It's the last day of our Indie Extravaganza! Raffle winners will be drawn on Friday 10th so if you haven't got tickets yet make sure you do - if you win one of our three prize bundles you pretty much don't have to Christmas shop...
We've had so many amazing contributors to this event but we thought that today's would be the best way to end the blog extravaganza to celebrate the anniversary of our successful Kickstarter campaign.
Unbound is basically Kickstarter for books. Things have funding targets and if you like the look of it you can back it and get rewards. It's an excellent way to buy books while also being a small part of the publishing process.
To end our Indie Extravaganza we have a special sneak peek at some of the books Unbound are publishing in November!
A thriller based on a true story of courage, complicity and murder
It’s 1974. Chicago Private Eye Harry Kaplan is on the trail of a guy who went missing in Cameroon nearly twenty years ago. The Arab oil embargo is pushing gas prices through the roof and the super powers are scrambling all over Africa again, not least Cameroon's neighbour Nigeria with its oil conveniently accessible to the West.
Harry is supposed to be investigating a family tragedy but all the early clues point to the murky world of geopolitics and people in power.
Ebolowa is based on a true story of courage, complicity and murder.
Published November 7th.
The Meal of Fortune by Philip Brady
The Meal of Fortune is part crime caper and part love story, which sees the worlds of espionage, arms dealing and TV cookery collide. Failing celebrity agent Dermot Jack thinks his luck has turned when a mysterious Russian oligarch hires him to launch his daughter’s pop career in the west. Disaffected MI5 officer Anna Preston is equally pleased to be handed the task of catching the Russian – in reality a notorious arms dealer – before he can sell a stolen nuclear warhead to the highest bidder. Dermot might just be able to help her out. So what if he’s her ex? That was years ago and she’s so over him now, isn’t she? And she never suspects that it is anything other than sheer coincidence that is about to bring them together again.
Dermot soon realises that the Russian girl isn’t exactly star material and that failure to take her to No. 1 will cost him his life, most likely at the hands of the diminutive yet deadly hitman who is acting as the her minder. Thankfully Anna is on hand with a plan that might just get him off the hook – help MI5 trap the Russian at the world’s most iconic music event and put him in prison. Crazy? Yes, but Dermot’s a bit short of other options and agrees to travel to Russia to set the trap.
With everything in place it seems all that Anna and Dermot need to do is wait. But neither the Russian girl nor the hit man are quite what they first seemed and Anna’s MI5 bosses keep moving the goalposts. Then there’s the loan shark who lent Dermot rather a lot a money and has decided its time he got it back.
The novel comes to its climax backstage at the Eurovision Song Contest, where Anna and Dermot are forced to step out of their comfort zones in ways neither could ever have imagined. Still there’s one thing they’re equally clear on. They’re absolutely not about to fall in love again.
The Meal of Fortune is named after a fictional TV cookery quiz show, which plays a small but important part in the plot. It is the first in a planned trilogy of comedy thrillers parodying society’s obsession with celebrity. The follow-up sees Dermot and Anna reunited in an attempt to foil a plot by the world’s most secretive intelligence agency (The Belgians) to bring UK economy to its knees. The final instalment, again featuring the same characters, will centre on a referendum in Wales to decide whether the country should sell itself to an international technology giant for use as a conveniently located tax haven.
Published November 14th
In an isolated house surrounded by fields and woodland, Anna sits at her kitchen table, her cramped writing fills the notebook in front of her steadily, inexorably - people die at such a rate.
Anna scans the news for reports in which the victims of war or terror are presented only as a number. Dismayed by the indifference in the news items to people who die in distant lands, she writes portraits, one for each of the victims, in an attempt to acknowledge the real impact of their deaths. Her own life is held in check, restrained by grief. It is only in this vigil, this act of love for strangers, that she allows herself an emotional connection to the world.
Her daughter Caitlin had wanted to be an engineer, to build bridges. But she was killed on the eve of her twentieth birthday by her violent boyfriend. Since her death Caitlin has been subject to a perplexing dark odyssey, pushed and pulled past stars and distant planets. Sometimes, with sweet relief she finds herself once more held by gravity, as the unpredictable journey brings her briefly back to the earth. She pieces together her story, combining what she has learnt since her death and what she knew before, until she is finally able to reclaim herself from the debilitating effects of the violence that eventually ended her life, freeing herself at last.
With the release from prison of Caitlin’s killer, Anna’s uneasy equilibrium is thrown into disarray and she falls into long-suppressed fury and mental breakdown. As Caitlin is able to free herself from the tyranny of violence, will Anna be able to unburden the debilitations of grief and live her life with love and happiness once more?
Published November 24th
Echo Hall by Virginia Moffatt
Set against the backdrop of three wars – the 1991 Gulf War, World War 2 and World War 1 – the novel follows the fortunes of three women who become involved with the Flint family, the owners of Echo Hall.
Phoebe Flint visits Echo Hall in 2014, where she follows in her mother’s footsteps to uncover the stories of a house ‘full of unhappy women, and bitter, angry men’.
Ruth Flint arrives at Echo Hall in 1990 – newlywed, pregnant, and uncertain of her relationship with her husband, Adam. Ghostly encounters, a locked door, and a set of photographs pique her curiosity. But Adam and his grandfather refuse to let her investigate. And her marriage is further strained, when Adam, a reservist, is called up to fight in the Gulf War.
In 1942, Elsie Flint is already living at Echo Hall with her children, the guest of her unsympathetic in-laws, whilst her husband Jack is away with the RAF. Her only friend is Jack’s cousin Daniel, but Daniel is hiding secrets, which when revealed could destroy their friendship for good.
Rachel and Leah Walters meet Jacob Flint at a dinner party in 1911. Whilst Leah is drawn to Jacob, Rachel rejects him leading to conflict with her sister that will reverberate through the generations.
As Ruth discovers the secrets of Echo Hall, she is able to finally bring peace to the Flint family, and in doing so, discover what she really needs and wants.
Echo Hall is a novel about the past, but it is very much a novel of the now. Does history always have to repeat itself, or can we find another way?
Published November 30th.
Announcing our final raffle prize donation... Unbound have kindly donated two five book bundles to our raffle prizes! If you haven't got tickets for the raffle yet you definitely don't want to miss out. We have three incredible prize bundles and all of the money raised goes to Give a Book!