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!
The final book in an interconnected universe is finally here…
image owned by Luke Fielding Art
First of all, let me apologise for the lack of blog posts since I started sharing Black Hare Valley Book 1 with you a few months back! A huge thank you to those who read along and left me feedback. I really appreciate it and serialising was an overwhelmingly positive thing to do. I will be serialising something else soon but more on that next week!
This week the good news is I finally have a new book on the horizon. The Dark Finds You is a gritty crime thriller drama about a fractured community and a missing boy. It also contains characters from many of my previous books in a shared universe. However, it can very much be read as a standalone and you do not have to read any of the previous books to enjoy this one.
If you are interested in exploring the connected universe however, I’ve listed the order to read them in. If you start with The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series and work your way through, you will find that The Dark Finds You makes a satisfying conclusion to previous storylines in that world. The main characters in The Dark Finds You are: Danny Bryans (nightclub owner), Leon Lawrenson (drug dealer) Bill Robinson (lead singer in a band who play at Danny’s nightclub) Elliot Pie (Bill’s father is having a baby with Elliot’s mother so they are now almost brothers) Laura Pie, (Elliot’s mother) Leah Barratt (Elliot’s friend) and Finn Douglas (Elliot’s other friend and the catalyst for the storyline when he goes missing.)
And here are the order the characters appear in books I have already published. In other words, read in this order!
Best friend Elliot is desperate to find him, but why is mutual friend Leah strangely reluctant to help?
Elliot’s pregnant mother fears her agoraphobia has returned, while his almost-brother, Bill, agrees to help look for Finn but risks exposing his secret drug habit in the process.
Meanwhile, ex-con Danny knows his nightclub is being infiltrated by drug dealers who work for a gang from his past. And drug dealer Leon can’t have the fresh start he wants until he has repaid his debt to the same criminal gang.
A collection of characters with dark pasts find themselves linked by a common mystery that they all have a clue to solving – what has happened to Finn Douglas?
At the time of writing you can’t pre-order the paperback because I am currently waiting for the proof copies arrive for me to check over! I will let you know as soon as the order links are live.
Interview with YA author K.M Allan on her new non-fiction release
Author K.M. Allan – image belongs to the author
Today on The Glorious Outsiders blog we have an exclusive interview with YA author K.M. Allan. In a break from YA fiction, the Blackbirch author has just released her first non-fiction book, Writing and Editing Checklists, with another non-fiction book soon to follow. I was curious about what prompted the move from fiction to non-fiction and what inspired her to share her tips and advice with new and aspiring writers. I have had the pleasure of reading this book and I’ll be recommending it to new writers I work with in my job, because it really is extremely useful! With handy checklists to refer back to, this book ensures you cover everything needed to write and edit your manuscript to perfection. You can find my review at the end of the post.
Your new book, a non-fiction titled Writing and Editing Checklists is out now. What made you decide to pen a non-fiction book after the Blackbirch YA series was complete?
Honestly, it was burnout.
I’d been working on the Blackbirch series for a long time, and its four books all came out within three years. When the final book was released, I needed a break.
No fictional ideas were coming to me, and I didn’t want to stop working on anything, so I turned to my writing blog.
At that point, I’d been writing about writing for seven years, and there were more than a few readers over that time who’d mentioned how helpful the posts were to their own process. I, and them, especially liked the checklist blog posts, so I decided to turn as many blogs as I could into checklists, and that’s how the book came about.
2. What would you say are the main challenges of writing a non-fiction book and how did the process differ from writing fiction?
Well, I didn’t have to come up with any plot twists for this book, so that was a big difference!
From a writing point of view, there were things that were similar, such as making sure the voice and tone of the book were consistent all the way through. I actually found that the biggest challenge was the formatting.
For Fiction books, you only have to worry about headers and footers, page numbers, and maybe some fancy drop capitals or chapter images. For non-fiction, because the format needed title pages, examples, bullet points, and graphics for the checklists, getting those elements right was a learning curve. It was frustrating at times, but once it all came together, it was worth it.
3. Your blog centres very much on sharing advice and tips – was this always the intention when you started blogging or did you fall into naturally?
