I HAVE MOVED TO A NEW WEBSITE!

I'm now at The Backpacking Housewife Dotcom

THIS IS THE LINK

See you there!

Love, Janice xx

Who is Janey Travis….?

Now that we are back here on the island for the summer, I’m focussing with renewed vigour on my writing career. I've decided that in future I will be publishing my books under two separate genres of the romantic fiction umbrella .

To Explain: I’m going to continue to write Romantic Adventure fiction under my own name of Janice Horton and I'll also be writing Romantic Comedy fiction under the pen name of Janey Travis.

Right now, as Janice Horton, I’m busy working on a brand new romantic adventure novel entitled Island in the Sun, which will be released later in 2016.

I’m also re-releasing, re-branding and re-packaging my existing books How Do You Voodoo? Voodoo Wedding and Voodoo Child and bringing them together under one new romantic comedy title of I Need A Doctor using a pen name of Janey Travis.

Right now, all my Janice Horton titles will all remain exclusive to Amazon worldwide in eBook format to buy at £1.99 or $3.00 or to download free under their Kindle Unlimited and Select programmes. Paperbacks are also available for all titles for those who prefer a real book reading experience.

But I Need a Doctor by Janey Travis will be published in all ebook formats and will be available worldwide not only from Amazon but from Kobo and with Apple for iBooks and with dozens of other premium distribution outlets. Paperback format is also available.

I Need a Doctor will be officially published and available for instant ebook download from 15^th July 2016.

Why not click on the book cover on the side bar to read a free page turning preview of the book?

So who is Janey Travis? She is me!

You can follow Janey Travis on:

https://www.facebook.com/janeytravisbooks

https://twitter.com/janey_travis

Website (under construction just now)

www.janeytravis.co.uk

Please wish me luck!

Janice xx

“Just the right sprinkling of romance and humour.” Brook Cottage Books 
“A very clever plot. Different, fresh and enjoyable.” Jenny in Neverland 
“I couldn't help but like Nola even though at times she is a proper diva.” Comet Babe’s Books 
“I love all the quirky characters in the story and just the pure madness and fun of it all!” Books4U 
“A nice balance of humour, sweet romance, morals and a spooky side!” The Little Reader Library 

A whirlwind of adventure and romance..

What a whirlwind of adventure and romance the past few weeks have been! Trav and I left our Caribbean island home of Utila on a visa-run to the USA, where we celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary by renewing our wedding vows in Las Vegas, took a 600 mile round trip on a bus to drive over the Hoover Dam and travel along ‘the mother road’ of Route 66 before exploring the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and grabbing a last minute flight to Mexico for a second honeymoon.

Yes, really, it all happened exactly like that - although, when we set off, all we had was an 18 day window, a tight budget, a low cost flight to Sin City and a deal-of-the-day hotel reservation.

This time last year, in May 2015, we also had to do a visa-run/wedding anniversary trip and we'd flown to Miami Florida for Memorial Day weekend and then took a Greyhound Bus down to Key Largo and then onto Key West – where we spent our wedding anniversary. Afterwards we'd flown to New Orleans for a few days before going to the Bahamas and staying in a rental apartment just off Cable Beach, Nassau. It had all been amazing.

This year we decided to explore more of the USA and at the same time do something we had been talking about doing for years - renewing our wedding vows in Vegas – with Elvis.

We were SO excited about going to Vegas. It was our first ever visit and I kept thinking of all the movies I’d seen and all the TV shows about the casinos and the iconic hotels like the Bellagio, the Venetian, Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand. It was just as fabulous as we expected and we must have walked at least fifteen miles up and down The Strip that first day. Happily, our aching feet were relieved with all the complimentary drinks we were served in the Casinos while we gambled away a few dollars and won them back again!

All this excitement gives you a hearty appetite and we found the best value and most delicious dining was at the ‘big name’ hotel dinner buffets. We tried the Bellagio and the Wynn – the Wynn won – and their endless pours of champagne and wine made the gourmet food even more delicious.

The next day was our much anticipated special day - our second wedding day. We chose the Graceland Wedding Chapel, a traditional and also famous wedding chapel that offered Elvis themed weddings.

