If you've enjoyed The Unkown Quest, please, pretty please, go and download it (for free!) from Smashwords, iBooks, Kobo or many other booksellers. (Just Google "Mark Ash" "The Unknown Quest" and you'll probably find it at one of your favourites.) And then please leave me a review there! Reviews help me to find readers who can afford to buy, which all helps towards the humongous vet bill that built up when our beloved cat used up all of his insurance :'-(
Book Two (The Unnamed Blade) is being serialised here on Wattpad, but my Wattpad readers can download the complete book from Smashwords for only $1 (or the £ equivalent; 80% off) by using code BP83R.
Book Three (The Unbridled Horse) is still being written!
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This story has been a long time in the making. Some of my characters were conceived back in the early 1980's, when I was Tunnel Master in a game of Tunnels and Trolls (some of the Tunnellers of those days will remember their creation). I first began writing them into a story when my older daughter was a newborn; her own teenage daughter is old enough to read about them now!
Book One has had several revisions over the years; sometimes it got stuck, sometimes bits just didn't read right. A publisher's reader suggested I scrap the first five paragraphs and rewrite the whole of the beginning – which I did. He/she was right! Book Two just flowed - apart from a few more recent tweaks, it went from start to finish in around a month. The characters more often than not just took over and started writing it themselves, surprising me at times.
Book Three got stuck in the middle for years while I was occupied with other things.
Many thanks to all those who acted as beta readers for me, proofreading, commenting and suggesting. Mostly members of my family.
As for myself, I was born and bred in Southern England, and live in a fantasy world occupying the same general area as the New Forest. I'm kind of middling: middle height, middle weight, and middle-aged. Over the years I've been owned by animals of various species, both domestic and agricultural. Many of my family have been journalists and writers; my younger daughter has started writing her own books, and her son is already showing promise in his wordcrafting. I'm somewhat of a recluse; I like to remain fairly anonymous as far as my writing is concerned; it helps me to keep my fantasy world and The Real World separate.
"MarkAsh" is a pseudonym behind which I hide; it's actually a local place name.
YOU ARE READING
The Unknown Quest (Book One of The Horns of Elfland)
FantasyThousands of years ago, one of Sherath's distant ancestors refused to take on a quest. The task has to be done - it's vitally important - but nobody knows exactly what it is. Their race is dying out, and time is running out; and until Sherath comes...
