Tonight!

I’m ridiculously excited for tonight’s Doctor Who series finale. If you haven’t already seen the trailer…

Lupine Howl series 3, the end of The Library, and more!

So, here’s a long-overdue update. The third series of Lupine Howl is nearly here, and should be starting within the next week. I’ll introduce it properly later, but for now let’s just say that it begins with lots of sand and then lots of snow. I spent a lot of time trying to decide whether the third series should be small-scale and intimate, or big and bombastic, and in the end I decided to try both at the same time. Let me know if you think I’ve succeeded once the books are out!

Then there’s The Library, which is finally coming to an end in the next couple of weeks. I spent a long time thrashing out the story, and the final books were delayed a little as a result. If you’ve been reading the series so far, you might be wondering about the Forbidders and their motives, in which case you’ll be rewarded in the final two books. Also, there’s a significant revelation about the Darkness, which is a plot element that has so far appeared briefly in both Dark Season and Lupine Howl. It’s definitely headed somewhere, but it’s a slow-boiler.

Other than that, there’s a new horror series coming up, which I’ll talk about soon, and a horror-soap hybrid thing that I’ve been working on for a while. Despite being British, I’ve long had a love of US soap operas, most notably Days of Our Lives. I wanted to try to write a horror series set in that kind of world, and I’ve finally got it done. We’ll see how it goes. Oh, and Broken Blue is continuing with the second series, Broken White, which starts soon.

Oh, and one final thing! Thanks to the wonderful and brilliant Linda Hare, I’ve now got new, updated versions of some of my books up at Amazon. Asylum, Dark Season series 1, Dark Season series 3, The Night Girl, Devil’s Briar and Broken Blue have had a major going-over, and between them they’ve lost a combined 300+ errors. I’ve always had an editor, but now I’ve got an editor who I really trust and who I work well with, so I think that side of things should improve considerably. Updated versions of the other books will be coming in the next month or so.

What else? Hmm, well I haven’t had much free time inbetween writing and doing my day job, but I found time to plant a garlic clove in a pot with some soil, and now it’s got four big leaves sprouting out the top. It’ll be a miracle if I end up with an edible bulb at the end of it all, but it’s quite fun to check its progress each day. Not much else of interest to report, except that I’m quite looking forward to watching the Eurovision show on Saturday. If you’re American and you don’t know about Eurovision, allow me to offer you an example.

Asylum is free at Amazon for the next few days!

Asylum: The Complete Series is free at Amazon for the next three days. You can download it from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca and the various other Amazon sites. As ever, please double-check that the price shows as free before you hit the button, but it should definitely cost $0 / £0 for the next few days.

Dark Season: The Complete First Series now available at Diesel, Kobo and Smashwords, more coming soon!

You can now get Dark Season: The Complete First Series at Diesel, Kobo and Smashwords, plus of course still at Amazon. The price is the same, $2.99, everywhere. Over the next couple of weeks, the book will also be appearing at Barnes & Noble, Apple / iTunes and Sony, and maybe (if I can work out how to do it) at Google Play.

The second series of Dark Season will follow at the same sites a few weeks later, with the third series in June or July. I’m also going to be pushing a few of my other books out beyond Amazon as well, but more news on those later!

Over the past year, I’ve had a lot of messages from people who wanted to buy the books at sites such as Barnes & Noble and Kobo. It took a while to organize, because the books have been locked into an exclusive Amazon Select program. Now they’re out there, in the wild, so hopefully you can get them for pretty much any ereader that you have. I’m not very technical, so I’m not sure if I can offer any advice on downloading, but, er, good luck! And enjoy, I hope!

New look!

I gave the blog a new look, to make it more like a blog and less like a website. I’m hoping this will get me posting more. Lately, I’ve been totally overwhelmed with ‘real world’ work, but there’ll be new Lupine Howl, Broken and other stuff in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ve been working with a new editor to get updated and revised versions of my earlier books out there, and that process is rumbling alone nicely. I’ll be back with a proper update soon!

Lupine Howl spin-off The Library, plus the end of The Night Girl

There’s good news and bad news about Lupine Howl. The bad news is that I’ve decided to delay the third series for a couple of months while I fix some plot holes. The good news is that this has allowed me to bring forward a new fantasy series called The Library, which is a kind of spin-off from last year’s Broken Spirits (Lupine Howl 2.4). The series is set inside the same huge library that Duncan and Jess visited, and while those two characters won’t be showing up (aside from a possible cameo appearance later on), The Library is definitely set in the same universe. The first two parts (1.1 and 1.2) are available together for 99 cents here!

Meanwhile, The Night Girl is coming to an end this month with the final two books, titled So Low (The Night Girl 1.7) and The Final Shift (The Night Girl 1.8). The Night Girl was never meant to run for more than one series, so there’s going to be a definite end to the story. After that, there’ll be the follow-up to Broken Blue, titled Broken White.

