The Cove – better late than never!

I’m happy to announce my latest book The Cove, is now out and available on Amazon. As someone who has now written nine books, that might not be a huge surprise, but the reality is there were times I doubted this book would be finished, and this is a book that nearly broke me.

I began writing it over a year ago, with the working title The Slaughter House, and high hopes that it would be the beginning of a series. However, I got stuck about half-way through, and couldn’t figure out a way to carry on. Again, that’s not an enormous surprise, I always get stuck about half-way through, and can’t figure out a way to carry on, but in this case I apparently meant it. I tried all my usual methods of getting unstuck, like going for long walks retelling the plot out loud, so that I look like a madman but hope to accidentally add a bit at the end. No good. I tried sulking. I even tried trying really hard – but nothing worked. In the end I gave up and wrote another book, The Island of Dragons, mostly out of spite.

But after that was published (4.8 stars on Amazon, happy with that), I knew I had to give my abandoned story another go. So I began from the beginning. I changed the name of the main character, took away her supernatural abilities (seriously, I don’t know what I was thinking) and moved the setting from Cornwall to the beautiful coastline around where I live, the Isle of Purbeck. I also gave it a new name: The Cove, surprised perhaps that no one had already written a book with such a short, snappy and – I thought atmospheric – title. I announced this to great fanfare, and put the book up for pre-order. At that point I noticed that mega bestselling author LJ Ross also had a new book out for pre-order. You guessed it (you’ve probably also read it) her book was also called The Cove. I wrote to LJ to say sorry. She was very nice about it.

Then, just as I was starting to think I could see a way to connect my definitely-quite-good beginning with a pretty strong ending, my back collapsed on me. Suddenly I couldn’t get up off the floor, let alone sit at a computer, and I was in so much pain I wasn’t up for trying anyway. Besides, it was Wimbledon on the telly and I suddenly had an excuse to watch it all – on morphine. The excuse wore thin by the football Euros, and the drugs ran out mid-way through the Olympics. But my weeks of sofa-based reflection did give me an unexpected chance to see the book through fresh eyes. After the summer I went back to work on The Cove with something approaching genuine enthusiasm. I gave up just one more time, but not for long, and finally reached the end.

And as with every new book, I think I’m pleased with it. To be honest – and I know I shouldn’t be honest – I should pepper this email with made-up quotes like “Definitely the best book ever written – The Times”, I do feel that the first 30k words of the second book in the series, which I am having no trouble at all writing, is better. In fact I think it’s the best story I’ve told of any of my books so far. I’m even enjoying writing again (don’t worry, I’ll find a way to mess it up.)

But just in case the promise of “Read this book – because the sequel might be better!” doesn’t really do it for you, here are some quotes from real, actual readers, who seemed to enjoy it. (All taken from feedback emails, hope you/they don’t mind.)

I think it’s worth a read! :-)Big thanks as ever to all my lovely beta readers who have (hopefully) got rid of any nasty errors. Any that remain are my fault entirely. And if you’ve already pre-ordered the book, it should already be on your kindle – thank you so much. If you haven’t got it yet, I hope you’ll give it a go, and if you do I hope you like it!