Please help me welcome our guest blogger today, Rob Jackson-Lawrence. His story Knightfall sounds so intriguing to me. Okay, Rob. Take it away!

Knightfall tells the story of a young genius who is cast into another world after his experiment is sabotaged.  The world is immediately similar but different, with elements that he can recognize but at the same time seem out of place.

Looking back, this is exactly how I was feeling when I started to write the book.  I was 18 and had just moved away from home to study at University.  Manchester is a city similar to Birmingham (where I grew up) but at the same time different.  Buildings there are made with a differently coloured brick, accents and local colloquialisms seem off and strange, and I was making new friends who felt much the same as I did.  At fifteen, Ben was still considered a child at home (despite his intellect), but in his new world, fifteen is very much grown up.  Again, I was feeling that I had to play the grown up and fend for myself for the first time in my life, though I still felt very much a child inside.  Those first few days were both exciting and terrifying as I explored my new world, and I after reading through the opening chapters again, that is exactly how Ben was feeling.

Almost twenty years later, after losing my job, I found the incomplete story with its copious notes under the stairs.  Reading through, the world of Benjamin Knight still thrilled and excited me and pretty soon I jump straight back in.  My world view had changed a little, and some of the pieces needed a re-write before I finished the first book, but in the end it’s just what I imagined it would be all those years ago.  Seeing the cover for the first time was almost as exciting as holding my newborn daughter (but only almost Jessica, I promise!), as this world that had existed only in my head was finally realised and in my hands.  Now I can’t wait to get started on the computer every morning and see where Ben an his friends are going to take me today.

I hope any readers out there enjoyed my book, and if you contact me through my website or blog, I will do my best to get back to you asap.

Thanks

Rob Jackson-Lawrence

Knightfall blurb:

Lord of the Rings for the Call of Duty generation.

When his world changing experiment is sabotaged, fifteen year old genius Benjamin Knight is
cast into another world where an uneasy peace hangs in the balance. Saved from near death by a band of traders, he joins the Road Trains on their journey north as he struggles to understand what’s happened to him.

However, Ben soon realizes that everyone has their secrets and that no one is safe, especially when one man has the power to realize his ambitions.

Friends are lost, plots revealed and battles fought as the unlikely companions seek to prevent war.

Will appeal to fans of Anthony Horowitz, Suzanne Collins, Michael Grant, Garth Nix etc

Knightfall can be purchased at Amazon UK , US  and Canada. 

A fan of writing since he could first hold a crayon, R Jackson-Lawrence has had a tortuous path before reaching this point in his life.  In between working in a supermarket, care home and hospital, and having a family, it took nearly twenty years for his first book to be finished.  Weirder still, after only three months his second book is half done!

We are coming to the end of our A to Z challenge. Instead of doing each of the final letters I wanted to thank everyone for playing along with this month’s challenge.

I’ll be sharing a follow-up post later this week then I’ll be taking a blog break to catch-up on a few things. I’m going to go in my reading cave to finish up a few books that I promised to write back cover blurbs for because I don’t want to let my fellow writers down. Over the summer I’ll be posting once a week excluding when I’m at conferences and want to share some of the readers with you that I meet. Due to people’s chaotic schedules, I use summer to catch up on reading and writing reviews. I’m looking forward to reading some amazing stories from many of my blogging friends.

I greatly appreciate all of your support and I hope you’ve enjoyed the challenge. I encourage you to visit the brain behind it all, Arlee Bird at the A to Z challenge blog.  He is a dynamic individual that I totally find fascinating.

Did you participate in the challenge? Are you cutting back on blogging this summer? Have you read any great books lately?

A to Z will soon come to an end. Only three more letters! Today we are covering the letters U and V.
 
 

 U is for Uranium. In Escapement, Neuamrians are enslaved to work the mines in order to extract uranium to run the queen’s reactor on her ship. Energy resources are scarce since the war so Uranium is an important ore.
 
A by product of Uranium produces a florescent green beverage the saloon serves called Verillian juice. It is the alcoholic beverage of choice for most humans, slaves, and guards due to its availability in that territory.