A Level of Consciousness is a thought provoking techno-thriller set in a world not unlike our own, and about a woman who might have lived in it. It is a story about a witch who was not a witch, and a dragon that was not a dragon. It is a story set in the present day, between how much we know about the universe and how much we still have to learn. It is a story that starts with a friendship and ends with a romance. It is however not a story for children, nor is it a story for the faint of heart

The paperback and Kindle edition can be bought from Amazon here => Amazon

https://ko-fi.com/s/22d8cc6d97 – Free Download with option to donate ($0 is fine)

Or Direct download here => A-Level-of-Consciousness.epub (477KB)

You should save the epub file somewhere on your computer, but unless you have an eReader program installed like Calibre, you wont be able to view the book, and will need to transfer it to your eReader manually. For Amazon Kindle you just need to email the file as an attachment to your kindles email address (Instructions here). I have also found instructions for the Kobo and the Nook but I am sure one of the many AI’s out there can explain how to do it much better than me.

So, what’s it about? Well, first a confession, I really did want this new book to be a romance novel, and that is how it started. Technically it still sort-of a romance novel (by some weird definitions), and the first iteration of the cover for the e-book and the paperback even had a sweet, girl-friendly click-bait cover image. However several people did point out that it was definitely not a romance!

Normal romantic tropes, even the supposedly exciting ones, tend to be a bit lame and a bit predictable, which is why I found myself in the middle of the book wanting a bit more of a darker plot which would surround the girl, boy, lovey-dove parts. Unfortunately, that was when it morphed into something a lot more sinister!

Original Click-Bait Faux-Romance Cover

So, the new book is not technically a romance as it has a much much, much darker premise.. A ‘dark romance’ maybe? But ‘dark romance’ is actually a genre, and one which this book definitely does not fit. So what we have here is yet another book impossible to fit into the normal genre Venn-diagram as it covers topics much beloved in romantic novels such as terrorism, mind-reading, Nazi occult practices, mythical monsters and secret criminal societies bent on world domination. The writing also goes much more into graphic detail on the gory parts and uses a bit fruitier language than the previous book. Because of this, the book will get a 13+ rating and probably won’t want to be read by the normal readers of the romance genre!

Finally, an apology. The heroine is yet another young woman, though quite a different one from my other books (The Summer of Reasoning). But don’t stereotype me just yet! The reason for this is that for the last ten years I have been writing various scenes, and what-if scenarios, and had literally hundreds of them with young heroines. Rather than waste them, I used one set of women in my last book, and the other set in this one. However, the premise of the next book (still mostly in my head) will be different still as I have now run out of strong female characters.

Unlike the previous books, this new book is stand-alone and comes in at just 112,000 words which is more the length of a normal paperback thriller and so is suitable for a real printed version. If dead-trees are your preferred option, then the printed book is also available.

The Summer of Reasoning is a series of three paperback books whose timeline begins in 2025 and follows one optimistic and possible future of the technological singularity for mankind.

The first book in the trilogy, The Phoney War, starts the journey off, introducing the main characters and the plot, it is a lighter and slower paced read than the second two books, mainly concentrating on how everything starts, developing the plot, the characters, the science and the technology for the action in the second two.

The paperbacks can be bought from Amazon (click the pictures above to re-direct) or if dead trees is not your thing then the whole book series is is also available as a single 370,000 word eBook using the links below:

Amazon Kindle – Note Amazon specify a minimum eBook price of $0.99

https://ko-fi.com/s/ab3e74d64d – Gives an option to donate (completely optional)

Or Direct download => The-Summer-of-Reasoning.epub (1.2MB)

You should save the epub file somewhere on your computer, but unless you have an eReader program installed like Calibre, you wont be able to view the book, and will need to transfer it to your eReader manually. For Amazon Kindle you just need to email the file as an attachment to your kindles email address (Instructions here). I have also found instructions for the Kobo and the Nook but I am sure one of the many AI’s out there can explain how to do it much better than me.

The Writing Journey

Image Shows Original Cover

This was a really long journey, I think I started writing snippets and chapters for the last ten years, no story getting past ten thousand words before fizzling out or me losing interest. But I finally picked a story (A Sci-Fi story my daughter might optimistically read – Young Adult is the official term), found my mojo and I actually finished and published it as a two-hundred-and-fifty-page amazon eBook in Jan 2022. So, job done, wrote a book, ticked it off the bucket list!

But upon re-reading it, I thought, hmmm, it’s a quaint little story, but it concentrated on the character, science and technological build up, and all the action I wanted to fit in was not there. So barely a month later I removed it from sale.

So, with zero publicity, zero interest and zero sales in the first book, I decided, what the hell lets finish the sequel. The sequel became another 240,000 words and two more books (Singularity and End Game), moving the plot, adding more action, more intrigue, cooler technologies, (AI’s, flying-saucers, robots, wormholes, FTL), some love interests for the girls, etc. I also rounded out the story nicely in the last book with a big climatic space opera ending. So, job done, wrote the sequels, ticked it off the bucket list! But, in a certifiable act of madness, I thought to myself why not actually put the books together; basically ignore all the sensible advice out there and combine them into a single complete novel. My main/only reason for this was that it sort of annoys me when I finish a book only to find out it hasn’t actually finished. I have to buy the sequel, then another, then wait, or in some cases wait forever and hope the author, or I, don’t die before finishing it! So the new book trilogy was big, Game of Thrones big, or 29 hours reading, however, I was happy as it was a complete work, no prequels, no sequels, safe enough for my daughter to read and a plot that progresses like the singularity slowly at first and then exponentially to its climax.

So, to the novel. A bit preachy? maybe. Too girly? maybe. Not girly enough? maybe. No graphic sex or violence, definitely. Rubbish science? Most certainly! In fact, I may have nailed the perfect Venn diagram where women (thinking of my daughter especially here) don’t like it neither do Sci-Fi fans. Funnily enough after several re-reads it still hits all the tropes for me, but I’m weird!

In 2025 we are now back to three separate paperbacks, and a compendium 370,000 word e-book, with the eBook being totally free to download. I have also re-categorised them, changed the covers and simplified the blurb. Hopefully I have now fixed past mistakes and can carry on with writing.

Click here for more on the writing journey and tips for new authors.