ICE TREKKER... a Young Adult Fantasy... for all ages.

It is with great pleasure I can finally introduce this wonderful story.
  ICE TREKKER by Pam Kelt

I am thrilled to have her latest book featured on my blog.
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“Hide!” hissed the old sailor, eyes white with fear. He slithered across the icy decking and burrowed into a tangle of fishing nets lying on the dock.

Midge turned his face upward. The navy night sky turned green, laced with purple and orange like oil in water. “What is it?” he asked, ducking into the doorway of a battered wooden boathouse. A rippling movement swept over his head in a giant tidal wave of light. He held his breath as though he were being sucked under water.

“Skythons!” came the terrified reply. “You gets them in Krønagar. But never seen ’em so big before. Horrible things. Horrible!”

Midge stared upward to watch a shimmering snake-like pattern weave and twist across the sky. The effect of long, rippling muscles struck him as so strange and beautiful that he forgot to feel afraid as he gazed at the shifting colours. 

“They mean bad luck,” howled the sailor, arm over his eyes. 

Up in the cold sky, colours still shimmered. “Surely it’s just superstitious nonsense?” Midge said, still staring. “They can’t be real. Just a trick of the light.” He couldn’t drag his eyes away from the sight as the shape swooped toward the dark line of mountains, arched up, over, and back toward where he stood on the little jetty. He jolted as he realised a giant violet eye, bloodshot and terrible, was staring right at him. 

It was so close he could see it gleam.
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I know you will want to read more, but for now that's it.
Never fear, now we have an insight to the inspiration behind this amazing adventure...

Some years ago, I was lucky enough to wangle a trip to Tromsø in Norway, just north of the Arctic Circle. It took three flights to get there and I’d never felt quite so intrepid. The place is stunning, with its colourful harbour and huge mountains, already covered in snow by October. On our last day, we visited Polaria, a striking museum itself shaped in the form of ice floes thrust up on land by the rough seas of the Arctic. A key theme of the place is that despite the powerful, rugged beauty of Polar regions, they are fragile.
The flora and fauna, indeed the whole landscape is at risk from global warming. At first, man just wanted to explore the poles out of a sense of adventure, but now, it is teeming with scientists, some working to improve bio-diversity, others looking for fuel. I’d already been thinking about a story about an icy trek, but I found myself resisting the ‘high fantasy’-style objectives such as talismans, treasure, mystic dragon’s eggs and so on. I hit on the idea of making the story an ‘eco-adventure’, so the Grells are desperately trying to find an alternative - and sustainable - fuel source to Blackfrost. Why else would you trek north through the frozen wilderness, after all? I received invaluable scientific insights on the matter from my husband, Rob, a chemistry professor (and co-author of Half Life). The nature of their mission led to other technological additions, and it was great fun coming up with new gizmos and gadgets that would fit the time and place. Truthfully, though, I’ve no idea where the concept of ‘abominaballs’ came from!

Obviously, the environmental lesson isn’t spelled out in the story, but I’m hoping the nature of this more modern ‘quest’, albeit in a fantasy world, will strike a chord with young readers. 
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For those of you who don't remember Pam from our previous guest post...here is her 
Bio__________
With a background in journalism, languages and educational publishing, it was inevitable that I would eventually say to heck with a career and try writing for myself. After a few years of trying out different styles, I landed six book deals in as many months and declared myself reinvented. Just as well, as it’s the ideal way to combat empty nest syndrome now that my daughter is at the University of Edinburgh doing History of Art. 


Three titles are for adults (Dark Interlude and Half Life with MuseItUp and Tomorrow’s Anecdote with Crooked Cat). Botanical mystery The Lost Orchid (YA/NA) is scheduled for an autumn release at Bluewood Publishing, along with two teen fantasy adventures, Ice Trekker and The Cloud Pearl, part one of Legends of Liria (both with MuseItUp). I now write full-time. I live in leafy Warwickshire, England, with my academic husband Robert (with whom I collaborated on Half Life, a ‘noir’ thriller set in 1936) and our two daft dogs. My favourite pastimes, apart from writing, are watching movies, trying not to overwater my windowsill orchids and keeping up with best teen fantasy fiction around.

ICE TREKKER buy link.

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Thanks for returning to my blog Pam with this new novel. I have been looking forward to ICE TREKKER's release since I had the honour of editing the manuscript. 

Introducing PAM KELT

It is my great pleasure to have PAM KELT share a little about what inspires her writing. As a Museitup editor I have been privileged to work with Pam on her upcoming YA Fantasy novel ICE TREKKER. Mark your calendar to watch out of her release date. Pam creates a wonderful world full of incredible creatures, characters and adventure. 

