Book Blog Tour Stop With An Author Guest Post: Inside Voices by Sarah Davis

On Naming a Novel 

The naming of my firstborn child took time, and I only carried her 9 months. My husband and I searched for a unique name, uncommon but stylish, that couldn't easily be made into a silly nickname. Websites, the Baby Book of Names, family, and friends presented suggestions. Once we had it, the perfect first name...we needed a middle name. That one didn't surface until a few weeks before stork time. 

Choosing my novel's name took about as much time, even though it took longer for the publishing stork to deliver my book to the world. And my hubby didn't have as much say.

The title of a book is critical. It needs to capture attention. Be unique. Intriguing.

How does one come up with a title? For Inside Voices, this was a painstaking process. I wasn't giving birth to an unknown entity that I would love unconditionally. I was writing a story that lived in my head. I already knew the characters intimately. Listened to their conversations—held conversations with them. I didn't like all my characters. And half the time, I thought the writing should be thrown in the trash. 

It seems to me now that the title should have been obvious. But while I was writing, one didn't come screaming into existence. So I brainstormed...and came up with three pages of options. 

The Journey of Penny Osborn

Polar Bear Watch

The Art of Telepathy

Night of the Polar Bear 

In Spirit

Rise of the Bear

In My Thoughts

Mental Identity 

Penny Osborn, the Polar Bear and the Serial Killer

Penny for Your Thoughts

Inside Voices

Voices Inside

A Tale of Telepathic Twins

 My husband despises the word "telepathy," so it was easy to cross out those options. I guess he had more say than I thought. 

I circled my favorites and said them out loud while alone. Then I shared my top picks with the family, who each gave their vote and opinion. Offered varied options. No one liked Inside Voices at first. Or on the second, third, or fourth go around. But I held on to it. Left it alone and revisited the list from time to time. After a few weeks that included internet searches for books with similar titles, I made my selection.

It was an exciting process. Now that I had a name, my story was OFFICIAL. 

Inside Voices. A story that centers around telepathic identical twins. Doesn't say much about polar bears or serial killers, but then a title can't reveal every plot twist in so few words.

I polled a group of authors to find out how they went about selecting titles. The vast majority of those who responded selected "brainstorm alone." A few chose "brainstorm with others." The sole author/publisher of the group selected "let publisher decide." 

I offered a fourth choice: the use of a random generator. There are many available on the internet, and I was curious if the other authors I polled ever used them. One author commented utilizing a generator for band names and another for character names. None used them for title suggestions. See https://kindlepreneur.com/free-book-title-generator-tools/. I played around with a few for fun and could see possible usefulness. 

Ultimately, the book title should be eye-catching, fitting, unique. Right? I think Inside Voices works. I hope you do too!

Inside Voices by Sarah Davis

The mind is a strange beast...extraordinary, unpredictable, protective.

Penny Osborn's mind is no exception. In High School, Penny witnessed a massacre and lost her father to the same killers. She had seen it unfold before it happened, in a premonition, but could not prevent it.

A college research project at the edge of the Arctic is her chance for a new beginning. Struggling with PTSD, Penny's therapy includes running, dogs, and guitars. Yet her fresh start is plagued by new premonitions, dark and foreboding, that coincide with a rising number of murders in the community. Her visions are vague, offering little to identify the killer.

When confronted with an orphaned polar bear cub, Penny risks everything to save its life. The deepening mystery of the murdered women, coupled with the exhaustive duties of caring for the small cub, draw her closer to her friend, Noah, and further from her sister.

Fearful for the serial killer's next target, Penny discovers where her physical abilities can help her.

Will letting go of the past lead to healing? And can she stop the murders?

 http://mybook.to/insidevoices

Sarah Davis is many things...wife, mother, veterinarian, writer. An avid reader, she enjoys stories that transport her into new and exciting lands. Having read more books than she could ever count, she has considered writing a novel for ages. It wasn't until the idea for "Inside Voices" popped into her mind that she finally started pursuing that dream, with much encouragement from her family. She and her incredible husband share their remote home on the prairie with their three extraordinary children and one mostly human weimaraner.

