Hello there and thank you so much to Dani for having me here yet again so soon after last time! I’m here to talk about my recent audio release, Inheritance of Shadows. It’s a 35k word novella that has become a three and a half hour audiobook. It’s a really good place to start with my universe if you are looking for a way in.
Inheritance of Shadows began as a monthly serial for newsletter subscribers. Once it was finished I spent a while sitting on it and letting it rest—rather like bread dough—and then I did more work on it and published it. I hated writing it. It was a huge pressure to produce the next episode each month and once or twice I backed myself down plot-rabbit holes that in the final version I tidied up or exorcised. I swore I’d never do the monthly serial thing again without actually having written the whole thing first. It felt like the worst kind of student essay crisis every single time to meet the deadline and it gave Mr AL and my lovely editor lots of opportunities to work on their personal development by being patient with my terrible moods whilst I was doing it. I was writing the new episode of the story every month as I was also mainly working on The Flowers of Time and there are definite connections between the two books, despite them being set a hundred and fifty years apart and largely on different continents. They both stand alone, but if you’ve read both, you’ll know what I mean. I didn’t realise I was doing it at first, which goes to show how internalised a lot of my writing process is!
Having said that I hated writing it, I love the actual story and characters. The setting is inspired by a local farm that I spent time on as a child and which I revisited again in Taking Stock. It feels a bit peculiar to populate the farmhouse and stock-yards of my memories with my imaginary people and I sometimes wonder what the two brothers and a cousin who farmed it would think of the liberties I’ve taken with their home.
As for the audiobook…Callum Hale has done a wonderful job representing the characters as I visualise them. When we discussed the production initially, I asked him for ‘country accent but sexy’ for Rob and it took a few hilarious goes before we got it pinned down. Rob is probably my second favourite character so far (the first is Will Grant from the 1920s London trilogy), although I always fall a little bit in love with all my characters as I’m writing their story. He’s steady and stalwart and clever and an ex-army sergeant and a farm labourer. He doesn’t mess about with things. Callum’s voicing of him is perfect. For Matty we settled on a lighter, less broad accent that helps listeners visualise him as a quicker, more highly strung person who lives on his nerves. I was concerned that there would be issues with Dr Sylvia Marks, who is such a favourite of mine that she’s getting her own books this year. In fact, she’s brilliant, too. Callum has a very broad range and I’d encourage listener to seek out his growing catalogue.
It’s a perfect narration as a far as I’m concerned and I really hope listeners enjoy it!
Title: Inheritance of Shadows
Series: Lost in Time
Author: A. L. Lester
Narrator: Callum Hale
Publisher: A. L. Lester
Release Date: December 2020
Length: 3 Hours 20 Minutes
Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Mystery, Paranormal, Romantic Suspense, Historical, 1920s, Rural, Farming, UK, England, British
Add to Goodreads
Synopsis
It’s 1919. Matty returns home to the family farm from the trenches only to find his brother Arthur dying of an unknown illness. The local doctor thinks cancer, but Matty becomes convinced it’s connected to the mysterious books his brother left strewn around the house.
Rob knows something other than just Arthur’s death is bothering Matty. He’s know him for years and been in love with him just as long. And when he finds something that looks like a gate, a glowing, terrifying doorway to the unknown, it all starts to fall in to place.
Matty’s looking sicker and sicker in the same way Arthur did. What is Rob prepared to sacrifice to save him?
The answer is in the esoteric books…and with the mysterious Lin of the Frem, who lives beyond the gate to nowhere. It’s taken Matty and Rob a decade and a war to admit they have feelings for each other and they are determined that neither social expectations or magical illness will part them now.
A stand-alone 35k novella introducing the Lost in Time Universe.
Purchase at Audible
AMAZON
Writer of queer, paranormal, historical, romantic suspense. Lives in the South West of England with Mr AL, two children, a badly behaved dachshund, a terrifying cat and some hens. Likes gardening but doesn’t really have time or energy. Not musical. Doesn’t much like telly. Non-binary. Chronically disabled. Has tedious fits.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | eMail | Instagram | Pinterest
