When Frank, a staid, middle-aged, confirmed bachelor takes his new, diplomat Thai bride to a friend’s apartment on the Costa del Sol for their dream honeymoon, they are in Nirvana… until the ghouls of a secret Scandinavian society torment the superstitious young woman to the point of seeking death to end her suffering. Frank is way out of his depth… What is he to do to save the first love of his life?
The Ghouls of Calle Goya is the perplexing story of how Evil can result from the happiest of circumstances and good intentions, and how madness can be the result.
It is based on a true story and is set in Norway, the UK, Spain and Thailand.
The Ghouls of Calle Goya is available in several languages in several ebook formats (Barnes & Noble, GooglePlay, iTunes, Kindle, Kobo), paperback and possibly even audiobook (Amazon/Audible) too.
The cover is an original in crayon by Aliya.
Click a link below to learn more about the availability of the book in the language of your choice:
Asian Shorts International is an anthology of nineteen short stories by nine different authors. Most of them are professional writers but two of them were previously unpublished and one of those went on to write several more books.
The writers live all over the world too, in as much as nine people can, but countries include Cambodia, Canada, England, Thailand, USA, Vietnam and Wales. Their names and brief bios can be found under the list of translations below. free audiobook copies can be obtained in most cases, and other languages are being added as they become available.
The authors contributing to Asian Shorts International, in no particular order, are: Mike Lord, Owen Jones, Bernard Foong, Gay Ingram, Jennifer J. Chow, S. R. Mallery, Trevor Aindow and David Collier.
Please support these authors by checking out and reading their work.
English Edition
German Edition
Portuguese Edition
Afrikaans Edition
Italian Edition
Authors’ Bios of Contributors to Asian Shorts International:
Mike Lord
Sinagiri, by Mike Lord – Rajah Kasyapu & the Frescoes at Singiriya, in Sri Lanka.
Owen Jones writes in many genre which you can discover on his here: http://owencerijones.com . His flagship series ‘Behind The Smile ~ The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya’ is here: http://behind-the-smile.org
Bernard Foong
Bernard Foong (aka Young) is the author of ‘A Harem Boy’s Saga; a memoir’ by Young (seven book series): http://aharemboysaga.com/wp/The first three books in the series – ‘Initiation’, ‘Unbridled’ and ‘Debauchery’ (published by Solstice publishing) are currently available at all Amazon online stores e.g. http://amzn.to/1FMlHVY
Jennifer J. Chow writes Asian-American fiction with a geriatric twist. She is the author of The 228 Legacy, a 2013 Finalist for ’Foreword
Reviews’ Book of the Year Award. She also writes the Winston Wong cozy mystery series under J.J. Chow. Visit her website for more details: www.jenniferjchow.com
S. R. Mallery
As a former singer, calligrapher, quilt designer, and ESL teacher, S.R. Mallery has been labeled nothing short of ‘eclectic’, see: http://www.srmallery.com
As a writer, history is her focus and is woven into her stories with a delicate thread. See http://tinyurl.com/srmallery
Trevor Aindow
Trevor Aindow is an accomplished bass guitarist who has played with many bands both at home in the UK and while holidaying abroad in Europe and in Asia. His Facebook page is at: https://www.facebook.com/trevor.aindow or you can contact him on trevoraindow@yahoo.co.uk
Thailand (volume 1) is a professionally produced and narrated audiobook on various aspects of Thailand and life in Thailand as experienced by the author of this blog, Owen Jones during the twelve years he spent in his wife’s remote village in northern Thailand. It is organised into 15 chapters of about 500-600 words each, but will be followed by other volumes soon.
However, this audiobook is not only meant as an introduction to Thailand for a visitor, but the purchaser may also use the content in his or her own audio blog or publication at no extra charge. The only restriction is that you may not sell the whole book as is without my written permission.
You may split the book up and resell the articles. In fact, the only right that you do not have is to resell or give away the book as it was delivered to you.
If you have any feedback, please leave it with the company you bought this book from or post it below.
