Thank so so much for having me here at Lovebytes today! I’m here to talk a little bit about my new release, The Hunted and the Hind, the third and final book in my Lost in Time trilogy and of course, to wish you all a very happy New Year! Let’s hope 2021 is a bit kinder to us all than 2020 has been.

Like the rest of the series, The Hunted and the Hind is set in the 1920s. It focuses on Sergeant Will Grant and Fenn, his non-binary love interest who arrived in London in the previous book hunting the same monster that Will and his police team were trying to track down. When I started writing Lost in Time I did so without much planning… I had all these people in my head and a ‘what if’ scenario of someone from 2016 being thrown back in time to just after the Great War. How would he cope with that? How would his experiences be different from those of people who had grown up in Victorian and Edwardian England and survived such a terrible experience? As I wrote, the world and the story evolved around me and I think it’s obvious from the first two books that I was settling into my voice as a writer.

Will Grant started off as factotum and right-hand-man to Inspector Alec Carter, one of the main characters of Lost in Time. He provided a languid, upper-class foil to Alec and knew more than he let on about the magic they were dealing with. I adore him. He’s probably my favourite character, ever, in any of my books. At the end of Shadows on the Border he got pulled behind Fenn through the border and disappeared. I half-wanted to leave the whole thing there… Alec and Lew had their happy-as-anyone-can-be-with-another-world-war-on-the-horizon ending and for me as an author, the whole thing about my paranormal world is that there are some things we just don’t know, both you the reader and me the creator.

So I took a break and wrote various other things this year and just let it all flow over me a bit. The Flowers of Time and Inheritance of Shadows are both set in the same magical universe but in completely different contexts. Taking Stock has no magic in it at all, although it’s a sort-of sequel to Inheritance. The whole point of my universe is that magic is there, but very few people know about it and people who do know it exists can get in a real pickle because they don’t have the whole picture about how it works. It’s not fairies and waving wands and a game. It’s messing with dangerous things you don’t understand, a bit like giving a class of fourteen year olds a nuclear reactor and a ‘how to make your own nuclear powered space-ship’ book. Yeah, they can follow instructions and make intuitive leaps. But it might not have the results they thought it would.

Fenn began as a place-holder character. They sprang onto the page more or less fully formed as a person, but I didn’t have a context for them or a back-story. That evolved as I went on with Shadows. By the time I got to the end of the book, I knew a lot about their world and their family and their politics. And I wanted them to have a happy ending with Will.

What I didn’t want was to get involved in creating a huge big fantasy world or write a fantasy story. I’m quite happy sat where I am, firmly in historical-with-a-bit-of-magic, thank you. Mapping a magic system onto our world was hard enough… and there is a system, even if you can’t see it all at once in the books. However, I didn’t discover this until after I’d started writing. I went down a huge big dead end with a load of stuff set in Fenn’s Outland that I eventually chopped out.

I really hope you enjoy the story. It brings the trilogy set in 1920s London to a close. There will be more books set in the same universe this coming year!

Here’s an excerpt for you: Fenn telling their parent, Ana, about Will

“Why did you come back?” Ana asked, not sitting down. “You were safe, you should have stayed away.”

Fenn swallowed and messed with the bindings of Alaress’ sheath in their lap. They had slipped a little and needed tightening. It was easier to talk watching their fingers, not meeting his parent’s eyes.

“Malach. They told me that Keren would be executed if I didn’t bring the carnas and egg home for them.” They swallowed again, feeling the easy tears spring to their eyes. “I did not realise Keren was already gone.”

Ana winced. “I am so sorry, child,” they said in their softest voice. “I should have found a way to tell you.”

Fenn shook their head. “It’s done now,” they said, sadly. “I need to find Will Grant and take him home. And then we shall see what we shall see.” They looked up at Ana. “Will you be safe? Malach is…” they paused. “Not a good person. It seems.”

Ana was silent for a few heartbeats. “Malach is not the only person on the Council,” they said. “There is…some disagreement over what should have been the right action in this situation.” They turned and faced the wall of the small room, voice low. “It is possible that there may be…changes…on the Council, soon.”

Fenn stared at their back. It was uninformative. “Yes?” they asked, finally, when no more was forthcoming.

“Yes.”

Ana did not say any more.

“I must still find Will Grant,” Fenn said. “The are the lost one, now. They helped me when I was lost in their place. I must help them, now.”

Ana turned at that. “Yes,” they said. Their voice was dangerously mild.

Fenn braced.

“They helped you?”

“Yes. They took me to their home. Their family home.”

“You met their family?”

“No. One parent is dead. The other was away. Visiting the grave of Will Grant’s sibling. Their sibling died, in a war. Will Grant nearly died, too.”

Ana raised an eyebrow. “Yes?” They said, mildly.

“Yes.”

“Oh Fenn. Child.” Ana stepped forward and laid a hand on Fenn’s head. As always the cool, comforting sensation of their Othersense flowed over Fenn, pouring down from their scalp across their shoulders and then on down across their torso to their legs and feet.

Fenn sighed and relaxed. They had missed this.

“Does Will Grant have Othersense?”

“A little. Not very much. But enough to do a small amount of work and to understand. Their grandfather was more powerful, they say. But they disappeared in an accident with the shimmer, years ago.”

They felt rather than saw Ana’s eyebrows raise again. “Yes? A family of workers, then?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Dangerous?”

“No. There aren’t enough of them. And…they understand the dangers of the shimmer.”

They felt Ana nod.

“You are set on them?”

Fenn swallowed and stared hard at Alaress’ sheath. “I think so, yes. It appears so. I…,” they fumbled for the words. “I did not know it would feel like this, Ana,” they said, finally. “It is…an odd feeling.”

Ana stepped back and smiled as Fenn finally looked up at them. “It is a very odd feeling,” they said as they shoved their hands in the pockets of their over-robe. “But it is a good feeling, too.” Their eyes were warm. “I am pleased you have met someone you feel this for, regardless of the time and place. We do not choose the people that we care for or the time that we meet them. The heart is not a convenient organ. But it helps to make us the people that we are.”