I have been rather remiss about posting recently, to be fair not a lot has been going on during lockdown, but when I heard Damien had a new novel coming out and he very kindly sent me a review copy, I thought it would be a good time to catch up with him and find out a bit more about his latest SciFi novel – Blood Red Sand. 

Hi Damien, and thanks for letting me have a sneak preview of your latest novel – Blood Red Sand. Can you tell us a little about it and what we have to look forward to when it hits the stores?

Blood Red Sand explores some of the historical events referenced in Big Red. There were a few instances when characters mentioned the first battle of New Berlin colony between the Allies and the Nazis, but this was never explored. Some readers and colleagues mentioned it to me which got me thinking about how that battle came about. As soon as I had the foundations set, I couldn’t stop writing!

Have you any plans for a direct sequel to Big Red?

Yes, I had major plans to delve into a direct sequel for Big Red and to date I’ve written (and thrown out) three drafts of it. I made a bit of an amateur mistake by diving into it before Big Red was out and while I was trying or organise Big Red’s launch which caused me to burn out a little. I decided to press pause on it for a while and focus on other projects. By the time I went back to it, the overall story just didn’t seem right for where I wanted it to go. After numerous edits and rewrites, I figured it’d be best to take some time off again and look at it from a fresh angle in the future.

I can share that the working title is ‘Born Red’ and it’s told in a similar format to Big Red. It’ll explore events after the Hollow insurrection on Mars and Dub’s attempts to atone for the horrible actions he’s committed in the past.

A little birdy has told me a prequel to Big Red might be in the offing – any comments on this?

Ha ha, yes! Blood Red Sand itself can (kind of) be considered a sequel. It takes place around twenty years before the early events of Big Red, but thanks to the time travel elements in the story, from certain characters points of view, it’s set a few days after the final chapter. Ah, the joys of time travel!

I have considered writing a ‘true’ prequel short story which delves into why Dub and the Second Battalion were specifically chosen for the Hollow Programme, but I think I’d need some more revelations to come out first, so it makes sense.

Why is the British and Irish Writing Community so important to you?

When I started my writing journey, I didn’t know anyone. I’d read all the blogs and articles that mentioned Twitter as a great place to network with other writers, but initially failed to make any connections. One day, I randomly came across a tweet from author Phil Parker mentioning how he’d love to see a speculative fiction community that promotes Irish and British writers. After a few emails and along with Lee Conley, the BIWC was born.

As a community, I find it to be a fantastic support network. We’ve writers at different stages in their careers and writing across all genres, banding together to share tips, promote each other’s work and celebrating their colleagues’ achievements.

Together, we’ve built Bard of the Isles e-magazine and I’m really excited to see what we’ll do next!

How has your time in the RDF influenced your writing?

I spent seven years in the (Irish) Reserve Defence Forces, and I really look back fondly at those times. It could be exhausting, mentally and physically and very demanding, but I wouldn’t trade those moments for the world. Along with making some life-long friends, I also learned skills that have really helped me in my personal and professional life.

On the writing side of things, having the discipline to stick with something and not get discouraged from various speedbumps along the way, come directly from lessons I learned during my training. Being primarily a military science fiction author, my time in the RDF has certainly helped give me a better understanding of crafting battle scenes!

Is there anything that has surprised you about your writing since beginning your career as a writer? For instance, I always thought of myself as a horror/dark fantasy writer and would never write romance or crime and yet, to my complete surprise my first series was publicised as Fantasy Romance and my second as Supernatural Crime.

Great question! I’ve also enjoyed writing/reading more action-orientated stories, but a few weeks ago, I found myself dwelling on a potential SF-Horror story. Although, I enjoy Horror movies, I’ve never read many Horror books, so I picked up a few of Stephen King’s works plus some from a few indie authors to get a sense of the genre.

I couldn’t shake the idea, so I started working on a SF-Horror novel called The Dead Marie which I’m roughly 51k words into (at the moment). It’s strange not having gun battles, explosions and warzones left, right and centre, but I’m really enjoying the challenge and can’t put this WIP down!

