Books

NOVELS

Elderlight 

"Elderlight", a paranormal novel by J.S.Watts - the third and final novel in the Witchlight series.

The Grand Coven of Great Britain, Ireland and All Isles Within Their Domain’s glory days are in the past, but it remains the governing body for all witches in Britain.

When members of The Coven start turning up dead, it seems as if someone is settling some old scores or launching a power-grab, or both.

It’s going to take a witch with considerable power to find the perpetrator and bring them to justice before the entire Coven is eliminated. Holly is the obvious witch for the job, but first she has to avoid joining the list of the recently deceased, or being found guilty of the growing number of murders.

"Entertaining, enjoyable fantasy perfect for a cozy night in." Amazon.co.uk 5 star review

"a sumptuous world filled with magic" Goodreads 5 star review

Elderlight by J.S.Watts (ISBN 978-1946050212) is published by Vagabondage Press in paperback and e-book formats  



You can buy "Elderlight" in paperback or digital format from the following -

Kindle - Amazon UK                 Paperback - Amazon UK

Kindle - Amazon US                 Paperback - Amazon US

Bow Books, 6 Angel Pavement, Royston, Herts, SG8 9AS

Also: Powell’s, iBooks, GooglePlay, Kobo, and Sony.



Old Light      

"Old Light", a paranormal novel by J.S.Watts - the second novel in the Witchlight series.

Holly has had a year to deal with the family-sized portion of Old Magic she has inherited. Her focus is on the future, but when both the Coven and the past come calling, the future she has imagined seems to be slipping from her grasp.

If the past is truly a different country, it turns out it is a dark and bloody one that shares a border with the present – a border that is frequently crossed.

Holly needs to right a past wrong and lay some old ghosts, without becoming one herself, if she is to come to terms with her present and claim her future.

"Author Watts doesn't disappoint with this sequel. If anything, I found it faster reading and more engrossing than the first installment."  Amazon.com 5 star review

"fun, witty and innovative and an excellent follow-up to Witchlight." Goodreads 5 star review

"Watts writes fluently and entertainingly about Holly's efforts to combine staggering supernatural powers with a completely human need for love and partnership. A very enjoyable read." Amazon.co.uk review

"A wonderfully crafted story of magical realism shot through with humour as dry as the almost sentient rustling of pages within the coven’s library. Following on from “Witchlight”, Holly gets to grips with her subtle powers while upsetting old – really old – enemies. People die, and those already dead fail to behave as their station befits. I’ve seen the comparison before, but it is valid: it’s as if the world of a famous teenage wizard grew up. Great read." Amazon.co.uk 5 star review


Old Light by J.S.Watts (ISBN 978-1946050205) is published by Vagabondage Press in paperback and e-book formats.



You can buy "Old Light" in digital or paperback format from the following-

Vagabondage Press

Bow Books, 6 Angel Pavement, Royston, Herts, SG8 9AS

Paperback –Amazon UK                                                   Paperback – Amazon US

Kindle - Amazon UK                                                         Kindle – Amazon US

Also: Powell’s, iBooks, GooglePlay, Kobo, and Sony.



Witchlight
"Witchlight", a paranormal novel by J.S.Watts - the first novel in the Witchlight series.

Holly has been mortal all her life. Now at thirty-eight, her fairy godfather arrives to tell her she’s a witch, and suddenly she's having to come to terms with the uncertainties of an alarmingly magic-fuelled world. Magic is not like it is in the books and films, and Holly starts to doubt whether her fairy godfather, Partridge Mayflower, is the fey, avuncular charmer he appears.

When appearances are magically deceptive, Holly cannot afford to trust those closest to her, including herself. Accidents start to happen, people die, Old Magic is on the hunt, but in the age-old game of cat and mouse, just who is the feline and who is the rodent?


"“Witchlight” is not a spin-off of other witch-fantasy books on the market. On the contrary, it sits squarely in its own niche and provides an enjoyable and suspenseful read with a surprising ending." Susan Roebuck, Author.

"This is paranormal at its best, what a truly well written, informative, extraordinary book... you will struggle to put this book down." Lilian's Book Blog

"if you're looking for a cast of lovely characters, an interesting plot, and the story that will reel you in right from the start, then this is it."

"Not to use a witch term, but I was enchanted by Witchlight. I was a fan of Holly from the first page" Pricilla Benton

"Watts has great descriptions that make scenes vivid and come to life." Amy, Lost in a Good Book.

"as it all comes together in an enchanting conclusion it is clear just how clever Watts has been, not just in idea but in execution."

"Witchlight is an enchanting read that will tickle the reader with its humor and adventure." San Francisco Book Review

"I was captured by the book from the first chapter... The author really knows how to write!" TMBA Corbett Tries to Write


Witchlight by J.S.Watts (ISBN 978-0692406908) is published by Vagabondage Press in paperback and e-book formats.