*** Breaking News!: Audible says: If you are prepared to leave a (short) review, here are some free copies of this audiobook 🙂 ***
If you have a UK account at Audible, please copy one of the next six codes and click the link below them:
Die Geschichte von Lek, einem Barmädchen in Pattaya
von
Owen Jones
Übersetzt von
Patricia Stroleny
Lek ist als Älteste von vier Geschwistern in eine typische Familie von Reisbauern hineingeboren worden. Sie hatte nie erwartet, dass sich ihr Leben anders entwickeln würde als das ihrer Klassenkameradinnen in ihrem Dorf im Norden Thailands. Normalerwise hätte dies bedeutet, ein paar Jahre lang auf dem Feld zu arbeiten, ein paar Kinder zu bekommen, sie dann zu ihrer Mutter zu geben, um weiter auf dem Feld zu arbeiten, bis ihre Kinder eines Tages selbst Kinder bekommen würden und sie an der Reihe wäre, auf diese aufzupassen. Eines Tages passierte jedoch aus heiterem Himmel eine Katastrophe: Ihr Vater starb jung und hinterließ einen Schuldenberg, von dem seine Familie bis dahin nichts gewusst hatte. Lek war zu der Zeit zwanzig Jahre alt und die Einzige in ihrer Familie, die eine Zwangsvollstreckung abwenden konnte. Jedoch war ihre einzige Option, nach Pattaya zu gehen, um dort in der Bar ihrer Cousine zu arbeiten. Sie fing als Kellnerin an und merkte bald, dass sie von ihrem Ehemann, mit dem sie sich zu der Zeit schon längst auseinandergelebt hatte, schwanger war. Nun musste sich einiges ändern. Sie bekam ihre Tochter, ließ sie bei ihrer Mutter, um auf sie aufzupassen und kehrte nach Pattaya zurück, um weiter zu arbeiten. Nun musste sie mehr Geld verdienen, um ihrer Tochter ein gutes Leben zu ermöglichen und die Tatsache, dass sie fast 1000 Kilometer trennten, wiedergutzumachen. So driftete sie in die Sexindustrie ab.
In diesem Buch geht es um ihre Abenteuer, ihre Träume und Alpträume, sowie ihren Modus Operandi. Es soll aus Leks Sicht erzählen, wie es wirklich ist, ein Barmädchen in Thailand zu sein – mit allen Hoffnungen und Enttäuschungen, die damit einhergehen und zum Alltag gehören.
Eines Tages lernt sie einen Mann kennen, den sie wirklich mag und der ihre Gefühle erwiedert. Das allein ist nichts Neues, es ist ihr schon viele Male zuvor passiert, doch diesmal fühlt es sich anders an als sonst. Sie verbringen vier wundervolle Wochen zusammen, doch dann muss er zurück in seine Heimat – und wie so viele Männer vor ihm hinterlässt er eine Menge Versprechen und Hoffnungen. Und er kommt zurück. Aber das wirkliche Leben mit einem wirklichen Partner ist nicht so einfach, wie Lek es sich erträumt hatte. Sie machen gute und shclechte Zeiten zusammen durch, aber werden sie zusammenbleiben und wenn ja, wie lange? Wird sie nach allem, was sie durchgemacht hat, überhaupt in der Lage sein, wieder eine ganz normale Feundin und Ehefrau zu sein? Wird sie wieder in der Lage sein, einem Mann wirklich zu vertrauen? Oder wäre es das Beste, ihre Träume übe Bord zu werfen und einfach weiter in der Bar zu arbeiten? Lek lernt nach und nach, dass zu bekommen, was man sich gewünscht hat, nicht immer so ist, wie man es sich vorgestellt hatte.
Der Titel “Hinter ihrem Lächeln” bezieht sich darauf, dass Thailand auf der ganzen Welt als das Land des Lächelns bekannt ist.
Tiger Lily of Bangkok – When the Seeds of Revenge Blossom opens when Lily was a happy little girl, which lasted until an ‘uncle’ started to abuse her from the age of eleven. She became shy and introverted, leading a lonely life until she moved to Bangkok to study at university.
