It’s released on my birthday, 25th June!

Yes, finally, I can share the good news that Black Hare Valley Book One: 1996, a book I wrote the first draft of back in 2023, is finally ready for release! Originally I had wanted to release it in May, as May Day folklore is a big part of the series, but it took longer than I anticipated to get the front cover sorted, so the publication date is now 25th June, which just happens to be my birthday!

As for the cover, I love it, and it was well worth the wait! I think it looks suitably eerie and ticks all the boxes for what you’d expect in the unsettling folk horror genre. There will be five books in the series and the cover will change just slightly each time. If you know your folklore well, you might be able to pick up clues as to who, or what, is really in control of this quaint little town…

You can preorder the ebook for just 99p via this link: https://books2read.com/u/4EO5DE

I am just waiting for the paperback proof copy to arrive and once that’s been checked, I will also have a paperback preorder link to share with you.

In the next few weeks I will be sharing various aspects of the series with you here on this blog, diving into topics such as what inspired the books, how and why it became a series, why it jumps back and forth in time, what research I did into folklore, and an introduction to each of the characters.

I am really excited about this series. I do tend to jump around genres, but most of my books would come under YA, or gritty crime/thrillers that are very character led. The Day The Earth Turned series was a horror/post-apocalyptic series, and the Fortune’s Well trilogy I wrote with Sim Sansford, was superhero/superpowers based. This is first foray into folk horror, a genre I am very fond of reading and watching. As a writer, I think it is excitingf and refreshing to write in multiple genres and Black Hare Valley really got my imagination going.

It was supposed to be just one book but soon evolved into an entire universe…

I’ve also made a conscious effort to bring back things I love and miss in books these days. Such as:

• chapter titles
• illustrations
• a map of the town

That meant that writing this series has been an incredibly creative process for me, not just writing but drawing too. I also got to indulge my obsessive love of hares!

That’s all for now, but do look out for the next few posts which will arrive on Fridays (apologies this one is late – I meant to post it last Friday and forgot!) where I will drag you, if you let me, deeper into this horrifying world…