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Other Works

Perhaps you read and loved, "The Clarinet on the Glacier". Perhaps you want to find out whether you might like it before you try. Or perhaps you're just looking for a good time. Or even spiritual enlightenment. Whichever it should be, see below for where you can find more to read by J.E. MacKenzie.

Of Course I Love You, I Just Don't Like You Very Much

Discounting a couple of absolutely dreadful spy novels (or, more accurately, attempts at spy novels) as a student, this is my first proper novel. First published in 2011, it's the story of a more or less loving husband. He isn't quite loving enough to want to keep the wife, but he is loving enough not to want to ditch her. He's also a bit scared. The book charts the course of his subsequent attempts, mainly failures, to find a boyfriend for said wife so that she'll leave of her own accord.

 

This story is the least child-friendly of my productions. The language is a shade colourful at times and the sexual humour is more explicit than in other stories. So it's certainly not one for the kids. Of course, as soon as you tell them that it isn't suitable for them, it'll be their first choice to get hold of and read through but that's children for you. Maybe you should just tell them that it's a feel-good story which focuses on genuinely decent, if clearly imperfect, characters who try hard to put things right in terms of family, friends and life in general. That much is also true, in fact. It's a book designed around cheap laughs on one hand, but also to make the reader feel good by the end of it.

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The second edition is available at a reduced price in an electronic format on Amazon here. It's technically a Kindle version but can be read on other devices with an easily available ereader. Please get in touch if you need more details. 

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Royal Wedding

To take its full title, "Royal Wedding - Peregrine Rap", this was originally intended to be a children's story. It's much shorter than the two novels (33 pages, including the title page) and contains no bad language. There's no sex and the violence is purely comic. Where things went a bit off-course was that the level of humour remained a bit lower than what you'd expect in a "Paddington Bear", "Thomas the Tank Engine" or even "Harry Potter" story. The temptation to get into jokes about stag nights, some of the worst rapping in history, or seagull sandwiches was just too much. That said, kids do find it entertaining. They just probably shouldn't until they reach at least mid-teens.

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The story follows the antics of Prince Peregrine, heir to the throne of the Kingdom Next Door, and his loyal attendant, Wally. Peregrine's marriage to the Fairy Princess Caroline becomes quite a challenge thanks mainly to his tendency to drink excessively, getting locked out of the palace complex, a human/fairy fight at the wedding reception, an accidental request for a naval bombardment and Peregrine's rank stupidity in general. Nothing is to be taken too seriously, however, and the underlying narrative follows some characters who are clearly flawed but fundamentally nice, and how this, rather than booze, is what really drives them.

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The story can be downloaded, as originally written, in PDF format here. Please feel free to share it.

Sermons from the Church of Scotland, Geneva, Switzerland

You may not believe it (crap pun intended) but as a member of the Church of Scotland in Geneva, Switzerland, I've actually taken training courses which permit me to take a Sunday Service now and again. This does not include baptisms, weddings, funeral or Communion Services. It doesn't make me a Minister, Priest, Vicar or whatever the formal title is at your preferred place of worship (obviously not as an Imam, Rabbi or Guru either). However, it does let me write Sermons. I try to do these with a positive message, based on bits of the Bible which people may not have read very often and focusing on questions which may be of interest to people of great faith or not very much at all.

The style is not quite the same as you'll find in, "The Clarinet on the Glacier" or in the other works, and there aren't quite so many jokes. However, the feel-good tone is generally there and I hope that if you liked the stories, you might enjoy these as well.

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