I’m pleased to be joined by Amanda Fleet today who is sharing #TenThings she’d like her readers to know about herself including her musical talent and her fondness for ‘snail mail’. Her novel , Aegyir Rises, was published last month and you can order a copy here. My thanks to Kelly at Love Books Tours for inviting me to take part in the tour.
I only learned to knit in the last year, but now I really enjoy making things.
I can play the violin, and in my youth, could play Spring from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Sadly, my joints are stiffer now, and won’t work fast enough to be able to manage things like that, but I do still play – mostly Scottish tunes these days.
I am currently binge-watching every episode of Farscape. I still love that programme. Best sci-fi ever made.
My next book will be set five years after the end of The Guardians of The Realm trilogy and will feature most of the same characters.
I helped to set up a Malawian charity – Chimwemwe Children’s Centre – which works with homeless children, and children in poverty, to ensure they can get an education. The charity has been running for 10 years now.
The first book I had published – “The Wrong Kind of Clouds” – was the third book I’d written. Books 1 and 2 are still in the laptop, awaiting a professional edit and their time in the sun.
I once gave a lecture to the third-year medical students at St Andrews University, dressed as Mel Gibson’s Braveheart – complete with kilt (husband’s), blue face paint, and plastic sword. It was for charity, and the students donated >£200 to see me give the lecture dressed like that. The most embarrassing thing was having to walk from my office (third floor), down to the ground floor, in full attire. All the students were also in fancy-dress. I don’t think I can tell you what one of them was dressed as! It was very anatomical. Let’s leave it at that!
I write proper letters to friends in four different countries – handwritten, with fountain pen and on beautiful paper. I love “snail-mail”.
On the windowsill at the back of my desk, I have a plastic skeleton (1/5 size). I also have two plastic artists’ models of people – one male; one female (1/12 size). The skeleton comes with me when I give talks or do events.
I found out at 44 years-old that I have a hole in my heart. It was only diagnosed during cardiac surgery, when it was spotted by the surgeon.
From the back of the book
Reagan Bennett has always felt like an outsider. Left at the doors of a hospital at birth, her relationship with her adopted family hasn’t been easy. Especially when one of them almost killed her. Now he’s due to be released from prison and Reagan’s settled world is about to be turned upside-down. But not by him.
Something else – something much older, much darker – is also about to be freed. Something that believes Reagan is an arch enemy, and is obsessed with destroying her.
All of her life, Reagan has dreamed of living in another place – The Realm. Can these dreams really be memories? If so, who is Reagan Bennett?
Reagan needs to figure out who her enemy is, before they slaughter everyone she loves. And to do that, she needs to figure out who she really is.
About the Author
Amanda Fleet is a physiologist by training and a writer at heart. She spent 18 years teaching science and medicine undergraduates at St Andrews University, but now uses her knowledge to work out how to kill people (in her books!). She completed her first degree at St Andrews University and her doctorate at University College, London.
She has been an inveterate stationery addict since a child, amassing a considerable stash of fountain pens, ink, and notebooks during her lifetime. These have thankfully come in useful, as she tends to write rather than type, at least in the early stages of writing a book.
Amanda started out writing crime and thrillers, and was awarded a “Crime in the Spotlight” slot at Bloody Scotland in 2016. More recently, she has shifted her focus to urban fantasy. 2020 will see the publication of her urban fantasy trilogy “The Guardians of The Realm”.
During her time at St Andrews, she worked with the College of Medicine in Blantyre, Malawi. While in Malawi, she learned about the plight of the many street children there and helped to set up a Community Based Organisation that works with homeless Malawian children to support them through education and training – Chimwemwe Children’s Centre. It was this experience that helped to inspire the Malawian aspects in her first novel “The Wrong Kind of Clouds”, though, of course, the book is entirely fictional.
She is also the author of “Lies That Poison” – a psychological thriller.
Amanda lives in Scotland with her husband, where she can be found writing, walking, and running.
Social media links
Website: https://www.amandafleet.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/amanda_fleet1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaFleetWriter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandafleet/
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