T-Minus...

 

I’ve been scarce lately as I finished up first writing, and then editing Lord Have Mercy Part Four. I decided I wouldn’t post again until I could post the purchase links. I’m sorry to say that this is not the purchase links post, but that, today, I finished applying the very last of my proofreading corrections, and the book should go live sometime this weekend, after I add the last tweaks from my editor. So, next post will be THE post. Promise.

This post is part heads-up, part-initial, decompression ramblings.

Heads-up, first:

The fourth and FINAL installment of the four-part Lord Have Mercy extravaganza is finally complete, and will be available in a matter of days. That means Dartmoor Book Ten will be complete. Anyone who’s been holding out to read it until it’s finished will need wait no longer. All four parts will be available.

In order:

The Good Son

Fortunate Son

Rising Sun

Big Son

As promised, I’m going to compile all four parts into one book, just as I did with Fearless back in 2015. It’ll be Lord Have Mercy: The Complete Novel. This whole combined version will definitely be available for Kindle/Kobo/Nook, but I’m not yet certain if I can make it available for paperback. I’ll do my best with formatting, but all four parts together are, as they stand now, in their current print size, more than 1,400 pages. Amazon’s print limit is 837, so…yeah. I’ll try. If I can’t make it work all in one, I’ll leave it in its four parts for print.

So be on the lookout for the drop this weekend, and then the complete novel drop sometime after that.

That’s housekeeping taken care of.

On a personal note…

I don’t remember a time I’ve been this mentally exhausted after finishing a book. My overall anxiety’s been sky high the past couple of months, and I think most of that’s down to the book. Despite the necessary research and chess-maneuvering of Sons of Rome, this book, with all its build-up, its previous books, the expectations placed upon it, LHM became the most intricate and difficult project to date.

In truth, that’s why I was so hesitant to begin work on it. I knew back in 2020 that Lord Have Mercy, in some fashion, needed to happen. A sprawling Southern bookend to Fearless. I knew that I wasn’t ready for it, and that it would take several more books to lay out the groundwork and get us to this point. Those books were Lone Star, Homecoming, Long Way Down, The Wild Charge, and Nothing More. Groundwork thus laid, I was still leery, because, honestly? I’ve always had the sense that, no matter its outcome or its action, this book – by nature of being number ten in a series, and the obvious comparisons to book one – was going to get drug up and down the street like a dead racoon caught in the grill of a Peterbilt. I know it’s going to catch hell from the critic crowd. “I usually love this author’s work, BUT…” Tale as old as time.

But knowing it was going to get ripped to shreds didn’t stay my hand on the wheel while writing. And when I finished my final read-through, and stepped back from it, I felt both defiant, and victorious. We went back to the swamp on my terms – on my characters’ terms. I left some side-story doors open for the future, and willingly shunted some characters aside. This book is about Ava, and Mags, and Ghost, and Aidan, and, most of all, it’s about Mercy, and his brothers, and the tenuous balance, across the board, between fathers and sons, and the legacies inherent.

I don’t know when I’ll do a true debriefing. Honestly, I’m going to need a little break. But there are sentences in this book that are some of my best work. And, more than anything, I’m struck by the proud knowledge that there’s only one Mercy. And there’s only one woman he could love.

I hope you’ll enjoy the book, when you read it.

I can’t say a big enough THANK YOU to those who’ve read along with each installment. Y’all kept me going. It took more than a year, but given its word and page count, I think that’s forgivable. When it arrives, if you enjoy it, I hope you’ll leave a review to that effect. As crass as it sounds, the more I sell, the more I can keep writing. And though I might need a brain breather, I’m certainly not out of ideas.