Insides Out

The latest issue of Strange Aeons magazine includes my story Insides Out.

Check it out here: Strange Aeons

Nightsiders

My new novella, Nightsiders, has just been released by those wonderful people at DarkFuse Publishing.

I'm very excited about the book being available. It's the one I had no idea what to do with, the story that took on a life of its own and became something very unusual. I wrote the novella a few years ago and had no idea where to send it until the DarkFuse thing came up. I think it's found a good home.

The signed, limited hardback edition seems to be sold out already (to the DarkFuse book club), but it's available as an eBook. Exclusive to Amazon for the first 90 days, and then on other platforms after that.

Here are the links:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

The Bones of You

Here's the blurb for my latest novel, The Bones of You. Keen-eyed readers might spot a cunning homage to a couple of good friends of mine...

I love you…I love the bones of you.

This is a story about ghosts, a dead serial killer, and a man struggling to be a good father to his young daughter. There’s pain and pathos, love and hate, abuse, addiction and desire. It’s about love, duty, and the ties that bind people together.

It’s also the story of Little Miss Moffat and the Radiant Children…

Adam Morris moves into a cheap rental property in the suburbs. He’s divorced and gets to look after his daughter, Jessica, every other weekend as part of the deal. He’s a broken man trying to start a new life.

But when strange events start to occur in the run up to Halloween, Adam suspects there’s a link to the old, abandoned house next door. Soon he learns about a dead killer named Katherine Moffat and the terrible things she did to her victims in the cellar.

When Jessica starts talking in her sleep and shows signs of abuse – marks and bruises on her body – he isn’t sure if it’s his ex-wife’s junkie boyfriend or something more sinister causing her harm. And just who is the troubled young Goth girl who watches silently from the street outside his house?

As Adam uncovers more details regarding past events in the shunned, graffiti-covered house next door, he realises that he and Jessica might be in real danger. And before long he is caught up in a mortal struggle to prevent Little Miss Moffat’s lingering influence from destroying everything he is trying so hard to protect.

Some Bones

So this week finally saw me finish - all bar some last-minute tweaks - the final draft of The Bones of You. My agent loved it, her editorial comments were brief and merciful, and at the end of this week I'll be sending it off to the publisher.

Then it's time to forge ahead with The Quiet Room, which I hope to finish before the summer. I also have a few shorter projects to fit in, but I don't intend to stress myself out by taking on too much. Fuck that shit; life's too short to kill yourself through stress.

Which neatly segues into another subject:

Over the past few weeks I've seen a few blogs written about the subject of being a full-time writer. People taking the plunge, giving up the day job.

Good luck to them, I say, but that's a dream of mine that's lost its gloss.

I have a family to support, a mortgage to pay, and I'm not prepared to readjust to a life of low and unreliable income and massive pressure. I don't want to write tie-in novels, I don't want to have to take on editing or proof-reading jobs as an alternative income stream. I want to write the stuff that I want to write, and I'll never get rich doing that. So I'll continue with my career, and write on the side, just like a lot of writers do. The money I make from writing is a welcome bonus. It's taken a while, but I've finally come to terms with this lifestyle choice and have adjusted my writing schedule to suit. I feel a lot less stressed now.