Snake Hill. Delamere Files Book Nine. Update.

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Hi all,
A quick thing before we get to news of ‘Snake Hill.’

Newsletter

If you are subscribed to my newsletter, you should have received one yesterday with news on Snake Hill, and news of a few more interesting promos to check out.

If you haven’t subscribed to my newsletter, you can do it now on this page. Just check out the top right of the column or go to the newsletter page.

If you do sign up, and you have any problems, will you let me know? I’ve not had many new joiners for a while now, and I wonder if it is something to do with the process. Looking forward to having you on board. Thank you.

Snake Hill Update

The news on Delamere Nine is that it will be going off to the proofreader in a day or so. Meanwhile, I have commissioned a cover from Andjela, and I will show you that when I have it. I have also commissioned a drawing of one of the characters, the protagonist in this case, as it is he who sets off the chain of events that lead to all kinds of madness and mayhem, thrills (I hope) and adventure. I have drafted a vague blurb, and here it is:

When Albert Arbon arrives on Delamere’s doorstep after a three-day trek, his desperation is unmistakable — his son Robert has vanished following a night of strange lights in the Suffolk sky.

Detectives Jack and Baxter, with young Simeon, accompany Arbon back to his remote farmhouse, only to find themselves facing a tangle of rural legends and unsettling events. A body lies inexplicably in the middle of an untouched wheat field. Other children have gone missing, and no-one dare speak of the Fire Snake or share the secrets of Snake Hill.

As the investigation deepens, Jack must navigate more than a mystery. He must face the burdens of responsibility — not only for uncovering the truth, but for guiding Simeon, a boy on the cusp of manhood, who’s willing to risk everything to prove himself.

As I may have mentioned, there’s a background theme of growing up, coming of age, rites of passage, paternal responsibility, father and son… that kind of thing. Also, this is the first book in the series that (apart from a couple of chapters) takes place outside of London, putting Jack and Bax in a brand new environment.

Some of the dialogue and some of the stories told within the story make use of the East Anglian dialect. On Saturday, I will start to introduce you to some of the wonderful words and their meanings in this dialect. So, tune back in on Saturday…

And remember about the newsletter… And, take a look at this promo in the meantime:

MAYHEM & MOTIVES: Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense Reads – August Edition
Here’s my usual entry with Book-Mojo’s monthly collection of thrillers. This month, there’s a whopping 144 titles to browse, including, for the first time, my Holywell Street. I wonder if a topless Baxter will be enough to draw in some new readers?

Click the banner to find the books.

Finding a Title

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Delamere Nine

Delamere Nine, which is nearly ready for the proofreader, now has a title and I will get to it after we’ve had a quick look at the other titles in the series. These are my reasons for those titles, and the process may help other indie authors when trying to think of a title.

Finding a Way

When I set about starting the Delamere series, I had no idea what the title of book one should be. I knew I wanted the series to be about the detective agency, and for us to see James Wright at work, and I knew something else: The best way to put the reader into a situation is to do it through the eyes of someone new to that situation, that way, we can explore the new world as they do. Enter Jack Merrit, a man who needs a change in life, who craves love (but doesn’t know it), and a man who is doing everything he can to see himself and his brother through hard times. There has to be a way out of one life and into the next, surely? Yes, and Jack accidentally finds it via Larkin Chase and Jimmy Wright. Hence, the title of the book, ‘Finding a Way.’ I also wanted something that tied in with Jack being a cab driver and finding a route to happiness, adventure, and eventually love, but ‘Finding a Route’ sounded like a gardening magazine.

Other Titles in the Delamere Series

A Fall from Grace. A shameful downfall was never far away from the Victorian homosexual. The upper classes and the rich could often get away with being found out if they fled abroad or had enough standing (I am thinking of Lord Sommerset et al in the Cleaveland Street scandal), the poor would be the ones to get locked up, but the middle classes could fall either way. That’s one of the Falls of the title; the other, clearly, is the physical fall that starts the story way back in the past. The fall from Grace Tower at Sinfords School.

Follow the Van. A play on words, a ‘van’ being, in this case, the prize Jack must find, and to find it, he must follow the clues. It is also a line from a music hall song, and this story takes place in and around the music halls of London. The first line of the chorus of the song is ‘My old man…’ Jack is also on the trail of his father, his ‘old man’ in English slang. Hence: My old man said follow the van…’

Where There’s a Will. Not the most inventive of titles, but I wanted this one to be almost tongue-in-cheek. Will Merrit leads the case, which is to do with finding a missing will before the midnight hour.

