I’ve been asked by many readers if and when there will be a next Dunmoore novel. Yes there will be. I have started to write it, but it’s been slow going. Since I work a full-time job, I do my writing in the evenings and weekends, and life, especially my family, takes priority. In the last few weeks, I’ve been busy updating No Honor in Death and Death Comes But Once to prepare them for the paperback version, incorporating some of the helpful comments I’ve received from readers. One paperback has been published and I’m still proofing the second one.
I’ll leave my readers with a very short teaser. Book 2, whose title will probably be decided the night before publication, picks up many months after the end of Book 1.
The Stingray has received a limited refit and has been reassigned to duties that take it far from the Shrehari front. That does not mean its missions are without peril. Pirates, and worse, lurk in the depths of the Coalsack Sector, and do their best to snatch merchant ships from under the nose of a Navy whose ships are never in the right place at the right time. When a merchantman owned by a powerful shipping conglomerate is destroyed just as Dunmoore and the Stingray come to the rescue, its crew and passengers kidnapped, her old political enemies resurface to point the finger of blame. Hampered by her own superiors and assigned the duty every Captain dreads, Dunmoore is faced with a deepening mystery that takes her into the Coalsack’s heart of darkness. Not all her enemies wear the Imperial uniform and not all her allies wear a Navy tunic. Thrust into a secret frontier war between factions who would do better to unite against the Shrehari, she must once again find the truth before she, and the crew of the Stingray, find an inglorious end, even if that end is not under a barrage of Shrehari missiles, but the displeasure of a rotten political establishment.
As a word of caution – the above might change as I write the novel. My characters have a way of taking charge and pulling the plot in directions I cannot begin to anticipate. As of today, I have about twenty percent of the story written, which leaves Siobhan Dunmoore, Gregor Pushkin, Chief Guthren and the others much scope to surprise me. For the Brakal fans out there, I don’t know if he’ll show up in this one. He has his own troubles, and Fleet Intelligence has so far failed to let me know what became of him when he returned to the home world. But have no fear, Captain Dunmoore will no doubt have her hands full with whatever foes she faces in the Coalsack, and some of them might even be as honorable in their own way as her old enemy Brakal.
When will it be ready you ask. Your guess is as good as mine. I’d like to have it out by the summer, but since the editing and review process takes just as long, if not longer than writing the first draft, I’ll make no predictions.
Keep an eye on this blog for updates.
Sounds Great i look forward to reading the book when your finished