Spotlight: Dead Right

Book 2 in the Wolftown series

As you read this, I’ll be flying back from MFF, where Dead Right was released! Thanks to everyone who came by and bought one, or picked one up online. I hope y’all enjoy it!

This is the second book in my Wolftown series. The first, Unfinished Business, grew out of a short story (technically novelette) that I wrote for Heat (RIP) and published under the Kyell Gold name. I took out the sex and changed the name for the first novel, and finished that one with a vague idea that I liked the world and that there would be more story to tell.

That vague idea is much firmer now. The third book in the series is done and awaiting revision—with luck, it’ll be out within a year. And there are three more planned after that, so there’ll be at least six. You never know after that…you know I love going back to worlds I’ve explored (because I’m lazy and I hate worldbuilding).

Dead Right was not the sequel I’d envisioned. The first book ends with a pretty big hook for future adventures, but also a more subtle hook in the sense that our protagonist has lost something he needs to replace. I was looking for a replacement that would be narratively interesting and fun to write, and that’s how the idea for the story came about.

I’d initially thought this world would be about were-creatures, and I am enjoying that part of it, but I find I’m reluctant to write too much about other cultures’ weres, as much as I find them fascinating. What has grabbed me that I didn’t expect was having ghosts in this world. Readers of my Dangerous Spirits series (and even the Calatians books to some extent) will know I have a thing for ghosts, and that came up here again.

The connection to activism came from the world we live in. Jae in particular is caught in a dilemma: in principle he agrees with the activists, but they are protesting against a system he not only benefits from, but relies on to make a living. Just being seen as allied with activists could endanger the pipeline of clients he gets, and then his career as a private detective would be over. So he has to tread carefully and make compromises he doesn’t always like. At the same time, he realizes how important activism is to make change in the world.

The climactic scene is one of the most complicated scenes I’ve written, with like eight or nine characters interacting, and I had to redo it multiple times to get it right, but I’m really proud of it. The Kirkus review even called it out, which made me very waggy.

I keep discovering more about the world the more I write in it, and I’m excited to keep exploring!

Right now you can get Dead Right from the publisher, and the first week of January, we’ll have the e-book up on all the usual retail sites.