YA post apocalyptic

The Day The Earth Turned Series Is Complete!

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

This feels so good!

Today is publication day for The Day The Earth Turned Book 4: Spring, the fourth, and final installment in my YA post-apocalyptic/climate horror series.

It’s twice as exciting, because it’s not just the publication day for a book, it’s the completion of a series. I can now let it go (aside from marketing it) and believe me, that frees up so much space and energy in my head for other books.

I will kiss it a fond goodbye and move on, and there is so much screaming for my attention right now!

The Day The Earth Turned series started as an idea when I was very, very angry. It was about five years ago when we found out the land directly behind us was earmarked to be developed. Our landlord owns that land and a lot of land in this area, and for many years, it had been quarried. The diggers moved around from field to field, digging it up for sand, then letting it all go wild again.

When we first moved in, fourteen years ago, the land behind us was a field used for horses. There is a strip of woodland down the middle, and on the other side, more fields which were used for growing corn or wheat. Not long after we moved in, they quarried the fields right behind us. It was sad at the time to see the grass torn up, but grass does grow back quickly, and once the job was done, that’s exactly what happened. Now, years later, it’s a beautiful field surrounded by hedges and trees, and the best spot to watch the sun go down.

We often watch deer out there and when the centre floods in the winter, we get ducks and geese on the water and the sunsets are even more spectacular.

Needless to say, we were horrified by the thought of them building on it. They have now reached the last plot to be quarried and after that, the whole area is up for grabs. The landowner has made millions out of allowing it to be quarried for so long, but he obviously wants to keep milking it for more money. Rich people are just never rich enough, right?

The first idea put forward by various developers who started circling like sharks, was a fake water lagoon. It would involve digging up all the fields, pouring concrete over them and constructing a huge water park tourist attraction. Goodbye deer, badgers, rabbits, hares, voles, shrews, weasels, stoats and all the other wildlife we have spotted there over the years…

There were instant objections – the roads around here are not built to cope with that many visitors and during a local parish meeting, the council admitted that our lanes (narrow hedge-lined country lanes that loop around this land) would have to be widened to allow more vehicles and prevent the main road becoming even more congested.

I wept. I really did. Our lanes are lined with mature hedges and beautiful ancient oak trees. Like the fields behind them, they provide homes and food for so much wildlife.

I’d walk the lanes with my dogs, my eyes filling with tears as I imagined the pointless destruction. We live less than ten minutes from the beach, for Christ’s sake. Why does anyone need a fake lagoon?

The answer is, we don’t.

But people have to make money out of land, right? It can’t possibly be rewilded, left to nature, left to provide vital habitats for one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world!

Ugh. It sickened me and it still does. The good news is, another water park with a very similar design has just been approved not far from here, so there is no way now this one will go through. That just means they’ll decide to build something else on it though.

For now, it’s safe. The deer can roam through the copse and the badgers can frolic in the moonlight. For now, it’s left alone.

When we heard about the development plans, I started thinking, if only nature could fight back! If only the wildlife could develop a higher state of consciousness, thought even. They would be full of rage. They would hate us. If Mother Nature was a conscious entity, she would want revenge. She would want to cull us.

And that’s where the idea came from.

I imagined the world, the earth itself, turning on us. It would start with the adults as they’ve got the most blood on their hands. It would wipe them out with multiple pandemics, and along with that, animals and plants would start attacking us and killing us to save themselves.

I wanted to write a post-apocalyptic story and I thought it would be far more interesting if all the adults were killed and only the children were left.

How would they survive without the adults? Without food and resources, without transport, without school, without law, without medicine? Would they turn on each other or pull together? Would they be able to figure out a better way to live on this earth?

I knew early on that I wanted the animals to have their say and that’s why there are often chapters from the point of view of an animal or bird.

It wasn’t easy to write. It never is when I get the concept and plot before the characters. Notes, ideas and character bios started being added to a notebook about five years ago, and eventually that became a bigger notebook once I started writing it. It was in past tense at one point and then I switched it to present. That was tedious!

But overall, I am incredibly proud of this series. The reviews are so positive. It really seems to strike a chord with people. I hope readers enjoy the ending!

And as for seeing these characters again in the future, I’ll just say, never say never! There is a part of me that is very curious about what happened next….

But right now, there are three more books waiting to be polished up and published!