Talking about Stephen King, he once famously said he wrote every day except Christmas Day, then later said he’d fibbed about Christmas Day. Tell me about your writing ethos – do you write every day? And do you set yourself targets?

I’d consider myself to be fairly driven, so when I have an idea, it’s hard for me not to be working on it! I do write most days, normally during my lunch break in work or after work, if my children are out and about. Where possible, I try and set myself 1k targets, but a lot of it comes down to how my mindset is on a certain day. Sometimes, the words just pour out and I find myself writing 2k words with ease. Other times, it’s a struggle to get 300 words down.

I try and set myself a weekly target of 5k words minimum with the view to getting a first draft done within at least four months of starting. Most weeks, I exceed that target as I’m eager to get the first draft done and dusted, so I can dive back into various rewrites and edits.

Do you write straight onto a laptop or computer or do you handwrite first?

Yes, it’s all straight onto the laptop for me. I have terrible handwriting, so seeing a first draft like that would probably crush me!

What are your favourite genres to read and who is your favourite author(s)?

I’d normally read a lot of SF, but I’ve been checking out a lot more Fantasy and Horror recently. There are so many authors to choose from, but some of my favourites would definitely have to be Tripp Ainsworth for his Smokepit Fairytales series, Lee Conley for The Dead Sagas and Jessa Forest’s Pulling Teeth and Other Stories.

I’ve also come across a few books that have jumped out at me from beta and ARC reads. In particular, I’ve really enjoyed Awakenings by PS Livingstone, The Skin by J.E Hannaford, The Typhron Odyssey by S.D Howarth and I’m currently reading (and enjoying) The Horns of the Hunter by Frank Dorian.

What is your favourite film(s) and TV series?

Casino is probably my favourite film. It’s one of those all-time classics with a star-studded line up that I could watch and rewatch and never get tired of.
I’m also a huge Star Trek fan and go through periods of watching all the series from the start to finish and then do it all over again.

So, you’ve told us a little about possible future projects – is there anything else exciting in the pipeline?

Aside from what I’ve mentioned, I’m planning a spin-off set in the Big Red universe. It’s under the working title of Red Young Guns and focuses more the American zone of occupation on Mars, set parallel to the early events in Big Red.
I’ve also recently finished a project called The Truceless War which is a futuristic SF retelling of the First Punic War. I’m really tempted to dive into the second book in this series, but I should probably wrap up a few other projects first…

For anyone who wants to meet you or see you talking about your novels, are there any events you’re planning on attending/participating in during the forthcoming year (restrictions allowing)?

At the moment, it looks like I’ll be participating (in some form) at Octocon here in Ireland. I’d also like to attend Titancon in Belfast again, but it completely depends on restrictions. I’d love to return to Bristolcon, but it’s most likely going to be next year until I can return to the UK mainland.

Blood Red Sand is out on the 7th July and if you would like to visit Damien and see what he’s getting up to here is where you’ll find him and information about his books.

FB : https://www.facebook.com/DamienLarkinAuthor/
Twitter : https://twitter.com/Damo_Dangerman?
IG : https://www.instagram.com/damo_danger_larkin/
Website: https://www.damienlarkinbooks.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55945491-blood-red-sand
Big Red: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Big-Red-Damien-Larkin-ebook/dp/B07NQM7W5S/
Blood Red Sand (preorder link): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Red-Sand-Damien-Larkin-ebook/dp/B08NJ1LMC1/

Allison & Busby Limited
11 Wardour Mews
London W1F 8AN
allisonandbusby.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2020.
Copyright © 2020 by S. M. Hardy
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters and events in this publication,
other than those clearly in the public domain,
are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