You can buy "Witchlight" in digital or paperback format from the following-

Selected bookstores and online from a variety of reputable outlets including:

Heffers, 20 Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TB

Sawbridge Words, 47 Bell Street, Sawbridgeworth, Herts, CM21 9AR

Bow Books, 6 Angel Pavement, Royston, Herts, SG8 9AS
              
Amazon UK

Amazon.com

Barnes and Noble

Also: Powell’s, iBooks, GooglePlay, Kobo, and Sony.



A Darker Moon
A novel by J.S.Watts - Abe Finchley is a damaged man, an orphan with no roots and no family ties. When he finally meets the woman he has been looking for all his life, he finds not just love and passion, but a dark and violent family history that spans generations into humanity’s deepest past.

Eve is the woman of his dreams; but dream is just another word for nightmare, and Abe knows all about those. Amidst a confused web of lies and secrets, Abe is trying to discover who he is and make sense of what he may become. More than just his future and his new-found love is at stake. When he discovers that he has a brother, a man bound by divine destiny to kill him, Abe is going to have to make a difficult choice. A choice that might redeem the world. A choice that just might destroy it.

A Darker Moon is a dark, psychological fantasy. A mythical tale of light and shadow and the unlit places where it is best not to shine even the dimmest light.


"An interesting spin on the Cain and Abel story"  Peace,Love, Books

"a new twist on the Adam and Cain story, but it's a fresh and interesting take ... very thought-provoking. Watts has a knack of writing just the right words that I was entranced, pages flying by, I was so immersed in the story.  So, if you're looking for a new author to try, or you like mythological fantasy, pick up A Darker Moon! It's well worth every cent!" Minding Spot

"a powerful first novel"  - review on Amazon UK

"Watts peppers her writing with exquisitely imaginative imagery, making this a wonderfully poetic novel, as well as a great read. 'A Darker Moon' is a book that will delight both hardcore fantasy fans and newcomers to the genre." Literary Ely 

"one of the best modern-day gothic mysteries you’ve ever read" J.P. Lowe

"The writing … is lush and beautiful." Harriet Goodchild for Heroines of Fantasy

"This is a seductive book... I loved the way the author dribbles in facts, draws the reader on with questions. The novel is beautifully written, at times lyrical. You're caught in this man's head, trying to come to grips with his reality. Or not. You go along for the ride as Abe puts the pieces together. He's not, I feel, a character you have to like or dislike. There's no hero here and no easy closure. It's a book which left this reader thinking for days afterwards." G. van der Rol


A Darker Moon by J.S.Watts (ISBN 978-0615706528) is published by Vagabondage Press in paperback rrp £10.00 or $14.95 and e-book formats.



You can buy "A Darker Moon" in digital or trade paperback format from the following:

Selected bookstores including


        Heffers
        20 Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TB


        Sawbridge Words
        47 Bell Street, Sawbridgeworth, Herts, CM21 9AR

and online from a variety of reputable outlets including:

Vagabondage Press 

              
Amazon UK: A Darker Moon

Also Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Powell’s, iBooks, GooglePlay, Kobo, and Sony.



POETRY

Underword

In an age where we can talk about anything, we remain reticent about death. It is an integral, complex, unavoidable part of life, the one guaranteed thing all of us will experience, but it remains our final taboo. Underword is a poetry collection that is not afraid to examine death from many angles and viewpoints. Loosely following the narrative flow of the story of Orpheus, the poems of Underword explore life, dying, death, mourning, moving on, hell and the afterlife, hope, disintegration and despair, and endings. Death is as limitless and as limiting as life. Its stories are many.

"Watts' poems are dextrous and engaging, bering the reader along with the narrative skills she has honed in her other life as a novelist" - Acumen (Issue 106)

"Every facet of death is faced boldly, bluntly, and with beautiful rhythm and resonance... many of her poems remind me of Ted Hughes, in their visceral, vulnerable fragility" - The Journal (Issue 69)

Underword by J.S.Watts (ISBN 9781739164218) is published by Lapwing Publications, rrp £10.00



You can buy "Underword" from the following:

Selected bookstores and online from reputable outlets including:

Lapwing Publications (paperback and pdf editions)

Amazon UK (paperback edition)

Bow Books, 6 Angel Pavement, Royston, Herts, SG8 9AS

FROM THIS WEBSITE  paperback edition at a cost of £10.00 plus p&p (see below) or, if you want to pay by cheque, email the author at j.s.watts(at)btinternet(dot)com

 




The Submerged Sea

The Earth is the only known planet with seas of liquid water across its surface. It contains more water than land (approximately 71% of the planet is covered in water). Britain is an island surrounded by sea. There is every chance that humanity’s primitive ancestors first crawled out of the sea to become land dwellers. Over half of each one of us is water.

