Authors Reach! Fellow authors Shani Struthers, Catriona King, Sarah England and Gina Dickerson and I have formed Authors Reach Ltd with the intention of bringing our books to the greatest readership possible, both as eBooks and as paperbacks. Our website is www.authorsreach.co.uk. Please check it out. There's some great books there!   Take a look at my weekly blog. You'll find it at:-  http://richardhardies.blogspot.co.uk   LEAP OF FAITH was my first book in the Temporal Detective Agency series. Published late last year as an eBook and paperbook world-wide by Crooked Cat, it has had great sales and was a shortlisted finalist for the People's Book Prize 2014.   Trouble With Swords, the second book in the Temporal Detective Agency series, was published in August 2014 and is available on Amazon and from most good bookshops.   *GREAT Christmas GIFTS  FOR Young Adults OF ALL AGES!*   If you like fantasy detective books with a difference.... so do I!   Watch out for special Kindle offers on Amazon every so often. 99c in the States and 99p in the UK.        I live in the South of England and  by choice I write books for Young Adults... of all ages! My current series is about the Temporal Detective Agency, two girls and a woman from 5th century Camelot that relocate to the 21st century partly because the cases are more interesting, but mostly because the toilet facilities are so much better. I was a Scout Leader for 15 years, during which time I wrote and helped produce 5 successful Gang Shows. Doing that gave me a tremendous understanding of the humour and likes of children of all ages and some of my characters are actually based on Scouts I knew, both girls and boys. My books are humorous, full of adventure with a slight tendency towards fantasy. For instance in the Agency series Merlin is a well-disguised woman, madly in love with Arthur. While her sister, Marlene, runs things on her behalf with two of her apprentices My greatest influence (asides from the kids themselves) has been Terry Pratchett, who back in 2002 actually helped me write a scene for one of my Shows and even acted in it. Then, of course, there was the great Bernard Cornwell who encouraged me to continue writing and get Leap of Faith published when I was on the point of packing it in! CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS TO GO TO MY WEBSITE, SEE MY BOOKS, OR IDEALLY GO TO ANY AMAZON SITE TO BUY THEM! Leap of Faith was the first of the Temporal Detective Agency books and the second (Trouble with Swords) was also published by Crooked Cat Publishing as a paperback and eBook.  The series characters seem to be having a great time and neither I, nor they see any reason why the number of books in the series should be limited, so as long as they're having fun and people like reading about the TDA I'll carry on writing up their adventures. My website is http://www.rhardie.com. It's a lot of fun but watch out for the magic bits and make sure you see Tertia's page! It also has a link to my blog, my email and just about everything else!

One of my greatest achievements was eventually getting Leap of Faith published and seeing people actually reading my books and enjoying it.
I still have my certificate for swimming a width.