With a little over a week to go until The Book of Kindly Deaths is released, I decided it was time to tidy my old book case. I had to find a place for the new novel, and make sure to leave plenty of space. Mainly because The Book of Kindly Deaths contains so many wild and magical things, and they need plenty of leg room.
There was no need to dust or file tomes in alphabetical order in this instance. Instead, I revisited these old tales and gave them a little polish, as well as a new ending here and there.
For the last few months, I’ve been writing a book about three ghastly medieval genies, and their imprisonment in an old tower in a wilderness in England. Also, of their escape, which comes at the hands of a boy filled with very dark thoughts. Usually, Ive found in such tales, it’s mainly good people that discover genies and make bad choices. This time, it’s a thoroughly wicked boy who is granted his wishes and makes abysmal choices. As well as stirring centuries old evil.
I finished the book recently and gave it to my intrepid agent.
This part of the process always leaves me with a book-shaped hole to fill. Yet with The Book of Kindly Deaths coming out, I wanted to keep myself free for promotion and marketing.
So I decided to revisit my old short stories. Two of which have been on Amazon for the last couple of years. It’s fair to say, like most writers, I’ve learned a fair amount in the interim. So the rewriting process was fairly straightforward. But rather than just jiggling words around, I decided to add some new elements. So now, The Demon of Gloamingspark Yard and The Ghosts of The Tattered Crow contain new content, which shines a little more light on the connections that link them.
If you have the Kindle versions, you should see the new updates within the next week.
And if you haven’t read either of these stories, you can find them on my author page here. Both are set in Victorian London and involve magic, ghosts, demons and secret places.
I plan to upload the new versions within the week.
The other two stories to get a new lick of paint, were “Three Curses for Trixie Moon” and “The Festival of Hate and Bad Tidings”. Both were originally written for the Ambush Books anthologies, “Magical Mayhem” and “Love Stinks!”.
I was always really fond of my character Trixie, from “Three Curses for Trixie Moon” and planned to write more about her. So I gave her tale a few new menaces and left it open for further adventures.
“The Festival of Hate and Bad Tidings” also got a revamp, although this one a lot more subtle than the others. This was more of a sparkle and shine, than new plot developments.
This process is a bit like autumn cleaning. Rather than spring cleaning. Which is apt for me, as I love this time of year and the darker months soon to follow.
All of these new versions will appear on my Amazon page for now and will be across all platforms next year.
If you visit that page, you will also see The Book of Kindly Deaths has a preorder button. So if you can’t wait till next Tuesday to lose yourself in the magic and horror that befalls Eliza Winter, now’s your chance to order.
Once The Book of Kindly Deaths is released into the wilds next week, I plan to head back into the woods. There’s a book waiting in a dark clearing which needs to be rewritten and finished. I last saw it in a grove of whispering trees, in a place where sinister things were stirring.
Naturally.
