Another day, another year.
This year I will be focused on writing the next two entries in the Occult Britain series (which Ride Upon Midnight and Harvest are a part of). A little explanation of the series. Each entry is a stand-alone novel set somewhere in Britain (Gloucestershire in Ride Upon Midnight, and Lancashire in Harvest), and is inspired by crime, mystery, the occult and often the paranormal / supernatural. Apart from this, each book uses one of the classical elements as its main theme. So far we have Water (Ride Upon Midnight) and Earth (Harvest), and the next two in the series are of course Air and Fire.
The Air novel is called Five Suns Over Somerset and is set in 1975. The story starts with Harry Chamberlain out looking for his kidnapped daughter alongside his brother-in-law. The motives behind the kidnapping, and the people involved in it, will force Harry to revaluate his relationship with his wife, his father–a WWII veteran who claims to have come into contact with lights in the sky over the Mediterranean Sea on Halloween 1940–and his very existence.
Five Suns Over Somerset is a science-fantasy story revolving around themes of trust, duality / polarity, love, and spirit phenomena.
The Fire novel is In the Hollow of the Murderous Dead (TBA), a gothic mystery taking place mostly in a fictional town in between Suffolk and Essex.
Back from the dead and seeking revenge, a hanged man returns to his home town to haunt the family of the jury that condemned him to death. And the judge who sentenced him, who was exiled ten years prior, is called upon to help them with the problem. The judge, Wolfe Remington, reluctantly returns to face the vengeful spirit, but will he be able to put things right before it’s too late?
For the first time I’m working on both books concurrently, though I expect Five Suns Over Somerset to release before In the Hollow of the Murderous Dead (TBA Fire Novel), which will most likely be early or mid 2023. Eventually there will probably be a final entry to the series based around the fifth element, ‘aether’ or ‘void’. I can’t say too much about it now, only that it’ll probably be an ensemble book, bringing in characters from the previous four entries.
I’ll talk more about Five Suns Over Somerset in the next post.