WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE ARRESTED FOR MURDER? Run from the police? Fight to prove your innocence? Take part in a deadly game to win a fortune?
The evidence says he did it. The police, his teachers and his friends think he’s a killer. When the chance comes, teenager Matt Tyler has a choice – face life in prison or run for it.
On the run with no friends, no money and nowhere to go, Matt is cornered by a man calling himself the Bounty Hunter and issued a challenge: survive 48 hours with a rucksack on your back and the million pounds inside it is yours.
Matt joins up with Teagan, who helps him search for answers and stay ahead of the police, the people who framed him and the Bounty Hunter. But she has her own criminal past and a real taste for danger. Can Matt stay alive long enough to prove he’s innocent?
My new book is Seven: The Teenage Hitman, a YA action thriller. It's the third title in the Mondial series, following on from Atticus Crayle: The Accidental Spy and The Secret Identity of Annie Banks.
They're exciting, fast-paced reads - easy to get into and not very long either. The kind of books you'd expect from a fantasist with a short attention span and a low boredom threshold. Book four is on its way.
My own (fictional) story is of a struggling writer - working a normal job by day and writing by night. But I had a secret. I was being watched, followed by someone who never left any evidence of their presence. I never saw them, but I knew they were there. And there was nothing I could do about it. I moved. I changed jobs. It made no difference.
Everything changed when I discovered my stalker was connected to the worlds and characters I was writing about - and that they weren't as fictional or as imaginary as i'd thought. And they did not want me writing about them.
There was no going back. I kept writing and I kept running.
I am the Writer on the Run.
You can find my story serialised on my blog or wait until The Diary of the Writer on the Run: Part 1 is released. Not long now.
As my alter ego, Sarasin Shade, I've written Christmas fantasy adventure Henry Frey and the Elf King - also fast-paced and exciting. Christmas, swords, elves and snow!
I think these Mondial books are excellent. I know they're written for a YA audience and I am not a young adult (except in my head and heart) but I read this in one go. The pace, as always, was fast and furious and no time to get bored. New characters introduced - the pace can make that a bit tricky but you can keep up by going back if necessary, that's the joy of a book! - but you do feel eventually these characters will come together and what an army of skilled young people that will be.
In this one we have Matt - accused of murders he didn't commit - and Teagan joining forces to fight who? Well, that's the complexity, who are they fighting and why... We get hints but all is teasing us into the world that Jason wants us to inhabit along with his protagonists, we find out with them.
This builds on previous books but could also be read as a standalone - but I am confident that if you read one of these, you will want to read all of them...and the next one...and the next one...