Free preview of The Queen’s Curse

If you’re among my followers/readers who have never read my epic lesfic fantasy debut novel The Queen’s Curse from 2014, or even heard of it (shame on you ) here is your chance to read a free preview!
It has been a Canadian and Australian bestseller short after it was released and a New York Times bestseller, but I feel this book baby needs some love again now that it’s 8 years old!
It will be part of the I Heart SapphFic Reading Challenge soon so get up to speed now you can!

You can share the link afterward or decide to continue to read and hey maybe even buy it and oh why not review it . . .
Thanks so much for your support 

Click here to start reading:

Book recommendation:

The Bees: A Novel by

^{_{Laline Paull}}

“Obey, Serve, Protect!”

This book is one of my favourites! It resolves around the birth, life, and death of Flora 717. She is born into the hive as a humble sanitation worker – cleaning up and removing the dead bodies of her sisters. But unlike the rest, she has the ability to talk and question the meaning of her existence. She is very brave and saves the colony from a deadly wasp attack for example. She is rewarded by spending time in the queen’s calm presence. Soon she is ‘promoted’ to be an important forager and responsible, with her fellow foragers, for bringing in the pollen on which everyone depends.

This was an excellent and thought-provoking read. I loved every moment of it and really found myself identifying with Flora. It is a meaningful addition to the anthropomorphic tradition of books such as Wind In The Willow and Watership Down. Even though those other stories tend to humanise the lives and thoughts of other animal species which can have an important message in itself, it’s not entirely true for The Bees. There is much scientific truth to this story, apart from the dystopian element. These stories are important, with whatever species, as they address human issues such as power, thinking for oneself, and breaking free from the norm and even religion. The Bees does more than all that though. It not only shows the struggle of a single bee with responsibilities to her home while bringing change to a hierarchical community thus bringing her story home to us humans and our society, it also a plausible and well-researched account from the point of view of the bees and their lives as far as it is possible.

The attention to detail in describing the use of scents and pheromones in a bee life was really remarkable as well as the complicated dance ritual they do upon returning to the hive. One gets to learn so much about nature, about spiders and wasps, various flowers, and the impact of deadly chemicals upon the environment.

The description is never oversentimental as to living in a beehive either. From the mating of a drone with the queen (and his immediate death after) to the clearing up of sick bees, to the situation of the colony as winter approaches (surviving drones and older and weaker bees are all thrown out), to the issues that a colony without a queen can face, everything is told in a matter of fact way. Life for bees can be very hard. The story also explains the idea that the colony is the ‘creature’ and that the bees are the cells that make it up. The Hive Mind can override personal thoughts and control their actions.

It has given me so much more knowledge and respect for bees and I look at them differently now.

I genuinely felt throughout the story for Flora while she tried to contribute to the hive in many ways. The author did a great job of ensuring that the bees, while having a personality, kept acting on their instincts and communication as they would in a real hive.

The author has written a really good captivating story which I strongly recommend. If you want to comprehend the life of bees – and enjoy a fascinating page-turning read at the same time – then this is absolutely for you. You will be totally fascinated. The most memorable book I have read for quite a while.

The book can be found HERE

Book recommendation:

_{^{How to Stop Time}}

Matt Haig

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be”

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig is a truly magnificent book and a must-read! I had heard good things about his other books, bestsellers too, and chose this one because of the unusual premise and my obsession with anything to do with time – the greatest mystery of life. Ever since I have seen Highlander on tv years ago I have been fascinated by the concept of immortality or at least living longer, old souls, reincarnation etc. I myself wrote ‘The Immortal’ to explore the issues someone faces who outlives everyone and what it does to you, living with all those memories.

This book is similar in that respect, though the main character is not immortal or a vampire (thank the heavens for that!) but ages very, very slowly. I have never highlighted so many passages before in any book and will re-read this book for the beauty of it. It’s very well-written in first-person which I love, the pace is excellent and the prose visual, whimsical, and often emotional (many things are funny and some are sad bringing tears to your eyes). I didn’t want this book to end!