We had a stretch limousine to pick us up from our hotel. Ridiculously, I was bursting with excitement before I even saw it. Our driver had phoned to say, that when he picked us up, he would have to leave the car at the end of the drive AS THE CAR WAS TOO LONG for him to make the turn into the hotel’s circular driveway!

At the wedding chapel. I was given a red rose bouquet and Trav a red rose button hole. Elvis walked me up the aisle and sang a few classic songs while we joined in and danced. It was crazy fun!

As well as our wedding vows, we also recited the ‘Elvis vows’. Trav promised to Love Me Tender and not to leave me at the Heartbreak Hotel and I promised not to step on his Blue Suede Shoes or treat him like a Hound Dog. And the whole thing is on video!

The next day we were up early – 5am – as we had booked an excursion to the Grand Canyon. We chose to take a bus tour to the South Rim – a 600 mile round trip - but which offers a wider and more spectacular view of the canyon and also takes in the spectacular Hoover Dam and part of the famous ‘mother road’ of Route 66.

It was a long and exhausting day – but so worth it to walk the trail from Mather Point to Bright Angel Lodge along the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

Another big tick off the bucket list for sure!

As I mentioned, we hadn’t yet booked a flight out of Vegas, and because we were feeling tired from all our exciting activities, we decided to stay in Vegas one more night just so we could slow down, sleep in late, and have some time to discuss and plan the next part of our trip because we still had a couple of weeks before we needed to return to Utila.

We looked into going to San Francisco – another destination on our bucket list. I’d love to see the Golden Gate Bridge, all those famously steep roads and tramcars, and Alcatraz. Flight prices seemed reasonable but hotel prices were prohibitively expensive for our budget. So we looked at heading east instead using budget flights and Greyhound Buses to get to Nashville, to Louisville, and Lexington in Tennessee, because Trav had always wanted to do The Bourbon Trail. But again, on this occasion anyway, both logistically and financially, it seemed to be out of our reach.

So we looked outside the USA instead and on the internet we found a bargain flight to Cancun. Mexico is a country we had yet to explore and certainly a place that ticked all the boxes for sun and fun and as a ‘honeymoon’ destination. We struck lucky again and managed to also book a bargain all-inclusive hotel resort in Cozumel – an island just off the Mexican coast which seemed easy to reach from Cancun via a public bus to Playa del Carmen, a ferry over to Cozumel Island, and a taxi to our resort.

After an amazing 6 nights and 7 days of eating, drinking, and lazing on the beach or by the hotel pool, we decided to add a little adventure and some culture into the holiday mix, as we discovered there were Mayan ruins to explore just a couple of hours away in Tulum.

We checked out early the next morning (made difficult by the horrible hangover I was nursing from partying with our new friends by the pool bar the night before) and we took a ferry back over to the mainland and then a public bus down to Tulum.

Then we had a flurry of a drama at Tulum when we stepped off the bus and it promptly drove off with our luggage. We ended up chasing it across town on another bus until we managed to catch up with it and retrieve our bags!

In Tulum we stayed in a gorgeous little roadside hotel. It didn’t look like much from the outside but its few rooms were clean and comfortable. The place had a rich history and was atmospheric with lots of old photos of Mexican bandits and antique guns displayed on the walls!

The hotel offered us bicycles to get to the ruins – which would have been a good idea early in the morning but by this time it was mid-afternoon and blisteringly hot – so we opted for a short taxi ride instead.

Seeing the Mayan ruins first hand and walking around the ancient site at Tulum was a wonderful experience; for me it was akin to walking around the ruins of old castles in Scotland, seeing the great pyramids in Egypt, or visiting the sacred Buddhist temples of Thailand. I do love old places and the feel of history they evoke and so I now wished we’d had the time to take in the great Mayan step pyramid ruins at Chichen Itza, which were only a few hours away from Tulum, and to visit and swim in the many Cenotes, the fresh water pools and caves in the region. Oh well, places and adventures for another visit to Mexico, perhaps?

It was time to make our way back to Cancun, to Houston, and to home.

We’d experienced another amazing trip, had another fabulous and exciting adventure, and made a few more ticks off our bucket list.

