…if yeez had a good pair of football boots, Jesus wanted yeez for a sunbeam…

…Docklands Govan in the 1950s mirrored life in most of the other huge urban conurbations in the UK… precious little money around… large families, tons of kids… infant school education on the State was excellent… but we children only realised that many, many years later… but the parallel caring for our well-being, our religious and spiritual needs, were supported by a range of denominations… in amongst our parish tenements sprouted various Churches… Roman Catholic, Wee Free, Church of Scotland, Wesleyan, to name a sprinkling of them… and the one my parents chose to have me attend… the local Methodist outfit… now, I’ve grown up to respect the views and religious persuasions of others, including atheists, but since many years back I consider myself more ‘spiritual’ in approach to life than ‘denominated’… that I’m a ‘believer’ is enuff for me, without the need of being proselytized or the desire to ‘convert’ anyone else to my way of thinking… that aside, the early Methodist church affiliation was not without its highlights… not the least were the Children’s Sunday School mornings, where hordes of kids, with fresh-scrubbed faces, clean jumpers and definitely clean handkerfchiefs, congregated for a couple of hours of organized  bedlam… the competition in the Sunday School songs had nothing to do with pitch, but always sung in the boisterous preferred key of ‘Very Loud’… and we assorted waifs sang out the verses as enthusiastic ‘Fishers of Men’... one favourite was ‘Jesus wants me for a sunbeam’, which some smartie-pants amended to ‘Jesus wants me for a Morris Minor’, the Sunbeam brand of car being considered not the best brand…

…and let’s not forget the need to fill the Church-affiliated ‘Life Boys’ social movement, whose primary activity on a Saturday was to play football against other Churches’ Life Boys squads, with teams usually being chosen on who had a pair of football boots…

…watching the European Football Championships currently in progress, I wonder how many of the wantonly overpaid ‘prima donna acrobats’ on these fields would have been better equipped to play if they had had a decent pair of football boots as kids, and had Jesus chosen them to be a sunbeam?… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

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…what’s not to admire about Authoress Yasmin Selena Butt and her GUNSHOT GLITTER?…

…no greater LUV has one scribbler than that for a fellow author, in this case an authoress… Yasmin Selena Butt is not only a pal, but a talented writer… I was privileged to read and review her novel, GUNSHOT GLITTER, a while back and it still teases smiles of satisfaction from me… but hush, Master Gallacher… m’Lady Selena is well able to espouse her own literary legend, viz:

Five Reasons Why You’ll Love Gunshot Glitter

Hello friend of Seumas’ 🙂

That’s a pretty bold thing to write isn’t it: “Five reasons why you’ll love Gunshot Glitter.”

After all books aren’t a ‘one size fits’ all category.

So what I really mean is: ‘Five reasons why you’ll love Gunshot Glitter if any of the following tickle your fancy.’

But, mon amie, that’s quite the mouthful; and, if after you’ve read this, if any of the five reasons resonate with you, get yourself over to Goodreads and hit ‘Enter Giveaway’ after adding Gunshot Glitter to your To Be Read list as you could be lucky enough to win a beautiful, limited edition signed copy if you are based in the UK.

And if you are not, I deeply apologise; one day when I am truly minted, I will be posting signed copies to far flung places such as Bahrain and Chile I promise, as I hate leaving interested folk out, but you can still enjoy Gunshot Glitter as an eBook worldwide, and buy the novel in beautiful print if you like what you read.

And now without further ado this is why you’ll *love* Gunshot Glitter…

1. You’ll love Gunshot Glitter if you love Game of Thrones

Peter Dinklage once described the jewel in HBO’s crown as ‘Stabby-stabby-stabby, sexy-sexy-sexy, stabby-stabby-stabby and…a couple of jokes.’ If you’ve seen the magnificent adaptation of George R.R Martin epic fantasy series, you will know exactly what Dinklage who plays the witty, erudite Tyrion Lannister is talking about. This is the show where no one’s favourite characters are safe, there are characters you love to hate, nothing is black and white and multiple storylines run rife. If you enjoy that dizzying sensation of wondering what you just witnessed, and, needing, craving, being desperate to know what happened next..you will love Gunshot Glitter. It’s a tale where crimes are committed, and your sense of right and wrong is sorely tested. You have been warned. And there is definitely a bit of sexy, sexy, sexy snuggled inside too.

2. You will love Gunshot Glitter if you love crime novels with a difference.

I love crime. It’s a fantastic, expansive genre but I didn’t want to read another police procedural, or a forensics novel, or a story where the good guys and the bad guys were portrayed in black and white and the monsters were men or women chopping up prostitutes and leaving the limbs in fields for a world-weary detective to knit back together again. I wanted to write something that turned the genre on its head where the crimes were in your face, but your feelings about the protagonists and victims were pulled at, prodded and worked at. And I think I did that. If that piques your interest there is a good chance this is the novel for you.