Blog: www.sarahdavisauthor.com

Facebook Author page: https://www.facebook.com/sarahdavisdvm/

Facebook Personal page: https://www.facebook.com/sarahshoarse

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SarahDavisAuth1

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pennyosborn10/

https://www.instagram.com/sarahdavisdvm/

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Publication Day Spotlight and Author Guest Post: Under the Warrior's Protection by Ella Matthews

I often get asked what I find hardest about writing a novel. Is it coming up with the ideas or dealing with rejections? For me, it’s neither of those.

Hours spent thrashing out a plot and getting it into some semblance of order is a walk in the park in comparison to releasing a novel.

Under the Warrior’s Protection, which was released on 29^th October, is my seventh novel, although it’s only my second for Mills & Boon. Before I wrote books I worked in publishing for a long time, producing over sixty books a year. There’s nothing more exciting than holding a glossy, new book and knowing you are somehow responsible for its existence, whether it’s as an author or an editor. You normally get these copies a month or two before they are sent out to the wider world and I have to admit to spending time, more than is probably normal, staring at them (especially my most recent one as the model is delicious).

So you’d think, after all those publication days, I would be a bit more relaxed about them by now. Sadly, that’s not the case. I’m a wobbly bag of nerves each and every time.

The build-up to this one has been particularly nerve-wracking and not just because of my normal worries. While I’ve been sending out promotional copies and answering questions from bloggers, I’ve also started a new job as a literacy support officer in a secondary school. I get to talk about books and punctuation all day, which might not be everyone’s cup of tea (it certainly isn’t my pupils!) but I love it. On top of that, my daughter’s started secondary school, which seems to mean an awful lot of homework for me, something I wasn’t really expecting.

The main characters of my latest novel, Katherine and Jarin, filled my head for over six months. I watched as they fell in love and struggled over the hurdles I threw at them to overcome. I laughed and cried with them and wrote about them late into the night, long after the rest of my family had gone to sleep. In essence they were my world. But it was a very private one, where only the three of us existed. Now I have to introduce them to everyone else and I’m very nervous about it.

Having said that, there is always wine on publication day and, if I’m lucky, cake. So it’s not all bad.

Thank you so much to Ellesea for allowing me to take over the Ellesea Loves Reading blog. This isn’t something I’ve ever done before and I’ve had great fun doing it.

Under the Warrior’s Protection by Ella Matthews

Letting down her guard…

Might save her life…

With their family name in tatters, Katherine Leofric and her sister are headed for a new life at their brother’s estate. They are escorted by the hardened Jarin, Earl of Borwyn, whom Katherine believes is only after her dowry! Then her sister is abducted on their treacherous journey, and Katherine must rely on Jarin’s protection. Now, seeing a different side to the man she's sworn to hate, it’s her heart that’s most at risk!

Amazon UK           Amazon US 

Ella Matthews lives and works in beautiful South Wales. When not thinking about handsome heroes she can be found walking along the coast with her husband and their two children (probably still thinking about heroes but at least pretending to be interested in everyone else).

 https://twitter.com/ellamattauthor

www.ellamatthews.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/ella.matthews.524381

New Book Release Spotlight & Author Guest Post: Limelight by Graham Hurley

Selling Your Babies

The full-time writer is beset by a number of challenges. In the first place you have to find a voice, and then a story, and then a cast of characters to make the thing work on the page. None of this stuff is easy but the tricky business of getting 100,000 words in roughly the right order is simplicity itself compared to what follows. Your baby is in rude health. You’re still friends with your editor. You’re delighted with the cover. All you have to do next is sell the bloody thing.

Publicity and publishing have never been natural friends. No writer I’ve ever met is ever happy with his share of a publicity budget that seems to be constantly shrinking, and Covid has made that situation worse. The spread and reach of social media has certainly handed the published writer new cost-free opportunities, but not every scribe takes naturally to the soapy bath that is Facebook and Twitter, least of all – alas – me. And so – in the absence of top billing on Arena – there has to be another way.

I’ve always been OK on my feet, and I enjoy making people laugh. This has led to invitations to all kinds of audiences, from an entire year of primary school kids (ninety ten-year-olds) to a sizeable hall packed with book lovers from the University of the Third Age. These events offer multiple benefits. In the first place, readers can put a face to the name on the cover. Likewise, especially afterwards when we get into conversation, I can begin to understand what works on the page with certain people and what doesn’t. That kind of more intimate rapport is invaluable, as are the book sales that go with it, and it’s very rare to leave events like this without feeling just a little bit wiser.