I squinted at the alarm clock trying to focus on the fluorescent numerals. One-thirty; I’d been in bed forty-five minutes and asleep for about thirty. Two hours less than last night and three less than the night before. At this rate I was going to die of exhaustion.
   I wasn’t sure whether it was the same goddamn awful dream; I could never remember much about it other than I wake up in a cold sweat, my sheets wrapped around me like a shroud. It was getting that I didn’t want to go to bed.
   Dragging myself into a sitting position I slumped back against the headboard and waited for my pounding heart to calm before swinging my legs over the side of the bed and staggering to my feet. I needed to sleep, but I didn’t want to dream, though how I was going to manage that I wasn’t sure. The strongest thing in my medicine cabinet was paracetamol, or possibly Night Nurse. When I looked, I had neither.
   I padded into the lounge and over to what I laughingly called the bar. The bottle of Smirnoff had a dribble at the bottom, the gin had about two measures, but if I drank it, I would be sick to my stomach; gin and I didn’t get along. The bottle of Grouse was fumes only. I should have known I’d be dry. My least-best friend had come to squat two weeks ago and had only left the day before yesterday. Waking him with my yelling two nights in a row had seen him off. I couldn’t say I wasn’t relieved. His constant ‘Jim, it’s been two years, mate, you’re a young, good-looking fella, you need to get back out there, you need to get back on the pony’ had me wanting to shout in his face: ‘Shut the fuck up – what would you know? Have you ever fucked up your life so badly that you’d lost everything that meant anything to you?’
   Of course he hadn’t. He was a shallow, know-it-all, know-nothing prick and I was glad to be rid of him. Sad to say he reminded me too much of me. Me before I met Kat; me before I knew what it was like to care deeply about someone other than myself. Shame I didn’t realise how much I cared until she was gone.
   The empties went in the bin, which left me with a bottle of Baileys, two years out of date − I didn’t need to look at the label − and a quarter-bottle of Amontillado sherry, probably just as old.
   I sat down on the settee cradling the Baileys in my hands. If she’d been here she would explain the bad dreams away. She’d have made me feel better. I sighed and dropped the bottle down on the floor beside me. She wasn’t here and never would be, so no point getting ‘all my yesterdays’. She was gone, I was here, and I was maybe beginning to face the consequences of my actions – ambitions – life. Hot fuck and buggeration. I didn’t deserve this.
   Feeling sorry for myself was definitely the pits and way down lower than I needed to go. Kat would have been ashamed of me; I was ashamed of me. I wiped my hand across my face, stood up and dragged my sorry self back to the bedroom.
   If I dreamt the dream I would try and take control. Isn’t that what the mind doctors told you? That’s what she used to say. Take control. Yeah right, just like she did, then my eyes filled up and I whispered, ‘Sorry, babe. I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t mean it – right?’ I prayed she knew, and I guessed she did. Didn’t the inhabitants of the hereafter know everything? I hoped so. I hoped she knew.
   And then, for the first time in nearly two years I began to cry, and I felt weak and I felt worthless and I wanted to go to sleep and never wake. I wanted to be with Kat.
   I flung myself down on the bed, our bed, and thankfully I did sleep and there were no more dreams, at least none that I remembered.

I woke to the alarm. Just as well, I had a meeting. I’d had my best work suit dry-cleaned but forgotten about ironing a shirt. After a frantic throwing out of clothing from within my wardrobe I found a shirt that was clean, relatively unrumpled, but white. I hated white; it reminded me of funerals and I’d had enough of those.
  I searched some more, but white it would have to be. The suit at least wasn’t black but a charcoal grey. Not a lot different, but to me a relief. I didn’t want to be seen as a grieving widower. Not that I was. We hadn’t made it to that one final step. Two weeks and one day it would have been different.
   I looked in the mirror, took a deep breath, blinked back tears and tried to block all the bad thoughts out of my head. I at least looked the part: smooth, slick, a clean-cut, up-and-coming young exec. Today I had to act like one and be sharp and focused. This was what I was paid exorbitant amounts of money for. Two years ago, I’d have said I was worth every penny.

