Blog: Guard Dog!!

Guard Dog!! I would bet the vision that has come to mind is an Alsatian, a Doberman or something similar snarling and showing its teeth whilst straining at a chain daring an intruder to go near it. Let me introduce Meg, a darling little black and white little lady about the size of a Jack Russell, our Guard Dog! I would not say she is lazy but she does things very differently, not for her snarling and running up and down – no she sits on the settee and studies the CCTV monitors, and if anyone comes in sight then she barks even before they have got to the door bell.

Democracy

I see there is another Top of the Bill Show on in London, this time held at the Law Courts, mind you it is only on for four days, with a sequel in January. I understand if you can get in to see the activities there is no charge although you may be frisked for any concealed weapons. The eleven stars of the show are well paid in any case by you and me, they are there on some charade pretending they are part of a democracy which most people are starting to doubt exists. What is the point of having a General Election and giving Parliament the power to run the country, followed by a referendum which Members of the Government had agreed it would implement the result, when that can be ignored and overturned by a group of unelected ‘Judges’ who have been given power by an equally unelected Quango? To me it all seems a lot like jobs for the boys and girls and any excuse to sit in judgement. It should never have happened especially as it is at our expense.

Get my Books on SmashWords

Great News! You can now download my books via SmashWords in various formats… more of my books are coming soon. And even better they promise to distribute them in other popular e-book formats and release to other popular on-line books stores such as iBooks! Here’s the link to the Percy Chattey Books SmashWords page.

Spanish Holiday Rental

It is said in this part of Spain we average 36 days of rain each year, well it stopped this morning so I guess we have had our quota for the last twelve months and our Spanish Holiday Villa “Casa FuenteLargo” is looking fine again in the sun.  (You and your family can hire this tranquil Spanish hideaway at http://www.fuentelargo.com).We are continuing making improvements to the property and it is the turn of the upstairs bedrooms, as this week we are installing tea/coffee making facilities so guests will not have the long trek to the kitchen in the morning.

Don’t forget to send your short stories to percybooks @ outlook.com we will acknowledge receipt.

My Book Covers!

Book covers are quite important to attract attention. Afterall book publishers and authors employ expensive designers and marketeers to create a book cover that has impact, style and speaks to the prospective reader. With so many books for sale, its cover design might be the difference between it being noticed and considered or left on the shelf.

So we must judge a book by its cover right? Of course the cover does not guarantee the quality of the contents or a great story but it helps us see the genre or gist of the plot. Here’s a preview of my book covers. (click to enlarge)

But what makes a good book cover? And if book covers were all a plain colour, would it it be harder or easier to pick a book to read? We might instead look for book reviews or read the synopsis on the back cover. We might ask friends for recommendations. We might be led by what the retailer pushes to the front. There’s a good article about book design on the Creative Indie website.

My initial book covers were done in Word or  Powerpoint and I hadn’t a clue how to design book covers or use graphic software. Thankfully I found a good web designer and graphics company “Digital Idiom” to help me out. Once I have a book plot I am already thinking of the cover design. I meet the designer and we discuss and identify the colour, feel and possible graphics for the covers. He takes the ideas and dies the magic! Just about every time he has got it spot on, just how I imagined it to be.

Linda Irene Piper says: I have read all your books Percy Chattey and they are a brilliant read. Looking forward to reading your new one x

Dawn Northrop says: Thank you Percy. I just finished Watchit ! There’s love about. A great read looking forward to next one. xx

BOOK AWARDS SO FAR…
Pinnacle Award 2014 Best Historical Thriller “Death For A Starter”
Pinnacle Award 2013 Best Autobiography “Blitz and Pieces”
Pinnacle Award 2013 Summer Best Thriller “Politically Incorrect”
Pinnacle Award 2013 Fall Best Thriller “The Black Venus”
> BUY HERE: http://amzn.to/1cIm8YS

 

Short Stories Required

We are searching for short stories.

‘Percy Chattey Books Publishing’ is looking for short stories to be published in book form. We are interested in short writings of about 500 to 1000 words they can be humorous, serious, fact, fiction or verse.

We will publish your work* in book form possibly by next spring acknowledging the person who wrote it. We cannot enter into discussion on any work and we reserve the right to alter and edit submissions.

CONTACT US NOW: In the first instance please email a copy of your short story to percybooks @ outlook.com or by real mail to Percy Chattey, Apartado de Correos 89, Aspe, 03680, Alicante. You should include name, address, and telephone number and your email address.

