Fenchurch 6, by accident

So I thought I was finished with Fenchurch. I really did. But no.
I finished my contract with Thomas & Mercer with the August release of “Kill with Kindness”, and left Fenchurch and his family in a good place. Certainly compared with where he was when we met him in “The Hope that Kills”, it was almost like Fenchurch had found happiness.
But.
When I was editing it, I found a little plot hole in book four, “In for the Kill”, that I wanted to plug with a novella. And novellas are nice and simple, no complexity, just fifteen to twenty chapters, 30,000 words. Easy.
Yeah, right.
I should’ve known myself by now. Two Cullen novels, book 3 “Fire in the Blood” and book 6 “Liars and Thieves” (previously known as “Windchill”), started out as novellas, but grew arms and legs as I explored them. Just like this one has.
Chronologically, the action occurred between books 3 and 4 but, rather than open up the numbering or lose some commercial jiggery pokery, I decided to put in two “bookend” chapters in, set after book 5, where Fenchurch arrives at court to give evidence on a case, then the drama was his testimony.
But.
A few bits and pieces kept growing. Some opportunities presented themselves as I wrote. Before I knew it, my thin bookend chapter at the end had become three. And they didn’t really flow that well. So I had another look at the whole thing, and I could shift some of the drama out of the flashback section, partly because there wasn’t enough reaction and reflection between certain plot points, and…
Well, “Kill the Messenger” is a full novel now. Two parts. One set in the past between “What Doesn’t Kill You” and “In for the Kill”, and the second after book five, “Kill with Kindness”. It’s also a bit of an experiment to see if the self-publishing model works for a series this far advanced — if enough people buy this, then I’ll do more books. Simple. I’ve got ideas on how to make Fenchurch more miserable than he already is.
And it’s on pre-order now, with release on Feb 27th, 2019. For the whole of December, you can buy it for £1.99 (or the local equivalent) on Kindle, after which it’ll go up to £2.99. Which is a bargain. There’ll be a paperback on day one (Amazon don’t allow print-on-demand paperback pre-orders), but sadly no current plans for audiobook (the previous narrator has retired!). And if you’re in Kindle Unlimited, you can read it for free when it comes out.
Anyway, hope you enjoy it when it comes out.
UK Amazon link — https://amzn.to/2BJwhWn
Rest of work — http://mybook.to/EJMessenger
And in case you’ve missed them, the rest of the series is 99p this month (UK, AU, DE only):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B079RTGTD6/
And you have read the latest Cullen, right?
https://amzn.to/2PaODCX
— Ed