Series Blog Tour & Exclusive Excerpt:
More Heat Than The Sun Series
By John Wiltshire
Book 6: Death’s Ink-Black Shadow
Out Now
Released February 12th
“Learn to love death’s ink-black shadow as much as you love the light of dawn.” Yeah? Well, Nikolas doesn’t do early mornings.
It takes a certain kind of courage to live as if favoured by the Gods, ignoring the ever-present ghosts of your past–or perhaps not bravery, but arrogance. And maybe not even that. Ben genuinely believes that the past is behind them—that they deserve to enjoy the life they have created. So it’s not hubris that leads him to overlook the signs that Nikolas does not share his faith, it’s love. But Nikolas knows something is coming. He can’t stop it; he can only decide how he will choose to face it. And without Ben’s support, he is entirely alone.
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“Death’s Ink-Black Shadow”
(More Heat Than The Sun #6)
by John Wiltshire
Babushka was knitting a sweater for Nikolas and watching a show about a cannibal. She didn’t understand a word, but she liked his suits, so she told Ben. She was surprised to see him, clearly, but even more surprised when he asked if he could borrow her car. Nikolas had bought her an old Land Rover to drive around the grounds to practise before she took her test. Technically, the vehicle wasn’t street legal—no licence, no MOT, and no insurance—but Ben reckoned he had more important things to worry about than prison.
He discovered why it wasn’t fit for street use by the time he made it out onto the first B road. Usually by this time, he was doing seventy and cruising up to the habitual ninety he liked before cresting over a hundred on the dual carriageway to Exeter. Then it was a hundred and twenty on the motorway all the way to London—if he was in no particular hurry.
The old vehicle complained at forty, and at fifty was screeching. He dropped down to thirty-five and cursed it. Nikolas said you should never praise mechanical things, for they always heard you and immediately failed, either out of spite or puffed up pride. He’d never told Ben not to swear at one, however, so he did, and because he enjoyed profanity when Nikolas couldn’t hear him.
The irony that he was spending the entire journey thinking about Nikolas who he had only the day before declared he hated—both to himself and his friends—didn’t escape Ben. He just swore some more when it hit him.
Hate Nikolas?
Yeah.
That would be like loathing sunlight or air. Food.
Water.
Life itself, basically.
The trip to London at the speeds he usually drove only took them a little under two and a half hours. It was why they were able to do it so often. At the pace Babushka’s lawnmower could achieve, it took Ben five.
It was gone midnight by the time he arrived at the quiet mews street.
He went around the back of the house and climbed nimbly over the wall from the alley, mindful of the glass embedded in the top, which had once cut Nikolas badly. He still had scars on his chest from falling onto the jagged edges, shot and bleeding as he’d been.
Ben landed lightly in the courtyard and stayed low.
The light was on in the large, extended kitchen, just a cold, blue glow from the extractor fan. The edges of the room were in shadow, but he could see Nikolas sitting at the kitchen table.
He was alone, his head in his hands. It was possible he was reading something on the table, but in the feeble light it was unlikely. He didn’t have his reading glasses on. He wasn’t drinking or smoking either.
To Ben he seemed like a man utterly defeated.
The temptation to just enter the kitchen and force the truth from Nik was almost overwhelming, but Ben had done that very recently, handcuffs, imprisonment, and all, and look where they were now.
Breaking Nikolas had clearly only been a temporary solution. He’d regrown his shell, tucked his head back in, and was hunkered down for the long haul.
Ben wasn’t worried about Nikolas now. He was okay.
Nikolas appeared torn and twisted with worry and exhaustion, but that was fine. Ben had endured a shitty few days, too.
He went back up over the wall and landed in the alley. He abandoned the Land Rover where he’d parked it illegally in a nearby hotel car park. If it was towed, it was.
He found his bike back where it should be.
Perhaps he should instigate a new policy of testing all Nikolas’s pronouncements if they were as easy to prove false as this had been. Maybe he should assume everything Nikolas said was a lie and be done with it. Except Nikolas hadn’t deceived him about everything. He hadn’t actually said anything about Jackson. He hadn’t mentioned one word about his relationship with Ben.
Ben had seen what he was meant to see and made up a truth all his own.
Book 7: Enduring Night
Releasing February 19th
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. Nikolas has always liked art. You’d have thought that Ben and Nikolas would have learnt that their romantic holidays inevitably end up as disasters. A short break on the polar ice sees them trapped in a nightmare of murder and deceit. Neither of them, however, foresees the long-term impact that endless winter has on their relationship. They return with a metaphorical darkness that threatens everything they have created together. Desperate and fearing for Nikolas’s life, Ben makes a bargain with a surprising ally. For the first time, Nikolas meets an enemy more powerful than he is. But fortunately, not as sneaky…
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Book 8: His Fateful Heap of Days
Releasing February 26th
“Into his fateful heap of days the soul of man is cast.”
Only a few months from his fiftieth year, Nikolas is feeling a distinct wobble in his formidable certainties. Aleksey Primakov appears to have become irrelevant. All he needs, therefore, is to be dragged into an adventure with Devon’s answer to the three musketeers. How many times can he tell Ben and his moronic friends that a mutilated body buried on Dartmoor has nothing to do with them? But not only does this desecration slowly become their business, it cuts to the heart of the life they have created together. It’s just as well, perhaps, that generals never do actually retire…
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More Heat Than The Sun Series
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About John:
John Wiltshire is the pen name. The author was born in England, but she travelled widely whilst serving in the British Army, living in the States and Canada and Europe. She retired at the rank of Major, and finally settled in New Zealand.
To date the author has written 14 novels.
Connect with John:
http://johnwiltshire.co.nz
https://www.facebook.com/johnwiltshire.nz
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