Yesterday I was honoured to be invited onto the Evening Show with Jermaine Foster on BBC Radio Merseyside! We chatted about my earliest stories, the writing process, a little slice of real-life fairy tales, and of course The Winter Spirits. This wasn't the first time I've appeared on radio, but it was the first time when I was by myself and talking about my books, so it felt a little bizarre! It was such a great experience and Jermaine was absolutely wonderful. Hopefully I'll be back in the studio in a couple of months to talk about a few more fantastical things! And potentially blow Jermaine's mind again with another Beauty and the Beast moment... If you'd like to listen to my interview, it will be live for the next month on the BBC Sounds App. It starts roughly 17 minutes in and continues throughout the first hour of the show with the occasional music break. I really hope you'll enjoy listening!
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The bat is on its way to being reborn. Three years after the Tragic Silence series ended, I'm jumping back into my nocturnal world of vampires. Not with any new novels, but that doesn't mean there's nothing left to write. Far from it. In fact, I've been thinking about it since before I even finished the final book. But I had my reasons for not returning to the series sooner, which I'll explain at the end of this post. I'm very excited to announce that the Tragic Silence series will be continuing, in the form of a periodical collection of brand new short stories. And the best part is that I'm going to make them exclusively available for FREE on my website! The thing I love about this series is how it's essentially comprised of standalone novels. You can read them in any order, or independently of the others, and still get a complete story out of it. But if you read them all, you see the larger tale which lies over everything, linking them together. It's woven like a spider web across the lives of three different women in different time periods and locations: Bianka Farkas, Hanna Bernstein and Eva Kalvin. Between the strands are others: major events we've only heard about in passing, or characters we've only seen through the eyes of the main protagonists. These hidden stories have been whispering in my ear for a while, and deep down, I knew it wasn't over. I just hadn't come out and said it. In a similar vein (if you'll excuse the pun), you don't need to have necessarily read any of the novels to appreciate the short stories, but if you have, certain elements will make much more sense. Where Night is Blind The first story, Where Night is Blind, will shine a light on the Liderc, who appears in Tragic Silence and Sepia and Silver. I knew I had to start this new journey with him: my favourite villain I've created to date, and one of only a few of my own characters who legitimately gives me the creeps. But villains are not born. In more ways than one, they are made. And yes, that title is a Phantom of the Opera reference - any fans of the series will know why! Where Night is Blind will be released for FREE on Tuesday 10th March: World Vampire Day. I didn't even know that was a thing until recently. I'm not sure if I'm more surprised it exists or disgusted at my own ignorance! The dark truth which stopped the series... (Beware of Tragic Silence spoilers from this point) When I finished Sepia and Silver in 2016, I already had a couple of the short stories in the early planning stages, including When Night is Blind. As a result, a key event from the series was at the forefront of my mind: the bond between Bianka and her late best friend Lucy. However, mere months after I typed the last word, my own best friend was tragically lost. While there was obviously no vampires or kidnappings involved, it was equally sudden and equally traumatic. In a heartbeat, life had imitated art too closely and too deeply. I couldn't even bear to look at Tragic Silence again, and wondered if I ever would. But now the time has come and I finally feel able to bring the final chapters into the world. I know Katie - my very own Lucy - would have approved. She loved vampires as much as I do. And the first book, way back in 2013, was originally dedicated to her, after all. And so the shadows descend. Are you ready to enter the night with me once more? If you want to read the short stories before anyone else, I'll be sharing them in the Batty Brigade newsletter ahead of their official release dates, sometimes by a week or more! To get the early scoop, just sign up!
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