Author: ChanAtkins

The Inspiration Behind Black Hare Valley Book One: 1996

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

My homage to Stephen King, echoes of ‘IT’ and bringing back maps and illustrations!

the paperback! Image is mine

It was about seven years ago when the idea for Black Hare Valley first presented itself to me, but back then, I only knew a few things about it. At the time, my eldest son was 12, and had recently dived into ‘IT’ by Stephen King. I was a similar age myself when I first discovered King. Having recently re-read the book (because it is one of my all time favourites), it became a topic of conversation between my son and I.

I told him I wanted to write a big chunk of a book set in a strange small town that seems quaint and peaceful on the surface but is anything but underneath… I wanted a group of misfit teenagers, a missing kid, and an undercurrent of fear and paranoia. That was about all I knew.

I think it was my son who suggested creating the town first and so one evening lying side by side on the lounge floor, we started creating a map on a long sheet of roll-out drawing paper. I’ve still got that map but it’s a bit scruffy these days. Years later I asked my son to recreate an A4 version and that is the neater one that appears at the front of the book.

We didn’t really have a plan. We added whatever felt natural: shops, schools, churches, petrol stations, hills, rivers, streams and woods… It was a lot of fun. Around that time I visited one of the iron age hill-forts we are lucky enough to have in our area and I was feeling very inspired by that too. I decided it should be a valley town, with one main road going through it and the town built up around that. On each side of the town would be sweeping hills and man-made hill-forts, or the remnants of. There would also be creepy woods, mysterious and ancient graves and ruins where the kids could hang out.

We had a lot of fun creating it and then that was it. I didn’t have anything else for the story yet but over the next three years, the characters started to grow in my head. Then in 2023 we had a five day power cut thanks to a storm, and even once the power came back on, we had two weeks without an internet connection.

It was on the first day of the power cut, sitting in the lounge with only the flames of the fire and some hastily strung up fairy lights to see by, that I suddenly knew how I would start the story of Black Hare Valley. A scene popped into my head. The group of teenagers were now fully formed and all had character bios in a notebook. I was working on loads of other books at the time, as I often am, and I wasn’t really meant to write it at all, but the power cut meant I couldn’t use my laptop, so I had no choice.

I picked up a notebook and started writing in longhand. That first scene was so real to me and had already played out in my head like a movie or an episode of a TV show. Jesse Archer, one of my main characters, lurking in an alley way waiting for his friends, who had agreed to help him set fire to the school. He would be interrupted and then arrested by Sergeant Aaron Mayfield and this scene would reveal a dark and mysterious relationship between the two of them.

Once I started writing I could not stop, and over the next three weeks the entire novel poured out of my pen and into several A4 notebooks. I wrote it every day, constantly. I’d be sitting in the car before work and writing. I’d be in the kitchen cooking dinner, and writing. And suddenly, it was done.

It then had to sit and be ignored while I went back to finishing off other projects.

Some time in 2024 I started typing it up and as I typed, I changed, deleted, and added to the book. I then knew there had to be another book, and before long I had a series on the go, which was not something I initially wanted! But the universe I had created just kept on growing and I could not have stopped it if I tried.

By this point I was fully in love with my main characters and heroes: Jesse, Willow, Jaime, Ralph and Paddy. And as I wrote each next book, more answers revealed themselves to me until one day I knew how it all ended, how it all tied up and who or what would ‘win’ in the end.

This book is a true labour of love, a homage to Stephen King’s ‘IT’ and a story about friendship, love, revenge and youth. It’s also a story steeped in folklore, from fairy rings and realms, to May Day traditions, shape-shifters, the green man, the hare, and much, more more.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the inspiration behind it and don’t forget that at the moment the ebook is 99p to preorder from this link: https://books2read.com/u/4EO5DE

I will be back next Friday and the paperback link should be live by then!

See you next time!

Black Hare Valley Book One: 1996 has a release date!

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

image is mine

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…

Growing Our Own Food Feels More Important Than Ever

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Plus learning to forage and preserve…

recent additions, Egg and Shumpert enjoying the garden – image is mine

I’ve always been into growing my own food, but mostly it has been for fun. When I was a kid we grew runner beans, pumpkins, tomatoes and lettuces and my grandfather grew peas, marrows, potatoes and more. Their generation, and to a lesser extent, my mother’s generation, were used to growing their own. They didn’t grow everything they needed, but they grew what they could with what they had. With the rise of the supermarket that trend has diminished greatly and children growing up now are unlikely to even know where food comes from, let alone know how to grow it themselves.