A Case of Make Believe. Again, a play on words. The story concerns magicians and a disappearing boy, Ronny Felman, who was meant to disappear, but also meant to reappear, and didn’t. In this story, we have many make-believe magic tricks as the magicians make us believe one thing, but we’re actually seeing another. We also have the villains and their ‘make-believe’ Grand Guignol murders, which are actually real. Then, we have Jack coming to believe in himself more. He makes himself believe he can do this job.

Grave Developments. Well, there’s a body in a grave that shouldn’t be there, and things develop from that sticky situation. The detectives also use photography, so as the images develop, so does the story.

Acts of Faith. I can’t give you too much about this one for it will give the game away, but it’s to do with murders being committed on particular saints’ days throughout a few-year period. But who is committing them?

Holywell Street. And now, things become more straightforward. Holywell Street is the name of the street where the main action happens, i.e. the crime, the investigation and the resolve/climax, which is slightly different to others in the series.

Delamere Nine

Which brings me to number nine and the title. I was racking my brains for a few days about this one. It has a background subject (boys to men, coming of age), it has a ‘gimmick’ which I shan’t tell you about, but it’s something that was popular in Victorian times and still relatively new, and it takes place out of London, so we’re all out of our depth. Neil started reading the first draft the other day and more or less immediately came up with the title. ‘Why not call it Snake Hill?’ he said. ‘It’s the main feature of the story.’

So, just as Holywell Street is Holywell Street, so Delamere Nine will be titled ‘Snake Hill’ for reasons that will become apparent when you read it. This, I hope you will be able to do by the end of the month.

And now, the promos begin!

I am taking part in a few more free-to-browse promos this month, so the more views you can give these, the better (for me and for the other indie authors in the promo). Here’s the first – more will be announced along the way and in next week’s newsletter.

LGBTQIA+ Characters in Romance (All pairings)

There are 63 titles in this promotion, all with various LGBTQIA+ pairings. I have my mentors and students from Barrenmoor Ridge in this promo. The cover that most caught my eye? ‘Two Souls and A Pocket Watch’ by Inka York (Victorian vampires). I may have to grab a copy.

Click the banner to reach the promo page.

Still Untitled

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A quick update. This is new. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a first draft before deciding on its title. Not until yesterday, that is. I rounded off the first draft of Delamere Nine yesterday, and I am reasonably pleased with it, though I’d like it to have a little more emotional depth, so I need to work that in during the next stages. I also realised how many Suffolk and East Anglian dialect words I used, so there will have to be another glossary at the start of the book.

I can’t start thinking about a cover until I have a title, but once I have, I will also commission a drawing, but who will it be of this time…?

This story has a background theme of coming of age. The emotional theme is tied in with that as there’s some father and son discussion, a mild debate about when do boys become men, and so on, and there is an action theme which is to do with smuggling. There are also two mysteries, the main one, which develops into something else, and then a side one which ties in, and hopefully isn’t too easy, and yet isn’t too unrealistic.

All will be revealed in time… For now, it’s on to the second draft.

A Note on AI Generated Emails from Alleged Publicists

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I want to quote from two emails I received yesterday. I have put what was sent in italics to make it easier to differentiate between my bleating and theirs. Here’s the first line:

Thank you for writing Holywell Street a story that doesn’t just confront hidden darkness but does so with an emotional undercurrent that lingers.

Apparently, I’ve confronted hidden darkness. If I’ve confronted it, it can’t be hidden, surely? It goes on with more AI generated jargon including phrases such as caught between justice and personal consequence, the path forward, and leaves a lasting weight.

Leaves a lasting weight…? What, like too many cream cakes?

I was then asked a couple of questions, including: how did you keep Jack’s emotional core grounded without losing momentum in the plot’s twists?

Answer: You tell me – you purport to have read the book.

Then we get to the meat of the thing with: I help authors build ripple-effect visibility…

Ripple-effect visibility?

Apparently, my story has emotional depth beneath genre. Sorry, love, don’t understand.

I’d be glad to send over a visibility outline…

A what outline? I looked it up and am none the wiser. I’ve heard of visible panty line; it comes about after eating too many cream cakes and creating a lasting weight that ripples beneath.