More recently, thanks to word of mouth, I’ve been invited to audition for the Women’s Institute speaker list. You get exactly fifteen minutes to make an impact – not a second more, not a second less – but if you make it through, then you’re guaranteed regular invitations. Devon, where we live, has numberless branches, and so far – after a couple of years driving to the far corners of God’s county – I’ve enjoyed them all.

Mention of WI audiences raises eyebrows with certain scribes, but I suspect they’re missing a trick. Over seventy percent of books in this country are borrowed, or shop-lifted, or even bought by women, and that single stat is represented in all the many audiences I’ve had the pleasure of addressing. Like it or not (and I do), few writers could make a living without female readers, and the WI offer a rich cross-section from retired professional folk to village stalwarts.

Which makes the post-speech questions from the audience all the more important. Just before lockdown, in a village hall on the edge of Dartmoor, I got a corker from a woman three rows from the front whom I’d noticed from the start. She looked a little like I remember my gran – ancient cardigan, wild hair – and she was knitting. After I was done with speaking, she was one of the hands that went up when the Chair asked for questions. She’d read a couple of the Enora Andressen books, all of them narrated in the first person, and she wanted to know what gave me the right to pretend I was a woman.

To be honest, I’ve faced questions like this before. The proper answer, I suspect, is to point out that all works of fiction are acts of trespass. That it is the business of the writer to get into the hearts and minds of other people, male or female, and try and figure out what life must be like for them. In my experience, this demands a degree of empathy, or perhaps nosiness, that isn’t to everyone’s taste, but the fact remains that the credibility of any book can only be sustained if the writer has taken a long hard look at the folk who cross his (or her) path.

I sensed at once that none of this stuff washed with the lady who looked like my gran.

‘But you’re a man,’ she pointed out. ‘How can you possibly know what it’s like to be one of us?’ Her gesture took in the entire hall, probably seventy women. Heads began to nod. Not a good sign. I was in trouble, and I suspect they knew it, and so – foolish boy – I went for the nuclear option.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s pretend for a moment that I write science fiction, and I’ve just published a book about Martians. To tell you the truth, I’ve never met a Martian in my life, but why shouldn’t I have the right to invent one?’

My tormentor nodded. She had a lovely smile, all the sweeter because she recognised at once the hole that I’d just dug for myself.

‘You think we’re creatures from outer space, young man?’ She picked up her knitting again. ‘I rest my case.’

The hall erupted. She even won a round of applause. But the WI breeds a kindliness I’d never suspected, and the queue for my books once I’d answered the rest of the questions was longer than ever and included the woman with the knitting. She bought the latest Enora, and said yes to a personal dedication.

‘To Nina,’ I wrote, ‘who spared me a trip to Mars.’

Limelight by Graham Hurley

Life is dangerous. No one survives it. Enora Andressen makes a series of mind-blowing discoveries when her friend disappears.

Actress Enora Andressen is catching up with her ex-neighbour, Evelyn Warlock, who's recently retired to the comely East Devon seaside town of Budleigh Salterton. The peace, the friendship of strangers and the town’s prestigious literary festival . . . Evelyn loves them all.

Until the September evening when her French neighbour, Christianne Beaucarne, disappears. Enora has met this woman. The two of them have bonded. But what Enora discovers over the anguished months to come will put sleepy Budleigh Salterton on the front page of every newspaper in the land

http://severnhouse.com/book/Limelight/9121

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Limelight-Andressen-thriller-Graham-Hurley/dp/072788980X

https://www.amazon.com/Limelight-Andressen-thriller-Graham-Hurley/dp/072788980X

Graham Hurley is an award-winning TV documentary maker who now writes full time. His Faraday and Winter series won two Theakstons shortlist nominations and was successfully adapted for French TV. He has since written a quartet of novels featuring D/S Jimmy Suttle, and three WW2 novels, the first of which – Finisterre – was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. The first three titles in the Enora Andressen series, Curtain Call, Sight Unseen and Off Script, are also available from Severn House. After thirty years in Portsmouth, Graham now lives in East Devon with his wife, Lin.

https://www.grahamhurley.co.uk/

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/135794.Graham_Hurley

https://twitter.com/Seasidepicture

https://www.facebook.com/grahamhurleyauthor/

New Book Release Spotlight and Author Guest Post: Winter Light by Martha Engber

In junior high school, my teacher would have us get ready to go home ten minutes early. Then we’d sit in our desks as she read to us from The Outsiders, the novel written by high schooler S. E. Hinton and published in 1967.

