Strategic Book Marketing: All you need to know about Benjamin J West, Author of " The Eight of Spades"

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Strategic Book Group would like to introduce author Benjamin J West and his new book "The Eight of Spades" to Amazon.

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A lifelong resident of Hull, in the East Ring of Yorkshire, where I was born in 1948, the same year the NHS was created. Yorkshire, born and bred, and very, very proud! I have two other brothers, Brian, the eldest, Geoffrey, the middle one and myself, the youngest. Our parents were Marmaduke James and Marjorie Joan Howarth. My wife, Constance, is my third wife and strangely enough I am her third husband although we have known each other for more than thirty years. We were married on the fourth October 2006 at Oulton Hall in Leeds. Everything happens at 4:30 p.m. on the fourth October. We actually got together at 4:30 p.m. on the fourth October we got engaged at 4:30 p.m. on the fourth October and of course we got married at 4:30 p.m. on the fourth October. The only downside is, my life will probably end at 4:30 p.m. on the fourth October, hopefully though not for many years to come.

I have two beautiful daughters who both live in Hull. Paula, the eldest, who was born, September 1973. She runs her own, very successful, restaurant, ‘Stanley’s’ Paragon Sq. Hull with her partner, James. Sally, the youngest, born August 1978. She works in a sports shop in Hull, her partner, Paul, who too works for the same company but in a different shop in Hull. They have one child, Elliott, my grandson of course, and he was born March2009. My wife has three lovely children from a previous marriage, Melanie, Clare and Matthew.

I spent the majority of my working life in the print trade. First moving around, gaining valuable experience and then finally settling down to one company where I stayed for thirty five years before being made redundant at the age of 58 in an attempt to save the company. Unfortunately it only survived for a further nine months before it sadly went under in 2006. Plate making and print management was my forte, the manual plate making forlornly going out of the window due to the further onslaught of computerisation. This was where I turned to my other skills and progressed into purchasing and Production control which is where I was when I was made redundant.

Since then and now I am in Food retail working for a local company that supplies fresh, frozen and ambient food to everyone from small takeaways to hospitals, schools and chains, local and within a sixty mile radius of Hull.

I have always, well, as long as I can remember, had a keen interest in writing but regrettably have only managed to live the dream in my later years. My ultimate dream is to write fulltime hopefully, very, very soon. I started to acquire the interest in writing a long, long time ago, they say ‘everyone has a book in them’ well I did. I had already written the basics when I went to college to learn the proper way to attack the interest and from there it has escalated to the present. With the sheer power of the pen in hand the world is literally at your fingertips as nothing, but nothing is impossible, the creative field is endless.

Writing has taken over my life, but soon, my life will take over my writing

My one saying in life, says it all really!

My first book is a trilogy, the first part, The Eight of Spades: A Law unto Themselves, is about the British Government, struggling with a multitude of political failings, furtively removes eight people from their homes and blackmails them into helping the Government. However, these eight citizens will not serve quietly and they quickly turn on the very Government that betrayed them. They steal a highly advanced super ship belonging to the Royal Navy and rename it the Intruder. With the British Government denying all knowledge of their very existence, the group transform themselves into Public Enemy Number 1, the invincible, enigmatic, Eight of Spades. When the team undertakes the challenge of clearing the Icelandic waters of the fearful gunboats that harass British trawlers in the 1976 Cod War, they find themselves nose-to-nose with the Navy they just humiliated. The Navy wants their ship back-preferably in one piece-but if all else fails, a million pieces will suffice.

The second book, The Eight of Spades: The end, Is Just the Beginning will hopefully be completed by the end of 2010.

Other works in the pipeline: ‘If I slip through your fingers’ A scintillating love story that will set fire to your mind and body. This book has been started, although only just, but the groundwork has been completed and it is only a matter of time now. ‘Everything is not enough’ A science fiction story with an audacious, blood curdling twist. The groundwork is finished but it has not been started as yet. Then hopefully the completion of the trilogy although this may be brought forward depending on time progression. There are a million other positive ideas splintering my brain but these will only come to fruition in time, my one and only enemy. I write because the pen is mightier than the sword. I have so much inside that is yearning to be set free. Being able to create is so satisfying and most of my inspiration comes from within and hopefully will continue to do so. People watching, to find characters and mannerisms is a pastime I will see someone or something and think to myself ‘I will use that somewhere along the line.’ When the first novel was completed I felt as if I had been given the world. A very deep feeling of satisfaction came over me and that feeling is still with me today pushing me forever onwards.