The FLU SEASON SAGA ends!

Dear Friends and Followers,

Back in the ancient year of 2019 the beginning of the end began. That's a mouthful but not an incorrect tautology. Things happened, which prompted me to want to write something. I had trouble getting started. I spent the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 planning a story which I finally got started later that year. I imagined what was then our present situation - lockdowns, restrictions, shortages, desperation, fear - and took it six years into the future - a possible future, granted.

And so the FLU SEASON saga was born. At first intended to be a single novel, it expanded into a trilogy before the first book was completed. I had only a rough idea of what would happen in those next two books, yet I wasn't worried. The characters would tell me everything and I would just write about it. They had compelling stories full of heartache and heartbreak to share but also triumphs and joys. I cried and cheered along with them, I confess, unwilling to acknowledge my fingers were the cause of all their ups and downs. THE GRANDDAUGHTER, the fifth book in the saga (out in September 2024), was a particular pleasure to write, being lighter even amusing more than the other books.

After three books, I thought the series was finished at a trilogy. Yet a new idea kept pestering me so I started a fourth book, calling it a sequel. But the sequel led to an even newer idea, something lighter as I imagined it. As I concluded that fifth book, I had ideas for a sixth book, which I am working on now. I feel that I can end the series with this final book - but it will be a long one, covering a lot of territory as we venture further into the uncertain future. I may introduce zombie-like denizens of the desert at some point (medically accurate, of course).

THE GRANDSONS is the final volume of this saga, following the lives of two grandsons and introducing a third grandson. Life has gotten worse for the citizens of Skinner Canyon with a new menace from the destruction of the cities on the east coast coming for them and more criminality in their own locale. They don't know what has happened in the east, only that it can't be anything good. They are much too concerned with the big trial in town. The body of an infamous outlaw has turned up and everyone wants to know how he met his end - being related to a prominent citizen of the town. 

This final book is a frame story. We begin in their present day, set up the situation and get the trial started. Then we jump back fifteen years to see how we got to this present day situation. Classic framework. However, as I am literally (literally!) making it up as I go along, it is moving slowly. I have a roadmap but the curves are sharp, the hills steep, and there are plenty of chuck holes slowing me, but I know the way forward and will get to the destination eventually - likely late in 2025, possibly early 2026.

I frequently vowed to write a Western, a genre I never believed I was capable of, having little knowledge of that era in American history or the nomenclature of horses, etc. But like how it took some time to "find the way in" to the first book, THE BOOK OF MOM, the way in was a scene in a dream I didn't ask for. I wrote out that scene and the start could begin. Now there is a lot of webs to weave building the story, and then unweave them as the story unwinds to its shocking yet heartfelt conclusion. I have already written that final scene.

As I create this final volume of the saga, doing what I love to do, please enjoy reading the previously completed books in the saga. You can find them all in paperback or for Kindle at this universal link: https://mybook.to/PaxnhJD

Your support has been and always will be greatly appreciated! 

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(C) Copyright 2010-2024 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. 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.