Birmingham Writers’ Group

Birmingham Writer’s Group is thrilled that our very own Rachel McCollin, AKA author Rachel McLean, has been shortlisted for the 2021 Kindle Storyteller Award!

There were a record number of submissions for the award, now running for its fifth year. Clare Balding will help select the winner who will receive a £20,000 cash prize, a dedicated marketing campaign on Amazon.co.uk, a golden Kindle and more.

Congratulations Rachel, and good luck!

The Corfe Castle Murders by Rachel McLean

Rachel is a crime, thriller and mystery writer from Birmingham whose first experience with storytelling started in 2003. Since then, Rachel took a much-needed break to raise her two boys before returning to her deep-rooted passion in 2010. After self-publishing her first book in 2017 Rachel has seen success and continued writing several crime, thriller, and mystery stories. Now, her shortlisted novel, The Corfe Castle Murders and first book in her Dorset Crime series follows DCI Lesley Clarke a straight-talking city copper as she investigates a murder at one of England’s most iconic landmarks.

In Human 76 fourteen authors take you on an unprecedented post-apocalyptic journey – the saga of Ghabrie, the girl and the myth, and her determination to find her sister and to make them a future in a fractured world. All proceeds from the book will be donated to the charity Water Is Life, who provide clean drinking water, sanitation and hygiene education programs to schools and villages in desperate need worldwide.

Breadcrumbs is the debut short story collection by author Simon Fairbanks.

Horror, fantasy and fairy tales merge in these twenty-one tales traversing all manner of times and worlds: twins escape their kidnapper and seek refuge in a mysterious cave, a homeless crusader hopes to save his friends from the fiendish Bogeyman, a life-changing encounter occurs in a Sri Lankan tuc-tuc, and a lonely girl discovers a monster in the woods.

Breadcrumbs also features a new adventure starring Denebola and his sky-horse Palladium, set within the world of Simon’s fantasy novel The Sheriff.

Follow this trail of Breadcrumbs into Simon’s imagination and discover stories both dark and wonderful.

Cutthroats and Curses is a rousing collection of eleven wind-powered, piratical short stories from eleven different authors.

“Here we have, not only mongrel pirates of the Spanish main, but steampunk pirates of the air, dimension hopping pirates in time, demon-fighting fantasy pirates, and even one pirate whose rash decision leads him into the paths of classic gothic horror… The collection is capped, fore and aft, by the joyful irreverence of editor Michael Wombat’s own Mr Crow and wrapped up, once more, in glorious cover art from Kit Cooper.”

Nelson Mandela called for forgiveness and reconciliation. When your heart is at stake, that’s hard to do…

Growing up in South Africa in the 1950s, Betty Baker’s whole childhood has been shaped by the tyranny of the Apartheid Laws. As the daughter of native farm-labourers, her future is already mapped out for her. Betty’s dreams are larger than Burgersdorp. Each of the sixteen laws brings hate, hardship, exile and murder, but Betty’s passion and ambition drives her on. Her first love affair brings tragedy, and later, a choice: will she let the events of her past determine her future? Will she seek love – or fall for revenge?

When their Martian airship is shot down by anti-colonial terrorists, Professor Sedgewick and his companion, Cadwallander, are faced with dangers on all side. Not only do they have to contend with the Indian freedom fighter, Mina Saxena, but are confronted with an ancient mystery far more insidious and deadly than the gun-toting Miss Saxena. For, beneath the desert sands of Mars, lies the court of the great god Aiwass in which his human disciples have gathered to usher in an age of horrors…

The second novelette chapbook in the Sedgewick Papers collection, The Pearl of Tharsis is a gleaming combination of planetary romance, cosmic horror and Victorian steampunk adventure.

Sheriff Denebola is recruited by young Toby to help rid his village of a winged demon. The demon has tormented the people of Angel’s Keep every night for the past week so Denebola vows to capture the creature. However, the demon is not the only shadow cast over Angel’s Keep and Denebola soon finds himself caught up in a mystery where angels, demons, heroes and villains are not all that they seem.

Curious about the day that Saint Christopher found out he’d been declared non-existent by the pope? What exactly is a cat in Hell’s chance? How would an annual Christmas present exchange between Heaven and Hell work out? Find out the answers to these and other pressing questions in this collection of short stories from the world of Clovenhoof.

This contains the stories Clovenhoof’s Shed and Clovenhoof Goes To Night School, which were previously published individually, but there are eight other stories included here featuring favourite characters from Heaven and Hell.

Contains:

• Clovenhoof goes to Night School.
• Patron Saint of Nothing At All.
• Clovenhoof and the Snowmen.
• Saint Nicholas and the Krampus.
• Detritus at the Church Fete.
• Clovenhoof and the Spiders.
• A Cat in Hell’s Chance.
• The Non-Specific Prayer Assessment Unit.
• The Hoof.
• Clovenhoof’s Shed.

Parallel dimensions are actually quite squiggly in nature.

This is one of many lessons which Carlos Ernesto Amadeus von Schnaart will learn during his accidental journey into the unknown. Finding the way home and explaining his tequila fuelled disappearance to his fiancee will become minor worries when he he finds himself kidnapped by the evil scientist Dr Funk. Follow Carlos’s adventures through the parallel universe and find out what happens to him when he gets lost “In That Other Dimension…”

Warning: Contains traces of ducks, cake dragons, jelly babies and the infamous Unicorn Mountain. May induce laughter.

“Matty Millard has a way of making you feel you’re sitting there with him as you read: he’s telling you a story but he’s also beside you, pointing out bits, telling you extra things, it’s like having the writer with you and making you smile.” – William Gallagher

Find the Lady is an investigation of the girl previously introduced as Kathryn Blake. Where does she come from and… where does she belong? To her potential employer, collecting statements about this troublesome asset, one thing is clear: this lady is never the lady you expect her to be, she is the pea under the thimble, the grinning queen who was never in the pack.

“That such a large number of voices never become confused is tribute enough to Brightsmith as an author, but add to that the intrigue, the wit and the exquisitely turned words…”