However, her thoughts and her past would not leave her alone, so, after classes, she began to seek out men she suspected of paedophilia and exact her own peculiar type of revenge on them.
She became the vengeful Tiger Lily of Bangkok and terrified society, but how long could she keep evading the police, and did she secretly want to get caught anyway so she could make her story public?
You will wonder whether you want her get caught for her crimes, and that will make you question your morality.
Tiger Lily of Bangkok will make you question your values!
Reviews are available on the website you will reach by following the links below. Please leave your own short review too.
Links to the Various Tiger Lily of Bangkok Websites
The audiobook is narrated by Annya Strydom, who uses a wonderful, slightly spooky voice, which for me is reminiscent of Lily’s broken mother. Listen to the sample at the top of this post or follow the link to the free audiobook.
Tiger Lily of Bangkok is the first in the series of two,
Tiger Lily of Bangkok in London is the second.
Both volumes are available in several other languages, see the section FOREIGN TRANSLATIONS above!
Londoner Frank marries Joy, a beautiful young Thai, who works in town. She has always dreamed of going to the Costa del Sol, so they head to an apartment in Fuengirola on Calle Goya loaned by Frank’s boss for their dream honeymoon.
Things start to go wrong when Joy fears that the apartment is haunted. Fear leads to depression and deepens into terror. Frank has no idea what to do, except take her back to her family in Thailand, but that brings its own misfortune.
Life finally looks brighter because of the intervention of a secret Scandinavian society.
This is the story of how Evil can result from good intentions.
The Humorous Tale of a Contemporary Vampire Family
by
Owen Jones
Narrated by
Melanie Crawley
Heng Lee is a goat-herd in the remote mountains north-east of Chiang Rai in northern Thailand, very close to the border with Laos. It is a tight-knit community where everyone knows one another.
Heng gets sick all of a sudden, but not too sick to take the goats out, until one day he has to go to see the local shaman, because he has started fainting.
There are no medical doctors in the vicinity and the Shaman has been good enough for most people for centuries.
The Shaman takes some specimens and comes to the conclusion that Heng’s kidneys have stopped functioning and so has little time left to live.
The battle is on to save Heng’s life, but there are other forces at work too.
What will become of Heng, his family and the rest of the community, if he takes the Shaman’s advice?
Asian Shorts came about because of a sequence of events on one weekend. A friend was telling me that he had several short stories with Asia as a backdrop, I was saying that I had a few as well. Then another friend sent me an email that he wanted to write a short on Pattaya, and one of my Thai cousins sent me her latest photo, the one on the cover of this book.
It was like somebody was trying to tell me something, or several were anyway.
The nineteen stories by nine authors in this anthology were sent to me in one month, but are as varied as their writers. The stipulation was that Asia or an Asian had to feature strongly in the story. We have stories featuring Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, the USA and Vietnam, by Asian and non-Asian authors who live in or come from Britain, Malaysia, Thailand, the USA and Vietnam.
Some of these writers are well-known as writers, some are better known in other spheres; some have written a lot before and been published in the traditional sense, others are travelling the Indie Publishing path, and for yet others this is the very first time they or you will have seen their stories in print of any kind.
You can read more about each author by visiting the web sites that they have given after their stories. I thoroughly recommend that you do this, as what you will find out about the authors will surprise you.
A lump has been growing on my back for the last week or two. I haven’t paid it much attention because it didn’t hurt and I have had a non-malignant lymphoma removed before. The surgeon who did that in the UK twelve years ago, said that I could get another one there again or somewhere else in the future, so I put it down to that.
However, this one burst last night, so I suppose it is some kind of boil instead. My wife suggested going to hospital to get it sorted out and I agreed. So, I asked when she wanted to take me to the local hospital and she said they couldn’t deal with something like this there, we’d have to go seventy-five kilometres to a big city hospital instead.
That has got me thinking about being ill in the countryside, if they can’t handle a boil, what about a stroke or a heart attack?