The sea birthed us, feeds us, entertains us, gives us our climate and geography. It may, some day, rise and kill us. And yet, mostly, we take it for granted.

The Submerged Sea is a metaphysical dip into the sea in all its incarnations: the real sea, the imagined sea, the sea as metaphor, the historical, the political, the ecological and the personal sea - the sea within us all.

"This is a wonderfully-atmospheric poem built on the contrast between the night-time British sea and the daytime “changeable creature of moods and tantrums”. The fragmentary approach of the poem is intuited by the title reference to “notes” which via a collection of observations, descriptions and comparisons allows the reader to share the poet’s marvelling and eventual questioning of the subject."  - Roger Elkin on Night Notes on Sea (British Coast), now published in The Submerged Sea.

"Vivid, Descriptive, Evocative." Tabitha Vohn

"This is sensitive poetry of alliteration, of parallelism, and of mood... The liquidity of water in these poems is the flow of refrain, song, sleep, dream, moon-pull, life and finally submergence. The sea makes us think, forces us to contemplate time, or the flow of life, ... As she demonstrated in ‘Years Ago You Coloured Me’, Watts has an ability to take you from the physical world into other realms and bring you back again." - review excerpt

"The Submerged Sea is a small but satisfying collection" - Ellen Roberts Young (Goodreads)

"Her ocean-themed words carry a deluge of satisfying alliterative cadence, rich, intimate emotion and images" - Richard Sutton (Amazon)

"The Submerged Sea is a sublime little collection of poetry and I will go back now and then to dip my toes into it's waters." - Goodreads

"seems a far bigger book than its 30 pages: a watery, many-faceted jewel of a collection." - The Journal

" “The Submerged Sea” may be slender but the poems explore multi-facets of the sea with a strong sense of rhythm and sound patterns. The collection asks readers to look again at the familiar in a different light and question assumptions without repeating an idea. Its slenderness becomes a strength and a selling point." - Emma Lee

"tight, well-written poetry: not a word is wasted, yet every poem is thoughtful and descriptive" - Poetry Plus

The Submerged Sea by J.S.Watts (ISBN 9781907435591) is published by Dempsey & Windle, rrp £6.00.


You can buy "The Submerged Sea" from the following:

Selected bookstores and online from reputable outlets including:

Dempsey & Windle

Amazon UK The Submerged Sea

Waterstones

Foyles Bookstore

Bow Books, 6 Angel Pavement, Royston, Herts, SG8 9AS



Years Ago You Coloured Me

Years Ago You Coloured Me, is a poetry collection echoing with things, times, places and people lost and not quite lost, as well as those never lost while memory lingers. These are poems of influence and resonance, both past and current, capturing personal and broader histories, and the shadows that sometimes follow. What is history, after all, if not selective, recorded memories? The past tells stories as we choose to recall them. The personal is there, plus the wider matters that shaped it. We have only to remember to remember. That is an art.

Included amongst the poems in the collection are: Bonedancing, which was shortlisted for the 2008 Wells Literary Festival International Poetry Competition; Green Rushes, nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize and View From Sheep Field Barn, Much Hadham, which won third prize in the Yeovil Literary Prize for Poetry 2015.

BOOK OF THE MONTH (May 2016) - The Poetry Kit

"This is a grand collection. The poems are multilayered, thought provoking and emotive" - Goodreads Review

"The collection includes ... the outstanding poem View from Sheep Barn, Much Hadham" -  Goodreads Review

"well-worked metaphors, lines lovingly crafted... Withal a poet of sounds and colours offering at times a forensic examination of memory, of motives for writing, the trustworthiness of impressionistic recall... undercut by the surprise of memories unbidden. So accessible it's small wonder her single poems have won prizes. She is so very quotable" - The Journal

"The range is remarkable. Watts finds space for the metaphysical, the ekphrastic, eulogy and even an encomium to soup... What is most enjoyable is her voice and imagination — black words on a white page that take you gently off into other, colourful, places." - Orbis

Years Ago You Coloured Me by J.S.Watts (ISBN 9781910855157) is published by Lapwing Publications, rrp £10.00.




You can buy "Years Ago You Coloured Me" from the following:

Selected bookstores and online from reputable outlets including:

Heffers, 20 Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TB

Sawbridge Words, 47 Bell Street, Sawbridgeworth, Herts, CM21 9AR

Bow Books, 6 Angel Pavement, Royston, Herts, SG8 9AS

Lapwing Publications

Amazon UK: Years Ago You Coloured Me

FROM THIS WEBSITE  at a cost of £10.00 plus p&p (see below) or, if you want to pay by cheque, email the author at j.s.watts(at)btinternet(dot)com








Songs of Steelyard Sue

A pamphlet-sized poetry sequence by J.S.Watts, "Songs of Steelyard Sue", is published by Lapwing Publications. The poems narrate the life and times of a future-world everyman, or, more accurately, everyfemale-mechanoid, the titular Steelyard Sue, eking out her existence on an Earth turned rubbish heap.
                                                  "Lays of raw creation
                                                   Tales of bright decay."

