Coming Soon!

Crossover Book – The Dark Finds You

I blame Sim for this one but he loved the Holds End trilogy so much he kept asking for another book. Eventually, despite trying not to, I ended up getting a few ideas about Bill Robinson and what he could be up to. As I drew to the end of At Night We Played In The Road, I started to get ideas as to what could happen to Danny next (main protagonist of The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series and appears towards end of spin-off book At Night We Played In The Road) I was also thinking about finally finishing the sequel to The Mess Of Me and I suddenly realised how characters from all these books could appear in one altogether. They are already linked as some of them already pop up or are mentioned in each other’s books, so it was really easy to create a plot they would all be realistically involved in. I suddenly had the entire plot in my mind so quickly wrote the whole thing down. It involves characters from The Mess Of Me, Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature. the Holds End Trilogy and The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series… Of course, once I had written the plot I found it impossible to ignore so I started writing it, even though I really shouldn’t have! When it flows though, you can’t really ignore it. So, I went the flow and this book practically wrote itself. I finished it at the end of September 2022 and I think it took a record 6 weeks to write!

UPDATE: I will soon have a preorder date for this book!

Black Hare Valley (series)

This story was not meant to happen for years but it has jumped the queue quite brazenly. It all started a few years ago after both my son and I had re-read Stephen King’s It. I suddenly really wanted to write a book set in a strange little town where kids have to battle some kind of evil. That was all I really had but my son helped me create a huge, complex map for this town called Black Hare Valley. That obviously led to character bios and plot ideas and themes. I kept it all in a notebook and put it to one side as I was already working on enough books! Then, February 2022 we had a five day power cut and I could not use my laptop. I had to write something, so I picked up the Black Hare Valley notebook and wrote a possible first chapter. This obviously led to a second chapter and a few months later I had written a rough draft of the whole thing in longhand. Just before the end of 2023 I typed this up on the laptop and made some changes, which sort of makes it count as a second draft.

UPDATE: I have now written 5 books in this series and it is complete. I am currently sharing book one with my followers chapter by chapter and while I am having a break from editing the series, I plan to get back into that once The Dark Finds You is released and then I can start thinking about when to release Black Hare Valley Book One: 1996!

We Hate The Cool Kids (working title)

A while ago I was driving to my writing group when an old song came on the radio, which caused me to think about something I had forgotten about. Before I arrived at my group, I had a short story, if not a whole novel running around inside my head. It was inspired by the memories and images the song conjured up. Teenage girls. Dusty woods. Enemies. Revenge. I wrote the short story She Is… which is included in Bird People and Other Stories and I have recently started another short story, which basically takes off where She Is…ends. Update March 2019; this book really leaped into my head lately and I couldn’t ignore it anymore, so I’ve started a very rough draft in a notebook. This is jumping the queue quite a lot, and The Day The Earth Turned should really be the priority but I’m kind of used to writing more than one book at a time and I like having a long-hand project on the go, so we will see what happens! Update December 2019; I finished the first draft and really enjoyed writing this novel. I am not sure when I will start the second draft but it will be some time in 2020. Update October 2022 – as I am concentrating on The Day The Earth Turned books, I have still got back to the second draft of this one but it’s day will come! 

UPDATE 2025: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and really hope it gets its turn soon!

The 7th Child

I’ve had vague ideas about this book for a few years now. At first there was no plot, I just had this dysfunctional family in my head; a large family with six now grown-up children. I knew that the oldest child, a boy, had a strange relationship and control over the youngest child, also a boy. There are three boys and three girls in the family and they have different fathers, and a mentally unstable, narcissistic mother. That was all I really had. But this one is in my head a lot and I now have a notebook on the go for it. I’m slowly getting the six children’s names and personalities. I’ve got the location and the plot. Basically these six children have all gone their separate ways in life but they come back together when their mother dies alone at the derelict farmhouse they grew up in. They have to plan and attend her funeral and while together, old rivalries come back to haunt them, rivalries which revolve around the mystery of what happened to the seventh child the mother had. I know exactly what happened but I obviously won’t spoil it! Update January 2024: I still write ideas for this when I get them and its notebook is now bulging. I also wrote the first few chapters. I expect this one will get its time in 2025.

UPDATE 2025: This is now my current WIP! I am finally writing it while having a break from Black Hare Valley and I am up to chapter 18! 

Cody and Anya Start The Apocalypse – I really didn’t want another book idea! This started as a possible flash fiction piece I typed into my phone during a long road trip. It was about a reckless and damaged young couple who get bored of waiting for the inevitable apocalypse to start, so decide to jump start it themselves. I lost the original notes when that phone died but I have since dedicated a notebook to this intriguing couple and I’ve started character bios and ideas….

UPDATE 2025: I have written the first few chapters and continue to add notes when I get ideas.

Diary Of The Undead

I have been obsessed with The Walking Dead for a while now. Me and my son talk about zombies and apocalypse situations so often that I started to get an idea for a story in my head. It’s a diary style story told from the POV of a sixteen year-old boy who is alone after his mother dies during a zombie virus outbreak. He then gets chased out of his home by bad guys and goes on an epic journey to find his dad and half-brother and then get back home again. I have filled a notebook with diary entries and I have the whole thing planned out but at the moment it is not a book I am actively working on. UPDATE APRIL 2023 – I’m currently typing up my longhand into Word while I have a break from all the editing of other books! Update January 2024 – I finished typing up what I had but won’t work on this again until 2025 at the earliest…

UPDATE 2025: This one is still waiting, nothing new has been added, but I do think about it a lot and have mapped out at least a three book series for it.

The Ugly One (working title)

This is another book I first wrote as a teenager. I don’t have the full manuscript anymore, sadly, but I do have a fair bit of it, and the rest is in my head. At the time I got about three quarters of the way through before I gave up for reasons I cannot recall. Recently I have been thinking about the two extremely dysfunctional main characters Adam and Jude, and wondering how their story would have ended…It was a bit of a revenge thriller, and if I wrote it again I would set it in the 1990s and have it jump between their actions as teenagers, and the present day as adults. So again…watch this space but I won’t be getting to it for a very long time.

Return To The Tree Of Rebels

This is the sequel to the Tree Of Rebels. This book has been plotted to a rough extent and I have written about half of it in the first draft. This book is not calling to me at all at the moment so nothing will happen here until it does.

The Few

A dystopian/post-apocalyptic YA book that grew from an idea I explored in a short story called ‘The Black Van.’ I have a plot, a location, and characters all mapped out and I also started the first chapter. This one is written in my head and waiting to go but I won’t get to it for a while!

Creatures In Heaven (working title)

This is a story me and my daughter, Daisy, (also a writer) are working on together. We created characters, locations and a vert detailed plot for what is essentially a serial killer on a university campus story! We decided to stop there for now while we both get other projects done though!