Five or six years ago, my wife bought fifty mapang saplings, which grow into trees, or big bushes, I suppose. Anyway, we’re had a few fruit from them over the years, but they were a little bitter and, so, rather disappointing. However, this year, she has bucketfuls of mapang and they are the best I’ve ever tasted.
Perhaps they just needed to grow up a bit – like children. I’m not certain, but I think mapang are called plum mangoes in English. The name certainly suits their size, colour, shape and taste. They look like large, yellow duck eggs with a big, flat, central stone.
This is Thailand’s summer, so you can expect it to be hot, late thirties to early forties centigrade, but it is also overcast, which is unusual… that doesn’t usually come until May when the Big Monsoon traditionally arrives. However, the old weather patterns are becoming less predictable, as in most places in the world.
When I arrived at the shop for a beer a few minutes ago, the ‘landlady’ was in a panic, because a girl had reported seeing a snake entering her shop. I saw it too, but I wouldn’t have said anything since it was not poisonous and I knew what cruelty would await it if they found it.
Most Thais kill all snakes on sight whether they’re dangerous or not, which I think is bloody stupid and their least endearing quality. Often they display the most extreme cruelty during these usually pointless killings.
They say it’s better to be safe than sorry.
It’s hard to argue with that, but since most snakes are not poisonous and eat a lot of rodents that eat their rice, I would have thought it was worth learning (at school perhaps) which ones were helpful and which were to be avoided. It would put an end to a lot of the ritual persecution and cruelty.
In fact, most of the snakes’ killers are older women and teenage boys. I’ve seen women dancing after killing a snake and boys parading their trophy about as if they had achieved something miraculous. They’re big heroes with snakes that can’t fight back, but daddy is called to kill the really serious ones.
Identifying Snakes
What I have learned is that short, stumpy, light-green snakes whose back of the head is a lot wider than its nose are killers. This includes the pit vipers. Then there are cobras, which tend to be black here, and a few others which have quite distinctive markings and that’s it. The large constrictors (over three or four metres) are also best given a wide berth, but I think that would come naturally J
This one today didn’t match any of those criteria. It was about two foot six long, as thin as a bottleneck and dark green with hatching (a little like in the photo). It probably ate beetles, but three people armed with six-foot-long long sticks trapped it in a corner and hit it a few times before dropping it into the drainage system. I don’t think it was dead, but perhaps had a broken back, so it’s going to have to lie down there in pain until it starves to death.
PS: a note about the photo: my neighbour found this five-foot, harmless beauty, a so-called flying snake, on the outside of her front door when she got up bleary-eyed after their house-warming party. She called me to see it and then shooed it away 🙂 but most would have killed it on the spot.
Those of my regular readers who have followed the five-year saga of my trying to get my Thai wife into the UK will recognize the reference, because Getting My Thai Wife to the UK has been my biggest problem for a decade.
Well, I have had some good news today. An acquaintance of mine has successfully taken his Thai wife from Spain to the UK with very little hassle. This is exceptionally good news for me because our circumstances are almost identical.
We have both been married to a Thai woman for more than ten years, been married in Thailand, and lived in Spain for more than two years.
When my friend took his Thai wife to the UK, he went through the Channel Tunnel. They were stopped and questioned, but after providing the necessary evidence that they were married, were admitted with a visa ‘without end’ – in other words, there was an entry date, but no required exit date – an open-ended right to stay.
This is much more than I would ever have hoped for!
It gives one plenty of time to apply for a residency card. This is fantastic, because one of the requirements of a residency card for a Asian wife is a six-month tenancy agreement, and I am just learning how difficult it is to find accommodation.
Brexiteers’ Lies
In fact, it is horrendous, no matter how easy the Brexiteers say getting into this country is! Pure lies – the UK is famous for being VERY tough on immigration – the rest is lies. I have been married for more than ten years – if it is so easy, why am I struggling and have I been for more than five years to get her in?
