Salutations and ahoyhoy! Verily, it is with great opprobrium, not to say a modicum of tumultuous zest, with which I, your humble scribe, Colin the Camalosian - further to be known as the party of the first part – commend you to experience day four of the ‘Kindred Spirits promotional blitz’.

Well, this is nice talking to a whole new planet back in time. Although you have my humblest commiserations for the current epoch you are traversing. Hang on in there Humans, it will get better. It might take a few centuries but it does get better. I’m best friends with a Human as it happens, her name’s Robin – she was the first person to be properly kind to me. Maybe you all will be too? She doesn’t think much of Humans but I don’t think you’re too bad. Some of you, anyway. I like the funny way you walk as if you were on a planet with the wrong gravity and you’re always about to fall over (my friend does – a lot!), the way you sneeze so cutely as if your faces are turning inside out and the way you fight for what’s right against the odds. Some of you anyway.

There’s a lot of that in ‘Ensconce’. What can I say possibly say about book four? Lots as it happens, which is why it became one of our biggest volumes (as well as the current biggest seller!) You’ll read all about me and my eleven fellow orphaned classmates in our coming of age tale as we try to make a new friends and learn how to trust again on the planet Orpheneous, a planet my friend Elfreda – she’s a Mrasianart –likens to the under-world. Which is very apt given that all the grown-ups are downright dodgy, from our hated teacher Mrs Maggrumphus to our three-headed-Master to the president himself and the COPOUT environmental team who are just sitting around doing nothing (‘COPOUT’ being a very apposite epithet). You see, nobody misses us so they’ve been using us for experiments and using a deadly red weed to pollute and destroy our planets. Mostly it’s us children who have nothing in common coming together and doing the right thing anyway even where the adults don’t. It’s not all scary though: you get to see what happens at the first ever intergalactic Olympics and all our fun and games along the way. You even get to read our homework as set for us by Mr Clandusprod! Me and my ten-year-old friends aren’t very good artists yet, just to warn you, but my equal second-favourite Human is a terrific artist and has really brought me and my friends to life at the start of the book in these new editions. There’s no one else I’d rather share my precious pencils with. Want to know more? Check out this amazing video by my other second-favourite Human who put it together for us- There’s no one else I’d rather share my limited and carefully hoarded Orpheneous computer time with!

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Remember, the future starts here. But if you can’t wait for tomorrow then come visit the website www.kindredspiritbooks.blogspot.com (you can even find out which alien you most resemble in our fun quiz!), buy the ‘Kindred Spirits’ merch which I’m told will be up for sale soon, honest at www.redbubble.com/people/AlansArchives (You can be like me and buy four different notebooks so you can write four different things at once with four different claws!) or if you want to do things the easy way just look out for one of the Mekkion time-travel machines from the future! Or of course you could just immerse yourself in eleven whole other worlds by buying the e-books, paperbacks or the two compendiums over at Amazon Convergence I: rebrand.ly/yoleg4l Convergence II: rebrand.ly/izcovt7 (plus they’re all free for Kindle Unlimited users. Which when you read four books at once like I do is really good value for money!)

Sayonara, Human, I must take leave of you forthwith and return to my own time now. Remember, always use your voice for right where you can, even when you feel you don’t have one. There will be a subsequent alien spokesman – further known as party of the second party – along in the morrow. Till we meet again in print, I remain cordially yours, Colin.

Sunday, 27 November 2022

Now Available: 'Ensconce', the fourth volume in the 'Kindred Spirits' series

'Ensconce', the 4th (standalone) volume in the 'Kindred Spirits' series is now for sale!

Life isn't easy when you're 10. Especially when you're an orphan on a new planet with alien classmates, a psychopathic teacher and a universe addicted to red weed.

A hundred years on from ‘Province’ and peace feels much easier. Even The Agrosians have become less aggressive. Well, slightly. The discovery of red weed, a new substance mined from all eleven inhabited planets, by unscrupulous adults spells bad news though – for the universe in general but specifically for the group of eleven children who have been sent to a new international school on Orpheus. They all seem to have something wrong with them, but not everything was meant to be cured and some things can never be, certainly not with red weed. New girl Robin fears her dyspraxia will stop her getting any friends, but when her friends are an introvert invertebrate Camalosian who never speaks, an insecure Belobrat, a cynical Habridat, a Glabdiharbit with multiple phobias, a Doosbury Giant with an eating disorder, a polite Agrosian, a co-dependent Clandusprod, an unbeliever Mrasianart, a Maggrumph bully and a Mekkion who keeps blowing emotional fuses she feels less out of place than she did on Earth. Though their teachers want to keep them enclosed in their Great Hall the children want to explore the universe, starting with the first ever International Games that’s just taking place on Decreeta. Will the children learn to get along? Can they trust any of the adults who seem to get stranger every day? Who will listen to them if they can find out what’s going on? Will they survive corruption, shuttle-flights, ice planets, burning buildings, bombs, pyramid sellers, Doosbury Operas, their own teachers and the scariness of approaching adulthood in one piece? More than just another novel, ‘Ensconce’ is yet another mad house, a love song to childhood and the hope that one day if adults actually stopped moaning and listened to their off-spring then it might just save us all.

Available to buy on all planets as a paperback or an e-book

Plus which alien are you? Agrosian, Belobrat, Camalosian, Clandusprod, Doosbury Giant, Habridat, Magrumph, Mekkion or Mrasianart?Take our quiz here