Anyway… I replied with a couple of questions and a lot of cynicism, had another reply, and then followed that up with ‘So, what’s the cost?’ To which I received a breakdown of levels of ‘support’ and how much I could expect to pay for each one, and it was all so well written, I had to reach for a glossary:

In-depth alignment assessment. Custom reader discovery map. Quiet outreach. Curated spaces with reflective readers. Organic outreach. Immersive visibility layer. Ongoing traction. Gentle book visibility audit. And my fave: 30-day soft ripple tracking. I am now thinking of ice cream.

If pressed to respond to this softly rippling enquiry into whether I want to waste money, I shall reply, Do us a favour, love. I ain’t stupid.

On the same day, I received another email from someone with a strangely similar-but-different name. This one was about my godfather’s biography, ‘Bobby,’ and began:

I knew Bobby: A Life Worth Living was more than memoir. It’s a testimony. Raw, rich, and revelatory.

I can’t even say the word revelatory without breaking it down. Re-vel-a-tory. Revel a Tory? Rhymes with la-va-tory. (Well, it does and it doesn’t.)

There then followed a mashup of the blurb which I suspect was created by AI and was clearly based on the blurb I had written by using my own brain and creativity. This was followed by the almost punchline: I run a visibility service…

Oh, here we go. In this case, I was offered a personalized visibility snapshot.

No, not a clue, and I’m not going to ask or even bother to look it up as it’s clearly something to do with corporate publicity speak as spoken by machines and twiddled with by chancers “feeding off vulnerable self-published authors who don’t have the usual publishing house/agent/publicist infrastructure to protect them,” as a friend of mine put it when we discussed the emails. He also suggested “They’re not going to offer you anything you couldn’t organise for yourself with a little bit of work…” and I agree. So, I shall ignore them from now on. In fact, I will mark them as spam in Mailwasher, and if they persist, I shall bounce them back so they can confront their own hidden darkness, and I will do it with an emotional undercurrent that lingers.

It does make me wonder, though, how many people will fall for these scams, and scammers who are being more and more helped by AI. It’s so obvious to me when someone has used Crap GTP to create a paragraph or even an entire email. The writing is just too… too… Well, it’s just not normal. Considering it’s been spewed from a machine, it’s too emotional at times, too florid to have been written by anyone with self-respect. Makes me shudder.

Delamere Nine Update

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Hi folks. I didn’t post a Saturday blog as I was up to my eyes in other work, and today, I have only a quick update on Delamere nine and life in general.

First of all, I am at 82,000 words of the first draft and nearing the climax. When I work on a first draft, it’s not simply a case of blasting through and reaching the end. If I did that, I’d have a first draft finished in roughly a month, whereas it takes me about two. The main reason is that I am constantly going back and reading earlier chapters, and as I read them, I alter them. Some days I will sit here and write 4,000 words and say, ‘That’s chapter ten done,’ or whatever. Other days, I will say, ‘The head isn’t in the right place today,’ and then I will go back and edit, improve and change earlier chapters. It’s a question of mood. Today, for example, I have to do some other work first, then I have some non-writing jobs to se to, so any time I have, I will probably use it to make notes, or go back and do come checking. If the creative head isn’t in the right place (or the write place, you might say), then there’s no point in pushing it.

I thought this chap reminded me of a young Ronny.

It’s also very warm here right now, with temperatures up to 40° in the daytime and around 30° at night. There are still the household chores to see to, though Neil is usually the poor old thing who sees to them while I am working. He’s out this morning, so I have to water the plants, make sure the water barrel fills, do some washing while doing other things, because it’s a day when the water comes in. We only have one barrel, and once the water stops coming in, whatever is in the barrel must last us until the next fill up two, sometimes three or four, days later.

And talking of water, I must research a place on the River Orwell in Suffolk, which is where I left Jack and Baxter yesterday, in a pub, surrounded by a gang of evil smugglers. Must get on!

Here’s a MM Romance collection you might like to browse:

A Flight of Fancy

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What’s that then? Well, it’s currently the working title of the next Delamere Story. I am up to 70,000 words of the first draft, and things are coming together nicely. I wasn’t sure what this was going to be about (apart from a mystery), but not long after starting, I decided it was going to have as its background the theme of fathers and sons. Or, in the case of Delamere, Uncle Jack and ‘adopted’ nephew, Simeon, mirrored against a father and son relationship. It also encompasses smugglers, the countryside, a young man’s imagination and stories, folklore (to a certain extent) and something else which I will keep as a surprise.

There’s a mystery, of course, and for this one, we’re leaving London and heading to Suffolk. Be warned, dialect is being used, and there will be additions to Baxter’s Glossary.