3. You will love Gunshot Glitter if you love a contemporary, gritty story told by a melting pot of a cast.

I’m a Londoner, born and bred, and absolutely love my city. My London is a London of huge racial and sexual diversity, tolerance, dreams, amazing architecture, hedonistic culture, food, music, work, ambition and hope. It’s all in there: Brixton to Stoke Newington, Dalston, the West End, along with lives lived in Manchester, France and Koh Samui. Yes, Koh Samui. It will make sense when you dive into the story. Gunshot Glitter is the name of a popular, burlesque-orientated night club in Soho. I’ve also squeezed in references to my absolute favourite building too, but you’ll have to read the novel to find out what it is. If you want to vicariously experience the world around you form and shimmer like a movie in your head, you will love this book. It makes that vivid melting pot come wondrously alive.

4. You will love Gunshot Glitter if you love music.

Music is a huge part of my life. I djayed as a student; I own hundreds of CDs, vinyl records, tapes. And this novel was written to a soundtrack of themed CDs to take me to the places I needed to go to access the emotions and intensity the scenes elicited from me. Music stains the scenes in subtle ways, songs play in the background, bands appear. Music marks time and incidents and there are characters who care about it.  You don’t have to be a muso to enjoy Gunshot Glitter, but if you take pleasure in a somewhat alternative bent this novel will speak to you. And here’s a little bit of insider knowledge for you, the title, ‘Gunshot Glitter’ was inspired by a song by Jeff Buckley.

5. You will love Gunshot Glitter if you have an open mind and love original, cinematic storytelling.

Gunshot Glitter is a story that defies pigeonholes and refuses to sit tidily in one genre. I would loosely place it in crime (as I have mentioned above) but there are mysteries to solve, elements of a thriller, drama and powerful, passionate feelings coursing through the tale. Every reader has remarked on the blend of genres and how much they would love to see the story on the silver screen. I would too. I wrote it as if I was watching a movie in my head. There are passages I wrote with tears pouring down my face. I even made my proofreader, Jill Blair, cry when she was working on it.

I could have carried on with reasons why you will love my novel, (for example if you love novels that sit between Lisa Jewell and Poppy Z Brite it will appeal to you) but I am slightly biased. Instead, I would rather let Gunshot Glitter do the talking.

Visit your favourite eBook retailer and download a free sample to see if it’s for you, and if you are based in the UK visit Goodreads and add the novel HERE to your To Be Read list and then click on this link to enter the competition to win a signed, numbered, limited edition print copy. The copies are on me, a birthday gift from me to you.

You’ve got until July 1^st 2016

Thank you for reading and huge thanks to Seumas Gallacher for hosting me; dude you are truly a lovely, lovely man J

Yasmin Selena Butt xx

• Add Gunshot Glitter to your Goodreads list HERE
• Enter to win a print copy of Gunshot Glitter HERE, click on ‘Enter Giveaway’.

GUNSHOT GLITTER is available worldwide as an eBook on many platforms including Amazon UK and Amazon.com

If you would like to buy Gunshot Glitter in print at £9.99 get in touch with me HERE on Facebook or leave me a comment.

About Gunshot Glitter

Your name is Celine Silver. But no one has called you that in eight years.
You’re a classically trained musician and an Honours graduate.
You come from a nice, middle-class family.
You kill people for money.
And no one knows you anymore.
Fate throws the man you abandoned right back into your path – the man who knew you before you got blood on your hands, before you changed your name.
And he’s demanding answers.

But is there a way back to the path of normal?
What price do you have to pay when you realise you no longer want to be monster? And who are the real monsters and victims anyway?
And what about the incinerated boy who will never quite go away…

About the author Yasmin Selena Butt

Yasmin Selena Butt was born in Hampstead, London. She has previously worked abroad in the Maldives as an English Language trainer, freelanced in Marketing and been published by The Times as a music writer.  She has also written over a thousand poems, exhibited her fiction and photography and performed her debut reading at Proud Galleries in Camden.

Yasmin is the head admin on the hugely popular The Bookshop Café on Facebook, enjoys live alternative music, cinema, visiting unusual buildings and collecting perfume. She appeared on the BBC4 documentary ‘Perfume’ discussing the memory evoked by the scent of Dior’s Fahrenheit.

Born without a middle name, she adopted the name ‘Selena’, in 2000 after hearing the story from a building concierge about the naming of his daughter, Yasmin Selena. In gratitude, she has named a character in her debut, Gunshot Glitter, in his honour.

