Wednesday 22 August 2018

Run and Hide

The day is finally here!  Nineteen months after Trojan hit the shelves, my latest thriller is now available.

There’s only so long you can run for your life.
Eva Driscoll is used to chasing down bad guys, but now the bad guys are chasing her. She knows they won’t stop until she’s dead.
After her brother is killed in a faked suicide, Driscoll teams up with ex-soldier Rees Colback, the one person who can help her find answers. Together they’re determined to uncover why members of his Special Forces squad are dying in mysterious circumstances.
But with every agency in the country in hot pursuit, their only choice is to flee.
The clock is ticking. They can’t run forever. It’s time to make a choice: kill or be killed…


Stephen Leather says "Brilliant book - I wish I'd written it!"






Monday 14 May 2018

2500 days and counting

I was looking back on my writing career and noticed that May 15th 2018 marks 2500 days since I published my first novel, Gray Justice.  It seems like yesterday.  So what has happened in that time?

Plenty!

That first thriller was just supposed to be something to supplement my salary at a time when outgoings exceeded income.  Little did I know where it would lead.  Fast forward almost seven years and my eighth novel, Run and Hide, is available for pre-order with an August 22nd release date.  I've been writing full time for over three years, and it makes a huge difference!

My first three novels were picked up by Thomas and Mercer back in 2014, and since then I have been contracted to write 5 more.  The last of those, Seek and Destroy, will be out in November 2018.  I'm working on the tenth, a third book in the Eva Driscoll series, which I hope to have finished by the end of the month.

This month also marks another milestone.  I'm a handful of sales short of one million across all platforms, so I should hit the magic number in the next few days.

In the last few weeks, I also managed to get one of the most respected agents in the business.  Alice Saunders of LAW Agency is going to be looking after my interests from now on.

I recently learned that my seventh novel, Trojan has been shortlisted for the ITW Best Original Ebook award, and my publisher is flying me to New York for the ceremony at Thrillerfest!  It'll be my first taste of the Big Apple, though unfortunately I won't get to see much of it as I'm only there for two days.  Still, it promises to be an experience.

So, now it's time to look forward to the next 2500 days.  I hope to write at least ten more books in that time, just in time for my daughters turning 18.  Hopefully they'll want to read my work!

Monday 23 April 2018

Cover reveal for Run and Hide

Well, it has been fifteen months since my last book, Trojan, was launched, but I finally have some news, both good and bad.  The good news is, I have a release date for my latest adventure, Run and Hide.  It introduces a new character called Eva Driscoll, a CIA assassin who risks everything to track down her brother's killer.  It also features some old favourites in the shape of Len Smart and Sonny Baines to name but a few.  Here’s the cover:
The bad news is, it won't be released until August 22nd. 

But wait!  There's more good news!  The second in the Driscoll series, Seek and Destroy, is scheduled to be released on November 14th, and it marks the return of Tom Gray!  In addition, I'm almost done with the third book, which I hope to see published in the spring of 2019.
In other news, Trojan was shortlisted for the ITW (International Thriller Writers) Best E-book Original Novel Award, and my publisher is flying me to New York in July for the award ceremony!  I’m up against some great competition and don’t expect to win, but it’ll be my first taste of the big apple and I’m really looking forward to it!
While you’re waiting for my books to launch, why not check out these other fabulous authors.  There’s enough reading material here to keep you going until August!  The books are best read in the order shown.

Russell Blake:
Night of the Assassin (Prequel)
King of Swords
Revenge of the Assassin
Return of the Assassin
Blood of the Assassin
Requiem for the Assassin
Rage of the Assassin

Simon Toyne:
Solomon Creed
Broken Promise
The Boy Who Saw

Rob Ashman:
Those That Remain
In Your Name
Pay the Penance

Saturday 10 March 2018

Wildfire


My good friend Scott Bury has a new release coming out on March 22nd, and I'm delighted to be able to bring you a short extract from Wildfire to whet your appetite.

