HOW CAN YOU FLY IF YOU ARE BLIND?

From my kids’ book LittleTown (available as a Kindle eBook for only 99 cents and as a printed book on Amazon):

HOW CAN YOU FLY IF YOU ARE BLIND?

It was only when you looked at little Vola's face that you saw the difference. 

The other flying squirrels had large bright dark eyes that hinted at fun and laughter and love. 

There was no light in Vola's eyes: they were scarred and lifeless.  
She had just been born when a bright flash of lightning had sizzled through the sky and hit the tree in which little Vola and her mother lay sleeping.

The lightning bolt had exploded among the branches with a terrible crack, setting them alight from top to bottom.

Vola's mother had run from the flames, trying to find a place where the flames did not burn. 

But there was none.
 

Out into space Vola's mother glided

The hot flames licked at her furry coat, setting it on fire. She knew there was only one thing to do to save the little daughter clinging to her back.

She had to jump, even though her fur was now burning.

So little Vola's mother had thrown herself off the top of the tall tree. 

Out into space she had glided, a little trail of smoke following her as she swooped down towards the ground and to safety.

But it was too much for her small body. 

The pain of the fire was too much for her small heart, and ten feet above the ground life had fled away from Vola's mother, up into the sky, and she had fallen.

Her little daughter had fallen with her, tiny hands holding onto fur until they had struck the ground.

Vola had bounced away from her mother's body and rolled over and over onto the hard rocks. 

Her eyes struck a small rock, and from that day on the little flying squirrel had never seen the world in which she lived.

 She walked in the darkness of blindness through the forests and woods, knowing the world by smell and touch but not by sight.

Going on vacation to Europe? How to add zest with an obelisk hunt

Ever since we wrote Obelisk Seven, we have been surprised by the number of people who have raved about their first encounters with an obelisk while holidaying in Europe.

We tell them of our first encounters with these ancient pillars of red granite, and they tell us of the ones they've seen, and the ones they've missed.

Our website and blogs just for you!

When we finished our thriller, and started our quest for a publisher (check our Obelisk Seven website for more details), we also started a blog to use some of the material we had but which did not fit into the 84,000 novel.

Our novel started with an interesting tour guide from Trafalgar Tours. He was a Dutchman who left the pursuit of law to become a tour guide of major European cities. He and his wife enjoyed travelling, and he was an artist as well: whenever he had some time off from guiding tourists through London or Paris or Rome or Venice or other cities, he would sneak off and sketch street scenes and buildings.

Nefertiti - Take her a rose in Berlin

And did he know a lot about the history of these old cities, and the buildings and statues in them! He was fascinated by the past, both the politics and the people, and able to convey to us interesting snippets which made our visits to the tour sites so much more intriguing.