That’s all for today, where it is 37° outside with 75% humidity. Eek! I have the fan on full blast, and my fingers are still sticking to the keyboard. But before I go…

MM Romantic Suspense

Deviant Desire is in this collection of 29 titles that includes work by Ann Barwell (Shadowboxing).

Got sizzling MM couples dodging bullets while dodging their feelings? These MM romantic suspense novels deserve the spotlight. Whether they’re protection specialists, former military, or civilians caught in deadly conspiracies, if they’re battling danger while battling attraction, they’re here.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/MMRsuspense/rql3a21who

Banyak & Fecks

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I had to pick up a spare pair of glasses for Neil on Thursday, and this involved a walk, a boat, another walk, another boat and a climb. Our nearest optician is on a different island, Rhodes, and the only way to get there is by boat. So, I set off down the hill to catch the 10.15, and off I went. This boat takes about 90 minutes (others are faster, but I was in no hurry), and it’s a gentle, smooth crossing at this time of year, so I took a book to read.

Banyak & Fecks

I don’t often reread my own work, not unless I am fact checking within the story world, but I keep coming back to this book as one of my best. I won’t give you a synopsis, because it’s there on the Amazon page, but I will explain how the book came about and what it does. It is the prequel to all of The Clearwater Mysteries, and ends the day before ‘Deviant Desire’ begins. It tells how two of the main characters meet, Silas and Andrej are already friends at the start of Deviant Desire, but how come? That was how I started out, and that’s what the book takes us through. There are many trials and tribulations on their journey.

Andrej walks across half of Europe to escape Russian violence in his home, Ukraine. On the way he learns to perform circus tricks on horses, later turns to renting, and, desperate, finally finds passage to England. Silas leaves his home city to travel to London to raise money for his sisters after their mother dies. We experience a night in a casual ward at a workhouse, a house fire, the Bloody Sunday riots, slumming, and delve into the world of being gay in Victorian Britain.

It’s not a mystery, it’s a story about friendship in a horrid world, and I think that’s why I am so fond of it. I was able to concentrate on the relationships and characters without having to tie up clues and find solutions.

Anyway, I’d already recently read the first half, and managed to read the second half during my crossings there and back. All in all, on Thursday, I walked for six miles and did about 13,000 steps. In the book, Fecker walks from near Odessa through the mountains to Genoa. Mind you, it takes him three years, and as for his boat trip…

Apart from Silas and Andrej (Banyak & Fecks), we meet other characters in this book who come back later in the series. Doc Markland makes a cameo, there’s the evil photographer whose work comes back to haunt Silas in ‘Negative Exposure, we meet Eddy Lovemount who speaks of fancying a young telegraph boy called James Wright. There’s also Captain Kent of the Valentine who turns up in The Larkspur Legacy, and some of the boys who fall to the Ripper in Deviant Desire. Click to read the blurb.

Promo Today’s promo is for the Book-Mojo collection of mysteries, thrillers and adventure stories, with some of mine in there as Jackson and as James. Click the banner for a free browse.

WIP Update: Delamere Nine

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Hi folks, just a quick update on Delamere Nine (untitled).

I am now up to 60,000 words of the first draft, and the story is chugging along. I am at that point of thinking, ‘Is this going in the right direction?’, but I never let that worry me for long. If it’s going in some direction, at least it hasn’t run out of fuel, so let’s see where we end up. It is, after all, only a first draft. I have a climax to head to, and I have no idea how I’m going to get my heroes into that tricky situation without it reading as contrived, but I will manage something. The joy then comes in the editing and rewriting in draft two onwards. All the hard work will have been done (the blasting out of the words), and I can then play around with the details and descriptions.

If you like, the first draft is like building a house on your own by hand. Once you’ve done the hard graft of putting it together, though, you can then decorate and furnish it, and finally, when yore happy with it, live in it.

So, right now I have got foundations and a ground floor, but have two more floors to build. So, I’ll get on and leave you with another promo idea. Click the banner for more details of these historical mystery and romance novels.

Mysterious Variety

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Hello! The world is full of mystery and always has been, and that’s what makes the mystery genre so exciting. It offers so many possibilities to escape from the real world and dive into all manner of thrilling situations. And some that are calmer. Cosy mysteries such as ‘Home from Nowhere’, for example, where there’s no race to the finish line, or a slow-build mystery of self-discovery as found in ‘Guardians of the Poor.’ That book is currently in a collection called July Kindle Unlimited Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, & Crime Reads. It’s a bit of a title, but it leads you to 95 titles all available on KU.