That was the only time my class would truly quiet down. We all wanted to hear the story of troubled Ponyboy Curtis and his friends trying to make their way in a world where they’re have-nots.

The book woke me to what I’d never contemplated before, that while I’d always thought of myself as quiet and boring, I was lucky. I had parents who loved me and expected me to go to college. Our family had enough money to live in a nice home and go on vacations.

The thought that other kids might not have that love and support seemed like a radical idea. But then I began to watch kids around me with a keener eye. I began to see hints of darker realities: the girl and her sister up the street who lived with their mother with no mention of a father; the large family down the street where the kids dressed shabbily and lived in a house almost bare of furniture. When I got to high school, I saw kids who were high almost every day, their eyes red and mouths relaxed into checked-out smiles. They were usually smart, witty kids, which made me wonder why they didn’t try harder to do better.

Only when I began to write Winter Light did Mary Donahue, the protagonist, show me she and her kind are not weak and lazy, but instead just trying to deal with the daily burdens they carry. I owe a lot to Mary for opening my eyes.

And maybe that’s why coming-of-age stories hold such a special place in people’s hearts, because they remind us of when our eyes first opened — really opened — to the harder truths of the world and people around us.

For readers: If you read Winter Light and enjoy it, please leave a review on GoodReads, Amazon or your favorite review sites.

For Ellesea: Thank you for inviting me to visit and share my journey with your community.

For aspiring writers: Here’s a parting note of encouragement: keep at it! I worked on Winter Light for 10 years, endured a wrong-minded professional edit and queried 187 agents until finally submitting directly to small publishers, where the story got snapped up. If a story sticks with you for that long and through that much rejection, that’s a story worth telling. Hang in there!

Winter Light by Martha Engber

Fifteen-year-old Mary Donahue of suburban Chicago is a kid on the cusp of failure during the brutal blizzard winter of 1978-79, the end of a hard luck, hard rock era sunk in the cynical aftermath of the Vietnam War.

Though a smart, beautiful kid, she’s a motherless girl raised by an uneducated, alcoholic father within an extended family of alcoholics and addicts. Aware that she’s sinking, she’s desperate to save herself and so reaches out to an unlikely source, Kathleen, a nice, normal kid from English class.

But when the real storm hits, the full force of a harsh adult world almost buries Mary. Only then does she learn that the only difference between life and death is knowing when to grasp an extended hand.

Amazon UK           Amazon US 

Martha Engber’s next novel, WINTER LIGHT, will be published Oct. 6, 2020, by Vine Leaves Press. She’s also the author of THE WIND THIEF, a novel, and GROWING GREAT CHARACTERS FROM THE GROUND UP. A journalist by profession, she’s written hundreds of articles for the Chicago Tribune and other publications. She’s had a play produced in Hollywood and fiction and poetry published in the Aurorean, Watchword, the Berkeley Fiction Review and other journals. She’s also a freelance editor, workshop facilitator and speaker. She currently lives in Northern California with her husband, bike and surfboard.

Website: http://marthaengber.com

Facebook author page (Martha Engber’s Creatives): https://www.facebook.com/MarthasCreatives/

Facebook timeline: https://www.facebook.com/martha.engber.1

Twitter: https://twitter.com/marthaengber

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marthaengber/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martha-engber-a2a429a/

GoodReads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/674291.Martha_Engber

Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/marthae0023/

*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.

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New Book Release Spotlight and Author Guest Post: I Don't Do Mondays by Colette Kebell

I Don’t Do Mondays! by Colette Kebell

Creativity

When someone says write about anything you would like to, where do you start… I certainly am not a fan of writing short stories, I have far too much to say for that, so where do I go from there…

Firstly though, let me introduce myself, my name is Colette Kebell and I am an author. I predominantly write chick lit/romcom, but don’t tie myself to just that genre. I’ve been asked to write this post as part of the promo for my new book, I Don’t Do Mondays! Which launched on the 19^th September 2020. Yes, I was able to work towards the launch during the pandemic, but it was tough. Enough said about that though as you want something that is going to brighten your day today, not bring you back to doom and gloom.