The meeting went on longer than it should have, but not as long as the clients would have hoped. How you could call businessmen whose legs you were about to cut out from beneath them clients I wasn’t sure. After the meeting I guess they were ex-clients.
   In this case the clients were a small family business. On the surface financially sound, but someone, somewhere within the organisation had decided not sound enough. After months of wrangling and solicitors’ letters this was D-Day. The clients and their representatives walked into the room hoping there was a modicum of a chance of their survival. The suits sitting on the other side of the table, of which I was one, had already written them off. The meeting was perfunctory and for the first time it left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I couldn’t do this any more.
   ‘That went well,’ Clement said as we left the room.
   I glanced back over my shoulder at the clients’ shell-shocked faces. ‘You think?’
   He frowned at me. ‘Well, we all knew it was a waste of time.’
   ‘They didn’t.’
   His frown deepened. ‘Don’t let Sir Peter hear you say that.’
   I raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Maybe I should.’
   ‘What the fuck?’
   ‘Did you not read their file? Didn’t you go through the figures?’
   ‘The account was terminal,’ he said, clearly exasperated that we were still talking about it when as far as he was concerned there was no more to be said.
   ‘Only because of our punitive interest rates, yet they’d never missed a payment and in fifteen months the loan would have been paid off. With the loan repaid, on their current turnover, the overdraft would probably have been gone as well within five years.’
   ‘Five years is a long time – too long.’
   ‘When they came to us for help the loan was meant to be a lifeline, now they owe us a great deal less than they did at the outset and even so we’ve gone and pulled the plug on them.’ I shook my head in disgust. ‘I’ve had it, Clem. What we did in there was brutal. Immoral. Even criminal.’
   ‘What we did was our job.’
   ‘Makes it right, does it?’
   ‘The salary makes it right,’ he said and by God he meant it. From his expression he couldn’t see anything even mildly wrong with what we’d just done.
   I looked back down the corridor; the clients were being shown out, shoulders slumped, faces slack, spirits broken. The father, the man who’d started the business over thirty years ago, looked frail, almost as though he’d aged ten years since the beginning of our meeting. When they entered the lift they shuffled around to face me. I had to turn away; I couldn’t bear to see the look of betrayal in their eyes.

Sir Peter was pleased. The fact he gestured for us both to sit down was the tell. He dropped the phone-book-thick file on his desk and buzzed his secretary.
   ‘Coffee?’ he asked us, although didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Pot of coffee and three cups,’ he said as he sunk down behind his desk.
   A seat and coffee? I was surprised and when I glanced at Clem a self-satisfied smile was creeping onto his face. Was he expecting promotion? A pay rise? Sir Pete was hardly going to call us both in together for either of those things. Christ, if you were found to have even discussed your pay scale with anyone else within the company you were out on your ear.
   The coffee appeared, brought in by a tall, slim, tight-arsed secretary, with a plastic smile. She served us and was dismissed with a nod from the great man and something clicked inside my head and it was as though a veil had been lifted from in front of my eyes. This wasn’t what I wanted to do. This wasn’t where I wanted to be.
   Sir Pete started to speak, at least his lips were moving, though I didn’t hear a word he said. All I wanted was to get out of that room, and out of this life. I reached for my coffee, slopping some into the saucer. If I tried to drink it now I was going to drip it everywhere and the suit was fresh on today. Fresh on . . . I put the cup and saucer back on the desk and got to my feet.
   ‘James?’ Sir Pete said with a frown as I interrupted his speech.
   ‘I’m leaving,’ I heard myself say as I walked out of his office.
    As I reached the lift Clem came up behind me and grabbed hold of my sleeve. ‘Jim, are you OK? Jim?’
   ‘I’m leaving,’ I repeated as I stepped into the lift.
   He stood there glancing about him as though he wasn’t sure what he should do, then, with a sigh, joined me.
   ‘You just walked out on the boss while he was in mid flow.’
   ‘So did you.’
   ‘He sent me after you, you jerk. What are you playing at?’
   ‘I’m leaving.’
   ‘So you fucking said.’
   ‘No, Clem, I’m leaving. Resigning, handing in my notice.’
   ‘No fucking way.’
   ‘Yes fucking way,’ I said and I started to grin. ‘Yes fucking way.’

