And with that, the trilogy is complete!
The final installment of the Hell Theory trilogy, Vanish Into Light, is now live, and you can grab it HERE.
The series began last year on a bit of a whim. In Hilary Mantel's The Mirror & The Light, she details Thomas Cromwell's confiscation of Catholic relics across England, one of which being the figure of Saint Derfel astride his stag, one of King Arthur's lesser-known knights. Derfel - post-death, in his saintly form - was said to be able to venture down into the depths of hell and retrieve souls.
In the novel, the line reads:
He thinks about Derfel, his powers. Why would you want the damned fetched back from Hell? There's a reason God put them where they are.
Immediately, I decided I HAD to write about that. What resulted was our funky little tale about murderers, and lovers, and angels and demons wearing human skins. Beck is a very loose, modern interpretation of King Arthur, though his name - his last name - is a reference to Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was brutally murdered by knights in the service of King Henry II...King Richard I's father. (Will I ever stop twisting and circling back to certain figures and themes? Never.) And whose skull was (possibly) dug up and desecrated by Cromwell.
As for the other characters: Rose is of course Guinevere, and Lance is Lancelot. Gallo is Galahad, and Tris is Tristan. Gavin is Gawain - again, loosely interpreted. Captain Bedlam is Bedivere. Kay is a stand-in for Arthur's brother Kay. And Morgan is Merlin.
I've always toyed with the idea of writing a King Arthur book - a proper one, in which, as fabled, he returns in service to his country at its time of need. But this, friends, is not that book. This is weird, and dark, and fun, and I hope you'll enjoy the conclusion. I'll leave the door cracked, in case I ever want to return, but for now, here's where we leave our trio.
(Side note, just for fun: I always have a tertiary character to whom I become attached, someone I end up liking much more than I should, and in this book, that's Damien.)
Reading Order:
King Among the Dead
Night In A Waste Land
Mystic Wonderful
Vanish Into Light
The titles are all lifted bit of Lord Alfred Tennyson's poem.
