In Memory of Chris Parsons

Well, that's been a busy few days. Not that I expect any sympathy, but I've been putting in long hours getting the last of my novels ready to re-publish. And it's done.

If you still can't remember what I'm doing, then for the full background and how I ended up getting carried away, take a look here.

So My Family and Other Ghosts is no more. Close your eyes, then 1, 2, 3... poof, it's gone. Materialising magically in its place is the shiny new In Memory of Chris Parsons. You can see the new cover above, and the new blurb below.

Losing a loved one is hard. Losing two is harder. But if they lose you at the same time, that’s just confusing.

Chris Parsons' life is transformed when his wife, Lisa, and daughter, Alex, die in a tragic accident. Not that he can recall the details.

Luckily on some days, Lisa is there to help him remember. On others, Alex tries to cheer him up. Following their advice, Chris turns to a new therapist to make sense of his contradictory amnesia.

Inspired by the wonders of rural Wiltshire – including Avebury, the West Kennet Long Barrow, the Cherhill White Horse, and the aurora borealis – he begins to understand the true nature of his reality. Only then does he realise that his future is as uncertain as his past.

Of course, Lisa has a different story to tell. Alex isn't happy either.

Previously published as My Family and Other Ghosts by Mark White

A speculative family drama from the author of the SF trilogy, The Tamboli Sequence.

As with the other novels, I've not made any change to the story itself, but I have tweaked the wording where the grammar didn't match my current style and clarified anything that I didn't think came across right. I've updated the forward and afterword too.

The afterword gives some of the details of how the events in the novel were shaped by events in my own life. Spookily, although I can't go into details without giving spoilers here, there's an aspect of the way the story ended that was a little prescient. After writing the novel, the way the world ended up for one of my characters has now happened to me!

There's a certain irony there. The novels in The Tamboli Sequence were written partly for me to help me understand things that were happening in the world in general, while telling a (hopefully) cracking story. This novel was written to help me make sense of my own life and relationships – it turns out, just as one of those relationships was ending. Hey ho.

So this book has also been uploaded and is ready to go on my new Amazon publishing account (as Mark W White) both for Kindle and Paperback, and is also ready for other eReaders via Draft2Digital. I'm currently waiting for the paperback draft, but that should be quick.

I've also completed the short story called In Memory of Universal Truth which is something quite different for me. This one can be read independently of In Memory of Chris Parsons, providing a little amusing diversion as to how something that takes place in the background of the novel came it be. There are no spoilers, so can be read beforehand.

You'll be able to get In Memory of Universal Truth free as part of my collection Mutterings of Consequence by signing up for my mailing list, once everything is ready.

That means that everything is just about ready to republish all my novels. Over the next few days, I'll be working through my checklist one-by-one:

1. Unpublish the existing novels

2. Rework my website

3. Set up my new mailing list

4. Get my freebies available for download

5. Publish the novels on my new author platform

6. Sort out the mess due to the things I've got wrong

Anyway, watch this space...