Two days to launch…

PETERMBALL News & Upcoming Events

…and I’m slightly geeked out about getting Exile out there. The Admiral, of course, is reacting to my excitement with her customary savoir faire.

That said, it’s possible she hasn’t yet made the correlation between book sales and the ability to buy her crunchy food. Keep this in mind when you decide where to put your book-buying dollars this week: every time you purchase a copy of Exile, the Admiral gets her crunchy food 🙂

One of the great things about prepping this book for release and talking it up online? Kathleen Jennings linked to her original reaction tweets when she read the series, complete with watercolour sketches she put together at the time.

Which in turn led me back to her write-up about the book over on her blog:

You may think I broke my Regency streak with these two, but the main character reads Persuasion on stakeouts. Myth-heavy hardboiled Gold Coast pre-(assorted)-apocalyptic fantasy. It resonates with the parts of my mind where American Gods took up residence.

Books read, things seen: April 2016, Kathleen Jennings

And reminded me that I should probably mention some of the original reviews of the book that appeared over on the ‘zon

And over on Goodreads, where chaps like writers Alan Baxter have said incredibly nice things about the book.

Excellent noir yarn with well interwoven demonic and supernatural aspects. Really good worldbuilding and I’m keen to read the next one… Highly recommended.

Alan Baxter over on Goodreads

Folks do mention the editorial issues which plagued the book–and they’re part of the reason why this release has undergone some crazy intense copyedits and proofing–but it’s a startling reminder that the books that live in your head, after your write them.

Nostalgia Music

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Yesterday, after uploading all the files for Exile, my partner and I ate fish & chips and settled in to binge watch two seasons of Shrill back-to-back. I loved the entire show, but owe it a particular thanks for ending season two with PJ Harvey’s 50 Ft. Queenie running over the end credits.

A very big nostalgia music moment for me, flashing back to 1994 and my final year of high school.

Which is appropriate, in a lot of ways, because Exile is very much a novel about nostalgia music. Keith Murphy returns home after sixteen years, somewhat against his wishes. The opening chapter is titled Paradise City and drops multiple Guns’n’Roses references. I wrote the book listening to the Gunners, but also multiple 80s and 90s rock albums like Slippery When Wet from Bon Jovi and Van Halen’s 1984.

The first location in the novel is the Hard Rock Cafe Surfers Paradise (albeit a version of the cafe that no longer exists, given that it downsized a few years back).

All of that’s by intent, because Exile and the books that follow it have always been about a man frozen in time by his mistakes, only to find himself forced to confront him by the circumstances of his present. It’s a book about nostalgia and moving on, cunningly disguised as an urban fantasy thriller about demons, necromancers, and trapped souls.

Out Wednesday…EXILE: A Keith Murphy Urban Fantasy Thriller

PETERMBALL News & Upcoming Events

The ebook files have all been uploaded and the print proofs have been approved, which means the re-release of Exile is on track for Wednesay.

I talked about the secret emotions and work that hides behind the word “re-released” in relation to this book over on the twitters. I won’t repeat the entire thing here, but it starts with this tweet and everything is linked in an easy-to-follow thread:

The short version, for those who prefer to avoid the twitter-beast, is that the re-release of Exile and its sequels involves revisiting work written just prior to being diagnosed with a sleep disorder, and therefore a chance to do the kind of rewrites and reshaping of the original text that a falling-asleep-at-the-keyboard Peter wasn’t able to do in 2013.

For various personal reasons, I want this launch to go really well, so I’m investing a little more attention into it than my new releases normally get.

For now, I’ll just mention that pre-orders are live for anyone wanting to get a copy delivered first thing on Wednesday morning: https://books2read.com/KeithMurphyEXILE