Passing the restaurant, she froze at the unmistakable sound of a door closing.
Shoving the phone into her pocket, she belted around the mansion. In the weak moonlight, she could see someone running toward the road and willed her legs to move faster, pumping her hands like her trainer had told her. 
“Stop!” Why the hell did I say that?
The figure in the dark did not stop, but turned right when he reached the road.
He’s going for a car. “No!” 
She caught up as the figure opened the door of a small car. He whirled, his arm extended and Tara jumped back as the tip of a long blade flashed past her midriff. She fell back on her butt on the road. Years of training took control and she rolled on her back, sprang to her feet, fists raised, knees bent, her left shoulder forward to present the narrowest possible target.
A short, broad man stood beside the open door of a hatchback, brandishing something toward her. “Stay away from me, you little bitch,” he hissed.
Is that a kitchen knife? “Donald?”
“Stay away. These are mine.” 
Tara shook her fists. When Donald flinched, she pivoted on her forward foot, sweeping her back foot around. Her toes smashed his wrist, Donald yelped and the knife dropped. 
He jumped into his car. Tara hesitated just long enough to allow Donald to start the engine. The headlights flared as Tara grabbed at the open door’s frame. The wheels squealed against the pavement and the car tore out of her grasp. Tara stumbled forward, but could only watch the taillights shrink with distance.
She used her smart phone’s light to look at the knife on the pavement. One of the restaurant’s ceramic chef’s knives. Donald did say they belonged to him when Alan fired him
She dialed 911. “This is Tara Rezeck of the Rocky Creek Winery. We’ve had a break-in at Cyrano’s Restaurant. Yes, I’m safe. He’s gone now. I know who it is. Yes, twenty-three-eighty-five Rocky Creek Road. Yes, I’ll wait. Please tell the officer to come to Cyrano’s, in the old mansion, not to the house. There’s no need for a siren or lights or anything. No, I won’t touch anything. Thank you.”
Tara sat on the bench on the mansion’s verandah to wait for the deputy, looking at the images on her phone. 
There was definitely someone on that dirt road. It’s too bad I can’t tell who it was, though. But does that mean there were two people sabotaging the winery? Was it Donald all along?
That doesn’t make sense. Alan was complaining about sabotage before he fired Donald. Why would Donald sabotage the place where he was gainfully employed?
Anyway, Donald isn’t fast enough to go through the vineyard, down to the main road and back to the restaurant in the time it took me to walk across the lot. I’ve seen him run. He’s not fast.
But that means there is still someone else sabotaging the winery. 
She did not like that conclusion.
The patrol car arrived within ten minutes, and Tara was relieved that the deputy used neither the lights nor siren. There’s no point waking Veronica. She definitely doesn’t need any more stress.
But do I?

Wildfire


Wildfires swept across California wine country in 2017, destroying thousands of homes and businesses, and killing dozens of people. Law school grad and single mother Tara Rezeck finds herself in the middle of the catastrophe. When she returns to her job at the most award-winning vineyard in Sonoma County, she finds her employer’s body in the ashes.
The question that challenges her brains and her legal training is: was it an accident? Or was his body burned to hide evidence of murder?
Now available for pre-order on on Amazon (for Kindle e-readers) and Smashwords (for Kobo, Nook and other e-readers).
You can read the first two chapters for free on Wattpad.

About the author


After a 30-year career as a journalist and editor, Scott Bury turned to writing fiction with a children’s story, Sam, the Strawb Part, and a story that bridged the genres of paranormal occult fiction and espionage thriller: Dark Clouds. Since then, he has published 12 novels and novellas without regard to staying in any one genre.
In 2012, he published his first novel, the historical magic realism bestseller The Bones of the Earth. His next book, One Shade of Red, was a satire of a bestseller with a similar title.
From 2014 to 2017, he published the Eastern Front Trilogy, the true story of a Canadian drafted into the Soviet Red Army in 1941, and how he survived the Second World War: Army of Worn Soles, Under the Nazi Heel and Walking Out of War.
Scott was invited to write for three Kindle Worlds, where authors base novellas on the fictional worlds of bestselling series. For Toby Neal’s Lei Crime Kindle World, he wrote Torn Roots, Palm Trees & Snowflakes, Dead Man Lying and Echoes.
For Russell Blake’s Jet Kindle World, he contributed Jet: Stealth, featuring the explosive duo of Van and LeBrun.
And for Emily Kimelman’s Sydney Rye Kindle World, he brought Van and LeBrun back for The Wife Line and The Three-Way.
Now, he is beginning a new mystery series with Wildfire, featuring the smart and passionate Tara Rezeck. Wildfire is currently available for pre-order on Amazon (for Kindle e-readers) and Smashwords (for Kobo, Nook and other e-readers).
Find out more about Scott and his writing on his website, ScottBuryAuthor.com.

