Get These Unnatural Men in paperback and on Kindle here.
I am very excited to announce that These Unnatural Men, my debut novel, will be released on Kindle on 6th April 2018.
It’s been six long years of false starts, frustration and frantic redrafts, but I’ve finally got it to a place I feel happy with (also I’m pretty sick and tired of looking at it…).
I’ve still got a whole lot of finishing and polishing to do, but it’s here. I can finally breathe.
The completion of my novel was timed perfectly with an invitation to appear on East London Radio last Saturday. I, along with a panel of guests, spent two hours celebrating (and commiserating) the eventful 12 months that was 2017. As well as a quiz on the year (which I did very poorly at) Chris Ridgeway, host of Wheels in Motion, read out the following extract from These Unnatural Men:
Nieve is working on a patient’s case afterhours in the euthanasia facility.
I hit pause and took my headphones off. I was sure the door had just opened behind me, but when I turned everything in the room remained dark and still.
As I faced the screen again a heavy thud echoed through the Hub. It had come from outside.
I walked over to the window to try and locate the source of the noise, but my view was restricted by the metal bars and safety plastic. Eventually, by positioning my head to the left and peering downwards at an odd angle, I found that I could just about see the grounds below.
A small group of men had somehow managed to get onto the grounds of the facility. I recognised a few of them as regular protestors and, although the majority of them were clearly panic-stricken, two men at the front were wearing expressions of complete exuberance. One nodded to the other and a rock was pelted at the wall metres below where I stood.
I’m not sure what they hoped to achieve, and I doubt even they really knew, but their chances of causing any real damage ended seconds later as the security guards slithered behind them in quiet formation. A few of the men in the group instinctively felt their presence and tried to escape, but they were quickly dragged away by dark gloved hands, their bodies slacking as they were hauled towards a vehicle that had somehow appeared unnoticed from the shadows.
Gradually the protestors were picked off one by one until only the two most defiant men remained. They taunted the uniformed guards, gesticulating and jumping about wildly while throwing rocks and sticks.
Without warning two thin lines of glinting silver shot out from the direction of the guards, impaling one protestor in the forehead and the other in the shoulder. They both began to violently jolt and writhe, their heads flinging back as their arms seized stiffly at their sides. Eventually they collapsed to the floor to judder and quiver as the two thin lines detached and slid back to their owners.
One security guard broke rank and walked toward the man who had been hit in the shoulder. He calmly raised a booted foot and dug the heel hard into the twisted, unconscious face.
I saw no blood as the foot was removed, only a sunken shape where the nose had been.
A huge thanks to Chris for inviting me on the show for the third time and reading another extract. I’m incredibly grateful for your kind words on the book.
You can listen to the show by clicking here.
Once again, thanks to everyone who has supported me on Dystopic and have threatened me with violence for not finishing the book earlier. I can’t wait for you all to read it.
Well then. Write it in your diaries, folks. April 16th.
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