Thank you. http://www.percychatteybooks.com

*IMPORTANT: The work must be personal to yourself, original and certainly not copied, adapted from elsewhere or copyrighted to another. And they cannot to be detrimental to persons or organisations either directly or by implication.

The Digital Age & Smashwords

I do not know how others feel but my lovely wife Jean, and I are traditional type of people, we like mature items tested by time.

For instance one of these new modern fitted kitchens with shiny surfaces with clashing colours everywhere would make me feel ill to work in. I much prefer the old oak kitchen doors they look more natural. Or to see a traditional train chugging along a railway line blowing smoke and steam is exciting, one does not get the same thrill watching a large ugly diesel engine pulling carriages.

The cars of long ago, the E type Jaguar or the Triumph and MG sports cars looked like cars, all independently designed and built with care. Nothing like the present day versions, which are more like space craft with no thought to how they individually look as they are all similar, with no character.

Books, when you first receive one and admire the work that has gone in to it, to create it, and you are privileged to open the cover for the first time with that beautiful musty smell, the feel of the crisp paper of the pages as one glances through it – no, no never the last page.

All that is to announce we are slowly coming into the real world, well at least ‘Percy Chattey Books Publishing’ is, as it is going digital. All my work, that is eight novels is being downloaded on to ‘Smashwords’ and when that is complete we will then add all of them to ‘E Books.’

There will be no compromise with the story lines and Percy Chattey Books will still be available through Amazon, if you prefer to have a real book. As it is a lot of translating to be done, nearly a million words and of course the stunning covers, it will take some time and we are aiming for the third week in November for the transition to be complete. Happy and enjoyable reading. www.percychatteybooks.com

A Common’s Mistake

Book: A Common’s Mistake

• Pages: 294
• Publisher: Percy Chattey Books (1 July 2016)
• Language: English
• ISBN ISBN-10: 0995489017 / ISBN-13: 978-0995489011
• Book Dimensions: 13.3 x 1.7 x 20.3 cm

“A great read with a stunning end.” : Declan Murphy, Northampton

This novel depicts a political assassination plot along with a romantic web of betrayal. “A Common’s Mistake” by Percy Chattey follows a British businessman as he attempts to salvage his empire from a socialist regime but at the cost of his family’s happiness.

This book is a web of intrigue that begins with a jaded British businessman’s fight against a socialist government who are proposing legislation that would destroy his life style and forces him to take extreme measures to do what he believes is right.

“Very good… what a surprising end!” : Richard de St Croix, Spain

When Colin Sheer-Wood is faced with ruin at the hands of a small political party with a tiny majority in parliament, he refuses to go down without a fight. Sheer-Wood hires assassins to kill members of parliament so the administration no longer has a majority. He fails to realize that one of the three people on his hit list is his daughter’s fiancé, begging the question – will saving his business empire tear apart his family?

Genre: Thriller.
» BUY “A COMMON’S MISTAKE” NOW!

Risking life and limb

Calais, the exciting gateway to France…  Well at least it used to be the fun start to a holiday, that has all changed, with mega delays because it has become a battlefield of striking workers delaying the crossing facilities, also thousands of immigrants trying to get through the Channel Tunnel. As I remember, before it was built, some groups who opposed it said that’s exactly what would happen.

What I really do not understand is that we sent a warship to the Mediterranean or maybe it was already there, however it must have been very costly, a figure with loads of zeros after it. This ship saves boatloads of immigrants trying to escape from some horror in Africa, and transports them to the Southern coast of Europe. These people are not content in staying where they have arrived and they make their way through Italy, France or wherever, and arrive at Calais. Although we rescued them in the first instance, now we don’t want anything to do with them, and try to stop them from crossing the Channel, again another costly exercise.

Ah! Now the best bit. Those people that make the crossing risking life and limb to do so are awarded as if it had been some gigantic race – housing, money, medical attention, benefit and more benefit which is recorded to be worth twenty six grand a year. Instead of going through this farce why didn’t the Royal Navy deliver them to Southampton in the first place? This money lavished on this illegal mob, and that is what they are – is sickening as it discriminates giving complete strangers a comfort they have never known and depriving our own people into squalor because they have grown old and their pension does not cope.

In my latest novel ‘The Main Course’ if I was to put a situation similar in the story, I would be ridiculed and it would be described as a load of nonsense. So I will keep to the setting at the end of the eighteenth century, which in themselves were exciting times. Hopefully it will be ready to put in your loved ones Christmas stocking. If you agree with my sentiments then please share. For all my other writings go to www.percychatteybooks.com or Amazon and most book shops

Wartime Memoirs 2015 Ed.

