Remember that time I was supposed to be writing a very serious history of Sydney and I started messing around with a time-travelling aircraft carrier, and that turned into Weapons of Choice? Yeah so, whoops, I did that again. This time I stumbled into something that surprised even me.
Spy-romance novels.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn't see it coming either.
This whole experiment started as a way to help my daughter earn some quids during her summer break in the UK. She's working with special needs kids at a school over there while she has a year in Europe. She loves the work, but it's casual employment, everything’s expensive, so I thought I'd give her a way to earn a few bucks on the side. So she’s been my location scout and Substack wrangler.
And what’s my excuse? Well, I found myself writing relationship story arcs in some of my recent books and gradually realizing how much I enjoyed crafting those relationships. Fast-forward a few months, and I've just released the first two books in my little side project – The Girl Who Came in from the Cold and For Her Eyes Only. They're spy novels with romantic leads, about 70K words each, and they were an absolute fucking blast to write.
Be assured, though – this isn't me changing lanes.
It's just me discovering I can write a lot more books. Including the ones some of you are really waiting for.
Soooooooon my precioussss...
This unexpected detour taught me something much bigger about my productivity. Since it was all a bit of an experiment anyway, I switched to a new dictation app called MacWhisper Pro and a time tracker named Toggl. Suddenly, I'm cranking out three times as many words each day and finishing feeling refreshed instead of exhausted.
That means more books this year. Huzzah! The remaining Axis of Time novels. The Cruel Stars finale rewrite I'm doing for Random House. And possibly, maybe, also…
Plus this new spy-romance line that's turned out to be mad fun.
Are they different from my usual nonsense? Yep. Simpler plotting, two main characters instead of six storylines to juggle, and I'll admit to doing a whole editing pass just to cut out all the "hammering hearts" and "lingering gazes". (Don't ask how many. It's embarrassing.)
But here's what didn't change: kick-ass female leads, plenty of action, conspiracies, and shady misdirection. I'm just foregrounding the emotional connection this time. You can check out some sample chapters on the series Substack. Yes, that’s a thing I just invented.
Or, if you’re crazy for love, they're live on Kindle Unlimited right now. I'll have them available everywhere else as a three-volume doorstopper in June because I understand that not everybody loves the Beast of Bezos.
(And honestly, if you’re like WTF, JB, just think of these things as bonus content while you wait for those splodey books you really want.
Because those are coming too. Faster than ever, thanks to my new dictation rig.
World War 3.2 will drop in August for my birthday.
But these bad girls are available right now via a coupla Books2read universal links.
The Girl Who Came in from the Cold.
I hope you like ‘em, because I loved writing them.