The Witchling

I am two people in that collection, Jackson and James, and you’ll find my ‘The Witchling’ is in there. This is the second book in the Saddling trilogy, and part of the blurb reads: Six months after the life-changing events of The Saddling, Tom Carey must solve the witchling mystery and risk his life to save his lover.

I guess it was while writing this one, and the one that came after, that I started to realise it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to write. Maybe that’s why I never finished the quartet. Each of the Saddling books takes place in a season at the time of an equinox or festival and has an elemental theme. So, the Witchling, for example, is set in summer, the climax is at the solstice, and the element is fire. The Saddling (book one) is winter solstice and water, and the third, the Eastling, is autumn equinox and wind. The Needling was to be number four, set at the spring equinox with earth as the element, and was to lead to rebirth for the troubled village.

While writing what I did write of The Needling, I realised that what I wanted to do was write stories with central gay characters, and hence, Jackson Marsh was born.

A quick stop to admire the view from my office window this morning…

Honestly, it’s Free!

Before then, though, came ‘Remotely’, a straight/gay body-swap comedy, with a mysterious, timeless kind of enchantress as the protagonist, known only as Miss P. People liked Miss P and wanted more of her, so I started on another story called ‘Unforgivable,’ which was about Miss P saving the West End musical, but soon put that away in favour of a short novella, called ‘Honestly.’ There are now eight chapters of this here on my sit,e and the final four should be up within the week. You can read it all for free here, or splash out $0.99 and buy the eBook, or read it on KU. It won’t take long. Basically, it’s about what happens when people are made to be honest with each other, and it takes the form of a kind of Tom Sharpe style farce… almost.

Honestly – it’s free!

Meanwhile…

… back in mystery-land, I am doing well with Delamere Nine, which, for some ungodly reason, I have mainly set in a Suffolk village. Jack, Bax and Simeon have gone to the aid of a farmer whose son went missing not long after seeing strange lights in the sky. The first half sets us up nicely for a dangerous second half (I hope, I’ve not written it yet), the villains are the protagonists as well as the antagonists, but apart from that complication, it’s all coming along nicely in first draft form.

Newsletter

If you are on the mailing list, you should receive a newsletter later today listing all the promos and other news. You can, as always, help us all along by having a click and browse of these promos, and here, as a reminder, is the link to the July Kindle Unlimited Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, & Crime Reads. Have a good weekend, stay safe, and I’ll be back on Wednesday.

Delamere Nine and July Promo News

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Delamere Nine is, as yet, untitled, but it is coming along. I am up to 33,000 words of draft one, and I know what’s been going on (though the detectives don’t as yet), and I know what the halfway point twist will be, and I have an idea for the climactic ending, I just need to get from 33% to 50% so the story can take an unexpected path, then from 50% through to crisis to climax to 100% done.

I’ve not completed the blurb for Delamere Nine as yet, I’ve not even completely mapped the story in my head or on paper, but I can give you a rough idea of what’s happening, without giving away any spoilers.

One night, a young storyteller sees strange lights in the sky over Suffolk. The next day, he retells the story to his dad, the local PC and others. They laugh at him, and he storms off, never to be seen again. A few days later, a woman’s body is found in a field. A few days after that, the dad arrives at Delamere House, having walked for two days and two nights to get there and begs for Jack Merit’s help. Jack, Baxter and Simeon head off to the depths of rural Suffolk, where they discover the dad’s house has since been ransacked, the boy is missing, and people are living in fear of the rural legend of the Fire Snake…

The writing continues as soon as I have posted this. Meanwhile, it’s a new month, which means new promos for you to either yawn at, ignore, click on or whatever. There will be a newsletter out on Saturday with all the links, but I’m going to start with this one as it comes first on my list of six. This one is called:

LGBTQIA+ Characters in Romance (all pairings)

A quick scroll shows me cabin romance, historical (Anne Barwell), topless hunks, fantasy romance, Jem Wendel’s ‘Resisting the Urge’, MM, FM, DD (Deviant Desire), and many other niches within the genre of nor under the umbrella of LGBT etc. romance.

As usual, if you feel able or interested, click the link and have a scroll through the titles. I now generate around 90% of my sales this way, and the more I promote, the more I get promoted (for free), so everyone is happy, especially me.

Click the banner to view all the titles