Last Friday I released by 24th book, gritty crime thriller, The Dark Finds You. This book about dark pasts converging in the battle to find a missing teenager, can be read and enjoyed as a standalone, but it also fits into a bigger universe of connected characters and plots. If you’ve read The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, The Holds End Trilogy, The Mess of Me, The Mess of Us, Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature or At Night We Played In The Road, you will find some familiar faces and locations in The Dark Finds You!
The idea for this novel came to me when writing The Mess Of Us and At Night We Played In The Road. Those books already fitted into a connected universe, as At Night We Played In The Road is technically a spin-off from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, and The Mess of Us and Me are set in the same universe and location. These books also had connecting plotlines with drug abuse, drug running, music and community being common themes.
The Holds End trilogy, essentially a murder mystery centred around enigmatic teenage singer, Bill Robinson, also takes place in the same universe and has similar plotlines converging.
This is why The Dark Finds You was so easy to write! All these characters had already converged, their storylines connected and their locations crossed over. The plot of a missing boy was then used to pull them all together and the plan was to end this universe for good. Tie up their individual storylines as well as the missing boy plot. I wrote The Dark Finds You over six weeks back in 2023 and it’s had to wait this long to get its release date. It is now available in ebook and paperback across multiple platforms.
So, what next? Well, in checking The Dark Finds You paperback proof for any errors just before Christmas, I suddenly got some new ideas and a sequel exploded in my head. There were a few things I left open at the end of the book and that crack was enough to let the ideas seep in. I had the whole plot within a day and simply could not resist writing it! Over Christmas I had three weeks off work and the book just poured out of me in a total of four weeks. Of course, that’s a rough first draft and it needs a lot of work!
This week I dived into my second draft of The Dark Finds You – Part Two. This is what I call a read-through draft, (where I remind myself of what I wrote!) and a timeline draft, (where I set out the timeline of events in a notebook to ensure there are no inconsistencies.) This didn’t take long to complete and by the end of it I had some things I wanted to change.
A few minor things to add and embellish and one major thing to change. This means that draft three which starts now, will be a rewrite more than an edit.
And then, guess what happened?
My rewrite ideas, which undoubtedly make the whole novel more twisty and unpredictable, led me to ideas for a possible part three…
Noooooooo!
I was meant to be releasing the Black Hare Valley series this year…
I have delayed that for the moment because it feels right to fully concentrate on this potential trilogy and get it done. I won’t say it will end the universe forever because that’s probably not going to happen, is it? It seems I love this world too much.
I am not 100% certain I will write a part three and make The Dark Finds You a trilogy… but the changes I make to part two will certainly leave that as a possibility.
In the meantime, I have got to crack on with this third draft/rewrite and also not neglect to market the first book!
As usual, thanks for joining me hear in my tiny corner of the internet! Thank you for your support in 2025 and for sticking with me into 2026!
My debut novel The Mess Of Me finally has a follow-up…
Twelve years after my debut YA novel The Mess Of Me was released, it finally has a follow up book, and it’s out today! Thank you so much to anyone who has preordered the ebook while it’s been discounted. Here is the universal book link for anyone interested. This will take enable you to buy from multiple platforms and in paperback. https://books2read.com/u/4NNka6
Last week I gave you a bit of insight into what inspired the sequel and why it took so long to get around to. I also gave a few extracts from both books where we see Lou analysing Leon. Leon is the main protagonist in the first book but has a redemption arc in the sequel. This then led to me writing another book where he appears again as a character, and this time we get his POV for the first time.
I thought today I’d run through a list of my connected books that exist in the same universe. If you have read any of these, for example, you might like to know where you can see those characters again. Also, the list of books finds everyone’s stories tying up nicely in the final book, The Dark Finds You which I aim to release towards the end of 2025.
So, here we go. This is the suggested reading order of the books in the universe and details about how they connect!
The Boy With The Thorn In His Side 5-book series – these books introduce us to the character of Danny, who grows up in the 90s in a seaside town called Redchurch. His violent stepfather, a local hard man and criminal, owns a nightclub in the town and later purchases one, Chaos, in nearby Belfield Park, another location in the series.
The Mess Of Me – set years after the events of The Boy series, Lou and Joe also live in Redchurch and Danny and co went to the same school as them back in the 90s. They mention Danny once or twice as a sort of local legend whose name is found scratched on a park bench.
Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature – set in Holds End, a fictional council estate which is located between Redchurch and Belfield Park, this is the story of 12 year-old Elliot Pie who attempts to befriend strangers in an attempt to convince his agoraphobic mother that the world is not all bad. He lives next door to a family called the Robinsons and mentions seeing the middle child, Bill, leaving his house with a guitar on his back.