“Blitz and Pieces”: The true story of how a 6 year old survived the London Blitz

NOW IN HARDBACK, PAPERBACK or eBOOK! An autobiography: Percy Chattey (London born and bred) writes his true story about growing up in the East End of London during the horror of the Second World War as a child.

ISBN-10: 1499189141 / ISBN-13: 978-1499189148 A NEW THRILLER BOOK
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Percy W Chattey

» BUY “BLITZ AND PIECES” ONLINE!

Percy writes how he lived through months of nightly bombings, sleeping in cold damp shelters and how school was neglected for the war effort.

In the Air Raid Shelter made of steel, they were holding each other tightly, listening to the constant noise of the night raiders as they pounded the city with their bombs. They could also hear the gun fire from the local ‘Ack Ack’ station; men with guns trying to repel the enemy bombers who were coming over in waves. There was a whistle as a bomb fell from the sky and then another a little nearer, followed by two more, each one louder. The explosions as they hit the ground rocked the shelter. The last in the line screeched as it hurtled downwards was louder than the others. They prayed holding each other tightly knowing the last one was very near. Suddenly the noise of the explosion drowned even their screams, the shelter shuddered, the concrete base splitting like a piece of paper as their steel cover was blown on to its side.

The story continues with Percy’s struggle to find work as a war teen, joining the forces, starting, building & losing a successful business to finding the love of his life.

But then reality hits hard…

AN EXCERPT:

In between times, the ‘pom poms’ would be going off in fast sequence. It was a gun that could fire shells in quick succession, one of which would be a tracer. A tracer is like the lighted tail of a rocket firework going high into the air showing the gunners where their aim was.

The search lights would be piercing the night sky looking for the enemy, when one was found the tracers would search it out so that the shells following would make a hit.

Through all this we lay in the shelter very quietly, no one saying a word, just listening to the thundering noise, hoping Dad was alright, wondering and wishing it would soon stop.

But the months were to roll by and the German planes were intent on doing as much damage as they could. For 76 consecutive nights, I have since read, they continued their bombardment night after night.

Each morning after the beautiful sound of the single note of the siren giving the ‘all clear’, we would leave the safety of the Anderson. The enemy rarely came during the daylight hours. Scattered around the garden and in the street would be pieces of shrapnel that had dropped out of the sky, the remains of the shells that had been fired from our guns, sometimes a piece of aircraft amongst them.

In the woods to our right I could see lots of lanterns moving about and the more I looked the more there were. I caught up with the other lad and pointed them out to him, my heart racing thinking that we were being attacked by hordes of Mau Mau all carrying lanterns. He didn’t actually laugh at me but called me a silly something or other as the lanterns were nothing more than fire flies.

On another occasion, as I remember it was in the same area as the bridge, we came across a destroyed farmhouse, it had been trashed by the terrorists, the dead still lying where they had been killed. There was nothing we could do except advise the Kenya Police.

Genre: War Stories, London History, World War II, Autobiography.

» BUY “BLITZ AND PIECES” ONLINE!

[Oxford Dictionary] Definition of autobiography : An account of a person’s life written by that person. He/She gives a vivid description of his/her childhood in his autobiography. Autobiographies are considered a literary genre, a curious mixture of biography and fantasy.

BOOK TAGS: World War II. London Blitz 75th Anniversary. London bombs and air raids, survival, war time story, ARP and German bombings. Percy W Chattey’s Autobiography Book 2015. You can buy war time books online.

Percy Chattey has also written many exciting and award winning thriller books.

2015! Looks like a good year ahead

Well 2014 finished on a high with:
1) the Launch of my latest Thriller “WatchIt Too!” (available through Amazon and Kindle)
2) My FOURTH Pinnacle Book Award for “Death for a Starter”
3) And of course the EXCITING NEWS that “Blitz and Pieces” my wartime memoirs and autobiography is to be published in hardback this year. The same publishing company are also looking over my thrillers with a view to other publishing deals. HAPPY MAN I AM !!

I’ll keep you posted on events of course (via the website, FaceBook, Twitter and this blog). I am also about 10,000 words into my next novel, again a thriller and I have a working title to be revealed soon. So all in all a great 2014 and already looking promising for 2015.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone!
Keep healthy, keep smiling and share your joy! :-)