Boone Shepard audiobooks re-released! Plus an exclusive new Maggie adventure
Boone Shepard audiobooks back online!
The first Boone Shepard book, and my first novel, hit shelves back in 2016. It was published by Bell Frog Books, an independent publishing house started by a friend who believed absolutely in Boone and put so, so much into making it happen, but of course there was a ceiling to how much success it could realistically achieve with a small print publisher and a first-time author. Still, Boone did pretty well for himself, selling plenty of copies and even being shortlisted for the Readings Young Adult Prize.
But here’s the thing; Boone actually hit a worldwide audience of thousands, thanks to the audiobook spearheaded by Sanspants Radio, the podcast company I used to be involved in. Chapters were released weekly, and Boone built a respectable little following. The second book got the same treatment a year later, but by the time the third rolled around I wasn’t working with Sanspants anymore and consequently the trilogy was never completed in audio form.
The audiobooks have been unavailable for a few years now, but thanks to a fan who had all the files from back in the day, I got my hands on them and have now re-released them for anyone interested to listen to for free. After many requests over the past few years, Boone Shepard and Boone Shepard’s American Adventure can once again be heard in their entirety wherever you get your podcasts, including Audible where they’ve now taken pride of place among my other novels.
And look, if enough people tune in I might just have a run at dusting off the ol’ vocal chords and recording The Silhouette and the Sacrifice to complete the set.
And speaking of Silhouette…
Revisiting Boone Shepard: The Silhouette and the Sacrifice
Earlier this year I re-read Boone Shepard’s American Adventure ahead of the five-year anniversary. I figured I’d wait until next year to do the same for the third book, but some circumstances I’ll hopefully discuss down the line saw me picking it up a little earlier and consequently writing another reflective piece.
There’s a lot about the book I’d do differently now, but then there’s a lot about it I only could have done then, which is often to the story’s benefit. What I found on revisitation was an ambitious but flawed finale to an ambitious but flawed trilogy, but one I ultimately can be proud of.
Check out my in depth impressions here.
Other Projects
To quickly cover the big ones; work on Gremoryland continues, but I’m hoping to have a finished draft by the end of the year. Notes for The Caretaker are due this month, at which point I’ll start actively reworking.
I’ve also started writing a new middle-grade novel, about which I’ll have more to say soon but, appropriately for such a Boone Shepard heavy newsletter, it marks a bit of a return to that mode of action packed adventurous storytelling.
And finally, I’m going to be a little cheeky and suggest that everyone who has been asking about a Hitchhiker sequel should stay very tuned over the coming months.
Hunters
After almost three years away from Melbourne stages, my theatre company Bitten By Productions returned for a run of Kath Chloe Atkins’ brilliant new show Hunters. Funny, tense and surprising; I was very much just a producer here, but was so proud of how great the show ended up being and how much audiences clearly enjoyed it.
Next year marks Bitten By’s tenth anniversary and we have some big ideas. Watch this space…
October Events
A couple of weeks back I joined a top-notch group of writers for the annual Waterford Writer’s Festival at St Kevin’s running a couple of workshops for Year Nine boys. Ostensibly these events are based around The True Colour of a Little White Lie, but far more students want to discuss The Hunted and The Inheritance, with one kid telling me he’d read the former five times. Which was flattering and maybe disturbing but given the stuff I read at that age, mostly flattering.
Shortly after I was honoured to be invited up to Wangaratta as a guest speaker for their annual short story competition for young writers. The talent on display was super impressive and it was great to chat to some of the entrants and their families afterwards.
Recommendations
After spending a big chunk of last year reading the entire Animorphs series, I was left a little bereft by finishing it. As such, I’ve been looking forward to the latest graphic novel adaptation, The Encounter, for months and was stoked to finally get my hands on it.
These adaptations are a great way to be re-introduced to the series without committing to the insanity of tracking down 62 out of print children’s books (exactly what I did), and The Encounter offered the enticing proposition of taking on maybe the first Animorphs book just showed just how challenging and complex this series could be. Chris Grine did a great job of visualising a highly internal book, and while his somewhat soft, colourful style does at times feel at odds with the darkness of the source material, he’s clearly devoted to realising it in all its grotesque, bone crunching, violent and emotional glory, and the impact of the final pages absolutely lands. If you grew up in the 90s loving the original series or if you have kids of your own, these graphic novels are absolute musts.
I’m curious to see how adapting the rest of the series is handled. With 62 books of varying quality and consequence, it does seem almost impossible (and inadvisable) to tackle the rest given the time each graphic novel takes to adapt and release compared to the accelerated, almost monthly schedule of the original books. But so far these periodic returns to a world and story I adore have been an absolute treat.
Country Hospitality – A new Maggie story (Part one of three)
While I was in America a few months back I wrote a new Maggie story, set between The Inheritance and The Hitchhiker (everyone now knows Maggie is in The Hitchhiker, right?). I’d meant to release this online back then, but The Hitchhiker’s release kept me a bit too busy to properly edit it, besides which the story had ended up longer than I’d originally planned; a little too unwieldy to work as a bonus piece of writing for a newsletter.
