J-views publishing services

27/10/2021

Coming soon!

Just been doing the final checks of the manuscript before sending it off to the printer. The next stage will be to get a proof PDF and to go through that again. If that's OK, then go through a paper proof and approve it. And then it's all systems go for the release on December 1. Ebook is also under way. Here's what the paperback will contain:

21/10/2021

This is from my FB page about my forthcoming book, On the Other Side of the Sky. I intend to give a little bit of background to the book – clearly in the hope that you will buy a copy when it comes out on December 1.

There's another piece of art in the cover of the book. It's the troll-like creature squatting malevolently in the sky, facing "Jane" (Jane Machin is the major protagonist in this story). Maybe this thing doesn't look familiar to you, but that's because he's out of context.
His original (I'm assuming it's a "he") is to be found in a version of "The Nightmare" – one of Henry Fuseli's most famous works. Henry Fuseli was born in Switzerland, and came to England, where he pursued a successful career as a painter of Shakespearean scenes and supernatural subjects.
The Nightmare has a psycho-sexual horror element to it, and therefore appealed greatly to the new "sensibility" of the Rousseau-ian age. Think of "Monk" Lewis, The Castle of Otranto, and all of Mrs Radcliffe's Gothic tales. I lifted this creature out of the painting, and modified him a little.
Fuseli appears (twice) in the book as an off-stage character, and the painting itself gets a mention. Zürich (Fuseli's town of origin) is also the setting for several scenes in the book.

05/11/2020

This is a new venture. https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/j-views - bypassing Amazon, and giving some of the money from sales to local bookshops. I'm working on how to get all the cover images on there - but I believe the books are available and will be sent out fast.

j-views Publishing is a small publishing house founded and run by Hugh Ashton. It chiefly acts as a publishing house for his own writing, but occasionally publishes work by other authors.

01/07/2020

j-views Publishing celebrates the publication of two books today.
The first is "A Death in Autumn : 1968" by Jim McGrath - the fourth in his series of Collins & Clark stories. These chronicle the adventures of two police officers in Birmingham and the Black Country, with all kinds of skullduggery and mayhem. Fair bostin (and if you need a definition of bostin, you need to read these books).
The other, "Mapp's Return" by Hugh Ashton, involves genteel skullduggery in the inter-war years - in Tilling - taking up the stories of Mapp and Lucia where the originals by E.F.Benson left off.
Available as paperbacks and ebooks from Amazon and purveyors of fine literature worldwide.

16/06/2020

A Death in Autumn: 1968

09/06/2020

There are now two Mapp and Lucia novellas available. Both are available now from the link below (the second, Mapp's Return, will not be available until July 1) as ebooks or signed and personally dedicated paperbacks - at less than the Amazon prices. The first, Mapp at Fifty, is also available as an audiobook.
And if you are wondering why the page is called Ye Signe of the Daffodil, may I refer you to the first of the Lucia books, Queen Lucia.
https://hughashtonbooks.com/daffodil/

21/06/2019

My Tales of Old Japanese which got a really nice review earlier this year:
"Very relaxing, calming read and surprisingly well written. A great sense of tone and really captured the spirit of Japan with an authentic voice. There's humour to be found here, and also a deep, melancholy sadness - but what stands out most of all is a profound respect for the country and a narrative voice that emulates some of the best stylistic traits of contemporary Japanese authors. A bite-sized book to be sure, but one to be savoured slowly."
It's available from Amazon, but it's available for less from here (don't tell Jeff Bezos) for Kindle, Kobo, iPad, etc.:
https://hughashtonbooks.com/other-books/
PayPal and credit cards accepted.

Books by Hugh Ashton: Tales of Old Japanese, The Persian Dagger, and First Contact

16/04/2019

An annoyingly frequent occurrence.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of correction fluid... Piracy on the cyberseas.

02/03/2019

For a week, some of my books will be at half-price, and the rest will be FREE if you get them from Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/hughashton

03/01/2019

The first fiction I ever published, and the last of my books to be republished following the demise of Inknbeans Press.

It's now available in ebook format (purchase from Amazon or https://hughashtonbooks.com/alternative-history/ ) and now in a 300+ page paperback - it will be available from Amazon etc. in the next few days:

Beneath Gray Skies

Brian Finch-Malloy: school chess and fencing champion, crack shot, former officer in the British Army’s Coldstream Guards, and private in the army of the Confederacy.

He is now on the run from the British Secret Service, the Confederacy, and from Hermann Goering of the German National Socialist Workers' Party. Working with a group of Confederates and Germans, he must find a way to prevent an unholy alliance between President Jefferson Davis III’s Confederate States of America and Adolf Hi**er’s Germany.

David Slater: private in the Army of the Confederacy, with talents for chess and calligraphy, both of which take him on unexpected adventures; to Germany, and in the Zeppelin Bismarck, where he meets Hi**er, Goering, and other N**i functionaries.

Beneath Gray Skies tells of a past that never happened, where the Confederacy survived into the 20th century, and a giant airship soars through the air, carrying a fabulous and mysterious treasure across the Atlantic.