It was definitely a bit of both. When I launched the blog, I didn’t have a book out or any creative work behind me, so the only thing I could blog about was my writing process, what I was learning as I was trying to write my first book, navigating impostor syndrome, and at the time, getting a book ready for querying with agents and publishers.
I found sharing tips and advice, my love of making checklists to write and edit, and writing routines the easiest topics to blog about, and readers really seemed to like that too.
4. Have you ever considered running workshops or clubs for aspiring writers?
No, I haven’t. I’m good with words on a screen, not so much with words in real life. I’d be too nervous for something like that, which is one of the reasons why I turned the posts into a book. I hope the book will reach more aspiring writers than the blog can, and help them that way.
5. What research, if any, did you have to do to complete this new book?
As the content had already been researched when I wrote the original posts, I just had to research which posts were the most helpful to readers to decide what to include. As some of them go back seven years, I also made sure the info was still as accurate as possible.
6. Who did you have in mind as the audience when you wrote this book?
Definitely new writers, writers who like to be organized, and writers like me who love a good checklist to tick off so we feel like we know what we’re doing and have accomplished something.
7.What is the one bit of advice you would give to a new writer? The most important lesson to learn, in your opinion?
Go with whatever process gets you sitting at your desk, and just write. The more you write, the better you get at it. It’s how you learn what works and doesn’t work for you, and how you develop your own style.
I’d also add to read as much and as widely as you can. If a book makes you feel something, try and work out how and why so you can do the same for your own stories.
8. Can you tell us what helped you the most when writing Blackbirch? For example, writing handbooks, instructions, other blogs podcasts, writing advice etc?
I was learning as I went when writing Blackbirch, and then turning those lessons into posts for my blog, so that was helpful. As for writing books, The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi is one I’d highly recommend. If you’re a writer who hasn’t used it before, definitely check it and the other books in the series out. They are invaluable tools of the writing trade and so handy to have within reach when you’re working on an emotional scene.
9. Do you envision marketing this book will be different to marketing Blackbirch? Do you perceive any particular challenges, for example?
Marketing for me is the same as most writers nowadays, which is to post on social media and my blog and hope those following see it.
I do really enjoy the creative side of making marketing graphics and taking photos of my books, though, and that has been fun to do again.
As for challenges, I usually include book teasers with interesting dialogue, or the last sentence of a cliffhanger scene when marketing, and the checklist book doesn’t have those things. For that part of marketing, I’ll have to find something else from the book to highlight for new readers, but I’m looking forward to it.
10. What can we expect from you next? Please tell us about any upcoming projects!
Now that the checklist book is out, I’m excited about getting back into fiction writing. At the start of this year, I penned the opening paragraph of a YA murder-mystery that’s been floating around in my head for a few years now. I’ve missed coming up with characters and working on puzzling plots, so I’m eager to get back to that and start fleshing it all out.
image belongs to the author
If you’d like to find out more about K.M. Allan and her books please check out the links below.
And here is my review of her latest book, Writing and Editing Checklists:
“I was excited to read an ARC of this book and as a creative writing tutor and editor, I can honestly say I will be recommending this book to all of my students and any aspiring writers I make contact with. Personally, my brain likes checklists so this is a great format for me. It covers absolutely everything you can think of with regards to writing and editing and is a great little book to refer back to time and time again. You can jump around the chapters and pay attention to what suits you at the moment in your own writing journey. I think the editing checklists are so valuable too – they will enable writers to ensure their work is as clean as possible before spending money on an editor. This is a fantastic companion book for writers of all stages and genres. Highly recommended!”
Here’s an interview I did this week for our little indie collective Chasing Driftwood Books!
A gripping sequel to her 2016 novel, The Mess of Me, this book dives back into the world of Joe and Lou and these of identity and resilience… Let’s get started!
The Mess of Me was a huge success, what inspired you to return to this story after a decade?
A. A sequel was in the pipeline years ago. I had always wondered what happened next to Lou and Joe. The first book ends with a sort of happy ending, but with lots of questions about what would happen after the dramatic and violent events of that book. A few years back I started writing the sequel when I got the idea of a teenage pregnancy. I was fascinated with how they would both cope with that on top of recovering from the events of the first book. It then took me a whole to get around to writing it due to other projects, but it was the teenage pregnancy idea that really sparked off the rest of it. That, and always wanting to explore Leon’s character more. He is the villain of the first book and I always feel like villains have a story to tell. How did they become that way, for example? Are they capable of redemption? So I felt like he deserved a story.
