Well, it has been a long time coming. It seems like I have been talking about a sequel to Gods of the Sea ever since the Pirates and Swashbucklers anthology first came out all those years ago. In fact, it was quite ominously Friday 13th April 2012 when I reported to you all that I had got an email from the publisher of Pirates and Swashbucklers asking me to do a sequel.

And now, four years and approximately three months later… you can buy the completed book in both Kindle and paperback formats.

Ok, I admit I was slow in getting this done but this project has gone further than I imagined it would. Plus I think I can still claim a faster turnaround than GRR Martin at the moment. What started as an idea for a  relatively  small novella turned into a much longer work and now includes two bonus short stories that explore the wider world in addition to a newly edited and tidied up version of Gods of the Sea which now serves as what I describe in the foreword as being similar to that scene in a Bond film just before the theme music plays.

And that is not the only thing that is special about this release. In addition to the wonderful cover produced by fellow Steampunk market trader and artist supreme, Lauren C Waterworth, you also have internal illustrations derived from the sketches that she made when creating the cover to coo over. If you like the cover, by the way, you should totally check out her facebook page and see if you can buy prints of her artwork. .

The official launch will be taking place at the Manchester Author event on the 13th August 2016. You can buy tickets for this event here. There I will be signing copies of both Gods of the Deep and Lurking Miscellany. I am also attending another signing event in Sandbach in November and Chester in April 2017. Finally I am also an attendee at Inominate, the Birmingham run Eastercon in April next year where I am hoping to be on some panels again. If you see me at any of these events feel free to pop over and say hi. Also, if you want to pre-order a signed copy of any of my books you can order them using this handy form and they can be delivered to you at the event of your choice.

You can also expect to see me sneaking into some other peoples’ blogs and messing around in there, getting mud on all the furnishings. I’ll post links to these as they go up. In fact there is one here for the Addicted to Reviews blog which went up earlier today. Go check it out and give the owner some love.

Finally, I am staging a stealth raid on the Manchester Author event Facebook page this Thursday (21st June). I will be taking control of the mic around 1030 GMT and holding onto it like grim death until it is wrested from my cold dead hands at 11pm by JF Holland. Come to the page to check out what nonsense I will spout. If it is anything like my last page takeover, expect some musical links to my books and some extracts… If you are lucky there may even be dog photos.

Don’t forget… buy your copies of Gods of the Deep as soon as you can!