Thank you to everyone who has supported this series. From my wonderful beta readers, arc readers, fellow authors and bloggers, and to my wonderful editor/proofreader who is an absolute star. I am so grateful to you all. The indie community is a wonderfully welcoming and supportive one. Thank you also to my son, Dylan for designing the front covers for me! They’re perfect!

Here’s the series link if you’re curious about diving in and finding out what happens to young people without adults when the very land beneath their feet is turning on them: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CBW3D8VL?binding=kindle_edition&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin

Who Are Your Apocalypse Gang?

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

In two weeks my new novel The Day The Earth Turned, Book 1:Summer will be released! In this post I would like to introduce you to some of the characters but I’d also like to ask you a question. Imagine the world is ending, or at least the world as we know it is. It could be for any reason: perhaps war, climate change, alien invasion, or zombies on the rise! Let’s say you’re smart and you survive only to find yourself in a wasteland of a world, something now difficult, almost impossible to navigate. You need to find safety; shelter, food and water. You need sharp survival skills or you won’t last much longer! You need other people. Who would you want by your side and why? Feel free to let me know in the comments! I’d love to know who your apocalypse gang would be and why!

Image by Moshe Harosh from Pixabay

As for me, I’d definitely want some of these kids on my side!

Meet Gus:

When we first meet 15 year-old Gus, he appears rather deranged.

‘There’s none left you know!’ he bellows at her then, suddenly motionless on the opposite side of the road, his arms down; his face pale and moonlike through the wall of rain and hail. ‘They’re all dead! It’s just us now!’ He laughs, turning in a circle with his arms spread to either side. He looks round and meaty, she thinks, in his saturated vest top, and pyjama bottoms. ‘This is all ours!’

He’s not sorry that the adults are all dead and he’s soon on a mission to kill any remaining ones. The main thing Gus wants however, is power and control. He seizes his chance when it comes and soon becomes the official leader of the Moors Close group. As the story progresses we learn more about his background, and we start to see the other, softer, side of Gus that Chess champions. He can be kind, he can be reasoned with and above all, he is a true survivor.

Meet Reuben:

When we first meet 14 year-old Reuben, we also view him through the eyes of Chess. She knows him only vaguely from the school bus and has stopped other kids bullying him on more than one occasion.

She looks up. It’s the Carter boy, dragging something behind him. His chest is bare, and his dark hair slick with sweat. He looks her way and shouts at her,          

‘Something is happening!’

He isn’t wrong.

She doesn’t answer, and he keeps going. With the dog back inside, Chess locks the door and wanders to the kitchen window. The Carter boy has gone, but the dead grey man is still there. What had he wanted? Help? She feels half tempted to run after the Carter boy to find out what he knows, but he is a bit weird. Everyone says it. His whole family is weird, they say. His mother was a hippy sort who died too young, he didn’t go to school and his grandfather has dead animals hung up inside the shed.

Like Gus, Reuben is also a survivor who isn’t too sorry to see the world has shed itself of adults. His grandfather has somehow survived the cull so far, so he has reason to feel optimistic. He is a realist but also a dreamer. Gentle and kind to people and wildlife, he hates Gus for bullying him in the past and the two quickly set up opposing sides in the village.

Meet Chess:

Chess is the first character we meet – four weeks after her parents went to the hospital and never came back, she now has to face the fact she is alone with her 6 year-old sister, Josie. Chess is a strong character who adapts quickly to a world without adults, but that doesn’t stop her from missing the old world and grieving for the future she no longer has.

But blaming her dead parents for their predicament is a pointless waste of energy and Chess understands on some level that she needs to make a room for them inside her head. A room where she can put them for a while and shut the door on them. Of course, she wants to throw herself down and cry and scream. She wants to run to the hospital and see if by any chance, they survived, but she knows it is useless. She is responsible for herself and Josie and that means keeping them alive until another adult arrives to take care of them. And Chess does believe that someone will come. Police, or the army, something like that. Adults in positions of authority. It’s just a matter of being patient and keeping them fed until then.

Chess has great leadership qualities and has potential as a diplomatic figure in a world without adults. She tries hard to unite the opposing factions that emerge and is always thinking ahead.