What’s next? Well, Trav has some very exciting diving commitments over the next few months and I have a new book to finish writing. Then, as the end of the year and the rainy season approaches, and another visa-run is required, we will no doubt fly away again like birds on migration to another place and on another adventure.

Until then, I’ll continue to post about island life, about writing and my progress on the new book. I’m excited because my lovely cover designer has now produced the cover for Island in the Sun – and it looks fabulous – but I feel I must actually produce more of the novel before I can legitimately show it to you!

Please do feel free to leave a comment or ask a question or tell me about your own exciting plans and adventures – I’d love to hear from you.

Love, Janice xx

My Writing Workshop...

 

Arts and Crafts Weekend 19th and 20th October

 

There is an Arts and Crafts Fayre taking place this weekend -19th and 20th October - at Tynron Parish Hall (near Thornhill, Dumfries & Galloway).

Local crafts people will present their art and crafts and refreshments will be available. Proceeds to Tynron Parish Hall Funds.

Aspiring writers: I’m holding a writing workshop during this event on Sunday 20th October between 2pm-3pm. If you’d like to come along (and I'd love to see you there!) please check out the webpage and scroll down for contact details and more info.

Haste ye over to Tynron!

 

RIP My Beloved Kindle!

 

Before I went on holiday I spent a considerable amount of time choosing and downloading to my Kindle all the books I might want to read while away. Dozens and dozens of them! After all, one of the best things about an ereader is that it holds so many books, and after once being charged a fortune in excess baggage due to the weight of my holiday reading, I’m now a total Kindling enthusiast and won’t travel anywhere without it.

 

Actually, I have two Kindles. I have a two and a half year old 3G (the one with the keyboard) and I also have the new Kindle Fire (my prezzy from last Christmas) and, as I planned to do most of my reading on the beach, I decided taking the older one with its non-glare screen was the sensible option.

But woe is me! On day two, after reading just one book (Security by Mandy Baggot – which is, by the way, a fabulous and highly recommended read) my Kindle died and could not be resuscitated. (Even on getting home and ordering up a replacment battery, it was still as dead as dead could be).

I did ask our holiday rep if there was any books I could borrow, there was but they were all printed in Russian and German, which I neither read nor speak. So for those of you about to embark on your summer travels with your full stocked ereader, I might suggest you sneak a paperback or two into your luggage, just as a back up!

If you fancy reading my Kindle bestselling and award winning humorous novel Bagpipes & Bullshot this summer, you can win a copy between now and the end of June by answering this simple question (if you don’t know the answer you could always Google for it!)

What exactly is Bullshot…?

Answers in the comment box below, my email to me at janice@jancehortonwriter.co.uk or you can post to my Facebook Author Page (which I’d love you to Like while you are there!)

Haste ye back here next Friday!

Edinburgh Ebook Festival 2012

It’s coming up to festival time – now you might be thinking music festivals, beer festivals, flower festivals but I’m thinking book festivals and one in particular - the one taking place in Edinburgh this month!

In August, something very special happens in Scotland’s Capital and that would be The Edinburgh Fringe, The Edinburgh Festival, The Edinburgh Tattoo and The Edinburgh Book Festival.

Edinburgh is my favourite city in the whole world and it’s where my eldest son lives and my middle son goes to university. It’s where I browse on George Street, go shopping on Princes Street and get my hair done on Fredrick Street. Its museums and art galleries are amazing and its restaurants are fantastic. – It’s where I set my book ‘Reaching for the Stars’ - and it’s a city close to my heart. Now there are those who can get to Edinburgh and those who can’t. Maybe you live too far away. Maybe you just can’t afford it. Don’t despair.

Indie Ebook Review is bringing Edinburgh to you via the Edinburgh Ebook Festival!

Edinburgh Castle
(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Please note this is an independent, virtual festival, with no ties or association to the commercial entity that is the Edinburgh Book Festival.

The inaugural Edinburgh Ebook Festival, in which I have been invited to take part this year, runs online and concurrently with the ‘real’ thing from August 11th to 27th 2012.

The Edinburgh Ebook Festival showcases some of the best of indie e-book writers around. The festival seeks to introduce you to writers, publishers, and to explore the whole world of epublishing from a new and distinctly Scottish perspective.

