Hey there. Did you know that my second novel, Sleepwalk City, is on sale now? You did? Well, that’s not really surprising, since every other sentence to come spelunking out of my maw these days is an entreaty for people to, for the love of all that’s holy, go and buy my book. The mantra of ‘buy my book buy my book buy my book buy my book buy my book buy my book’ runs like a news ticker across the bottom of my field of vision. Trumpets herald the mantra inside my brainmush within scant seconds of my pulling myself towards consciousness of a morn. It’s all very tiring.
So. Have you bought my book? You really should. It’s very good. I’m hardly one to judge that for myself, of course, but I think it is. The people who’ve already read it seem to think it is, and I don’t really have any empirical evidence to the contrary. Let’s go ahead and declare it as the greatest work in the history of the written word, shall we, until someone tells us otherwise? And they will, of course. This is the internet, after all.
Those of you who have been paying attention may recall that when it comes to the Blood on the Motorway series, of which this is the second novel, I have a bit of an odd approach to naming my chapters, and indeed my books. Blood on the Motorway is named after a DJ Shadow song, and Sleepwalk City is named for the 65daysofstatic song of the same name. The same is true of each and every chapter title in the novel, which are all named after songs that were rattling around the caverns of my mind while I was writing the book. Songs from the likes of Radiohead, Etta James and Will Haven, which is a fairly eclectic mis, of itself. Given what an unspeakable music nerd I am, this is a good way to shoehorn some music trivia into an apocalyptic world where music is very low down people’s lists of concerns, somewhere far below gangs of soldiers, despotic lunatics and having to eat beans most of the time.
The other bonus is that it creates a soundtrack of sorts to the whole proceedings, so that you, the reader, can enjoy the kind of sonic palette that was such a huge part of creating the world of the novel. I’ve made playlists in Spotify for each novel, and you can follow along with the one for Sleepwalk City below, or check out the soundtrack for the first book here.
Of course, for maximum enjoyment, you really should buy my book buy my book buy my book buy my book buy my book buy my book…
Blood on the Motorway – An apocalyptic tale of murder and stale sandwiches, is available on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo and more besides. The sequel, Sleepwalk City, is available on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo and many more.
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Welcome to Discovery Park – the chronicle of my increasingly frustrated attempt to listen to every album on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Albums of all-time list, is available now on Amazon Uk, Amazon.com, iBooks, Kobo, and many more.