The genre is partly fantasy (only the part of the main protagonist’s strange condition, but utterly believable), historical (well-researched), part romance (though not too much), and philosophical (loved it). It is essentially about Tom, a 41-year-old man born March 3, 1581 and still alive today (2018). Tom ages very slowly though he will die one day like the rest of us (after 900 years), but outlives everyone around him, including those he loves. His mother, and then his one true love. He only fell in love once over the course of 400 years. For the romantic in me, that was super adorable. If you have ever loved and lost you’ll recognize the feeling.

“And she died and I lived and a hole opened up, dark and bottomless, and I fell down and kept falling for centuries”.

Tom lives in fear of discovery and loneliness, and lives in the past most of his days. When people begin to notice his bizarre condition (he doesn’t seem to age), assumes a new identity in a new place every eight years or so. This means he becomes estranged from the rest of humanity and from life overall. His only reason to live on is to find his daughter that suffers from the same condition as him. There is a society for people like him ruled by an eccentric guy, Hendrick, who helps Tom relocate and provides him with a new identity each time. The book jumps through Tom’s memories from time to time and brings you right there, vividly detailing the streets of London in the 16^th century with all the smells and sights, as well as later times and back again, but I never felt lost or that I couldn’t keep track. Tom felt very real with the same flaws as we do, even for a 400-year-old man, though sometimes I did find him a bit naïve and clueless, but that could be because he was so focussed on finding his daughter and more an outsider of society.

There are so many lessons to be learnt from this book, apart from “how to stop time” by slowing down and living more in the present for the past not to crush you. “The past is never gone, It just hides”. For not to be afraid of the future, the lesson of the power of love, of hope, of believing in the good hearts of people.

“I want you to slow down. I just want it all to slow down. I want to make a forest of a moment and live in that forest for ever.”

We are living in a society where everyone is fixated on everything else, be that mobile phones, facebook, tv, the news, and are losing touch with each other and themselves. Are either afraid of or just don’t know how to be content living in the moment any longer. Learning how to “just be” and to be happy in that moment is one of the lessons we learn along this journey. The question is when and how much time will we waste before we learn this simple truth? After all, we cannot control time and must try to live in the present moment.

“We are what we become. We are what life does to us.”

The ending of the book was satisfactory, though a bit rushed maybe and what happened to Hendrick seemed to me a bit too easy as if the author didn’t quite know what to do with him.

Overall, I can wholeheartedly recommend this novel and I will read his other works as well.

The book can be found HERE

Book recommendation:

Suppose We (The Flying Crooked series Book 1)

by Geoff Nelder

“Absolutument. We have to cease thinking like a human.”

‘Suppose We’ by Geoff Nelder is a First Contact Sci-Fi novel published in 2019. It’s focused around four people who have been travelling in a spaceship from Earth to a new world set in the Kepler 20 system. The planetary system by the way does exist in the Milky Way between Cynus and Lyra. The planet the story sets on has yet to be discovered so that part is imagined, but in a very realistic way. How it is described, one can easily imagine a planet like Kepler-20h, though it’s very unlike Earth! It’s a ‘What if’ story which I like as it explores the imagination based on real science and research very much so as the Star Trek series do, which I’m a huge fan of. The best episodes for me are always the ones about the away teams getting stranded on a strange new planet and learning all about its strange flora and fauna. This story reads like one of those episodes at first but goes into much more detail.

Our four main protagonists have been in hibernating for a thousand years before they crash land on the new planet. Their mission is to seek and investigate habitable planets for the people of Earth to go and live on in the future and send a report back to Spaceweb, which I imagine is a sort of futuristic NASA online, or to the other ships. Little do they know there is also a secret mission. Only their AI called CAN holds that last message and secret package.

The main character is Gaston, a French exo-linguist and exo-biologist, who wakes up first. There is Commander Penn and Delta and Em, all carefully chosen for their set of skills. Their technology has evolved, but that is about it. People are still people, and the relationship between Delta and Penn was a little odd. I liked Gaston best, he is likable and convincing the way he was described, throwing in French words and getting lost in his head, thinking, missing the first few words people say, or the last. Also, his interest in the local flora and fauna, his non-violence approach, and the way he befriends a butterfly. But is it really a butterfly? When the team get separated from their spaceship, the Suppose We, they try to re-establish contact, but not before exploring the planet, trying to make first contact with the alien species and getting into a whole lot of trouble.