So what I’ve done is split it in three. Below is the first part, with the rest coming over the next two months. There’s nothing especially essential in this story; it’s basically just a ghoulish little lark, but for fans of Maggie’s blood soaked misadventures I reckon there’s a fair bit to enjoy.
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Melbourne was behind her now, well behind her, but Maggie couldn’t keep her eyes off the rear-view mirror. Waiting any second for the roar of engines and a line of bikes to gun for her – literally and figuratively. But so far, so quiet. None of the passing cars tried to run her off the road or snipe her out an open window.
She knew she was probably safe. What had happened back in Melbourne felt close, immediate – she couldn’t get the smell of smoke out of her clothes. But the Scorpions needed time to regroup. Provided they had a group left to regroup. Not every one of the bikers had been in the bar when Maggie lit fire to it, but enough were. She was somewhat banking on being long gone by the time the survivors – or other chapters – rallied enough to come after her, but she also knew that she couldn’t afford presumptions.
She also couldn’t afford another day without sleep. The question now was whether she was far enough from Melbourne to stop for the night. She’d already passed through a few small towns, placed among either gnarled gums or browning paddocks, but they’d all felt a little too close, a little too risky. She’d courted plenty of danger in the past few weeks and courting more felt a bit like tempting fate. But then, continuing without sleep would achieve the same thing. Tiredness meant mistakes. Mistakes meant death.
A green sign ahead announced another nearing town – Foxworth. Maggie tapped the steering wheel. Checked the rear-view mirror, then the time. It was late afternoon.
Like most towns out here, Foxworth was small – a main street lined with gold-rush era buildings a little on the wrong side of dilapidated. She took a right turn into a residential street and drove slow, watching the passing houses until she saw a sign out the front saying ‘accommodation’. It was a two storey, white painted house in a rosebush-full garden. She stopped out the front. Watched the house for a moment, weighing up her options. Then she reached into the backpack on the passenger seat and took out a bandage.
Inside the house smelt of old wood. Faded paintings lined the walls behind a small table laden with brochures and a bell, which Maggie rang. Silence for a moment then, from deep inside – ‘coming, coming!’
A woman bustled up the hall, wearing a floral apron, her grey hair tightly curled. She saw Maggie and faltered, briefly, then smiled and approached, looking pointedly anywhere but the bandage that covered Maggie’s left eye and part of her face.
‘Hello! How can I help?’
‘Room for the night, if possible,’ Maggie said.
‘Easily done!’ She opened a drawer on her side of the table and took out some papers. ‘Nobody else is staying so…’ Inadvertently, her eyes flicked to the bandage.
‘Eye surgery,’ Maggie said. ‘Nothing I won’t bounce back from.’
‘Oh, my friend Gladys had one of those!’ she said. ‘Cataracts. Nasty stuff. Did you have cataracts? Oh no, I shouldn’t ask, that’s rude. And you’re too young so probably not. But what…? Ah, look at me, prying again! Just one night, you said?’
She resented the bandage. It made her memorable. But then, so did the three gashes it covered, not yet healed, a reminder of her tussle with the Scorpions. On balance, the bandage seemed like the safer bet. But in the long term she was going to have to work out something more permanent. She could let her hair cover her eye, but while the wounds were new, swollen and stitched and angry looking, she was less comfortable relying on a disguise that could be dislodged by a mild gust of wind.
The woman, who introduced herself as Fran, continued babbling about cataracts as she asked Maggie to fill out a form. She was happy to take cash and didn’t ask for ID. A bit of mild luck. Maggie finally managed to extract herself from the conversation with some story about a rare eye condition (dangerous given she knew nothing about eye conditions, but she was also sick of the word ‘cataract’), then headed upstairs to her room while Fran was still talking about how amazing it was to still have twenty/twenty vision at her age – despite the glasses sticking out of her apron pocket.
The room was small and old fashioned; frilly white curtains that would do nothing to block the sun hung behind a well-raised bed on a thick rug. Maggie dumped her bag and lay on the bed. Her mind returned to Melbourne. She wondered whether the police had sorted through everything yet. She wondered whether they’d realised she was involved. She wondered how many Scorpions had survived and in seconds she was asleep.
She woke with a jolt – she’d dreamed something fiery and blood soaked and awful, but that wasn’t rare. She sat up, bleary and disoriented. Her stomach growled.
She got out of the house without being accosted by Fran and walked into town. It was dark now, but not too late. She found a well-lit, faded little milk bar and ordered a burger. She sat at a corner table and waited, watching the town through the windows. Her mind moved fast to the flaming bar, to the searing satisfaction she’d felt hearing the screams inside. The feeling lingered and that made her uncomfortable. But not enough to offset the fact that she had no regrets. The Scorpions had made their collective bed. She’d just set it on fire.
She was halfway through her burger when she heard the blast of engines. She froze mid bite, her heartrate rising. She kept her eye on the window, letting her hair fall to cover the bandages. Even in the dark, it was impossible to mistake the shapes of motorbikes tearing past.
To be continued…