Sir Pete couldn’t believe I was throwing away a successful career and was convinced I’d had some sort of breakdown. Maybe I had. The bank’s shrinks certainly thought so. Worried about lawsuits citing work-related stress, I was signed off on long-term sick leave and, if worse came to worst, would be let go after an appropriate period of time with a handshake good enough to deter any claim of unfair or constructive dismissal. Sir Pete’s biggest mistake; he should have accepted my resignation.

For the first week there were no more dreams and I’d more or less convinced myself they were down to stress. On night eight of my sabbatical they started again. And boy they were full-blown gorefests.
   These I remembered. Nightmares so bloody and vicious and full of rage that after the fourth day I was wondering whether I hadn’t just had a breakdown but was going full-on insane and heading for a long-term stay in the funny farm.
   After a particularly harrowing night when I’d woken screaming Kat’s name and for a moment could almost feel her cold, dead body lying within my arms, I went to see my doctor. Fortunately for me she was a no-nonsense, matronly figure who didn’t believe in most of today’s PC psychobabble.
   ‘Mr Hawkes, all you need is a good, long rest,’ she had said, her voice laced with sympathy.
   ‘You’ve had three major events in your life within as many years. You lost your mother and father, then your long-term partner within a very short period. Having a highly pressurised job hasn’t helped. Now that’s behind you, I suggest you get away somewhere new. Somewhere you can relax.’

And that was it. No pills, no potions, just a prescription of rest, rest and more rest. So that afternoon I started scanning the classifieds for a country retreat somewhere. And this is when I found Slyford St James.

I have always had an interest in the supernatural and the occult, particularly the people who claim they can speak to the dead or connect to the other side. I also enjoy a good ghost story or tales of witchcraft and Satanism. Vampires, werewolves and re-animated corpses are also on my list of favourites. My writing over the years has tended to reflect this and I have a whole catalogue of different types of fantasy novels sitting on my hard drive, mostly unseen by anyone else but me or maybe my writing group.

The idea for The Evil With came from a subject that was as far from the world of fantasy as one could possibly be. At the time there had been a lot in the news about small businesses being financially ruined after having their loan and overdraft facilities inexplicably withdrawn by banks. This got me to thinking about what kind of person could do such a job and manage to sleep at night. Straightaway this gave me the background of my main character Jim Hawkes, a deeply troubled man with a highly pressurised job, which was turning him into someone he didn’t want to be.

The opening paragraphs came to me while I was in the middle of writing something else and rather than risk forgetting it I jotted down a few notes so I could go back to it later. Unfortunately it was almost as though my subconscious wouldn’t allow me to let it go and the story was calling to me. In the end I gave up on what I was writing and returned to the novel, which I had very inventively given the working title of “Ghost Story” although at this point I had no idea what sort of tale it was going to be.

I started typing away and the words flowed and pretty soon I was tapping the words “The End” and, as always, it was with a bittersweet sort of feeling. I was saying goodbye to the characters who had become real people inside my head. So, this was the end of Jim Hawkes and the residents of the imaginary village of Slyford St James – until one day I was chatting with my agent, Heather about my next novel and “Ghost Story” suddenly popped into my head. I gave her a brief pitch, she asked me to send it to her and a few months later she had struck a two book deal with the publishers Allison & Busby.

Just to give you a little taster and an idea of what “The Evil Within” is about I have included a brief blurb below.

On the brink of a breakdown, two years after the death of his fiancée, Jim Hawkes quits his high powered job in the City to rent a cottage in the Devonshire countryside. But Slyford St James is far from the peaceful haven Jim was hoping for.

Almost immediately he is plagued by strange occurrences: a combination lock that won’t open, loud noises in the attic of his new home and the figure of a little girl always just out of sight.

