24 January: January

Here's what some well-known writers and poets thought of this month.

1. And what does January hold? Clean account books. Bare diaries. 365 new days, neatly parcelled into weeks, months, seasons. A chunk of time, of life... those first few notes like an orchestra tuning up before the play begins. Phyllis Nicholson
2. January is here, with eyes that keenly glow, A frost-mailed warrior striding a shadowy steed of snow. Edgar Fawcett
3. January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow. Sara Coleridge
4. January, month of empty pockets! let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer's forehead. Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
5. Pale January lay In its cradle day by day Dead or living, hard to say. Alfred Austin, Primroses
6. January opens The box of the year And brings out days That are bright and clear And brings out days That are cold and grey And shouts, "Come see What I brought today!" Lland B. Jacobs, January
7. It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice. Wallace Stevens
8. To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June. Jean-Paul Sartre
9. You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. William Shakespeare
10. January, in ermine cloak, With crystal spangles dight, He gave the queen an Ivy crown, And her fair shoulders white. He happ'd with tender ferny Moss From many a cosy nook, Or from the rounded boulders warm Beside the frozen brook. James Rigg

New!

Secrets and Skies

Jack Ward, President of Innovia, owes his life twice over to the enigmatic superhero, dubbed Power Blaster by the press. No-one knows who Power Blaster is or where he comes from - and he wants it to stay that way.

Scientist Desi Troyes has developed a nuclear bomb to counter the ever present threat of an asteroid hitting the planet. When Ward signs the order giving the go ahead for a nuclear test on the remote Bird Island, he has no inkling of Troyes' real agenda, and that he has signed the death warrants of millions of people.

Although the island should have been evacuated, there are people still there: some from the distant continent of Classica; protesters opposed to the bomb test; and Innovians who will not, or cannot, use their communication devices.

Power Blaster knows he must stop the bomb from hitting the island. He also knows it may be the last thing he ever does.

Meanwhile in Innovia, Ward and his staff gather to watch the broadcast of the test. Nobody, not even Troyes himself, has any idea what is about to happen.

Part One of The Raiders Trilogy.

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