This Christmas Welsh author Brian John is celebrating ten years in the company of hie eccentric and feisty heroine Martha Morgan, who has become one of the best-loved characters in Welsh fiction.
Mistress Martha made her first appearance in the novel On Angel Mountain in the year 2001, in what was the author's first work of fiction. The book was an instant success, and had to be reprinted within two months of first publication. Ten years later, it is still in the Welsh best-seller list, and sales have racked up to over 25,000 copies. The novel has been followed by six others, each one featuring the same heroine and following a different phase of her life in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Angel Mountain Saga now has a worldwide cult following, and many readers refer to the heroine as "Mother Wales" -- in that she personifies all that is good (and bad) in the Welsh psyche.
Brian is staggered by the success of the novels, in which the heroine herself is the narrator. "She is a deeply flawed heroine, " he says, "and maybe that is why so many people empathise with her. Although the stories are set at the same time as those of Jane Austen, there is no sign of that precious and rarified Regency world in Martha's Wales -- in some ways it had more in common with the Wild West, with lust and betrayal, murder and mayhem pulling the heroine -- and her guardian angels -- into appalling situations over and again. But in spite of everything, she survives, to die in a manner of her own choosing........."
This Christmas, Brian will be chatting to fans of the series and signing copies of all seven of the Angel Mountain books at Victoria Bookshop in Haverfordwest, Scolton Manor, and Ocean Lab in Fishguard. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the "birth" of Martha Morgan, all books purchased will carry an entry ticket for a prize draw, with a full signed set of the novels going to the winner.

Further information: Brian John on 01239-820470

NOTES

1. Venues for the signings: Ocean Lab, Fishguard, Sunday 11th December, 11.30 am - 1.30 pm; Victoria Bookshop, Haverfordwest, Friday 16th December, 11.30 am - 1.30 pm; Scolton Manor, near Haverfordwest, Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th December, 11 am - 4 pm

2. Web site, including reviews:
http://www.angel-mountain.info/index.html