Monday 19 February 2018

It's been a while...

I haven’t written a post for a while—fourteen months, in fact—and I put that down to a couple of things.
 
First, the way I was writing my books.  From my debut thriller Gray Justice to my eighth book, Run and Hide (due out later this year), I would start with the seed of an idea and run with it.  At the very most I would plot out the next two or three chapters, but after that I would just write by the seat of my pants. All went well for the first seven attempts, but when it came to Run and Hide—centred around a new character, a female CIA assassin forced to go rogue—nothing seemed to go right.  I painted myself into so many corners that I went through the same thing most authors suffer from at one time or another: self-doubt. 

There were days when I would wake up and dread opening the file and looking at the word count that hadn’t changed in days.  I would write three sentences and immediately delete them, then stare at the page on and off for hours, and finally call it a day.  Most nights I would lie awake worrying about how I was going to pay the bills with no new book on the horizon, which made the next day even more stressful. 

I’d been working on Run and Hide for thirteen months when I did what I should have done a long time earlier.  I took the family away to Gran Canaria for 23 days and completely forgot about writing.  I sat in the sun, swam in the pool and lounged on the beach (reading the Mechanic trilogy by Rob Ashman, which was fantastic!).  I took the girls to water parks, we ate out every day, I spent a couple of nights watching football in the pub, everything and anything but writing.  When I got home, I opened the manuscript and went from 20,000 words to 85,000 in ten weeks, and a lesson was learned.

I handed in Run and Hide at the end of October 2017 and immediately began working on the sequel only this time I worked differently.  I plotted out the gist of the story, then broke it down into individual scenes then added more to make them complete chapter prompts, and once I had 35 scenes in place, I began writing.  That was the best 48 days of my writing career to date!  I finished Seek and Destroy at the end of November and took a few weeks off while I came up with my next idea.

I was planning to move on to something completely new, but Eva Driscoll wouldn’t let me, so I started working on the plot for her third adventure.  Twenty days in, I’ve got over 20,000 words down and it’s looking good.  I hoping to have it finished by May for an early 2019 release.

With the words now flowing, I was able to take stock of my writing career and saw that something was missing.  I’ve been sitting on the film and TV rights for years, and my foreign rights have been with my publisher all that time.  So far, only one book as been translated into German and Spanish, while the rest gather virtual dust.  I needed to do something about that.

I asked a highly-successful author for advice regarding literary agents.  Up until that point, I’d seen little need for one.  I’d negotiated my own contracts with Thomas & Mercer, and over the last three years I’d made enough to pay the bills and put a little aside for a rainy day.  Still, I felt there was something holding my career back.   When my friend was good enough to introduce me to Alice Saunders of Lucas Alexander Whitley (LAW), I was a little nervous.  Would my work be good enough?  Would I have enough potential to interest one of the most respected agencies in the UK?  I needn’t have worried.  Alice made me feel at ease from the moment we met, and she guided me through what they could offer me, as well as delving deep into my own plans for the future.  When I left her London office an hour later, I floated back home to Worthing and celebrated like it was all my birthdays and Christmases in one!  I’m hoping to sign the contract this weekend, and the future seems a lot rosier than it did six months ago.  Alice has already given me some great advice, and I’m really looking forward to working with her for a long time to come.

So, that’s what’s been going on since my last post, and I’m hoping to share more good news over the coming months.


Okay, back to writing…
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