Neil J Hart's Blog

Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson’s Fighting Fantasy series has got a lot to answer for… As a child I hated reading. Really hated it. I couldn’t think of anything worse. I’m sure I was even guilty of saying, “What’s the point in reading a book when you can watch the film?” These days I’ll stop …

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In a majestic house, on an immaculate street, opposite the Royal Park in Ville de Feuilles— the City of Leaves— lived a wealthy woman named Estelle Gautreau.

Her house was split over five floors and filled to the rafters with books, paintings, ornaments and antiques; glamorous clothing and costumes, jewellery, shoes and wigs; flawless wooden furniture, couches, armchairs and chaise longues; tiny silver thimbles, spoons, pill coffers, snuff boxes and cigarette cases; and every type of...

It was nigh on two thousand years ago that the legend of The Witch Tree began. To hear it, we must travel a great distance, through time and space.

Over the River Myr we must fly, leaving the safety of Iron Bridge behind. We must skim the western treetops of Darachna Forest, then up and over the Black Mountains. The sharp stone and rock of the mountains spreads out beneath us for hundreds of miles with holdfasts and crumbling castles perched on cliff tops and rooted in valleys. Beyond the...

I started writing my fifth book Dark Kings this month. It’s the first book in my new YA dark fantasy series Tales of Sorrow.

Imagine a city somewhere between life and the fathomless reaches of death. A dark, subterranean metropolis beneath a sky of rock and shadows, where rival families control the streets and all that lives within. Every soul that comes to the city must first survive The Gauntlet, a brutal trial devised by the Tyrant King. Those who fail must repeat the ordeal again.. and a...

The first series of books that really sparked my imagination was Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Terry’s mix of comedy, incredible plot lines and social commentary, set against the backdrop of a rich fantasy universe, is an phenomenal work genius.

I was introduced the Terry’s books by a school friend in the early ’90s. Having just woken up to life altering notion of reading via Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy books, I took to the Discworld series like a vulture feasting on a fresh corpse. Since then I’ve read every Discworld b...

For the first time ever, I’m looking forward to the new year. 2019 is going to be amazing. I’m sure of it. I have it all planned out. Here is a list of my writing goals and other stuff for 2019.

I normally try to avoid new years celebrations and the resolutions / promises that go along with it. To me, Dec 31st into Jan 1st is a night like any other, but I’m running with it this year and promising to start 2019 as I mean to go– with LOTS of writing.

The Madison Chronicles

I’ve been through Sa...

On November 1st 2018, I will begin the 30 day challenge that is NaNoWriMo : National Novel Writing Month.

Having previous written a novella in around a month (‘The Last Scarecrow‘ which i am currently editing), I thought it would be fun to join thousands of other writers undertaking NaNoWriMo. You can find out more about NaNoWriMo here and view my page too if you so desire.

Shadowling (working title)

So this is the tentative, working title that I’ll be writing every day in November. I plan t...

Check out the amazing music that my esteemed friend and colleague Christopher PG Jenkins has written, inspired by the characters and story of The Madison Chronicles .

Both pieces of music really capture the strange magic and creeping terror of the first book in The Madison Chronicles– Sadie Madison and the Boy in the Crimson Scarf.

With a book that is so heavy driven by music and the power it has over our emotions and memories, it’s amazing to hear something that has been born of an imaginary...

Interest to know more about the characters in The Madison Chronicles and how I created them? I’m currently writing and editing book two of The Madison Chronicles while book one— Sadie Madison and the Boy In The Crimson Scarf— is going out to agents. While that’s going on, here’s a blog about some of the characters in my book and how I created them. Television

Strangely (or perhaps not at all) I’ve realised that most of characters come from a lifetime of watching television shows. I’ve probabl...

I’ve always loved monsters. I even love the word Monsters. Hmmm, Monsters. What’s not to love about Monsters? Oh, right, yeah… they’re terrifying! But isn’t that’s why we love them? Yes. It is.

There are no limitations with monsters. They can be all, and anything, and everything that you want them to be; what you can imagine, what you can fear, what you can feel watching you in the dark. The long raking fingers, gnarled flesh, gaping maw, shredding teeth, hulking powerful limbs, needle sharp spi...