love.” —LibraryThing Early Reviewers

Beneath the Rainbow is now available in eBook and paperback (choose your format) at:
Amazon UK, Amazon US, and your local Amazon. Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, Google Play, Kobo, iTunes, and other online outlets.

A Symphony of Dragons – Sale

Amazon has A Symphony of Dragons at only £1.22 right now…
You need to be quick –  they put your book on sale and don’t tell you –
the paperback was at the same price, but sold out already.

If you’re interested in seven tales of dragons… featuring the enchanted worlds of fantasy, contemporary, romance, steampunk, and post-apocalyptic composed with the gossamer threads of dragon fire… you should go and pick up your eBook copy now, before they put the price back up!

Check out this post for an overview of each story – Spring’s Symphony of Dragons.

The sale is currently on Amazon.co.uk – keep an eye on your own local Amazon for further deals…