Momentous decisions!
Over the last month, I’ve been working hard on editing “Ghost Ship” and it hasn’t been a simple task. The tale of Hauke’s teenage years was always going to be long, and there’s a lot of important content that I don’t want to discard. I’ve come to the realisation that it’s too much material for one book.
Waking in the middle of the night last week, I wandered downstairs and did some word count calculations for each chapter. And with a little reorganisation, I concluded that the epic saga should be split across two full-length books.
It was a difficult decision, not least because “Ghost Ship” now becomes the second part of the duology, as that’s when the “Tijdgeest” and Persephone make their appearance. And then I needed a new title for the first story. For the moment, I’ve chosen “Behind Drawn Curtains”. That’s still a working title, and I may yet change my mind. Other possible ideas include “Fold in the Curtain”, “Curtain Call”, and other variants on that theme.
With a little extra work, each novel will be self-contained, with its own standalone plotlines and its own definitive conclusion (no cliffhanger endings), yet there is also an ongoing story spanning the two books, which has its own conclusion in the second book. So, for the benefit of that overall arc, I would recommend reading the two books in order.
My plan is to release both books in autumn this year, perhaps a week or two apart. I’ll need to commission a new cover, which means the title needs finalising in plenty of time so that Lilian can weave her artistic talents.
I’ve also rewritten the ‘back cover blurb’ for the two books:
Behind Drawn Curtains
As Covid ravages the world, Hauke tracks a Vampire that is preying on the sick and dying. Badly injured in the ensuing battle, the young Veil-Walker is left fighting for his life. With the Vampire’s poison coursing through his veins, he re-lives his early years as a teenager growing up on the streets of Amsterdam.
Adopted and mentored by the Meseret twins, the boy learns to control his Talent, and encounters some of the fell creatures from the ‘Lands Beyond Death’, monsters that feed off the ghosts of the Veil. And as a teenage youth, he experiences his first loves and heartbreaks.
Yet something in the shadows is murdering his living friends; their souls lost without ever finding passage through the final curtain. Can the youth stop the killer before everyone he loves is destroyed?
Ghost Ship
After recovering from serious injuries received in a battle with a Vampire, Hauke returns to the Quick and his new girlfriend, Keetje. Concerned about the trouble he might find if left alone again, and with the frequent searches for unregistered Talents hiding in Amsterdam, Keetje suggests that he accept a commission away from the city, investigating hauntings at a shipyard near Gorinchem.
But the Covid years have brought their own perils as the curtain thins and creatures from the ‘Lands Beyond Death’ seek to prey on the weak and vulnerable in the Quick; creatures that only a Veil-Walker like Hauke can stop. Meanwhile, a grim and determined police inspector is tasked with hunting for a ghost boat and for a fugitive from the law known only as the ‘Wandelaar van de Duisternis’.
And in the meantime, “Brief Lives”, my collection of short “Wandelaar van de Duisternis” stories is expanding with the addition of “Camille”. This is the tale of the Veil-Walker Faucon le Gris, known as the ‘Voyageur parmi les Ténèbres’, who protects Paris against supernatural threats during the years of the Second World War.
