Book 25: Best Revenge is due back from the proofers this coming week so will be out soon (I’m estimating the week after, so early to mid June.)
Audiobooks: the narrator has retired, so I’m looking for someone new to record Books 24 & 25, and to do it back to back (hopefully recording this June).
Most people look forward to the harvest, but some just want to watch it burn.
With the final evacuation over, the Atlantic survivors hoped they’d found peace, but the war has followed them west. While searching for his lost vault, General Denning has laid waste to Washington State. Farms have been burned, bridges mined, and cities filled with the undead, all in pursuit of a forgotten weapons vault everyone else thinks is a myth. Everyone except Maggs who found proof of it shortly after she arrived in the west. She and her army of Oregonian farmers have been fighting a guerrilla war against the general since March. One by one, her friends were murdered. Now, she wants revenge.
As the police hunt for spies in the north, and Bran raises a militia from the farmers on Vancouver Island, Kim and Sholto hunt for the general and his army. Though he is operating at the end of a very long supply chain, their resources are no more plentiful. They can afford one battle, one push, one last sacrifice in their bid to create a world safe for their family.
But even if they defeat Denning, the war won’t be over. The real threat is, and has always been, Dr Tippichandra and her piratical followers in Louisiana. Stopping her won’t be enough, not for Detective Tom Wilgus. Nor will revenge. He needs justice.
A story of love and war, revenge and acceptance, set in a new nation being built among the ashes of the old world.
This is a loooooong book. 180,000 words. More than twice as long as Book 2, but it took more than twice as long to finish. There’s some great writing in it, though, even if I do say so myself. (I’ve just finished a read through. I always do one before the book comes back from the proofer, and again after I’ve made the corrections. This last read through took me four days, and that’s why I’m estimating it might take a whole week after I get it back from the proofers before I publish.)
It wraps up (almost) all of the storylines that I’d planned to flesh out over five books, so the events described were sketched out, if not fully planned, years ago. The big pivot was during Covid, when Scott returned to Australia. Had it not been for Covid, his return would have gone very differently; but with a global plague upon us, I figured I’d try something more optimistic.
Rather than simply compressing the story, I’ve rejigged it, juggling which heroes are present for certain critical events, but otherwise, everything eventuated as I’d originally intended. Hopefully you won’t find it rushed.
And while it is (possibly) the last that will be published as Surviving the Evacuation, I doubt it will be the last with these characters. As you will see when you read it, there’s a lot of possibilities for future stories. I’ve mentioned a few of the ideas I’d been toying with before, and I did begin working on one, but realised it would work so much better as a Strike a Match book. It’s basically a crime story anyway, filled with murder and intrigue, and so the next book after this will be Strike a Match: Learning the Law.
Set in the months immediately after the Blackout, it charts the apocalypse in Britain after the lights go out, and the efforts of those who come together to stop the complete collapse of society. While it’s framed as a police officer’s case book (at least in this draft) and contains tales of robbery, murder, and fraud, it’s intended to be an optimistic take on human endurance, compassion, and survival.
I had thought I’d be publishing my story of magic and monsters in London next, but as I was getting to the end of the tale, I realised it’d work so much better if I merged two secondary characters with one of my main ones, which means changing her backstory and when she first appears, and that means a major rewrite. Worried that I’ll embark on that, only to reach the end again, and again find something major to change, I thought I’d try something else as a confidence boost.
Back in the long, long ago, just after publishing Book 3, I was feeling a bit drained. Book 3 had taken me an age compared to Book 2. So I set myself the goal of writing and publishing a book in three months. Work. Rest. Repeat. was the result, a sci-fi detective novel, albeit a short one. I figure another detective novel is the smart way to boost my writing and thinking speed, and a Strike a Match story rather fits the bill.
I hope you’re well. The heatwave has forced me to experiment with iced tea. I’m not convinced…
Enjoy the weekend, Frank :)