I never wanted that for my kids and I have always grown something. Bags of potatoes are so easy, for example, as are lettuces and beans. Over the years my vegetable plot has grown bigger and bigger and I soon added chickens and ducks, fruit trees and fruit bushes to the mix. I’ve had my successes and my failures, but failing has never mattered that much before. It’s been frustrating, yes. There are always weeds, pests and the weather to battle with when trying to grow produce, but failing hasn’t bothered me too much and I have always learnt something in the process.

That’s changed now and I wonder how many other hobby growers are feeling the same? I wonder how many people who grew food for fun are now buckling down and upping their game? Planting more than ever and worrying more than ever that some of it will fail…

Recent world events have seen oil prices soar and before long that will impact food prices. People were already struggling with the rising cost of living, so it’s scary to think how much of an impact this is going to have. In recent years, I’ve hugely resented the cost I pay at the checkout and I’ve made an effort to use the supermarkets less and less. I get a weekly organic vegetable box from the wonderful Riverford and I have armed myself with knowledge in the form of books. Yes, I Google things from time to time, but there is something very grounding and safe about actually owning the books…

My be-prepared-for-anything books so far are as follow:

The Self-Sufficient(ish) Bible – by Andy and Dave Hamilton

The Forager’s Calendar – by John Wright

Living on One Acre or Less – by Sally Morgan

A Modern Herbal – by Alys Fowler

The Good Housekeeping Complete Book of Preserving

That should do it! I also really want a drill and the skills to knock up animal shelters and fences, but all in good time!

My aim is to keep adding to my skills and my knowledge, even if I don’t need to use the things I’m learning. At the moment, for example, I’m discovering that many of the weeds and herbs that grow in my garden have huge health benefits. I’ve been making refreshing tonics from cleavers, or goosegrass as it’s also known, and warming teas from rosemary and nettle infusions. I aim to try dandelion next – apparently you can consume every part of this amazing plant, even the roots!

I’ve stopped buying stock and instead make my own by saving vegetable scraps and peelings. I also freeze apple cores and peelings and when I have enough I make my own apple cider vinegar. I’ve learnt how to make a natural cleaner from vinegar and pines cut from the Christmas tree. I bake my own bread, cakes, wraps and pizzas at the weekend. It’s all little bits, and I still shop at the supermarket more than I want to, but it’s a process and I am enjoying it. It feels like reclaiming something we have all lost.

And as for the garden, it’s slowly awakening from its winter slumber. The fruit trees have all blossomed and the plum tree already has tiny green plums growing! I took tons of cuttings from my redcurrant and blackcurrant bushes last year and they’re all now in the ground and doing well. I’ve got potatoes, onions, leeks, parsnips and beetroot in the ground and peas, beans, lettuces, tomatoes and peppers all starting off inside.

It sounds a lot but it does not feel like enough! Not by a long shot. I’ve got some wheat I plan to plant in one bed as I’d love to try and mill my own flour. I have a small packet of oat seeds to try as well.

I am sure there will be many, many failures along the way but it really does feel imperative that I grow more than usual, that it succeeds as much as possible – just in case!

I now have two weeks off work for Easter and plan to be outside as much as possible, planting more seeds, transplanting seedlings, making more raised beds and filling with compost. I’ll be exhausted but perhaps I will sleep better at night.

The Children I Work With Have Published Another Book!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

Something Happened In Lakeside View was written collaboratively by over 80 children!


https://books2read.com/u/mVEyw2

Something Happened In Lakeside View is the result of over 80 children working together collaboratively to vote on a project, create a town, vote on a common theme and then all write their own stories or poems set there…

We started the project last summer term and all the pieces had been submitted by January. It is now available in ebook and paperback across multiple platforms.

Here is the blurb:

Welcome to Lakeside View, a pretty little town much like any other. Or is it?

Scratch under the surface and you will find a place full of secrets and shadows.

A place full of darkness, magic, ancient curses and hidden horrors. Who would live in a town like this? Many people have come and gone and some have left behind their testimonies.

What happened in Lakeside View? Read on to find out.

This is an anthology of stories and poems written by the young people who attend creative writing clubs with Chasing Driftwood Writing Group.

Don’t forget to leave a review on your platform of choice if you do read it. And please be aware this is a creepy horror-based book that might not be suitable for those under 10 or sensitive readers.

Many thanks!