The subject of creativity is close to my heart, as I forsake it for a good many years in pursuit of a salaried income, so guess that would be an ideal subject. I don’t know how many of your readers have children and though I don’t have any of my own, I encourage creativity in those of my friends and family. My own mother wasn’t great with encouragement of any kind, let alone for all things creative, so I do what I can to encourage those who lean towards that as who knows they might be the next JK Rowling, Picasso or Da Vinci. It seems in this commercial world we live in that the arts, as they are more commonly known can often be put on the back burner, as I discovered during my own life.

What is considered to be creative though and should parents encourage it? This might be a bit antagonistic to some, but I think there should be a happy medium between all things arts related and those of an academic nature. Since I was made redundant from my position as a legal secretary, which was a role I had filled for just shy of 10 years, my creative side seemed to suddenly burst forth and it hasn’t stopped. In whatever form it has materialised… I’ve been hell bent on writing, sewing, cooking, art, DIY, gardening and all manor of other things ever since that time. So yes, creativity is just as important as academic subjects are in my mind.

Having said all this, I have to admit that I have a very supportive husband, who lets me do whatever interests me and thus my creative side can now run riot. Not that I would say marrying well is the answer, as it often is not. It took me 38 years to find my now husband and we are the same age and neither found their perfect partner until that age… not that there isn’t hope for those who are younger, my own in-laws are a prime example, having been married for in excess of 55 years now, but occasionally it does take a bit of time.

So if you have a child or children who are not so academic, let them follow that as well as pushing them with their maths, English and sciences… education is incredibly important and so is the discipline which comes with that, both from the school and parents but don’t thwart your child’s efforts if it doesn’t quite follow your plan for them.

How can Mia find happiness?

Lawyer Mia’s picture-perfect dream life in New York is imploding. Her job has become too stressful, she’s exhausted from carrying her friends and what’s up with her striking, wealthy fiancé?

But when life-changing decisions force her to move to Maine, where she’ll face her often critical father and hard truths about what truly matters in life, she re-discovers a passion of her youth.

What begins as a low moment in her life quickly pushes her to consider what she genuinely wants and leads her down a new path where she must embrace the future and let go of the past.

Will this move help Mia to fix her life, once and for all, and will she finally find true love?

Amazon UK                Amazon US  

Colette Kebell is an author of Chick-lit/Romcom, though a relatively new one and thus far has self-published her books. Her books are light-hearted, fun and quirky and even considered by some to be inspirational.  She has also found avenues to translate both into Italian (thanks to her husband), and into French, Spanish and Portuguese via Babelcube. 

As a career, Colette spent her later years as a legal secretary. After a first attempt at writing many years ago (a book that still remains in her drawer) she resumed this passion a few years back, after being made redundant.  After a few book signing events and a book talk, which almost caused her to collapse with nerves, Colette now spends her time between her home in the UK and her home in France.

Colette has two adorable dogs and spends some time, when not writing and marketing her books, cooking for herself and her husband, gardening or designing various items for their home.  Amongst her other hobbies, she has also experimented with furniture upholstery, and she might, from time to time, have a paintbrush in her hand.

She can be found on twitter @ColetteKebell though doesn’t tweet a vast amount.

www.colettekebell.com

https://www.twitter.com/ColetteKebell

https://www.facebook.com/ColetteKebellAuthor

https://www.instagram.com/ColetteKebell

Author Guest Post & Book Spotlight: Miss Smith Commits The Perfect Crime

I started writing fiction by accident, literally. Last year I broke a bone in my foot, and sitting bored day after day, with my orthopaedic boot propped up on the coffee table, my eldest daughter suggested that I write a book. I wouldn’t say I took to it like a duck to water, but in a few days, I was hooked.

Having worked all over the world during my career as a television producer and director, and having met a vast variety of interesting characters, I decided that I would base the places and people in my books on my personal experiences. I believe that if you want people to enjoy your writing, no matter how far-fetched the plot or outlandish the characters, there has to be some factual basis.