Finally, I’ve changed the way the books are released. Instead of releasing each one for 99 cents, I’m going to be releasing them as double-bills, with the price staying at 99 cents. This will work out much cheaper: instead of buying 8 books at 99 cents each, you’d only buy 4 books at 99 cents each. Also, they’ll still get bundled together at the end as a $2.99 collection, so it’s not a huge change. I made the change mainly because I realized that 8 books at 99 cents each came to a total of $7.92, which seemed a bit much compared to the $2.99 price of the omnibus editions. So, to sum up: 99 cents now gets you two books, instead of just one. And now I have to go and take the dog for a walk!

The Night Girl, Broken Blue and Lupine Howl, plus an interview in Sanitarium!

There’s so much to get through in this post, I don’t really know where to start!

First, I’ve been interviewed for the latest issue of Sanitarium magazine! Here’s the link to the issue, and it’s also available from Amazon. My interview is really the least of the many reasons to hit the ‘Buy’ button; there are some great authors involved with the magazine, and they’re also running a Kickstarter campaign right now that’s definitely worth a look.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a new editor who has been patiently going through all my books and picking up on the errors that were missed by the last guy. I’m confident that she’s going to go a great job, and the new version of Asylum should be up in the next couple of days, followed by updated and improved versions of everything else. It took a while to find the right person, but I think this is a long overdue step in the right direction. In other (related) news, don’t forget the new $100 typo bounty offer.

A new series, The Night Girl, has launched. This is the story of a girl named Juliet who starts working at a retirement home; she soon discovers that there’s something strange living in an abandoned ward. The first two parts of the series, titled The First Shift and Death Watch, are out right now, with the rest coming out over the next few weeks.

Broken Blue has been completed, and is now available in an omnibus edition. The sequel series, Broken White, will start in March and will take the story to some strange new places. It’s an erotic, not horror, series, and it gets pretty explicit at times. There are going to be three series in total: Broken Blue, Broken White and finally Broken Red.

The third series of Lupine Howl is right around the corner, starting with Werewolves of India (Lupine Howl 3.1). The series is going to take an unexpected turn, spreading out across the globe. I couldn’t decide whether to make it more realistic or more crazy, so I decided to try doing both at the same time.

That’s about it for now. I hope you like the books, and the interview with Sanitarium, and I’ll make sure I update more often from now on!

Announcing the new $100 monthly typo bounty!

Although I have proof-readers who help me keep spelling and grammar errors out of my books, sometimes a few mistakes slip through. That’s why I’ve decided to try something a bit different. Starting this month (February 2013), I’m inviting people to let me know about any typos they find in my books, and everyone who takes part will be entered into a prize draw. Each month, one person will win a $100 Amazon voucher!

How it works

To enter, you simply send me an email with a list of any errors you’ve found in my books. For each error, you get entered one time in the prize draw, e.g. if you let me know about 10 errors, you get entered 10 times. At the end of the month, I’ll use a random number generator to select one person, and that person wins the $100 Amazon voucher.

If you enter and then find more errors later in the month, you can also send those and you’ll receive the relevant number of additional entries.

So, for example, if you let me know about 10 errors, and I get a total of 100 errors sent to me in the same month, you’ll have a 1-in-10 chance of winning! You can enter as many times as you want, and at the start of each month it all starts again and there’ll be another $100 Amazon voucher to be won. You can’t re-enter old errors that have since been fixed.

The type of errors I’m looking for include spelling and grammar errors, or cases where you think a character has been called by the wrong name.

About the prize: I’m offering one Amazon voucher each month, worth $100. There will only be one winner each month. If you’d rather have a UK voucher in £, or a voucher in some other currency, that’s fine, just let me know when you enter. Also, if you’d prefer a different kind of voucher for a different website, let me know and I’ll see what I can do; I can’t promise to accomodate any requests, but I’ll do my best. The voucher will be sent to each month’s winner by e-mail. If you win one month, you can still enter the next month.

Each month’s winner will be announced on the 1st day of the month, so the first winner will be picked and notified on March 1st. I’ll also mention the winner’s name on Facebook and Twitter, unless you ask me not to! There are no restrictions about who can enter, so you can be in any country in the world!

The competition is open now. To enter, use the contact form!

Rules

1. This competition is open to anyone, anywhere in the world.
2. There will only be one winner each month, drawn at random.
3. The winner will be notified on the 1st day of the following month, e.g. the winner for February will be notified on March 1st.
4. The prize is a $100 Amazon voucher, sent by e-mail. Alternative prizes of the same value might be possible, upon request, but can’t be guaranteed.
5. By entering, you acknowledge that you understand the rules and that you will not receive any remuneration other than being entered in the prize draw.
6. The monthly draws will run indefinitely, and I’ll try to give at least one month’s warning will be given on this website if they are to stop. However, I reserve the right to cancel the competition with no notice if something goes horribly wrong.