 Pam KELT......

With a background in languages, editing and journalism, Pam now has five ebooks coming out: 
Ice Trekker, Half Life and Dark Interlude (all with Muse); 
The Lost Orchid (Bluewood Publishing) and Tomorrow’s Anecdote (Crooked Cat).
 She lives in Kenilworth, with her husband Rob, a professor of inorganic chemistry, keen pilot and WW2 aviation enthusiast with whom she co-wrote Half Life.

 Her daughter Lauren is doing History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. Pam loves murder mysteries in any form, Victoriana, art galleries, botany, bird-watching and blockbusters. And, of course, walking the dogs.

Scenes to be believed

Chester and Lottie enjoying the January
 snow in our local spinney 

I walk the dogs every day. They need the exercise. I need a screen break. But dog walks make great locations. I can hear the theme tunes of Murder She Wrote or Midsomer Murders every time I pass by an overgrown ditch.

There’s a particular one, near Henry V’s folly a few minutes’ walk from Kenilworth Castle that is begging for a corpse.

My favourite location is a genuine Gothic ruin by the river. Built in 1751 and abandoned in the 1950s (long, long story), its empty windows look out over a picturesque bend of the Avon.

Guy’s Cliffe House in true Gothic mood, 

on 14 February, the day after the snow melted. 

The river has flooded the lower meadows

Guy’s Cliffe House is a hidden gem, not open to the public. To add to its mystique, it’s haunted, so they say. It even sports a hermit’s cave and a medieval love story with a tragic ending.

There’s a path on the other side of the river. You start at the Saxon Mill pub, the site of the original watermill, next to a weir filled with oozing, treacly water. I love the place and its ancient atmosphere.

One day in early summer a few years ago, I was trundling down the path with my two daft hounds. Ahead lay the manor with its glowering façades, overgrown rhododendrons and noisy jackdaws nesting in the chimney pots. I wondered if anyone had ever written a story about the place. It seemed more than likely.

But no. The nearest I found was that Granada TV had filmed a  Sherlock Holmes mystery with Jeremy Brett there in 1992 and managed to set fire to the ruin, causing even more damage. Eerily, the story was called The Last Vampyre. You can still see the scorch marks.

My desk on a rare tidy day when I was
making notes for Dark Interlude.
 Reverting to a fountain pen is
a miracle cure for plotitis.

I mused on what story I would set there, if I had the time to write it. Before I knew it, I’d snowballed all manner of personal interests into a plot. A retired plant collector. Orchids. A spooky mansion with a dark past and a sinister purpose.

Many writers burn to tell a particular story. In my case, the setting came before the story … and seems to be my MO. I stuck to Kenilworth for the book, called The Lost Orchid, set in the 1880s when Britain was orchid-crazy. It was fun creating a historical mystery NOT set in London.

Locations have inspired everything else I’ve written. I’m not sure why: perhaps there are so many stories to write, I needed to narrow down the choices.

Apart from my two dogs, these orchids are my
constant companions.
 The pink one on the left has been flowering
constantly since October 2011 (yes, 2011).

The next book sprang to life after a visit to Tromsö at the very top of Norway. Solid mountains, jetty, weatherboard houses, tundra, islands and lakes … I took hundreds of photographs, especially of its botanical garden, thinking I might do a sequel to the orchid story, but out popped Ice Trekker, a teen fantasy filled with monsters and mayhem. (I’m convinced Phillip Pullman visited a harbourside museum Tromsö before writing Northern Lights. It’s filled with quaint dusty cases full of 19th-century exhibits telling stories of fur-clad explorers in hot-air balloons.)

Exhibit from Tromsö museum 

The Arctic setting also sowed the seed for Half Life, a film noir thriller set in Norway before the Nazi invasion. I roped my husband into that one for his scientific expertise.

A half-term break to Loch Lomond kickstarted Dark Interlude, a romantic adventure set in post-WW1 Scotland.

Tomorrow’s Anecdote is set in the West Country, where I used to work in provincial journalism. Every pub, restaurant, house, flat, bus stop, doctor surgery and office is authentic – this time from memory, topped up by online research.

I can’t wait to finish Machiavelli’s Acolyte, a murderous tale in Bohemia in the 17th century, based in Cesky Krumlov, a dramatic Czech castle with a gruesome past.

It looks like I’ll be visiting Porvoo, a medieval city near Helsinki this summer. I wonder what story will come of that?

Click on the link to follow PAM's website and blog

Thanks for sharing some of your world, Pam, your website and blog are lovely. Well worth a visit and to follow.
Congratulations on the many releases you have this year... 2013 the year of Pam Kelt :)