Answer me that Brexiteers! You have been hoodwinked…
Now, we are in the UK, but the quest did not stop when we arrive. It gives us a chance to recoup though, and to be honest, we are in need of another victory, as the last were obtaining a Spanish residency card for my Thai wife and a UK visa for her. Next we will need somewhere permanent to lay our heads, and after that the big one – a UK Residency Card…
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I lived in Thailand for thirteen years, and visited Bangkok scores of times because my wife has family there and most visa work is carried out there too, but I’m not completely sure that there is a designated Bangkok Red Light District as such.
Bangkok is the Bangkok Red Light District to put it simply. There are sex bars and non-sex bars all over the city, and then there are the hybrids – ie, those which are respectable by day, but turn into sex bars after dark. Many of these places have a microphone on a stand in a corner, so that they can play Karaoke songs later on. Many of the girls who come to sing will be on stage to draw attention to themselves, but they are not hoping to be spotted for a career in music.
If there is such a thing as a dedicated Bangkok Red Light District, I suppose that it is around Sukhumvit Soi 4, which is more popularly known as Soi Nana, after the first and largest hotel in the street. However, many of the most popular sex venues are around, not necessarily in that street
I know that many tourists to Bangkok head for the famous sex bars and night clubs in Soi Nana, but if you are staying in Bangkok for more than one night, check out the bars around your hotel first, you will find some pleasant surprises that are not overfull and not overpriced. Thais, other Asians and falang residents use these places, so they are more typical of Bangkok than what you probably think of as the Bangkok Red Light District.
One thing to remember when looking for typical examples of the Bangkok Red Light District, is that it is not like what you have seen on the films of American soldiers in Saigon, Tokyo, or even Bangkok. In general, the signs are not so flashy, and the girls promoting the bar on the street will be more modestly dressed, although schoolgirl uniform is popular.
If the Bangkok Red Light District is on your list of sights to see, don’t be worried about checking it out, you are not obliged to do anything you don’t want to, and you will probably have a lot of fun.
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The Beginning – volume 7 in the series Behind The Smile
The Beginning
Behind The Smile – The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya
(volume 7)
by Owen Jones
Review by Barry Boy
The Beginning is volume seven in the much-liked series Behind The Smile – The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya by Owen Jones.
Volume One in the series began when Lek was twenty-two and already working in Daddy’s Hobby in Pattaya, Volume Seven goes back to before she was even born – just before, to the days when her mother was young and working in the ‘na’ or rice fields.
Even nowadays, life as a Thai rice-farmer is hard, but for many, there is some mechanisation, but, then, in the early Seventies, it was mostly manual labour.
Pang and her husband, Maar, lived with Pang’s parents and worked their land. They all got on well, and worked for a better future for their family. One day, Pang announces that she is pregnant with their first child, and their lives change, as it always has done in all families around the world.
Lek has a happy childhood on the exterior, but she has her internal dialogue about her fears and insecurities. Ayr and Goong, her best friends, are there to help, but they drift apart for a while when Lek is forced to leave school at the age of twelve.
The stigma is to remain with her all her life.
The Beginning is written in the third person and the cover is apposite, being the same, except in title and colour, as the previous six. It is instantly recognisable in pink, being a diluted form of the colour of Volume One, which is red.
The Beginning: Behind The Smile -The Story of Lek, A Bar Girl in Pattaya (volume 7) will be published on December 26th, 2017 for $3.99, but the price will rice on January 1st to $4.99. However, you can pre-order it now for $2.99 at a discount of up to 45% and have it delivered to your device on Boxing Day, while you are recovering from a hectic Christmas Day.
The Tiger Lily Audiobook, or the audiobook of Tiger Lily of Bangkok to be more precise, one of my novels, has been in the pipeline to be be published on Audible, Amazon and iTunes for weeks, but nothing seemed to be happening with it…
They said that it was ‘under review’ for audio quality.
That is, until last night. I got up in the middle of the night because it was so hot and decided to do a little work to get me back to sleep as it was only four a.m. I noticed that the Tiger Lily Audiobook had been approved and put on sale. After checking my email, I went back to bed and slept for a few more hours.
