THIS is complete

THIS is Free!

Remy here, saying a big "Hello!" to all those enjoying home-schooling during these strange times...

It would now be Easter Break for schools, so if you're looking for a change in routine...

You and your family can't travel, but you can still go anywhere in a good book! Perhaps escaping into another world for a little while every day would be welcome?

You can't fly on a plane, but you can take a flight of fantasy.

To offer a small help to alleviate the stress and uncertainty of these days, The Red Sparrow Press have let me and Zel make Part One of This available as a 'freebook' on the Medium platform. Medium offers a smooth reading experience across most devices and you can access the free book without subscription via this special 'Friend Link' - simply click on the illustration below and let your imagination do the rest! (Tip: bookmark this blog post so you can continue to easily access the book for free.)

It began a long time ago... but for Rietta, it really began when she met Carla, another very special and extraordinary person, and realised that they shared the same dreams.

Or perhaps it all started when Rietta and Carla found the severely injured dog in the woods, becoming firm friends as they tried to nurse it back to health and happiness.

Then there was the ‘thing’ that they glimpsed watching them from the shadows, and the mystery of the missing standing-stone… but when they find the key to another realm, well, then things really start happening!

This is the first in a new epic fairy-tale trilogy, This, That and the Other, imaginative fantasy, on an epic scale. The story follows the special friendship between two girls who embark on a magical adventure together, across the three realms. It is a modern fable inspired by Welsh fairy tales and folklore, in the tradition of The Neverending Story, The Box of Delights, The Chronicles of Narnia…

PLEASE NOTE: This is a Read-for-Free edition available here for a limited time only during national UK schools closure and presented by kind permission of The Red Sparrow Press.

It is deemed suitable for readers as young as middle-grade and all the family.

If there are enough reads, The Red Sparrow Press have promised to make the next part available as a Medium 'freebook' too - so, please let them know you've enjoyed the book by tweeting them on their twitter account @RedSparrowPress or by dropping a short review onto Amazon or Goodreads...

Also free to read via Amazon with KindleUnlimited, if you prefer — with options to buy to keep as e-book and paperback. Enjoy!

Don't Miss THIS Exhibition and Author Appearance!

Folklore Talk, Storytelling and Book Signing Event

Oriel Ty Meirion, 21 November 2019

free event but booking is required 
click image of flyer to RSVP and reserve tickets

A selection of prints featuring my illustrations for This, That and The Other are currently on show in a mixed exhibition at Oriel Ty Meirion Gallery, Dyffryn Ardudwy, one of the most exciting small galleries in Wales. The show, which runs until 5 January 2020, has the theme of 'Folklore and Fairy Tales of North Wales'. 

 [Check gallery website for opening times and to plan your visit.]

Folklore and Fairy Tales of North Wales at Oriel Ty Meirion Gallery a magical, mixed selection of superior quality art including prints and paperbacks by Remy Dean ...that lovely ceramic starling in the middle is by local potter, Jane Williams

My prints are a signed and numbered edition and you can also browse and purchase paperbacks of  This Part 1 and This Part 2. 

You can read some of my relevant articles online at Folklore Thursday HERE


REMY DEAN IS ALSO APPEARING AT A NATURE'S CHRISTMAS...

The Red Sparrow Press will be back at RSPB Conwy for their very special Christmas Fair on Sunday 1st December. 

For more event details and bookings see the RSPB Conwy website

See you there! We're sure Yule like it!

Some of My Favourite Books

I had a great chat with two of my lovely fellow authors at the Red Sparrow Press, Kim Vertue and Zel Cariad, about our favourite books and what has inspired our latest stories. We talk about the titles we have loved since childhood as well as some more grown-up ones. 

You can read the full interview at The Scrawl by clicking on the link at the end of this post, but here are my bits about children's books I have enjoyed and still remember fondly, and a contribution from Zel about the co-writing process...

Scrawl: What was the first book you can remember reading that really absorbed you and carried you off elsewhere?

Remy: That would be Elephant Adventure by Willard Price. I can remember sitting in school, during a reading class and I was at the back reading a book of my choice. It was the first time that the words I was reading disappeared and I started seeing what I was reading instead. I was in the jungle and then I heard the teacher’s voice calling my name, because it was my turn to go the front of class to do the reading test. It was like being pulled out from a dream. That’s when I first had an inkling of the magic of good story-writing. I then devoured the whole Adventure series over the next few years, in the right order, some of them I read more than once. I named my first goldfish Hal and Roger after the Hunt brothers in the books.

Before that, I had the Paddington books read to me and they were great. My brother used to finish reading one and we would go straight round the library for the next.

Three of my childhood friends... can you remember yours?

Scrawl: Do you have a favourite book, perhaps one that you have returned to more than once over the years?

Remy: I have a few favourites! Watership Down – I read that about three times a year as I was growing up – definitely more than a dozen times. I could speak fluent lapine and I used to play bob-stones with my pet rabbit. Recently, I read it to my daughter, twice, so far. I think it is the best Fantasy story ever written, and an inspiration to any writer of imaginative fiction.

When I was around seven or eight, my brother read Jonathan Livingston Seagull to me in one sitting, and it affected me profoundly. It is a book I returned to later and re-read many times as a college student. I use to buy extra copies to loan out or give to friends. It’s about the nature of reality, what it means to be free and transcending the bounds of physical limitations through imagination. I read it to my father during his final days, when he was in hospital… just before he transcended his physical limitations.

My brother also read the The Flies in the Market Place to me, from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, when I was very young - he didn’t mind challenging me and my little mind at all – and Nietsche has been a friend to me ever since. I have read most of his key works and they took me on a path right back to William Blake!

Songs of Innocence and Experience, I have already written a piece about why William Blake and this book are very important to me. (I'll re-post that on this blog soon…)

Scrawl: You have recently ventured into co-written territories… What was the co-writing process like for This?

Zel: It was fun because I basically got to listen to it as it developed and say when I thought things didn’t work or if an idea needed improving, but that was very rare, because it was written well. Generally, we just chatted about story ideas on dog-walks and took a lot of inspiration from our surroundings, mountains, woods and lakes… I came up with a few random bits, I remember describing the attack of the snaky brambles. Oh, and Lucky too, who I think is a really important main character.

Remy: Zel is my resident expert of all things fairy and dragon-related. Her main roles were creative consultant and first reader. Basically we discussed ideas on walks, and then I wrote chunks and did test readings, when Zel would let me know if it sounded alright and if it was believable enough… if something needed to be explained more clearly, or if I had over-egged anything. She also ensured I described characters and places in enough detail to paint the picture, but still left enough room for imagination. One thing she does really well is ask the right questions.

Read the whole interview with Zel, Kim and me HERE at The Scrawl webzine - be aware that Scrawl also talks to writers about books for older children and adults...

Welcome to the Three Realms

Part of the fun and adventure of being an author is getting to research all sorts of subjects that I find really fascinating. Folklore and hearsay interest me, how the myths and legends of the past affect our world today. I love telling stories that hover somewhere in the hinterland between reality and imagination, fact and fantasy, whilst scratching at the surface of a truth.

This epic story, that will be told across the three volumes of This, That and the Other, takes place across the three corresponding realms and whilst I've been thinking and writing about this, I have come across many myths and ideologies, throughout history and from all over the world, that have this idea of three realms, or three states of being...  

So, I wrote an article for Folklore Thursday about some of the inspiration behind This, That and the Other:

by Remy Dean

READ IT HERE


[...and you can read some more Folklore Thursday articles by Remy Dean HERE]