The Holds End trilogy – also set in Holds End, this trilogy of books is made up of A Song For Bill Robinson, Emily’s Baby and The Search For Summer. There are several main characters but Bill Robinson who is sixteen in the first book, is the main protagonist. He’s a flawed and self-destructive singer who ends up trying to solve the murder of a local teenager. In the third book, The Search For Summer, Elliot Pie’s mother, Laura, appears briefly. Danny also appears briefly in the trilogy when Bill’s band play in his nightclub, Chaos and he becomes an early champion of their music.
At Night We Played In The Road – a spin-off from The Boy series, this is the story of brothers Alfie and Tom Lane, who appear in Part Five of The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, where they find themselves tangled up in drug-dealing and crime, with an adult Danny posed to help them. This is the story of how they got there and at the end of this book, Danny appears in the present day and is forced to save the brothers again by making a huge concession to one of his old enemies, Nick Groves, a man who served under his stepfather.
The Mess Of Us – set two years after the first, Lou and Joe are back and this time have an unplanned pregnancy to deal with on top of struggling to adjust to adulthood and come to terms with what Leon did two years earlier. Leon is now out of prison and wants to make amends. It is mentioned that he has returned to work as a drug-dealer for Nick Groves and co who own the nightclub in Redchurch that Danny’s stepfather once owned. Towards the end he tells his brother Joe that a band are holding drummer auditions at Chaos in Belfield Park. The band is Bill Robinson’s.
The Dark Finds You – coming next! This book picks up where The Mess Of Us ends… Leon is trying to make amends to Joe and trying to pay back the debt he owes Nick Groves and his violent crew. He works the Belfield Park area where he is ordered to hit Chaos, which is now Danny’s nightclub. Leon gives Joe a lift to the drummer auditions he mentioned in The Mess of Us and Joe joins Bill Robinson’s band. Meanwhile, things become awkward when Bill recognises Leon as one of his regular drug-dealers. Elliot’s mother Laura is having a baby with Bill’s dad, Andy, and the two dysfunctional but loving families have merged and all live in one house. Bill and Elliot are effectively step-brothers who have become very close, so Bill naturally wants to help when Elliot’s best friend Finn goes missing. Danny, who is friends with Bill due to the band playing at the club, finds himself drawn into the mystery, as does Leon, who is effectively working for both sides.
Phew! Well, hopefully that explains how they all tie in together and how the final book in the universe finishes everyone’s stories! I hope if you’ve read any of the above books you might now be tempted to try another!
It’s Friday – usually my blog-posting day, so what better news to share than new book news!
This will be my twenty-second release but honestly, it never gets old. It is still just as much of a thrill!
First, what do you think of the cover? I used my son again – he did the amazing book covers for The Day The Earth Turned series and he also recently updated The Mess Of Me and The Tree Of Rebels for me. This one was so hard to get right though! We went through three other designs before we settled on this one and even then we kept changing our minds about colour schemes. In the end, I think we got it right. It is dark and moody but also quite beautiful and I hope that is what readers will think of the book itself.
At Night We Played In The Road is a spin-off book from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series and I got the idea about four years ago. At the time I was revamping and adding to that series and in part five I had introduced two brothers called Tom and Alfie Lane. They have small but significant parts in that story and it was obvious that they had an interesting back story to tell. They are drawn into a life of crime, but how and why? I wanted to go back to the beginning and find out what led them to that place.
Here is the blurb:
When Tom Lane was born, he accidentally killed his mother and in the process, his father’s love.
Determined to protect Tom from their father’s criminal business, older brother Alfie must become Tom’s father, mother and protector. It’s the two of them against the world until the day Tom chooses a life of crime over Alfie’s dream of a normal life.
Ten years later the estranged brothers are reunited when a violent gang bring Tom to Alfie’s door with a gun to his head.
Tom’s partners in crime have turned on him and he needs his brother to save him one more time…
A darkly brooding story of brotherly love, belongings and the beginnings that shape who we become.
And here is the opening paragraph:
The first time Alfie Lane had to think fast to save his brother’s life, he was five years old. That moment haunted his childhood, yet, in the years that followed, Alfie somehow found a way to bury the terrible memory. In fact, he has not thought of it since he was a kid, and, as it comes to him now, this fact alone seems somehow more strange, frightening, and catastrophic than the gun being held to his brother’s head. How could he have forgotten?
Welcome to another Indie Author of The Month post! This time please welcome the marvellously versatile and prolific indie author Paula Harmon. As well as writing fantastic novels and short stories, Paula was also one of the wonderful people behind Blandford’s first ever literary festival last November. I was honoured to be asked to get involved and it was a fantastic event I hope they are all very proud of. I can’t wait for the next one! Here Paula talks about where her ideas come from, what her writing process is and more. Enjoy.
Tell us about your latest release. What is it about and who is it aimed at?