At nine, I returned to my post after breakfast and was amazed to discover that my Tiger Lily Audiobook had sold six copies!
The truly amazing thing about this is that there had been no advertising whatsoever. In fact, Audible and the others don’t give authors notice of when their books will be going live, which makes prior promotion difficult and they don’t support pre-orders either.
So, where did those six customers for my Tiger Lily Audiobook come from?
How did they find out about it?
I doubt that I will ever know, but I do know that Tiger Lily of Bangkok is a good story that is narrated so skilfully by Annya Strydon, so I hope that they enjoy it. I also hope that they read this article and discover that I appreciated their buying it so quickly off the mark.
If you would like to see what the story is about that created this buzz, and perhaps get a free copy yourself, just click this link:
Yesterday, March 30th. was our tenth wedding anniversary. Well, one of them, anyway, since most foreigners who marry Thais get married twice and not necessarily on the same day. However, despite the two chances, neither of us would have remembered the occasion, if it hadn’t been for Facebook’s built-in calendar reminder.
And this isn’t the first time we have both forgotten – I can’t remember a time that we have remembered!
However, this is not to say that we don’t care. As soon as I showed my wife Facebook’s reminder, she threw her arms around me and we cuddled for ten minutes. It was lovely…
It s just that neither of us are the kind of person to whom these sorts of things matter much.
It has gotten us into trouble too – several times – and I am quite sure that it will again.
Everyone is aware of Asian peoples’ obsession with taking photographs, well, several times that we went for my visa extension in Thailand, we were asked to provide photographic evidence that we had in fact been together during the period between the visas, but we could not, because we don’t take photos of ourselves.
I know for a fact that my wife only has one photo from her past – of herself as a baby – and I don’t have any from my past at all.
This is not normal, I know – and what are the chances of two people who feel like that meeting each other?
God knows, but slim, I should imagine.
Anyway, the next hurdle will be when we are asked to produce evidence of a ‘long and sustainable relationship’ when we apply for my wife’s residency permit for the U.K..
That will be a laugh!
However, for those of you still wondering… we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary by spending time with friends in our local, and then going for a meal, at which two of our Thai friends joined us.
It was lovely, but if you want to see a photo, I will have to get one from one of them…
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The Beginning – volume 7 in the series Behind The Smile
Lek – The Beginning
I just made progress on Lek – The Beginning! So far I’m 21% complete on the Editing phase. 1 Days remain until the deadline.
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Place your pre-order for delivery on December 26th at a discount of 45%
The Beginning – volume 7 in the series Behind The Smile
Lek – The Beginning Progress Update
I just made progress on Lek – The Beginning! So far I’m 71% complete on the Revising phase.
[mybookprogress progress=”0.7141034949665417″ phase_name=”Revising” book=”4″ book_title=”Lek – The Beginning” bar_color=”CB3301″ cover_image=”8784″ mbt_book=”7781″]
Place your pre-order for Lek7, The Beginningof Behind The Smile – the story of Lek, a bar girl in Pattaya, now and have it delivered on Boxing Day with a saving of 45%
I just made progress on Lek – The Beginning! So far I’m 59% complete on the Week 4 phase. 7 Days remain until the deadline.
[mybookprogress progress=”0.58744″ phase_name=”Week 4″ deadline=”1512000000″ book=”4″ book_title=”Lek – The Beginning” bar_color=”CB3301″ cover_image=”8741″ mbt_book=”7781″]
Lek The Beginning, now shortened to The Beginning, is now available as a pre-order from Kobo, Smashwords, iTunes, and Amazon at $2.99
Pre-orders really help the author gain sales ranking, as the sales all go through on the day of release, 26th December 2017, when the book will be delivered to your ereader or computer automatically.
What a nice present to wake up to on Boxing Day!
To thank you for committing your money early, I am giving a 40% discount on all pre-orders. If you buy it on the 26th or after, it will cost $3.99. In the New Year, the price will rise again to $4.99
