Hello from Luxembourg,
Today I leave on holiday with my family. The book launches in 5 days, so it will launch while I'm in Normandy. I will be staying very close to the beaches of the D-Day landing. A reminder that our shared history will always outstrip even speculative and spectacular fantasy for acts of true sacrifice and heroism.
Thinking of D-day, I recently saw the new Oppenheimer movie, The Odyssey. I've read all the critics and it's interesting to me that the negative critics are reasonably few, but getting a lot of airtime, the positive critics are plentiful, but somehow not getting reported as much (I guess the newspapers get more attention from negative press). It sits at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes with 456 reviews, and 97% on their popcornmeter, which is the measure of the public's approval, with over 10,000 verified ratings. So there's the public, and the collective voice of the film reviewing community, have both spoken with near-unanimous approval.
Well, that puts my desperate search for reviews for Past Mistakes into perspective!
Reviews
Speaking of reviews, I received a very kind note from an early reviewer this week, telling me she "absolutely loved itI", and that it "really is an awesome book", so that's my writer's oxygen for the week. Thank you. This particular person also had the immense kindness to point out a few typos, which is also super helpful when you're a solo writer without editorial/publishing support.
She finished with a question: "Do you have a sequel planned"?
Ah. Well. That brings us to...
What comes next
I'm working on Erasure next, a time travel thriller set in the present day.
I'm very fond of Erasure, I think it's a cool way to think about time travel and the story has lots of momentum to it. The protagonist is interesting (male, this time), and his situation fairly original in terms of fictional character building.
Once that's done, there is an outline for a second Emily Voss novel. I have an idea for the development of the story from where it's left. But if you're an early reader, then you know that the story doesn't end where it begins, and that if I continue it, the continuation needs to adapt to some very changed circumstances, and to some characters who are not at all who they were at the beginning of the book, given what they've been through.
If you're interested in my work, a collection of short stories is available on the website. If you want, for example, a story stub about magic in the modern world, you can read "In Flight Magic", which is incredibly short and just a bit of fun really. If you wanted something slightly more post-apocalyptic and technological in flavour, you can try "Machine Man", which could also be spun into something longer, but which right now is an idea, encapsulated in short story form.
Publication Date
Past Mistakes is published on August 4th and becomes available on Kindle and for purchase on Amazon on that date.
You can pre-order it here for $2.99, or read it free on Kindle Unlimited.
As always, and all the more as I approach the finish line, thank you for your support.
Nick.
P.S. Think you can read my book in 4 days? Commit to writing a review on or just after August 4th and you can grab your free copy now by clicking here, but I'll be closing applicaitons shortly, so hurry up!
No author spotlight this week. Instead, since Past Mistakes is an Urban Fantasy with a strong female lead, I wanted to highlight books with that in common. So here's a collection of stories with female main characters, in the speculative fiction genre. Hopefully you find something to your liking in the list! Click the banner to go to the promotion.
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