The sceneries are beautifully painted with lilac or emerald skies, tree bark soft like cucumber, and dome-shaped buildings that change colour. One can even smell the ozone in some scenes or the flower scents in another. And then, how to make contact with the suspected dominating species on the planet, the Kelps, since they pretty much ignore the humans. And what are those bird-like creatures in the forest always appearing in threes?

I enjoyed reading this book tremendously and it definitely was a page-turner for me as I wanted to know more. This is a well-written book by a competent author who has done his research into the subjects he writes about. I am looking forward to reading book 2!

I would recommend this book to seasoned sci-fi readers though as the terminology used is on the high-tech science side and not always explained, but perhaps that was the lure.

The book can be found HERE

The Queen’s Curse is revamped!

The book not only received a totally awesome new cover (designed by http://www.beyondbookcovers) but has been given a complete revised make-over. It has been newly edited and proofread for a better updated reading experience!

No worries if you already have the book on your kindle, you can update the book by going into the book in your Kindle library and downloading it again. Some Kindles automatically do this. To be sure you have the latest version, it should say ‘revised edition March 2021’ in the copyright inside along with the brand new cover!

The paperback is also available this weekend to purchase, though Amazon might be a bit behind with updating all the book details on their site.

And it’s the last day to download your FREE copy of the IMMORTAL!

Get yours HERE

To know what will happen next, you have to understand what came before…

I wanted to share some exciting news with my readers and followers! It comes as no surprise that I am writing, hey that’s what we writers do, even if it’s just preparing in our heads, or taking notes, but what am I writing at the moment you might wonder? Well, the Comyenti Series is an all-time favourite of mine for various reasons, and book 1 and 2 have been out a while, as have a few stand-alone novels in the series, so it is only logical I would be writing book 3 by now, right? Wrong! I will, I will, of course, and I know roughly where it will go with book 3, though expect new twists and turns! However, I have long wanted to write about what happened before ‘Call off the Search’ and to delve into the comyenti’s distant past. To find out who and what they really are. Not just answering these questions in my book series, but by telling the story in a book of its own. A Prequel! I have long thought about it and it has taken more shape over the years. But it is finally time. Sula’s ancestors are ready to tell me. If you haven’t already read the 2 books here they are: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P1F2TMG/ And so, because these are the comyentis, and dear to me, I want to do them justice, so it has taken me a while to gather all the information I needed. They are from another planet after all, so it will be a science fiction book, my first. I read a lot of sci-fi, but haven’t written one myself yet. All my other books, though speculative, are still classified as Fantasy, but the prequel will be sci-fi, though without technology or spaceships and little to no violence. I have done extensive research into the fields of time and space, the dimensions, other galaxies including our own nearby ones, stars, and planets, and read many books and watched even more documentaries. It has opened up my mind and I’m continuing to learn on my ongoing journey for truth and development. I do like that I can use my imagination as the prequel is more fiction than hard science, though still seeped in facts in the metaphysical sense, for that’s the kind of writer I am. Therefore, I’m happy to announce I’ve made a good head start with the book with my characters leading me through it whilst they are telling me their story! I better get back to it! I will keep you posted, but I expect the publication to be either in summer or autumn this year! Check out the cover!!!!Here is the synopsis so far, which might change nearer publication, but to give you a taste: Cradle of the Stars – Origins How far would you go for love? In a world teetering on the brink of total destruction, Shinze holds the key to her species’ salvation. In this prequel to the international bestselling Comyenti Series, the Circle of Eight predicts the planet’s downfall. Shinze, who is one of them, has to convince the rest of her kind to travel light-years to another habitable planet. How many will go with her and survive the long journey? What will they find? Their new home, Bhan, turns out to be a very different world as to where they came from. Not only is this planet resonating in a lower frequency, thus existing in another dimension, but the dominating humans might prove more of a problem than they can handle… https://mailchi.mp/4ba6f1ce5d55/to-know-what-will-happen-next

Spring into a Good Book Mega Sale! 27-31st May

Grab your chance and go to the iheartlesfic website to look for your next read! Hundreds of greatly discounted and free lesfic books to stock up your e-reader/kindle or phone!

Many different sub-genres to choose from so there’s something for everyone.

