I have written a novel, and it’s available as an e-book on Amazon, here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pale-glint-Sun- ... skept01-21

At the time of the novel the first colony on Mars is a few years old, and our heroine, Selena, has just separated from her husband, making her Mars’s first single mother: she has a four-year-old daughter who was born on Mars.

Everyone in the colony is employed by the “Agency”, a supranational body whose task is to develop an economically viable, permanent settlement on Mars. Most of them, therefore, are geologists, chemists, engineers, technicians etc. Selena is an astrophysicist, and her specialism is not needed on Mars, and the primary justification for her presence in the colony was therefore as a wife and a potential mother. Now that she is single, she is desperately worried that the Agency will send her back to Earth and force her to leave her child behind for ever. And so the story unfolds…

So it’s technically science-fiction, but is mainly about relationships and girly stuff like that.

I was worried that there might be too much science, but a friend who has read the book thinks this is not the case.

Also apparently the sex is quite good…

Amazon will let me do what they call a “free book promotion” for a few days at a time. If there is interest, I’d be delighted to do one of those and announce it here beforehand.

Colour me interested.

If I only owned a Kindle...

It works on an ipad and other devices too. I don't use a Kindle myself.

I'm one of those "other devices" people. I'm still interested, just now able to do something about it.

That's awesome! Congratulations!

I just bought it!

Excellent, Sendraks! and even excellenter, Nameless!

I have had the privilege of reading this work already: it's truly original and it's superb. Well done to a very talented author!

Interesting premise! I don't mind paying a bit for an ebook.

If you'd like I could help you with the cover. Maybe I could wip up something spacey (and despressing?).

Scar, you have put your finger on the most embarrassing aspect of the book! Indeed, a decent cover would be wonderful.

If you PM me your email address, I'll email you back.

Thank you for your kind words, Blip!

Blip wrote:I have had the privilege of reading this work already: it's truly original and it's superb. Well done to a very talented author!

Good enough for me, now bought.

I just need to figure out how to get it onto my Nook in time for a long flight soon!

I've arranged for a "free book promotion" to run from Friday 10th to Tuesday 14th April, presumably starting and finishing at midnight UK time: i.e. the book can be downloaded free of charge during that period.

Looking forward to some feedback, if anyone feels like commenting.

I'll pay to give it a whirl. I'd ordered "Bone Clocks", but I'll put that back one.

I never knew, Ev. Well done.


Bought it, obviously. Looking forward to reading it.

Roll up, roll up! Get your free Pale glints of the Sun here!

I'm glad to see that about forty people have downloaded this since the thread started, mainly on Friday and Saturday when the promotion began. It's on until Tuesday and I'd love to see some more people taking advantage of it before it expires.

A special thanks to those who didn't want to wait and paid the list price!

I'll grab it when the promo's ended. I don't actually read fiction any more, but how can I say no? And I know what work is involved in writing a book, not having finished mine (yet)*, so I'll pay for it.

Actually wrote 9,000 words today, and starting to make headway.

Congratulations Evolving, I think you deserve a big round of applause for writing a book. Well done you!

Very nice.

Congratulations, I wish you all the success in the world.

Very enjoyable read. Given your science background, this was obviously going to be written as a serious take on what it would be like to have a martial colony. I can't count the ways that premise would be screwed up by other writers.

But it's a totally human story. You use Selena's extreme circumstances to raise issues that are completely close to home and easy to identify with. She's a strong character, even if it might be that, on reflection, she's destructively insecure. (big question mark there --- I'm pretty crap at interpreting this stuff )

I have to admit that I identified a lot with Beate when she was happy to let Selena go off on a tangent from the counselling session and explain science.