Life happens a little too fast sometimes. For example, I was minding my own business, hard at work revising the second book in my pandemic trilogy, FLU SEASON, when I was contacted by another author concerning a semi-biographical novel I wrote a few years ago: A GIRL CALLED WOLF.
Well, I do like to talk about my books. So the result was me being interviewed for a podcast by Nick Alimonos, author of the Aenya books, a series of fantasy novels (click the link to check them out). You can hear the podcast here - from his author webpage. Nick read the novel and apparently was impressed enough to want to ask me questions about it. He found me through social media and we set up an online meeting. He was particularly interested in how I took the mostly true experiences of the heroine and turned it into a novel. Our conversation, however, ranged far and wide, covering a variety of writer issues and our opinions of other books. (My voice doesn't sound too awful.)
As I said above, I've been revising Books 2 and 3 in the FLU SEASON trilogy. Book 1 The Book of Mom is already available. It was originally to be a stand-alone but half way through the writing I realized this was the start of a trilogy. I typed straight into and through the second book without any break. I did pause before getting into the third book because I spent time getting Book 1 published. Also, I had to take time to plan Book 3 but it is now completed.
Book 2 The Way of the Son is finished and polished and ready to hit the presses once cover art is completed. Cover reveal coming!
Meantime, here is a blurb (the back cover text):
Everything changes when you lose your mother, even more if you lose her during a pandemic when everyone is fighting for survival and it is your responsibility to protect her and you fail.
And now you have a wife and baby to protect in the savage outerlands - where danger lurks in every shadow.
It's what I call The Way of the Son.
“The road is finite, and well-marked, so you only need to go along it, following the path that’s already set before you. Yet sometimes it will lead you in the wrong direction. Sometimes you will end up in the wrong place.”
You have to find your way back home again, wherever that may be - even through a deadly pandemic.
Without giving away any spoilers, Book 2 picks up where Book 1 ends, like on the same day, and follows the journey of our young family as they continue to seek sanctuary from both the pandemic and criminal elements. Should be out in May.
Book 3 Dawn of the Daughters is deep in revision now. It could become an epic tome as thick as another Southern tale Gone With The Wind only mine would be the new South, post-pandemic, post-societal collapse, with a new reconstruction.
Here is the blurb I'm considering:
It was hard enough trying to start from scratch after the pandemic destroyed half of everything. Best to settle far from anyone, hiding in the forest of a national park.
But with militia from the new government coming by, rebels still on the loose, and new neighbors settling too close, the new normal is a mix of intense danger and surprising joy.
But which kind of life would win in the end? How can you raise a bunch of daughters in this kind of world and keep them safe?
Book 3 likewise continues directly from the end of Book 2 (the scene with the deer), and covers what happens during the rest of their lives. I'm expecting a mid-fall launch.
So there you have it: the easy, relaxing life of a reluctant retiree and his beat-up old computer. I truly do not lay about pondering navel lint.
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Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.
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