There will be around 40 featured and contributing writers and a total of around 100 specific ‘events’ including reviews, short stories, poems, features on all aspects of epublishing, writers comments and an insight into who is who and what is what!

The official ‘rolling’ launch of this website will happen at 10am on Friday 3rd August.

From then till the opening event on 11th August, there will be content added to the site by the organisers, who will be getting it shipshape and ready for you to enjoy, highlighting features of what’s to come and how to get the most from this unique festival.

It’s the Edinburgh Festival that you can attend without ever leaving home!

We will all look forward to seeing you ‘virtually’ in the weeks to come. Bookmark the website and Facebook Page and tell your friends. Everyone is welcome and everything is FREE. All it will take is some of your time and we hope to offer you enough interest to have you coming back every day right up until the close on 27th August.

Click here to go to The Edinburgh Ebook Festival Website

Click here to go to the Edinburgh Ebook Festival Facebook Page

See you at the Festival - virtually!

#edebookfest

Where’s my ereader….?

When I saw this fabulous photo of Nigella Lawson in her home library I was green with envy. I mean, look at it! If there is a Heaven, then surely it has a room exactly like this and with no lifetime restrictions on reading everything ever written - well, perhaps not everything, perhaps not 'All Those Shades of Grey'.

You may be surprised at my greenness – thinking surely, that as a writer who exclusively writes e-books, I might instead covert the latest ereading technology instead…?

Well, the truth is… I love all books.

I love all the lovely new ones with bright colours and sparkles. I love dusty old tomes with aged dedications, I love, love, love them all. And there lies a problem, dear reader…

You see, in my home office I have shelves of books. On the top shelves I have lots of paperback novels (in most genres) and below those I have all the heavyweight hardbacks. On one particular ‘special’ section I have all my precious first editions and coveted collectable books (you mean, I hadn't  actually mention this fetish to you…?) alongside my signed and personally dedicated to me books (sighs and strokes books…)

My love of ebooks came about quite by accident… actually.

A couple of years ago, Mr JH and I were taking a faraway trip and I had refused to compromise on my luggage allowance - but contrary to warnings from Mr JH about airline rules and regulations, the good people at Glasgow Airport had the decency to smile and accept my, ehem - rather large suitcase, with no fuss whatsoever. Although, this was not the case (pardon the pun) when we changed flights, my husband was proved right and I was proved wrong and we were hit with a rather excessive excess weight charge.

I recall holding my breath, crossing my arms and refusing to offload anything. ‘I need absolutely everything in that case, I told my distressed husband, so he had no choice but to hand over several hundred US Dollars to the airline concerned.

When we reached our final destination, a beach resort where one really only needs a thong – and lots and lots and lots of books – and I opened up my suitcase to find that  even though we were both suffering from severe travel fatigue and crippling jet lag, we suddenly had lots to debate about the merits of paperbooks vs ebooks. I’m delighted to tell you, dear reader, that upon our return to Bonnie Scotland, I received a Kindle as a gift from my darling husband - and I’ve never looked back.

So where do you stand with the paper vs ebook thing – or do you have room in your heart for both…?

My Bookshelves...

This week I’m picking up on the bookshelf feature I started earlier in the year, where I talk about favourite authors and show off my prized collection of first editions and ‘keepers’ - as I like to call my most loved books. This time I’m talking about the fabulous author of six equally fabulous novels, Kate Fenton, whose humorous and witty tales of country life in the wilds of Yorkshire are written in a pacy distinctive style that I can hardly get enough of, which is a shame, as the lovely Kate hasn’t published a book since ‘Picking Up in 2002!’



Author Kate Fenton


I met Kate a few years ago at a Romantic Novelist’s Association conference. She is great fun, a real joker, and is as witty in real life as she is in her books. To my surprise, she laughed heartily while admitting that her recent lack of input/output on the writing front was down to her suffering from writer’s block. She said she was “deeply embarrassed, mortified, terrified, and stupefied by a sense of failure.”

On her blog, she says this of her predicament: “No, I haven’t written a new novel recently. By which I mean, nothing since ‘Picking Up’. I guess I experienced Writer’s Block, that scary phenomenon about which one reads with the ghoulish fascination inspired by tales of, say, poltergeists or a fatal addiction to slot machines, while smugly thinking such a dreadful fate could never happen to ME. Except it did. And I’m here to tell you it’s no fun.”

