Last week I used vacation time to take a second at-home writing retreat. My goal was to prepare the eight remaining chapters for a novel-in-progress for final editing and to (HOPEFULLY) release before 2024 ends.
Despite a retreat that wasn't quite a retreat (LOTS of life happening, too), I am happy to report that I made my goal.
The novel is called “House on Top of the Hill” and
it’s the third book in the BryonySeries Limbo series. The first and second books in that series are
“The Phoenix” and “Call of the Siren.”
I conceived the concept for the BryonySeries Limbo trilogy in early 2019. During Christmas break later that year, I had all three books outlined.
Before I go further, the store page on the BryonySeries website will provide more about the individual titles I'll be mentioning in this post. There are far, far too many titles to hyperlink in this blog.
Oh, and the store is closed for renovations, most likely until Timothy finishes his master's degree in February. But the store link will take you to the full list of books on Amazon.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
It feels good to near the finish line of what could be my last novel.
My fiction focus for the next few years will be completing the last four books in the Girls of the BryonySeries and catching up with The
Adventures of Cornell Dyer series. Both are subseries in the overarching
BryonySeries world.
Plus, I have tons of Bertrand photos for future books
I need to address.
Now, I could be wrong about “House on Top of the Hill” being the last novel. But at age sixty-three, I want to be sure I finish these other BryonySeries books, while I’m still able to finish them. So I'm definitely not bidding creative writing good-bye. I have plenty of book projects to last me a long time.
Also, for anyone who has read the BryonySeries, this "House on Top of the Hill" brings the series to a nice full circle.
You see, if one starts with the drop of
blood trilogy (“Bryony,” “Visage,” and “Staked!”), the five installments of “Before The Blood” becomes a terrific prequel to the series. Limbo then fills in the time period between “drop” and
BTB, the eighty years when nothing seemingly happens.
Or if one reads the books in chronological order – beginning with “Before The Blood,” and then moving onto to Limbo and then “drop of blood,” the novel “Staked!” gives a nice finish to the series.
And if you start with Limbo, you can read BTB and “drop” to see what happened before and what happens after, which also works quite logically, especially since "drop" seamlessly follows "House on Top of the Hill."
Now, I don’t want to forget HOW to write a novel. And who knows? I
might have another lurking in my brain somewhere, just waiting for the right time
to show itself.
Or perhaps I’ll co-write a novel or helps other
authors polish theirs. But from my viewpoint on this Monday morning, “House on Top
of the Hill” is likely my last novel.
Of course, I did say that after “Before The Blood,” too.
And if we want to travel down that path, I really only intended to write one novel, “Bryony.” But the story was too big for one book.
Fine, I thought. I’ll write a sequel. But the story was too big for THAT
book, too.
Fine. A trilogy then. Except now I had all this background backstory and my little band of fans for “drop of blood” wanted to read the series back story, which turned into an eight-year project for the five installments.
So there you have it. A series that overtook itself much like the poisonous bryony took over Simons Mansion, the Simons estate, and worked its way into the woods (which wasn’t Simons Woods after all, as you shall see in "House on Top of the Hill").
A quick word about the structure of this latest novel. Despite the wording of the synopsis (see below), none of the story is actually told from the perspective of Steve Barnes.
Instead the novel, which spans forty - fairly consecutively - years, is told through a slew of different protagonists in a seemingly short story format. But the chapters all possess an underlying theme, recurring characters, and an ending that won't make sense if you skip to it first.
Anyway, here is the synopsis. Below the synopsis are the chapter titles and cover image by Timothy Baran.
Happy Monday!
Change comes slowly to Munsonville, and for Steve
Barnes, who spends his entire life in the village, that's just fine. From
boyhood to manhood, he savors the slow pace and friendly smiles, even while
working by his parents' side from sunup to sundown to run the family diner.
The only blight is this fishing village's
preoccupation with an empty mansion in the woods, whose tales of former glory
and catastrophe fueled a rampage of ghost stories. Steve doesn't believe them,
but some do – and no no one can deny the power the crumbling old building holds
over them.
Especially when it changes everyone, including Steve,
forever.
Prologue
Chapter 1: The Traveling Salesman
Chapter 2: Roundtable
Chapter 3: Bottle of the Red Stuff
Chapter 4: Cracking Open the Nest Egg
Chapter 5: Picture Postcards
Chapter 6: Whispers of the Heart
Chapter 7: I Run at Night
Chapter 8: Laid to Rest
Chapter 9: Necking
Chapter 10: Spider and Fly
Chapter 11: Death Heard Round the World
Chapter 12: Mine
Chapter 13: Second Sight
Chapter 14: Chop, Sizzle, Broil, and Bake
Chapter 15: The Rage
Chapter 16: Hard Choice to Make
Chapter 17: Through the Camera’s Eye
Chapter 18: Words Enough For Me
Chapter 19: The All-Hallowed Albatross
Chapter 20: Dancing in the Past
Chapter 21: The New Professor
Chapter 22: Enigma in Residence
Chapter 23: Rain
Chapter 24: From Fry Pan to Factotum
Chapter 25: Nutty Tina Swanson
Chapter 26: Preternatural Guest
Chapter 27: A New Lease on a Very Old Dream
Chapter 28: The News That Changed Everything
Chapter 29: Journey of a Thousand Heartaches
Chapter 30: Severed Links
Epilogue
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