Follow Yasmin on Facebook at Yasmin Selena Butt Author

And here on Twitter @yasminselena

And find out more about her on her blog at WordPress

…thanks for the visit, m’Lady… see yeez later … LUV YEEZ!

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Author Spotlight – Seumas Gallacher

…m’Lady, Aurora Jean Alexander, hosts me today 🙂

ALL MY BLOG POSTS ARE FREE TO SHARE OR RE-BLOG SHOULD YOU SO WISH—BE MY GUEST!

Writer's Treasure Chest

Welcome!

 

Please introduce yourself. 

Good day, m’Lady, Aurora. First up, a gazillion thanks for permitting this ol’ Scots Jurassic scribbler licence to intrude on your blog… I trust you have the standard insurance and attorney protections for this…

 

1. When did you start writing? 

I’ve dabbled in short stories most of my life… and poetry of a teenage angst sort to begin with, branching into more mellow life incidence… but I primarily consider myself more an authorial wordsmith rather than a Wordsworth… the Jack Calder crime series began around eight years or so back…

 

 

1. What motivates you to write? 

At the time of the urge to write the first novel, it was born out of the sense that it was ‘just time’ to get down on paper ‘that novel’ we all supposedly have in us… I wanted to see if I could actually do…

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…a severe attack of the immobile phone…

…I s’pose it’s a bit like opening a packet of peanuts and eating just one… or a bag of potato crisps and picking out only a single bit to crunch… telling yerself, ‘I have no addiction to such things… I can exercise my extreme willpower at any time over compulsive behaviour’… well, here’s one for yeez… leave the house to go out to dinner… twenty minutes later, sitting at the table in the restaurant, eyeballing the menu and yeez reach into yer pocket for yer mobile phone… and realise it’s still back at home… I don’t know how emb’dy else reacts in that circumstance, but I now understand how it impacts this ol’ Scots Jurassic scribbler… utter and immediate, total panic!… a severe attack of the immobile phone… Master Gallacher’s experience yesterday evening was a mind opener… it’s not as if I get a hundred calls every coupla minutes from doting readers, nor updates from a non-existent publishing house mogul wondering when my next wee masterpiece’ll be ready for them… neither is the trickle of emails on the device hardly a gushing torrent at any given moment… but the thing is this… I didn’t know if there were any communications or not…

…welcome, truly welcome, to the WURLD of instant gratification and the need to be continually ‘plugged in’… the ‘pleasures’ of checking every five minutes to see if the blank screen will deliver whatever trivia the universe sees fit to throw at yeez… I have a wristwatch, and a fine, reliable, always accurate timepiece at that… but where do I look when I wanna see what time it is?… yup, the mobile phone… in my case, the ancient but still breathing Blackberry… I also use the thing as an alarm clock… and guess what?… invariably during the night, if I waken, my first reaction is to press the button that lights it up… and check (again) if I switched the ‘on’ feature for the bluudy alarm… I will not be ROOLed by my mobile… I will not be ROOLed by my mobile… I will not be ROOLed  by… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

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…meeaioow and forever… always been a cat man, me… but it has its downsides…

 

…at different stages in my life, I have been owned by cats… Siamese cats to be more specific… there’s a certain elegance to these creatures… and not just a little bit of egotistical hubris… try as you may, it’s impossible to have a cat fetch yer slippers or nip down to the corner shop and retrieve yer morning newspaper… be that as it may, I continued to allow myself to be bound in servitude to these feline masters… in London, in London again, and in Hong Kong, the relationships, man/cat,  purred along nicely… the cohabitation followed the usual ROOLs… the feline(s) demanded, the servile HOOMAN complied… that’s how cat/people linkages operate… ask emb’dy who’s ever been associated with one… and by the way, feeding the notion many of my acquaintances harbour that this ol‘ Jurassic indulges more than his fair share of eccentricity, were the names I gave the cats… variously, there was ‘Fido’… then there was  ‘Pencil’… and in Hong Kong, there were the twins, ‘Brainy’ and ‘Bonkers’ (who’ve featured before on this ’ere blog.)… when the transfer from London to Hong Kong came along in 1980, the sad decision was made to let Pencil (for he it was in Cat Residence at that time) go to another good home… most of yeez know I’m a supposedly tough kinda slum dog from Docklands Govan in Glasgow, but letting Pencil go nearly broke my heart, and it darned near came so close to reconsidering the plans to migrate… in the end common sense prevailed, and I put Pencil into the cat basket…

…and no prizes for guessing how many futile attempts  that took until the critter was locked inside the basket… then.. oh Lawdy… then… the wailing begun (no, Mabel, not from the cat, from me!), the pitiful meeewing… and as I picked up the basket, one wee black and white furry paw came sticking out a few inches, accompanied by an indignant cat noise, the animal’s version of, ‘why are yeez doing this to me???’... I still have throwback teary bouts of remembrance of the whole sad episode… so be warned, Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… meeaioow and forever… always been a cat man, me… but it has its downsides… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!...