Three of my lesfic speculative books are discounted, including 2 free! Which ones? Have a look here: https://iheartlesfic.com/spring-into-a-good-book-mega-sale-part-two/

Happy reading and don’t forget to share it with your friends on your social media.

Natasja Hellenthal

NEW FANTASY RELEASE! CITY OF DREAMS ~FREE this weekend ONLY~

‘CITY OF DREAMS’, available in all formats will be FREE this thanksgiving weekend only.
Share it with your friends and don’t forget to leave me a review, thanks (:

“Have you ever wondered where stories come from? Where are paintings, sculptures and poetry, prose born? In the artist’s subconscious mind? Dreams? How come some writers and painters roughly have the same idea and come up with similar creations, even though they’ve never read or seen anything by the other or communicated it in any way? Is there such a thing as a ‘Well of Art’ that all artists drink from to be inspired? And if so, how is this accomplished? Whilst asleep? Dreaming? Where is art born?”

Aigle Comyenti is travelling home to be on time for his sister’s wedding. Whilst travelling he hears the last notes of an enchanting tune and makes a sudden decision. He MUST have that song.
The musician however, on her way to an art festival to perform, not only teaches Aigle the melody, but also steals his trusty pendant: the coppery piece given to him by his real father. The jewellery, worthless to the girl, is immensely valuable to the boy and his vanishing kind; the empathetic comyentis. For it is not only the last reminder of his mysterious people but could also be the very key to their unknown past and origin…

The handsome young traveller has no other choice than to follow the girl, but where she is going, Aigle is reluctant to set foot; it is a city crammed with the comyentis’ number one enemy: humans. A place where danger for discovery lies high. What Aigle finds next within the walls of the city of Traumermoure is beyond what he could ever have dreamed up. Not only is the girl he followed there, Mallory, been put into a deep sleep from which she cannot wake, but the city’s visitors may face the same fate…

Can Aigle, who has powers beyond men’s understanding, be concerned? Will he risk everything that is at stake for one human girl he hardly knows
To wake Mallory up, he has to enter her dreams…

One click here to get it now: http://hyperurl.co/gjzqlx?IQid=vevo

LAST 3 WEEKS OF PROMO BOOK 1 UNTIL BOOK 2 IS RELEASED OCTOBER 13TH

********#Fantasy #Series ********
Book 1: http://smarturl.it/calloffthesearch?IQid=qr FREE in KindleUnlimited
Book 2: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N2U9GE6 (pre-order)

The comyentis are different; beautiful and mysterious, possessing powers of which humans can only dream. And for this, they are hated, persecuted. For millennia, humanity has murdered and enslaved the peaceful comyentis wherever they find them. Jealous of their ability to merge their minds with animals to use their powers, to empathise with other beings on a deep spiritual level and even hear their thoughts, they seek out and destroy them.
Half-breed Sula, one of the last of her kind, lives in hiding. With not just her own life but her whole species’ held precariously within her hands, she feels the weight of her responsibility. As loneliness and alienation slowly engulf her, an attractive young human enters her world and she is torn. Should Sula trust him? Can she afford not to? Will she be able to overcome her aversion to humans to save her species from extinction? A life as a wandering hermit, or risk everything for love?
Sula’s life becomes further complicated when she meets another comyenti and is forced to make a decision. Follow her head or her heart? ***

New Novella Chained Freedom update

 

My upcoming novella has been sent to the first editor!

Release date: Febr/March. Stay tuned!

Synopsis:

“This is not a fairytale, but a true story,” storyteller Tana Woodwolf tells the audience.

One day she finds herself transported to a tower and from that day on is entrapped within the grasp of a cruel wizard.

She and the other prisoners don’t have a clue as to why they’re there. They wear no chains, there are no locks and the surrounding fields are enclosed by an invisible impenetrable wall no one has ever managed to break through.Added to that, people on a regular bases are dragged up the stairs by an invisible hand.

One day Tana hears a mysterious voice, “Look and be free…-You’ll have to let go of what you know.”

But how does she escape? Who does that voice belongs to that is trying to help her?

Read page-turning, ‘Chained Freedom’ and cling to Tana and her efforts to free herself and the others and won’t rest until she does.