Meet John:

John is an anomaly – an adult who has not been killed by any of the deadly viruses that swept the world, culling the adults and leaving the children alone. A down to earth, practical, blunt and old-fashioned kind of guy, he took Reuben in when his mother was dying of cancer and has been a father figure to him since. John is deeply connected to the earth and believes nature will show them the way forward.

‘We were prepared,’ John continues. ‘We’ve been aiming for full self-sufficiency for a long time. Mind you, don’t mean things aren’t gonna be tough. Really tough. There’s medicine for one thing. We’ve stockpiled, but that don’t mean we know what to do with half of it!’ He chuckles deep in his belly and shakes his head. ‘And if crops fail…there’s water supplies…I’m guessing you’re just starting to feel the enormity of it all, eh?’

John sees it as his duty to build a community for the children, to bring them together and teach them the skills they need to survive. He can be authortarian at times, but he has their best interests at heart.

Meet George:

George does not come from Heron. He is just passing through when he runs into Gus and his gang after a disgusting incident with a crow.

 George’s mouth falls open and drool slips from his tongue. He wonders how easily you can go insane. He wonders for the millionth time what he is made of, how tough he is, how easily he will die or how hard he will fight to live. As he slept, an army of flies has laid eggs in his wounds and the crow has been feasting on a squirming, wriggling occupation of hundreds of fat white maggots.

George is a bit of a loner who becomes attached to Reuben. He is kind and moral, and adaptable. Though he misses his dead family, they taught him well and prepared him as best they could for life without them. He is a tough, outsdoorsy type with some good survival skills.

Meet Charlotte:

Charlotte is also passing through the village of Heron, where she stops to bury her dead boyfriend and finds a lone toddler called Iris. She ends up staying in the village.

Charlotte hoists the child to her other hip and follows the rag-tag group down another lane called Pig Shoot. Since burying her boyfriend and finding the child, Charlotte has wandered aimlessly around the area in search of life. She is down to one water bottle and a squashed cucumber sandwich. Her head aches from crying, her legs feel weak and she is sure her feet have blisters on top of blisters.

Charlotte is an older teen, who was travelling the world with her boyfriend before the pandemics started to hit. She is mature, wise, patient and forward thinking. She misses the old world and hopes to eventually regain some of what they have lost.

There are many other characters to meet in the series, including rich kid Grace who can’t decide whose side she wants to be on, and sinister Lily, a 10 year-old with an interest in torture – but the characters mentioned above are the ones I’d want on my side!

What about you?

Oh and if you’re keen to read the series, Book 1: Summer can be preordered from Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Day-Earth-Turned-Book-Summer-ebook/dp/B0C5MP91J7/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=chantelle+atkins&qid=1686304018&sr=8-2: Who Are Your Apocalypse Gang?

The End of The World Is Here…

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

I’m hoping that got your attention.

Maybe. Maybe not.

But really I just wanted to let you know that my new YA post-apocalyptic series is nearly here!

The Day The Earth Turned is a four-book series set immediately after a huge apocalyptic event. Not just one pandemic, but several, have decimated the population and only the children remain.

Here is the blurb:

The adults are all dead. Society has collapsed.

Two groups of teenagers emerge on either side of a rural village, traumatised, bereaved and determined to survive.

As tribes form and territorial lines are drawn, can they overcome their differences and find a way to rebuild?

Or will gang warfare end this emerging new world before its even begun?

Each of them have their theories about what killed the adults and as the dust settles on the old world, a far bigger, darker, and angrier threat is bursting to life all around them.

It’s taken a long time to get here! Over four years of jotting ideas down, creating characters, writing each book in the first draft one after the other, then going over them again and again, changing the tense from past to present and constantly feeling like I would never get there! This was definitely the hardest writing project I’ve ever worked on. I loved it from the start but just kept feeling like I couldn’t do the idea justice. I’m happy with how it all turned out though!

“Summer” can now be preordered on Amazon for just 99p for the ebook. Paperback coming soon! I would really love to share these books with you so if you have any interest in apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, disasters and stories about survival and the environment then please give book 1 a go and see what you think. I’ll be blogging more about the book and the characters as we head towards release day!

Here is the link to Amazon!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C5MP91J7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3S22CL8I39EPH&keywords=chantelle+atkins&qid=1684488101&sprefix=c%2Caps%2C809&sr=8-1: The End of The World Is Here…