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…Self-Publishing Authors, don’t let the Negative Nellies convince yeez that ye’re not successful… #TBSU…

…I’ve just had the cockles of my heart, or even the heart of my cockles, warmed by reading a terrific blog post decrying the naysayers in the publishing WURLD who believe that success can onl…

Source: …Self-Publishing Authors, don’t let the Negative Nellies convince yeez that ye’re not successful… #TBSU…

…60 Greenfield Street, Docklands Govan, Glasgow, 1950s… the epitome of fine living…

…much nonsense prevails whenever people begin to ‘reminisce’ about the ‘bad old days’ growing up in the Glasgow slums  60 years ago… this ol’ Jurassic is a product of that environment, …

Source: …60 Greenfield Street, Docklands Govan, Glasgow, 1950s… the epitome of fine living…

…Authors …there be lies, damn lies, statistics and Amazon book review numbers…

…those of yeez who have graced this blog with yer readership over the last few years will know I like to keep tabs on some of the things I believe an author, self-published or otherwise, should be aware of… for we scribblers, reviews are as lifeblood… sum’times precious, sum’times soul-destroying, sum’times illuminating, sum’times damning, often constructive… but let me warn yeez, they are never, never, never totally accurate…  there be lies, damn lies, statistics and Amazon book review numbers… be that as it may, over the last eight years or so, my four titles of the Jack Calder crime thriller series currently with the Great God Amazon have performed thus in review terms :

…the summary covers all of the titles’ reviews from the Amazon pages since day one of publishing on there…

…I’ve only tracked the four principal markets, Amazon UK, USA, Canada and Australia, although a smattering of downloads has been seen in every Amazon market except Mexico and Brazil…

…with no false modesty, I’m quite surprised at how high the level of ratings has been maintained, but bearing in mind the reality check that most people with negative opinions or ‘bad’ reviews seldom bother to post these… and I recall with great glee when I received a lowly 2-star (out of 5-stars) from some guy, I checked the only other review he’d posted was for John Grisham  and he gave him only 1-star out of 5, so a caution… treat ALL reviews with a pinch of salt… the best measure of reviews is the sales sheet… see yeez later… LUV YEEZ!…

 

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…Edward, Hammer of the Scots… in yer best rigid leather…

 

 

…been asked to rerun this post from early last year…

…corporal punishment is an evocative term in many quarters these days… for almost the past thirty years in the UK, it has been banned in public schools, and it still remains a divisive …

Source: …Edward, Hammer of the Scots… in yer best rigid leather…

…smelling the roses on the way through the Author’s writing garden…

…every now and then wee lights of epiphany go on in yer head, whether or not that’s as a writer or sum’thing else yeez pursue… but for this ol’ Scots Jurassic the realisation keeps blinking away at me that the past eight years of ‘being an Author’ has brought more satisfaction over a sustained period than almost anything else I’ve ever done… when scribbling my first literary masterpiece, THE VIOLIN MAN’S LEGACY, and I reached the magic WURDS most writers seek, ‘THE END’, the sense of euphoria was amazing… the pink cloud descended and carried me up and away, and I didn’t come down for a long, long time… in fact, I’m not sure I ever disembarked completely… along came VENGEANCE WEARS BLACK, and behold and lo, the sensation revisited… it’s like an addiction… a beautiful, non-self-harming addiction… the third and fourth in the series, SAVAGE PAYBACK and KILLER CITY rolled off the printer in succeeding years… and again I quaffed heavily from the Gratification Goblet… now, here’s the gradual change that’s currently taking place with the fifth novel, work-in-progress, DEADLY IMPASSE— this time around, I’m in no rush to get to ‘THE END’… why?… coz, along the way I’ve come to derive (almost) equally great pleasure in crafting the chapters… sculpting the phrases… seed-planting the lines that lead later on to the reader saying ’Oh, yes!… I know where THAT bit came from’… and I constantly surprise myself when I reread some of the narrative… literary narcissism? … p’raps… I prefer to consider it as taking care and pride in trying to produce a WURK quality that I would be delighted to find in others’ books… I have to be careful of the undoubtedly ego-boosting comments from folk who’ve been kind enuff to read some of my stuff already, when they say they can’t wait for the next book… these days I don’t want to botch things up by being too anxious to get finished… it’s my new grail… smelling the roses on the way through the Author’s writing garden…

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