Kate has further apologised to her many fans, saying: “I’m sorry to say my books are currently more or less out of print. It’s all my own fault, natch. In this fast-changing retail world, a book has a shelf life rather shorter – in fact, much shorter – than that of a can of baked beans. And if authors fail to deliver new titles, old ones tend to get put speedily out to grass. Re-issues are promised if and when a new novel is published. Ho-hum.”

It apparently took Kate four years to write and finish her first novel ‘The Colours of Snow’ (which is my personal favourite of her books) and three years later she produced ‘Dancing to the Pipers’. It took her two years apiece to write ‘Lions and Liquorice’, ‘Balancing on Air’, ‘Too Many Godmothers’, and finally ‘Picking Up’. So, despite the speed with which the plots in Kate’s books furiously race along, she has never really been a production line writer has she?

What sort of books are these, you may ask? Well, Kate herself says:  “Oh, I write about, birth, sex and death, really. Doesn't everyone? Also God, dogs, adultery, D-I-Y, suicide, Morris dancing, incest, murder - you know, everyday life in North Yorkshire. With jokes.  But I don't do moody, magnificent brutes, heaving bosoms and surging passions on moon-kissed Caribbean beaches. The odd chilly paddle in Llandudno, maybe.”

The good news is that Kate is still trying to write: she says (talking about herself in the third person) on her (sadly neglected) blog: “That’s right: it’s because she’s run out of excuses, jokes and even suicide threats, in trying to explain her ongoing failure to produce Novel Number Seven. Admittedly, she has been trying – in our view, very trying. You should see her, staring at the wall, muttering to herself, decimating the world’s forests with the manuscripts she so regularly chucks away with a manic cackle as she grows ever poorer, fatter and more morose.”

To me, Kate’s previous novels are a testament to the fact she is a great writer. I can read her books over and over and enjoy them all the more. If she (ever) manages to write another novel, I shall be delighted and it won’t matter a jot to me how long it took her to do it. It’s all about quality not quantity, right?



Kate Fenton Novels on my bookshelves

So here’s a question for you if you are a writer, what’s your opinion on writer’s block and have you ever suffered from it? If you are a reader, how long are you prepared to wait for another novel by a favourite author?

Please consider 'following me' so that I can follow your blog in return - and do leave a comment as it would be most appreciated. Thanks!

My previous bookshelf features:  Ruby Ferguson.  Jilly Cooper

My Bookshelves...

This week I’m picking up on the bookshelf feature I started at the end of April, when I talked about Ruby Ferguson, one of my very favourite authors and showed off my prized collection of first editions. Next up on this feature, I’d like to talk about Jilly Cooper, who rocked my world when in 1985 she published her blockbuster ‘Riders’.

At the time, I lived in Cheshire and was very much part of a ‘horsey set’. My horse, a handsome eventer called Charles, was stabled at livery between the Polo Club and the Cheshire Hunt stables. It was a time of competitive fun. Not that my life was anything like one of the characters in ‘Riders’ you understand - as to fund my horsey adventures I would race up the M56 everyday to work - not on my horse but in my little white sports car. But at the weekends I would be either at the livery stables or at a horsey event and everyone I met would have two things in common. (1) They would be riding a horse and (2) they would be either reading Jilly Cooper’s Riders or talking about it!

That year, Riders went straight into the bestsellers chart at number one. I loved the book and so it seemed did everyone else. So it became my number one favourite book in the world and as you can see from the photo below, I have a beautiful first edition copy on my bookshelves.

Jilly’s novels are characterised by her intricate plots, multiple storylines, characters to fall in love with, dogs and horses, glamour, wealth, sex, and her clever and unsurpassable wit. And that’s just the fiction. As you will note, I’m a big Jilly Cooper fan!

 

A teary-eyed moment for me on Bagpipes & Bullshot launch day....

What is your favourite book in the whole world? Please tell me - leave a comment!

If you have a moment, please pop over to Pauline Barclay's Blog where I'm talking about life here in Scotland and how it inspires my writing!

Next Friday, I’m interviewing Lanzarote writer Pauline Barclay. Not to be missed!