Fighting her corner in a man’s world, Dr Margaret Demeray works as a pathologist in a London hospital for the poor. Suppressing her worry that she’s breaching confidentiality, Margaret gives a stranger called Fox information about a dead down-and-out, in the hope he’ll use it to raise awareness of bad working conditions.
But when a second man appears to die the same way, Margaret starts to wonder why the enigmatic Fox keeps turning up to ask ever more complex questions.
She decides to work alone, uncertain of his motives and wary of her attraction to him.
Once she starts investigating however, her home is burgled, she’s attacked in broad daylight and a close friend becomes distant.
Fox offers the chance to forge an alliance, saying he knows why the men have died but needs her to find out what is killing them and who is behind it.
Yet how come the closer she gets to him the more danger she faces? And how can a memory she’d buried possibly be linked to the deaths?
Margaret must discover the truth before someone – known or unknown – silences her for good.Margaret Demeray was a minor character in the Caster and Fleet series set in the 1890s where she first appeared as feisty teenager. There was no chance she was going to let her older sister get away with all the fun. It would be suitable for anyone who enjoys writers like Ann Granger, Anne Perry, Clara Benson and like a strong-minded female lead.Tell us about your publishing journey so far.
2. Tell us about your publishing journey so far.
I published two collections of short stories in 2016, followed by a memoir about my father in 2017. In 2018, I published my first novel ‘Murder Britannica’ which is a historical mystery set in Roman-Britain in AD190. The sequel ‘Murder Durnovaria’ set the following year in Roman Dorchester came out late 2019. I published a joint collection of short fantasy stories called ‘Weird and Peculiar Tales’ with Val Portelli. With Liz Hedgecock, I co-wrote the Caster and Fleet series – six historical mysteries set in 1890s London which start with ‘The Case of the Black Tulips’. They’re about two young women, frustrated with the restrictions in their lives who end up in partnership solving mysteries.
3. When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
When I was very small, if I was sent to bed early as a punishment I was always quite glad as it gave me the chance to tell myself stories. (For as long as we shared a bedroom, I used to drive my younger sister up the wall by doing this under my breath when she was trying to go to sleep.) Creative writing was my favourite subject at school and I’d always meant to be a writer. Earning a living, then having a family got in the way to start but I thought I’d finally have time and space when my youngest child started school. However, a relocation and change of working pattern meant my dream was dashed. Then in 2015, someone encouraged me to enter a competition and join a writers’ group. After that I sort of thought ‘if I don’t just get on with it whether I have time and space or not, I’ll never do it’ and I did.
4.What is your typical writing day like?
I work full-time and writing tends to have to fit round work. I try to write for one day at the weekend as well as fitting in an hour a day otherwise. I’d write on train journeys as I did a lot of commuting up till March. The current Covid-19 situation makes things less easy since, although I’m still working, I spend that ‘hour after work’ catching up by video with my mother and sister. But on the other hand, I’ve had nowhere to go at weekends and been able to get on with writing instead. Although, as for many, the coronavirus situation itself has a scrambled my brain a little.
5. What is your writing process? (how do you plot a book, come up with characters, find motivation etc)
I tend to start off with a short scene in my head – a person or people in a location doing something apparently ordinary and then I have to work out who they are and what’s extraordinary about it or what’s going to happen next. I usually start with two characters and seem to end up with a million – really not sure why! Once I know who the people are, I then work out where they are, when they’re living and what time of year it is. If it’s set in another era, I’ll do a little light research to find out what was going on at the time in case I need to factor that in. Generally once I find the ‘shape’ of the story, I know how it will start and end and roughly who wants what and what is stopping them from getting it. I usually write that down and then an outline of what ought to happen roughly at each stage of the book. Then I just start and see what happens. I quite often end up completely reorganising the middle, though the beginning and end don’t usually change. I find out more and more about the characters as I go long – they become ‘real’ and that sometimes alters what the core of the story is about in terms of what they learn about themselves or their world.
6. What has been the most positive thing about your publishing journey so far?
Hearing that people enjoy what you’ve written – that it’s touched them or made them laugh – is wonderful. But for myself, even if I write something that not many people read, somehow tapping into the part of my brain that demands to write stories is a wonderful mental release.
7. What has been the most negative thing about your publishing journey so far?Marketing is very hard work. Most writers by nature are rather introverted. I’m not sure I always come across that way at work, but the minute I start talking about my books, I’m overwhelmed with shyness. It always feels like I’m exposing a part of myself, which I suppose I am – since most characters have elements of the author in them. (That’s a little alarming when I think of some of my characters.)