BOOK OF THE MONTH (September 2012) - Luton Poetry Society

NOMINATED for the SFPA 2013 "Elgin Award" for best SF poetry chapbook

SHORT LISTED for the Saboteur Awards 2013 for best poetry pamphlet

"Steelyard Sue Builds a Baby" from Songs of Steelyard Sue is the WINNER of the 8th Annual Data Dump Awards for SF poems published in Britain in 2012


"surreal and funny poems" somesuchlike blog

"Steelyard Sue movingly attempts to establish and express identity and personality... fascinating" - Data Dump

"Songs Of Steelyard Sue is a glimpse of a fascinating and unusual character. I’m just sad that it was over so quickly. " - Neon

"Funny and sad, these poems are a real achievement" - Handshake

"There’s nothing mechanical about J. S. Watts' poetry. It has heart and soul, and it sings" - Science Fiction Poetry Association

"poetic parables filled with pathos and wit... the verve and imagination of Watts’s Songs make this pamphlet unique." Cameron Brady-Turner for Sabotage Reviews

Songs of Steelyard Sue by J.S.Watts (ISBN 9781909252028) is published by Lapwing Publications, rrp £10.00.


You can buy "Songs of Steelyard Sue" from the following:

Selected bookstores:

                 Eric T. Moore Books
                 24 Bridge Street, Hitchin, Herts, SG5 2DF.

                 Cambridge Poetry Stall
                 Thursdays, 10.00am - 4.00pm in Cambridge Market

                 Heffers
                 20 Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TB

                 Sawbridge Words
                 47 Bell Street, Sawbridgeworth, Herts, CM21 9AR.


Lapwing Publications

Amazon UK: Songs of Steelyard Sue

Amazon.Com

UK Bookworld

Waterstones

FROM THIS WEBSITE  at a cost of £10.00 incl. p&p (see below) or, if you want to pay by cheque, email the author at j.s.watts(at)btinternet(dot)com

                                                       






Cats and Other Myths

J.S.Watts' debut poetry collection, "Cats and Other Myths", is published by Lapwing Publications. It is a collection that finds contemporary relevance in the echoes of myth and legend and the mythic in the day to day world around us. Given truths are questioned and examined and if this means that dearly held beliefs are seen as the fairy tales they are, then so be it. These are poems of history and humanity, love and relationships, life and death and the things in between. Oh, and yes, there are also cats.

BOOK OF THE MONTH (May 2011) - The Poetry Kit

BOOK OF THE MONTH (June 2012) - Luton Poetry Society

'Two Dragons Dancing', from Cats and Other Myths, was chosen as June 2011 Poem of the Month by both Lapwing Publications and Adam Rudden (Modern Irish Poetry).


A "beautiful collection......I want to describe the poems in Cats and Other Myths as wonderful, but 'Full of Wonder' is a more accurate description of Watts’ poems - each poem in the book has a playful side but then hits the reader hard with blunt truths we battle with in everyday life, a magnificent collection, a must read." Fatima Al Matar


"Watts has a wonderful ability to evoke both ferocity and tenderness at the same time... a book packed with dense, cleverly thought-out poems...richly alive." Christopher Frost - NEON.


"JS Watts writes beautifully. This is a special book" - review from Amazon


"A wonderful collection, with poems of great beauty and power" - another Amazon review


"...expertly crafted poems on life and death, history and humanity" - Oxford Today



"a thoroughly enjoyable read" - Under The Fable


Cats and Other Myths by J.S.Watts (ISBN 9781907276644) is published by Lapwing Publications, rrp £10.00.


You can buy "Cats and Other Myths" from the following:

Selected boookstores:

        G. David
        16 St. Edward's Passage, Cambridge, CB2 3PJ.

        Heffers
        20 Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TB.

        Eric T. Moore Books
        24 Bridge Street, Hitchin, Herts, SG5 2DF.

        Topping & Company
        9 High Street, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4LJ.

        Sawbridge Words
        47 Bell Street, Sawbridgeworth, Herts, CM21 9AR.

Lapwing Publications

Google Books

Amazon UK  Cats and Other Myths

UK Book World

Waterstones

FROM THIS WEBSITE  at a cost of £10.00 plus p&p (see below) or, if you want to pay by cheque, email the author at j.s.watts(at)btinternet(dot)com