Within This Darkness - February 2025

After being too cautious for too long (and also looking for a traditional publisher for too long perhaps), I have decided to release Within This Darkness, Book One of the Douro-Zamość trilogy, this month, February 2025.

I am still tinkering with the book blurb, but as of now, this is what I have:

Still shaken by the death of his older sister, 14-year-old Jeremy Gardela is sent on a mission by his panicked aunt, to find a family secret she believes is buried in the dark forests which surround their small rural town.When Jeremy returns, he is leading a mysterious stranger who represents a vein of magic which has run for decades within the Gardela family. Within This Darkness is a deeply felt story about loss, and friendship, and finding something, or someone, to hold onto, when you’re lost and drifting in the night.

Hmm. I have to fix that use of "loss" and then "lost" in the last line...

Jan. 3, 2025

Feb 5, 2025

The pictures above are mine, from winter 2024/25 thus far.

If you have read one or both of Close Your Eyes and Festival, I think you’ll understand when I say that Within This Darkness will be a teen book unlike almost anything else in this genre… full of the emotion and loss that is felt by the characters in both of my previous books. I hope it works - and that people like it! 
But… as I’ve gotten closer to releasing the book, I’ve been thinking of that old J.D. Salinger line about writing, which was something close to this:
If you’re going to write, think about the book that YOU would most like to read, as a reader, and then go ahead and write that book yourself.
Within This Darkness is what  I would have read over and over, when I was a young reader.

More on this in a subsequent post, but I am beyond proud, and sincerely honoured, to say that my old friend Mark is doing the cover art for this trilogy. Mark’s website can be found here.

Thank you everyone, I will post again in the near future, and let everyone know when the book is ready.  Best wishes.

Chris