8. Who is your favourite character from your own books and why?
That’s really hard to answer and tends to depend on what I’m working on at the moment! Margaret Demeray’s outgoing and determined nature leads her to want to make the world a fairer place, but it hides a vulnerability. She’s drawn in part from some of the rather feisty women in my family, none of whom let anyone tell them what they could or couldn’t do. But I confess her tendency to lose her temper and say the wrong thing when she does is definitely me.
But I can’t help loving Lucretia – one of the main (and from her perspective) most misunderstood characters in the Murder Britannica series. It never ceases to astound her that people don’t realise just how important she is, but she remains full of hope that not only will she become even richer very soon but that she’ll find if not love then passion – it’s just annoying that people around her keep dying in suspicious circumstances.
9. Where do your ideas come from?
I really don’t know! They just turn up. I’ve always had very vivid dreams and quite often that’s where they come from, and I’m also a terrible day-dreamer. I love places of transit like stations where you can think ‘what if I got on a different train and went somewhere else entirely? or what if the train went back in time? or what if an old friend/enemy sat down next to me? or…’ I sort of apply that in other contexts and see what unfolds. ‘Murder Britannica’ started as a paragraph where Lucretia is having a snide and critical conversation with her daughter-in-law. It just came to me one lunch-time and I wrote it down. It was years before the rest fell into place. With ‘The Wrong Sort To Die’, I started knowing that Margaret had qualified as a doctor in about 1898 and wondered what she’d done after that. I knew she’d have a thirst for justice and equality but also suspected she wouldn’t be much good at bedside manner, so wondered what she’d do and decided she’d probably work in a charitable hospital in the pathology department. I decided what year the story would take place in and by chance, saw something on TV about that era which gave me a germ of a background for the plot – most of the general public thinks they’re living in a golden age of peace with new inventions and social change but meanwhile, the government is preparing for war. What might that mean for the people Margaret wants to help?
10. What can we expect from you next?
Next on the list will be the third in the ‘Murder Britannica’ series. While ‘Murder Durnovaria’ was set in Roman Dorchester, the third book is set in a small town near a river which is roughly located where modern day Blandford is. It’s midwinter and Lucretia’s nephew Fabio will do anything to avoid being forced into an arranged marriage, even look into strange goings on in a small town where it’s hard to know who’s on whose side.
11. Tell us three fun facts about youI can make something out of next to nothing whether it’s a meal or a costume; I don’t take myself remotely seriously; according to family legend I have a medieval ancestor who caught a ‘whale’ off London bridge.
12. What is the best advice you could give to aspiring writers?
Don’t give up. Keep writing things even if you don’t finish them, they may come into their own one day and if not then they’re worth it just for the practice. Maybe today is the right day and maybe it’s not. One day you’ll just get on with it, regardless of whether you really have the space or time. Everything you experience, witness and live through can inform your writing whether it’s serious or funny or thought-provoking. Within legal limits – be a people watcher!
Thank you so much to Paula for agreeing to be interviewed on my blog! |If you would like to find out more about Pauls and her books, her bio and links are below!
Paula Harmon was born in North London to parents of English, Scottish and Irish descent. Perhaps feeling the need to add a Welsh connection, her father relocated the family every two years from country town to country town moving slowly westwards until they settled in South Wales when Paula was eight. She later graduated from Chichester University before making her home in Gloucestershire and then Dorset where she has lived since 2005.
She is a civil servant, married with two children at university. Paula has several writing projects underway and wonders where the housework fairies are, because the house is a mess and she can’t think why.
It’s AD 190 in Southern Britain. Lucretia won’t let her get-rich-quick scheme be undermined by minor things like her husband’s death. But a gruesome discovery leads wise-woman Tryssa to start asking awkward questions.
It’s AD 191. Lucretia last saw Durnovaria as a teenager. Now she’s back to claim an inheritance. Who could imagine an old ring bought in the forum could bring lead to Tryssa having to help local magistrate Amicus discover who would rather kill than reveal long-buried truths.
London 1910. Dr Margaret Demeray is approached by a stranger called Fox to help find out what’s killed two impoverished men. How can a memory she’d buried possibly be linked to the deaths? And how come the closer she gets to Fox the more danger she faces herself?
Can everything be fixed with duct tape? Dad thinks so. The story of one man’s battle against common sense and the family caught up in the chaos around him.
In a parallel universe, Dorissa and Menilly, descendants of the distrusted dragon people, are desperate to find their runaway brother in a fog-bound city, which simmers with unrest and deceit.
For 7-11 year olds. When Laura and Jane go on holiday to a remote cottage, the worst they expect is no wifi. The last thing they expect is to be battling strange creatures with an ancient grudge.
When Katherine Demeray opens a letter addressed to her missing father, little does she imagine that she will find herself in partnership with socialite Connie Swift, racing against time to solve mysteries and right wrongs. (This is the first of six Caster & Fleet Mysteries)
The Glorious Outsiders 