After four years of writing, editing, and procrastination, The Rules of Time Travel is out now in paperback and for Kindle. Every launch is a big deal, but let me tell you a bit about why this one means so much to me.

People often ask writers where their ideas come from. I never have a good answer to this question, but the kernel of the idea came to me while I was in Jamaica for a friend’s wedding.

We’ve all been to weddings of couples who have been living together for years. In these cases, the act of getting married changes very little. Yet in my experience, a wedding often turns into a hinge point of some sort.

I’ve seen friendship groups split by weddings, decade-long relationships end shortly after a wedding, and a spouse turned into a widower in the course of a year.

Yet here I was, sweltering under the November sun, on a fake beach hanging out with friends I’d known for thirty-odd years. I spent a lazy afternoon on a sun lounger thinking about those moments in life you can look back on and think ‘And that’s when everything changed.’

And change did indeed come. Around the same time we were flying back to the UK there was an unexplained breakout of pneumonia half the world away in Wuhan. I suspect I don’t need to tell you how that played out…

The idea developed as I started thinking about how someone might use world-altering powers in a very everyday way. Cinema had been full of superheroes engaged in loud galactic-stakes battles and so I was drawn to the mundane and quiet.

By the time the first national lockdown came into force in March 2020, I’d started writing my story of a time traveller who has come back to 2018 on a desperate mission to prevent a future disaster. Instead of engaging in some techno-thriller manipulation of the timeline, my protagonist was attempting to save Daily Grind, a long-lost neighbourhood coffee shop due to burn down in a tragic fire that leaves one dead.

As the world went into hibernation, I dedicated an hour or two a day before work shutting out the rising death tolls and political turbulence on my story. It’s probably not an over-statement to say it kept me sane and hopeful when everything seemed to be falling apart.

In one sense, The Rules of Time Travel is a pandemic novel. But I wanted to make sure it wasn’t shaped by the pandemic in ways that would date it, or make it less enjoyable to read.

Edits took time. But also releasing the book seemed such high stakes. What if it flopped? What if the book I was so proud of was actually a total stinker? So, I procrastinated.

I procrastinated so hard, I wrote a whole other novel to force myself to publish something.

In fact, I procrastinated so hard, I also wrote a prequel novella, which is now available for free exclusively to newsletter subscribers.

But now The Rules of Time Travel is out and finding its readers. It’s an exciting next step in its journey and I’m so pleased that people are meeting Jack and Rey and hanging out in Daily Grind.

Once a book is out in the wild, there’s lots of work to do. Promotion and marketing can easily fill any spare time previously set aside for writing. And I’ve got exciting plans for Slay Ride 2, which I can’t wait to get stuck into. In short, I’m terrible at taking a step back and appreciating the achievement of publication.

So, this is a long way of saying I’m very proud of The Rules of Time Travel. I hope you’ll enjoy it. And, if you have read and enjoyed it, please do remember to rate and leave a review on Amazon to help more readers find it.