#The A-Team meets World of Warcraft

A few years ago, Seven Deaths of an Empire (Solaris) was released into bookshops, a rollicking tale of wars, politics, betrayal, assassinations and magic, but it wasn’t my first book.

For that you’d have to look to The Stone Road, a kung fu fantasy based upon my love of Hong Kong cinema from the 70s and 80s. Then Silent City, a sci-fi series set under the water with a single protagonist (you could never call him a hero), a drunkard, a mess of a man, with no real skills except sarcasm and stubbornness.

Well, now I’ve written a book in a new world, a book I’m tagging as “The A-Team meets World of Warcraft.” Obviously, you need a bit of 80s Nostalgia to know the A-Team, but think SWAT, NCIS, HUSTLE, but with more guns, more shooting, and more improbable action.

Why write in another new world, I hear you ask (through the magic of imagination alone)? 

The world in this book is a less-than-merry-old-England. It is the places near where I grew up, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight. A land of rolling countryside, small towns, hidden Army and Research Bases, Standing Stone Circles, Figures carved into hillsides and barrows of the ancestors. If there was ever a land where myths and legends could be written and come to life, it’s here, in the place where I grew up.

Why these characters?

Another excellent question from you all. The answer is because I’ve never really written a Team-Based story before. All my other books have a main protagonist, or two, with supporting characters. I wanted to really dive into team dynamics, have multiple people, all skilled, all complete, who could bring something to the story and have their own story going on alongside the plot. More than that thought, it is just so much more fun to write characters who bicker and laugh with one another whilst working to a common goal.

Is there magic in the book?

Without a shadow of a doubt, there is magic!

Are there dragons?

Also, yes, there are dragons.

Is there any mention of Broccoli or other cabbage related vegetables?

What a weirdly specific question from you. Um… no. No Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflowers or sprouts.

And on that note, hoping that answer helped encourage you to buy the book when it is released on 5th September 2024, I’ll leave you to read the blurb and enjoy the cover.

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Blurb:

Thirty years ago, the world as we knew it changed.

At CERN, in Switzerland, the largest Hadron Collider in the world, accelerating particles to as close to light-speed as humans could manage, an experiment went wrong, weakening the fabric of our reality, creating a bridge between worlds, between universes. 

The scientists called it a Wormhole, but everyone else named it the RIFT.

And they came through in their thousands. All the creatures of our myths and legends, of our nightmares and fears.

We tried to stand against them. We were desperate. We lost.

Now just a few enclaves hold out against the hordes and on the South Coast of England, a rag-tag group of mercenaries work for whomever will pay them, taking on jobs no one else would be stupid enough to attempt.

An ex-soldier about to be reminded what duty means, a sniper with a hidden past, an engineer who can fix anything, and a young magician who has no idea what the future holds.

Pre-order now for just 0.99

And now, for the cover itself:

Cover design by James, GoOnWrite.com

Last Winter Sun is due for release 5th September. You can pre-order your copy for 0.99 on Amazon now!

After studying for a Diploma in Creative Writing, G R Matthews taught the subject at A Level and holds a BSc (Hons) in Geography. Currently working in education with a focus on Child Protection and Safeguarding, he finds time to write in the evenings between battles to get his children to go to bed and the desire to binge watch Eureka on Netflix. He has also studied (been hit a lot) the martial arts of Judo, Kung fu, Wing Chun, and Kickboxing – and is not particularly skilled in any of them (hence the being hit a lot).

A D&D enthusiast, G R Matthews prefers the rogue (stabby stabby… who me?) as it suits his imagination and allows him to hide from all the things that go (accidently) wrong during a dungeon crawl… (and no one can prove I set fire to that town… it was only a little fire, honest!). As a self-taught guitarist the best that can be said is that at least he doesn’t sing along to the songs (all the time) and the few thousand (poor) people who’ve heard him play (and sing) are mostly fine (some, to be fair, are still in recovery, but we wish them well).

At night, he sits and dreams that Spielberg, Lucas, Keanu Reeves, someone, anyone, reads his books and thinks they’d make a great movie series (they would, that much is definitely true). With two children (where did they come from?), a wife (long suffering, caring, strong), G R Matthews is known for his self-deprecating sense of humour (true), his chiseled jawline (false), and his long career as a heart-throb film star (utterly false).

Website | X (formerly known as Twitter)*: @G_R_Matthews | Facebook | Instagram: @g_r_matthews 

Corin Hayes | Seven Deaths of an Empire | YouTube trailer for Seven Deaths | The Forbidden List