Is it the longest book I’ve ever written? Yes.
Is it going to get longer? Yes.
Does it slap? YES.
(Am I not meant to say that about my own books? Do I care? Will this whole blog post be a sequence of questions?)
I’m now working my way through the edits, which initially terrified me. The book is so long and it has a LOT going on. Plus it’s the first book in a series which means it has to introduce a new world and characters. It has to set up the plots coming in future books. And it’s my first proper urban fantasy, so do I even know what the hell I’m doing?
I panicked. I told myself I just needed to work on something easier for a while. A genre I know better. Something short and sweet.
Then I went back to the mystery book we don’t speak of (except in this video, where all I did was speak of it) and tried to edit it again.
Yikes!
Guess who came crawling back to the vampire book.
It might be literally twice as long, but because I wrote it at a more comfortable (slower) pace and had time to edit as I went, the changes I have to make are actually not even that big. So even if I never edit and release that mystery book, it served its purpose — showing me how good I’ve got it with this vampire book edit.
(Good Aphrodite that mystery book is a mess. Someone should burn it in a fire. Or put a stake through its heart so it stops coming back to sink its fangs into me.)
(Alexi will not let me delete the file.)
(I really, really want to delete the file.)
Anyway, my point is that I’m now ready and willing to tackle this edit, and I no longer think I’ve… bitten off more than I can chew. (The vampire puns will be incessant.)
Here’s your sneak peek! (Subject to change, blah blah.)
🩸
Oh, and here’s a song to listen to for vibes!
Sneak Peek: Isla returns to her hometown…
Welcome to Rapture. We’re praying for you!
Sponsored by Dead Cheap Electronics: Deals to die for.
The sign was new. The ominous feeling hanging low over the town? Not new. Not new at all.
My phone rang as I was passing the abandoned racecourse.
“Settled in yet?” Art said. Big fan of skipping introductions.
“Barely on the outskirts. Plenty of time for me to turn around if —”
“What, if we want you back here?” He snorted. “No. I’m ringing because your new — what should we call him? Partner? Victim?”
“Agent.” The taxidermy museum slid past on the right, a stuffed fox’s eyeballs glinting at me through the front window. Laughing at me.
Art snorted. “Right. Your new agent wants to meet tonight.”
Great. Work. Though I guess at least if I started tonight it meant I could leave that much sooner. “Where are we meeting?”
“Some place called The Crematorium?”
Sigh. “I know it.”
“Great. He’s on his way there now. And Isla?”
“Yes Art?”
“Don’t kill this one.”
He hung up on me. Cheers, Art. Appreciate the advice.
Weatherboard houses and cracked bitumen and bright pink bougainvilleas gave way to colonial buildings and pavers and sycamores as I neared the town centre. Harsh white streetlights were swapped for ornate Victorian-style lampposts, spilling their coppery glow all over the red brick.
The wind was blowing the wrong way and the smell of the slaughterhouse hung thick in the atmosphere. Thick enough I had to turn off my air conditioning. (By which I mean roll up my windows.) My car turned into an incinerator, and the scent of cow intestines lingered.
Smelled like home.
I hope you enjoyed it! I’m so excited for this series. 😁
xx
Yay new book!🥳
Yay write more books🥳
Soon Liams story?👏👏👏