His new village friends, Jed and Emma, are convinced Jim has found his way to the village, and that specific cottage, to solve the mystery surrounding the suspicious death of a child. But as Jim is haunted by the ghosts of his past and endangered by a real-world threat in the present, it soon becomes apparent that true evil never dies.

The Evil Within is published by Allison & Busby and is due out on the 19th March 2020.

Eskara is little more than a child when she is plucked from her family and home by the emperor’s agents to be taken to the sourcerers’ academy. Here she is enrolled in a brutal training regime to become what is essentially a weapon against the empire’s enemies using her, perhaps unenviable, ability to conjure fantastical powers through ingesting magical “sources”.

The novel is written from the introspective point of view of the main character Eskara and she begins with the fall of the empire she and her friend Josef have been defending with devastating effect.  For their part in the last stand against the enemy army they are both taken prisoner and cast into a terrible place known as “the pit”, an underground mine where they will spend the rest of their lives in enforced hard labour surrounded by the worst of criminals. There are only three ways they can leave – to die, to defect to the enemy or escape – and there is only one of these Eskara will even consider.

Although not much more than a child Eskara, now fifteen, is very stubborn and sometimes acts impulsively and not always sensibly. The older and wiser Eskara, who is telling the tale often comments on her regret of not having done things differently and gives hints of the far reaching consequences of some of her younger self’s less astute actions and it is this that drew me in. These little asides by a woman who has quite possibly grown, through no real fault of her own, to be a monster. Eskara hints at some of the terrible things she has done, and also some of the terrible things that have been done to her, leaving me wanting to know more.

This novel is beautifully and skilfully written. The descriptions of the pit and the people in it are so cleverly woven into the story I never felt I was being swamped with descriptive information and yet I could almost feel the claustrophobia of being imprisoned in a place with no fresh air, daylight or sanitation and feel the despair of the prisoners.

Needless to say I can’t wait for book two and to see what happens to Eskara and this novel gets five big, fat stars from me!

The woman in black walked to the front of the shop and locked the door, flipping the sign to closed.
By the morning the shop would be gone and no one who passed by would remember it ever having been there.
   She returned to the doll’s house and peered in through one of the windows at the back. Sarah lay huddled on a bed, eyes red from crying, throat sore from screaming, hands battered and bruised from pounding on the doors and windows in an effort to get out. It was to be expected for the first week or so, though sometimes it went on for months, and once or twice a new resident had become quite self-destructive and had to be replaced a lot sooner than was desirable.
   Of course it never stopped her young charges having a grand old time playing with the doll’s house and its occupants. Truth be told they found the ones that were the hardest to tame the most fun, though she hoped Sarah wouldn’t be one of those – she really did quite like her.

I have always had an interest in the spookier things in life and I guess I have my parents to blame. My dad was a film buff and amongst all the magazines he used to get sent to him from the States (this was before the internet and magazines being available worldwide) there were always a few monster and horror mags. Before I could even read I would hide away in a corner gazing at the black and white photographs of Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and the Mummy. As you can imagine, once I learnt to write, and wrote my first stories for English class, a few eyebrows were raised by my choice of subject matter!

Then, of course, there was my mother. When asked whether I believe in the supernatural my head would answer no, my heart however can only give one reply – yes. From a young age I always knew my mother was different. Some of my school friends called her a witch and were too scared to ring in the door just in case she answered. In fact she was a psychic. This is how I learned about Ouija boards – and that they are dangerous. Do I have one? Yes, I have four. Have I ever used them – no! I am not an idiot.

So, now you know where I get my weirdness from and why I like writing about the darker side of life and death. I could regale you with tales from when I was a child, but all I will say is my childhood was – interesting.

If you want to ask me any questions you can here and I will post an answer or you can find me on Twitter @SueTingey. Otherwise I will try to keep you up to date with any news I might have or events I am attending right here or, of course, you can sign up to my newsletter.

Thanks for visiting – I hope you will come back some time soon.