Sophie Duncan, Twin-Author-Geek :)

I'm an author and I've been writing since I was a wee thing, and publishing since I discovered the internet in 1994 or so. Half of my week, I am a project manager developing IT solutions. For the rest of the week, weekends, and every waking hour outside work, you can find me scribbling away at many a story that just won't leave me alone.

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Happy Valentine's Day - Romantic Free Reads

Happy Valentines Day - Romantic Free Reads

Happy Valentine’s Day one and all. We hope you are all enjoying the chocolate if nothing else :).

We have two free short stories for you today, one ghostly tale of lost love from Sophie, that is too long to be in a post, so it is available to download from Smashwords, and another, a humorous paranormal romance that is below.

Phantom Love by Sophie Duncan

When Ben promises to show his cousin,…

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Newsletter Exclusive: Manifesto of Meow by Natasha Duncan-Drake

Happy New Year! and welcome to January’s Free Fiction Friday story. We have a spot of humour for you this month and hope it will make you smile as we head into 2018.

Author’s Note: I wrote this for a competition (which I didn’t win :)) several years ago, but have never published it, and I rediscovered it when checking through my files. I do hope you enjoy it.

Manifesto of Meow by Natasha…

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The Chronicles of Charlie Waterman - Now In Paperback

The Chronicles of Charlie Waterman – Now In Paperback

For those who love the feel of a holding a book, we are very pleased to announce that The Chronicles of Charlie Waterman by Natasha Duncan-Drake  are now available in paperback as well as eBook.

Book 1 – Cat’s Call Book 2 – Cat’s Creation Book 3 – Cat’s Confidence

Charlie Waterman is eighteen and, until he is assaulted by a cat figurine and…

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Newsletter exclusive: Merry Mid-Winter! by Natasha Duncan-Drake

Welcome to December’s Free Fiction Friday story. This month we have a version of Charles Dickens’  A Christmas Carol – of course we do, it’s December :). This one has fairies and fauns and pixies.

Author’s Note: You will recognise a few of the lines as directly from the original story, because there are just some discourses that make A Christmas Carol, so thanks to Mr Dickens, but the rest is…

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Newsletter Exclusive: A Matter of Will by Natasha Duncan-Drake

Welcome to November’s Free Fiction Friday story. This month we have vampires and werewolves

A Matter of Will by Natasha Duncan-Drake

The night sky was as black as Edwin’s mood. The scotch in his glass was not helping, even if it was laced with herbs that made his werewolf system susceptible to the alcohol. It had been a terrible two weeks.

“You did your best, you know.”

“I could have done…

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All Hallows Read - Free Book - Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law

All Hallows Read 2017 Free Book Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law

Every year at this spooky time we like to support All Hallows Read and give away a free book to our trick or treating visitors. All Hallows Read is a movement supported by the great Neil Gaiman to promote the joy of reading by giving away a scary book instead of candy.

Since it’s very hard to give candy through an internet…

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Newsletter Exclusive: Dark Celebrations by Sophie Duncan

Welcome to Free Fiction Friday. This month we have a ghostly science fiction tale of revenge and betrayal – enjoy :).

Dark Celebrations by Sophie Duncan

  The collar dug into her neck and Mina caught herself pulling the bottom of her jacket down over her stomach for the umpteenth time as she followed Lieutenant Chaudary up the steps to the back of the Grand Ballroom. After only two weeks as…

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Please ignore this post it is a test for new tags.

Please ignore this post it is a test for new tags.

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The Elves & The Toymakers (on Wattpad) http://my.w.tt/UiNb/EalZkyyilz Not blessed with their own children, a dressmaker and her husband, a cobbler, find a way to share their love with children all around them. This story is a re-imagining of the fairy tale The Elves and the Shoemaker with a Christmas holiday twist. A note for context: although I do not approve of using animal fur in clothing, this story is set in the past when natural fibres were all that were available.

[funkymcgalaxy]

The awkward moment when you make a bullshit sexist meme about “fake geek girls”, but aren’t quite geek enough yourself to know that Spock did hold the rank of Captain from Star Trek II to VI, making the “fake geek girl” in this scenario 8,000 per cent more legit geek than you. 

[poet-tree-lines]

GET WRECKED

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VICIOUS 

[violetsaffron73]

[a-queer-kind-of-fear]

violetsaffron73:

THE picture of the night! 😂 Sir Ian McKellan & Sir Patrick Stewart, Evening Standard Theatre Awards, 2016

[letsgostealaleverageblog]

It's a very distinctive-

[culturenlifestyle]

Gentle and Heartwarming Animal Illustrations By Sydney Hanson

Artist Sydney Hanson transforms wild animals into adorable illustrations drawn as gentle and vulnerable creatures with soft fur and endearingly large eyes engaged in tender scenes. Expressions of curiosity, joy, and contentment on Hanson’s characters mirrors the love of animals she embraces.

Guinea pigs, bunny, bats and donkeys, foxes and other wild creatures become heartfelt drawings that portray the tamed and innocent side of the wilderness. Hanson’s illustrative style is remarkably compassionate and draws the familiarity of children’s novels and fairy tale to warm our hearts further to her cute animals. Find them in their Etsy shop.

View similar posts here!

[beepbeepbeepbeep-deactivated202]

It’s an excuse to never clean up.

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[hello-beaniebeanie]

This is the third time I’ve seen this today and I LOVE IT! This this this!.

[hello-beaniebeanie]

The dude behind this just posted an update (on twitter and maybe other places I dunno) and it’s still great!

[lunalove-blr]

And with the above mentioned update:

[balticprincess]

Reblogging. I love this guy. And he is from my hometown. Hamburg citizens rule! (Obviously, we do not call ourselves “Hamburgers”)

[arcticfoxbear]

Humans Are Weird

So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather? 

What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving. 

[arafaelkestra]

To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.

[radioactivepeasant]

Earth being Space Australia Words cannot express how much I love these posts

[crazy-pages]

Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”

Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”

Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”

Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.” 

Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”

Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”

Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”

Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.” 

Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.” 

[neilcicierega]

[thesylverlining]

what happened in roughly 1870 though

why was there temporary internet

with a few people searching for pokemon?

[tacticalskirt]

It’s a search of Google books, but the question still stands, what the Fuck happened in 1870

[solongasitswords]

I CAN ANSWER THIS!!

In the Cornish dialect of English, Pokemon meant ‘clumsy’ (pure coincidence).

In the mid 1800s there was a surge of writing about the Cornish language and dialect in an attempt to preserve them with glossaries and dictionaries being written. I wrote about it HERE.

[bookshop]

I just love that this post happened to find the ONE HUMAN ON THE INTERNET who had the answer to this question