Final Dark Season coming up, plus new Devil’s Briar, Lupine Howl and Broken Blue

I wish I could say that my home-made Christmas pudding was a success, but honestly it was… just about okay. It was definitely edible, but it was a bit too sticky and dense. Still, it was the first attempt, so I guess I’ll just have to try again next year. I hope everyone reading this had a good time over Christmas. My plans for New Year are to stay at home and try to distract the dog, who usually gets terrified by fireworks. Unfortunately, we live five minutes from the park, so I think I’ve got a tough job ahead…

A Woman, Waiting (Dark Season 3.7) is out now at Amazon, which means there’s just one more book to go before the whole Dark Season series is over forever! The End (Dark Season 3.8) will be out on Monday January 7th, or maybe even a couple of days earlier if Amazon’s internal gears are running particularly smoothly.

To be honest, I’m pretty nervous. I hope people like how the story ends, but I know it’s impossible to please everyone. I’ve had the ending worked out since the beginning, and I hope it feels satisfying. The end of the story grows out of what has come before, so there are no sudden left-turns or random new characters thrown in. There are no magic kisses that miraculously save people. It all keeps to the (attempted) logic of the series so far. Also, I promise it doesn’t end on any kind of cliffhanger.

After Dark Season is over, there are the rest of the Devil’s Briar books coming in January. Also, I’m re-launching the Broken Blue series. The first book came out a few months ago, but I’ve re-thought the whole thing and decided that Broken Blue (and the sequels, Broken Red and Broken White) will be released in a serial format (e.g. there’ll be 8 books to each series). The good news is that each book in the Broken Blue series will be free for a few days after it’s released (Amazon allows five free days every 90 days for most books) so it’ll kind of be a free series.

Then, in February, there’ll be the third series of Lupine Howl. The first book is Werewolves in India (Lupine Howl 3.1) and this time, I’ve mapped out not only the third series but also the fourth, so they kind of intertwine. I really want to tighten Lupine Howl and make sure it’s focused on the core story. I was trying to decide whether to make it darker and grittier, or more colorful and crazy; in the end, I’ve decided to do both at the same time. With Dark Season completed, Lupine Howl is kind of the only remaining window into that world, because they exist in the same universe and with some of the same characters. But more about that later.

I’ll be on a train for most of tomorrow and Monday’s going to be hectic, so Happy New Year and let’s hope 2013 is nice and peaceful…

Free books set for the Christmas period!

It’s almost Christmas, which means I’ll soon get to open the home-made Christmas pudding I tried to make a few months ago. Will it taste good? Will it be a failure? Only time will tell. I’m not a particularly good cook, but I can get the job done most of the time. This is my most adventurous recipe yet, so for me the best Christmas present this year will be unwrapping the pudding and finding that it’s edible. Failing that, I’ve got a Tesco pudding as back-up…

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that there’ll be a few books going free on Amazon over the next couple of weeks. Here are the details:

- From Friday 21st December to Tuesday 25th December (Christmas Day!), Arrival (Devil’s Briar 1.1) will be free.

- From Monday 24th December to Friday 28th December, Dr. Lava (Asylum 1.2) will be free.

- From Tuesday 25th December to Saturday 29th December, Abigail & Quisling (Dark Season 3.1 & 3.2) will be free.

- And from Wednesday 26th December to Sunday 30th December, Lupine Howl: The Complete Second Series (All 8 Books) will be free.

It’s important to point out that you should double check that each book is free before you hit the download button. Amazon is great in many ways, but sometimes they have little hiccups and the timings of these free offers can vary a little, particularly if you’re not in a US time zone. And don’t forget that if you’re in Canada, you now have your very own Kindle store at amazon.ca, which (I think) should make it easier and cheaper for you to download Kindle books.

Hmm, what else? Well, in January 2013 there’ll be the final two Dark Season books. There’ll also be more Devil’s Briar, plus the return of the Broken Blue series. I’ve been thinking a lot about Broken Blue and I’ve decided to change it quite considerably. More details soon, but I think the series will benefit from the new format, and I’m looking forward to getting the new books out. Then there’ll be the third series of Lupine Howl in February, which is set to be kind of intense. I’ve mapped out the third and fourth series of Lupine Howl at the same time (yes, there’s a fourth series!) and the story is going to get crazier but also more personal for Jess. Anyway, more information abotu all of that soon. For now, I hope you have a great Christmas, and I hope that 2013 is a lot more peaceful than 2012.

P.S. I’m hoping for some snow next week, so I can upload a photo of our dog. The last time it snowed, he absolutely loved it. The British weather has been pretty dicey recently, so I think there’s a chance of a White Christmas…