I wrote about why I wrote ‘He is Not Worthy’ back in 2022, and also a little bit about my second book when talking about writing a blog about Series.
On the first of next month, my second novel ‘Echoes of Drowning’ is being published. As I’ve previously mentioned, it does not a follow on from my first book, so not part of a series in the normal sense. However, one very minor character, Kyra who is a journalist, also appears in this second novel. She is still a fairly minor character, but this time, she has more of a important impact to the overall story.
In my third novel, ‘The Identity Enigma’ – which I’ve just recently finished the first draft, Kyra is one of the major characters, along with her boyfriend, Nils. But also, two of the main characters from ‘Echoes’ also move across to the third novel. Alongside these four characters, there are also two new main characters.
Places also do cross over between books. In the first novel, I created Whittingbury and Whittingbury Bay, which is where my main character lives. This is referred to in ‘Echoes’ because Kyra moves from there to Liverpool, and her mum and sister live in Llaneirw – another place I’ve created. In the third novel Llaneirw is talked about, and at one point Kyra and Nils return to visit her mum’s house which is up for sale.
Both books two and three have some Swedish links plus also Manchester is an important part of both stories.
But, the three books are not an expectation of what a series looks like.
For my next book, I am aiming to write a series. But it will mainly be the setting that makes the books a series, and at the moment, as this is very much in my head space – again, I think there will be characters that move between the books.
Something else that links all of the first three novels is that they are either set by the sea, or have ‘watery’ links. Sea comes into each story at some point – some with more importance than others!
I’m aiming to create a ‘forest’ setting for the next set of books.
I used to live in the Forest of Dean, which is a beautiful area of Gloucestershire. I loved my time there, and was always amazed by the beautiful changing colours in the autumn. The view from our house, which was on a small hill, was stunning. Though also, parts of the forest could be quite scary and intimidating, so I think it would be the perfect place to set stories.
Where I now live in the South West, there is another ancient forest not too far from us – Savernake Forest. I can see many walks taking place there to capture the atmosphere for my stories.
All I have to do now is come up with my 3 plots; characters and place names. I don’t want to write about the actual Forest of Dean, because if you get anything wrong as a writer, readers can be very unforgiving! There’s a lot of planning ahead.
So, watch this space… Although first, there is the launch of ‘Echoes of Drowning’, followed, hopefully later in the year with ‘The Identity Enigma’.