How has your writing style or approach changed in the past ten years?
A. It’s probably the same! I still start with loose ideas in my head that eventually end up as notes in a notebook which I’ll then add to whenever I get more ideas. Eventually there will be enough plot to get started so that’s what I do. I rarely plan the whole book in advance, but I always know what’s going to happen for the next few chapters at least. I’m probably better at self-editing and being ruthless with the word count though. I think I am better at that now.
Did you always plan to write a sequel, or was there a moment when you knew this story wasn’t finished?
A. I didn’t plan a sequel at the time, no. It was years later that I got the idea for the teenage pregnancy and the rest grew from there. Plus, Lou is like a lot of my characters. She would chat to me from time to time. I’d tune into her and wonder how life was going. If that keeps happening, it starts to feel like a sequel is inevitable.
What challenges did you face in reconnecting with the characters and world after so much time?
A.I reread the first book before I started the sequel. I then revamped and republished it! That pretty much gave me what I needed to pick those characters up again. Plus, they had never really left me, so it was not hard to tune into them for the sequel. As for the world, these books are part of a bigger inter-connected universe of books and I was still writing books in that universe, so again, it was not challenging to reconnect with it. It was a pleasure! I know them all so well it felt like coming home.
Were there any major plot points or character arcs that surprised you while writing the sequel?
A. No, I always had it in mind that Leon would come out of prison and Lou and Joe would have to deal with that. Would Joe want to see him, for example? Would he want to forgive him? What would Leon be like now? Worse, or a reformed character? I was really curious about that and really excited to further explore Leon’s character and back story. Parts of the plot revealed themselves to be as I wrote it, but it all felt natural so I just went with the flow.
How do you think readers’ perceptions of the first book will shape their experience of the sequel?
A.I hope they like it! A few people have read it without reading the first one so I have every confidence it also works as a standalone, but I really hope readers of the first book enjoy it too! There were a few readers that often mentioned it was their favourite book of mine and they’d love a sequel, so in some ways I had them in mind while writing it. I expect they’ll know what’s coming in terms of the gritty storylines and references to eating disorders, self-harm and drugs. They’ll also know it’s another diary style format.
Have your own life experiences over the last decade influenced the themes or direction of this book?
A.Yes. To be honest, Lou is the character most based on me. I have suffered with eating disorders in the past and the truth is, they never really go away. They follow you about and haunt you and wait for opportunities to take control again. They’re like little voices in your head that want to convince you to trust them, that they can make everything all right again. I’m much older than I was when I had these issues, but as Lou finds out in The Mess of Us, often when things go wrong, those little voices come back. So you have to be wary and careful. You can’t let your guard down. Forms of self-harm can be addictive and can be coping strategies you come to rely on. I have also experienced a miscarriage, which is another hard-hitting storyline in the book. That part was very hard to write but I hope I did it justice.
What kind of balance did you try to strike between nostalgia for longtime fans and accessibility for new readers?
A.That was the aim, to give readers of the first book a sequel they would enjoy and let them find out what happened next, but also write a book new readers could enjoy on its own. That meant Lou and the other characters had to sometimes mention or explain what had happened previously, but you have to be careful not to make it boring or repetitive for the original readers, so it is hard!
If you could go back and change anything about the first book, would you?
A.I would probably make it shorter!
Do you see this sequel as the end of the story, or is there potential for more in the future?
A.It’s the end of the story for Lou and Joe, as far as I know anyway! But it is not the end of the story for Leon. He will be back in a new book towards the end of the year. We will finally have his point of view and his full story. The book will be called The Dark Finds You and I’d describe it as a crime thriller. It is also a crossover book which will be enjoyable to anyone who has read the books in the shared universe. If you’ve read The Holds End trilogy, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature or The Mess Of Me and The Mess Of Us, you will find characters from all those books returning!
Thank you, Chantelle!
The Mess of Us is one book in a connected universe made up of various series penned by Atkins. You can grab your copy of The Mess of Us by clicking here.
Or start the journey from the beginning today with the groundbreaking 2013 novel, The Mess of Me.
The Glorious Outsiders 