ON THE EDGE

I'm really pleased to be able to announce the publication of a new book today. It's published by my favourite publisher, Barrington Stoke - run by the keenest and friendliest people I've met in that world.

The book is one that I care about very much and which I hope will find a big readership. It's a fast moving and suspenseful story with some tough themes at its heart. 15 year old Dillon and his young brother, Robbie, haven't seen their dad since he came out of the army and was violent towards them and their mum. But now he has turned up out of the blue saying that he's just been to see their mum at work and that she's given him permission to take them off for a few days' holiday. Robbie is thrilled but Dillon isn't quite so sure. Dad is persuasive, though, and they set off - but is this 'holiday' really what it seems.....?

The title I used when I was writing the book was OUR FATHER. Then later I called it MISSING IN ACTION. Finally, in conjunction with the people at Barrington Stoke, we agreed on the final title - ON THE EDGE. And here's the striking cover:

 

   

PARTNERS IN CRIME

 

 

PARTNERS IN CRIME is now 10 years old so it is particularly pleasing and surprising that it has just been shortlisted for a prize. It is in the Quick Reads category of the Coventry Inspiration Book Award. The award is for books which will get readers hooked on reading. The Coventry awards are unique in the country in that they have something for all ages, including adults and involve the whole family and the whole community.  

I guess that I always write in the hope that the book will hook young readers and make them readers for life, but this is especially true for the books I write for Barrington Stoke who specialise in producing books for young people who aren’t naturally drawn to reading.  

The Coventry award is decided in a novel way, as in January 2014 they hold weekly eliminations of the shortlist "Big Brother" style until only the winners are left standing. Fingers crossed that PARTNERS IN CRIME will be one of those.

Although PARTNERS IN CRIME does work with ‘reluctant’ readers, I recently saw how its appeal goes right across the spectrum. The book is being used by Folkestone Academy as part of their English course for all their Year 8 students. They invited me down to talk to the whole year group and I did four sessions in which I talked about writing in general and then PARTNERS IN CRIME in particular. I was very gratified to see and hear the students’ enthusiasm for the book – their questions and comments showed how much they had enjoyed and been engaged by the story as part of their course and teachers reported that many of them had borrowed the books to re-read at home. 

The students asked many interesting and wide-ranging questions in each of the sessions but one question that came up in all four sessions was who was who on the cover. It’s a credit to the cover designer that when I turned the question back on them and asked them to say which character was which they unfailingly identified Marco, Perry and Toddie.

If you've read and enjoyed the book, you can vote and comment on the Coventry Inspiration site :  http://www.coventry.gov.uk/info/2000735/fancy_a_quickie/2008/partners_in_crime

THE HEART OF THE VALLEY

After years of being unavailable in the UK and the US, THE HEART OF THE VALLEY can now be downloaded on Kindle. It is my only book for adults - though I hope young people could read it with pleasure in the same way as I hope that many of my books for teenagers such as TIME BOMB and WALK THE WILD ROAD could be enjoyed by adults.

I'm currently reading THE HEART OF THE VALLEY aloud to my elderly sister who is in hospital and I find myself wondering how on earth I wrote it - it seems to know so much more than I do! I remember that it took me over two years to write it and that much of that time was spent simply looking. Really looking. At trees, at birds, at clouds, at hedgerows, at tracks in the grass, at shadows as the sun moved. At everything in the valley where I lived. And in many ways I realised that I was seeing for the first time. Really seeing. At the same time I was reading works by people who had looked as intensely as I was doing - Wordsworth, Thoreau, John Stewart Collis. I was also intrigued by the similarities I was finding in mystical books and the latest scientific speculations about the sub-atomic world.

I suppose somehow all those things came together and, in the mysterious crucible of the imagination created something that surprises even me.

 

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heart-Valley-ebook/dp/B00B28K27A/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361359192&sr=1-10

SPECIAL OFFERS

 3 of my e-books: BUDDY'S BLUES, OUT OF THE DARKNESS and TIME BOMB  are on special offer at 99p per download on Amazon Kindle. Click the link:

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_7?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=nigel+hinton&sprefix=nigel+h#/ref=sr_nr_p_n_binding_browse-b_3?rh=n%3A266239%2Ck%3Anigel+hinton%2Cp_n_binding_browse-bin%3A368165031&bbn=266239&keywords=nigel+hinton&ie=UTF8&qid=1360155744&rnid=492562011

BUDDY'S BLUES ON KINDLE

After a few years of being out of print, the third book in the BUDDY trilogy is now available again in the UK as an e-book on Kindle.

 

CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT

 

 

At last!

Although it has been available expensively from the USA, WALK THE WILD ROAD is finally available over here in the UK in a Kindle version. It's part of a programme initiated by Amazon, called Amazon Whiteglove, which will see all my out of print books available over here and all the books which were never published over there will be available in the USA.

Here's the Kindle image for WALK THE WILD ROAD:

CLICK HERE

LYRICS TO ALWAYS HEADING HOME

A number of people have asked me to post the lyrics to ALWAYS HEADING HOME, the song which The Orange Circus have recorded -

You can see it in the sunset
Purple clouds and shades of blue
Flashing light on water
Smoky rainfall too
The dancing of the atom
Rocks and running streams
Long forgotten stories
Memories and dreams
The beauty of the children
The wisdom of the old
The changing of the seasons
We're always heading home

From year to year
From day to day
From dawn to dark
From birth to grave
We're always heading home

You can hear it in distant voices
Echoes from the past
In the music of the forest
And the silence of the stars
A feeling something's missing
That can't be said in words
The way tht all things balance
The fast one and the slow
In the mystery of living
That's more than flesh and bone
The question and the answer
We're always heading home

From year to year
From day to day
From dawn to dark
From birth to grave
Always heading home
We're always heading home

Listen to the track on YouTube at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Umb9PP-pI