…for now. Answering yet another frequently asked question and revealing why I’m leaving Berylford behind for the time being…

When telling friends and family that I’m working on my third book, some of them ask what it’s about… others ask me, “Is this part of the same series?” And, of course I say, “No”. You Can Hear Chopin from the Attic is entirely separate from the Berylford series. Different country, different time period, and so on. That’s all easy enough to understand. What I don’t make a massive point about is why. Why did I choose not to write a third Berylford book?

I may have mentioned it on podcasts and other interviews in the past that, initially, when I released Lust & Liberty, I planned to leave the series alone for a few years. Write You Can Hear Chopin in that time and then come back and polish the existing draft of Sin & Secrecy. It was just sitting there, waiting for some love. A meeting with a friend turned my hand towards finishing that first. It made sense, I guess. With the space of two years, I’d have two books out. Twice as many products and so on.

After releasing Sin and Secrecy, I had truly had my fill of Berylford and the characters I’d been working on for over a decade. I needed a totally blank canvas. No traces of my old writing at all. And You Can Hear Chopin had already garnered such interest from fans in passing. A tale of a young hotelier protecting his schizophrenic wife from his Nazi clientele in 1940s Berlin. Unvisited concept and all that. I already had a story framework mapped out. It was ready for me to fill with research and plan out properly.

So, the answer to the question is, you can have too much of a good thing all at once. I had had 12 years of writing The Berylford Scandals… I needed a chance to work on something fresh. To challenge myself, if nothing else!

Will we ever return to Berylford?

However, the fact that people are asking about a third instalment to The Berylford Scandals can only be a good thing, right? The fanbase may be small but they like what they’re reading. So I can confirm that the historical mystery series is not done forever.

Thank you for reading. Do you have a question about my ongoing and future work? If so, get in touch via my Facebook and Instagram pages. Also read further posts out more about my latest novel, and stay up to date with my podcast.