My basic concept was to have a story about a young woman secret agent, incredibly smart, good looking and adept at martial arts – a sort of female James Bond. I thought about this for a while and wrote some test material featuring this super-woman. It then occurred to me that I could create an interesting story of how an ordinary girl becomes this extraordinary person and why.

I selected the name of Sam Smith as it sounds like the girl next door. I needed to have a mental image of the woman, and I recalled a beautiful, blonde and athletic dancer I once worked with. She was stunning. Picturing her, I started to write, and my story took off. I describe how my heroine embarks on a journey to change herself physically and mentally from a feeble victim into a fearless avenger. But how could I explain what might motivate a young woman to take such a drastic step?

I lived both in Leeds and Harrogate during the dreadful Yorkshire Ripper murders. Recollecting the awful events enabled me to recreate a similar fictional scenario to drive my main character to take the course of actions to exact her retribution. My beloved Yorkshire is where much of the action is set, and having worked on many regional TV programmes, including coverage of the Great Yorkshire Show, I was able to draw on my local knowledge to add colour and realism to my story.

Some writers outline their plots before they start writing in great detail, but that didn’t work for me. Years ago, on a screenwriting course, I came across Alfred Hitchcock’s mantra: you have to have a McGuffin. For him, the McGuffin is the ultimate goal of the hero or heroine, and it is essential that no matter how the plot twists and turns, all these wrinkles must be relevant in getting the protagonist to achieve their goal.

First and foremost, I define my McGuffin and then I start the wiring process. I have evolved a system which suits me. Each night, I go to bed with a clear idea of the action and characters in the current chapter. Next morning, the outline of the next chapter is usually clear in my mind. After breakfast, I sit down with a pot of (Yorkshire) tea and write the next one to two thousand words. As I go along, I re-read sections and ruthlessly edited out anything that doesn’t work. I stick to the guidelines of the radio programme “Just a Minute”: no hesitation, deviation or repetition.

Maybe I’m a masochist, as I rewrote the first third of the book three times. Finally, I started again with a completely new and lighter opening which I’m happy to say works well.

Miss Smith Commits the Perfect Crime?

Recovering from a brutal attack where she was savagely raped, university student Sam Smith attempts to rebuild her life and overcome the ongoing effects of her ordeal. Her ultimate goal is to bring her assailant to justice, but before she can do so her life and loves take a series of intriguing turns as she continues her sometimes unconventional education.

Eventually she is able to identify her attacker and decides to exact retribution in her own particular style, but during her preparations Sam becomes aware that her every move is being tracked by a mysterious organisation. To avoid detection by the police and also her hidden watchers, Sam Smith attempts to commit the perfect crime. However in the aftermath of her vigilante action events change rapidly to bring about a most unexpected outcome.

Miss Smith Commits the Perfect Crime? is the first book in the Sam Smith Adventure Series and can be read as a standalone.

Amazon US               Amazon UK           

Guy Caplin worked in television broadcasting for over 40 years and is one of the few people to have achieved success in both the technical and artistic branches of the medium. He has worked with many celebrities including, the Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Hope and Maria Callas.

He moved to ITV’s Yorkshire Television in 1969 as a Producer and Director of Sport, Outside Broadcasts and special events. Among the many programmes he devised was the quiz programme “Winner Takes All” fronted by Jimmy Tarbuck and Geoffrey Wheeler, which under his tenure was regularly amongst the Top Ten TV programmes and twice reached the coveted Number One Spot.

When the final series of the hit American programme Dallas ran into technical problems in Hollywood in 1989, Guy left YTV and joined a UK broadcast engineering company to try to come up with a solution. The solution proposed resulted in the creation of the DEFT process, which although too late to be used on Dallas, was used initially on the Simpsons and subsequently on Friends, Frasier, Superman and many others America series. DEFT was awarded an Emmy for outstanding technical achievement.

Back in the UK Guy owned and ran a company creating video productions for both broadcast and industry, was a freelance trainer at the BBC and a visiting tutor at the National School of Film and Television

For the past thirteen years Guy has also been a regular lecturer for P&O cruises and Cunard and has effectively travelled twice around the world.

Now, having closed his video company, he spends his time writing under the name of Guy Rolands and has now completed four novels in the Sam Smith Adventure series. Having worked all over the world and encountered hundreds of remarkable characters, his experiences provide colour and intrigue to his work.

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