An Introduction To… The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane

Hi there! With work on The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane continuing and nearing completion, I thought I’d take some time to explore everything you might like to know prior to reading the book upon publication.

First of all, as you may know if you’ve been around here for a little while, The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane will be a completely free eBook just like all of my other new releases. It’s something I started with Lighter Fluid and have continued with pretty much all of my books, because I like the element of accessibility that it adds. No matter if you can’t spend any money on the book, or you need to access it as a document to adjust the font/size to read comfortably, or you just want to be able to read it on your phone, you’ll be able to get a copy for no cost at all. I use Smashwords.com for all of my eBooks, so feel free to check out some of my other books while The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane is still in the works – and hey, why not leave a review? I’m always really appreciative of feedback!

If you prefer the feel of a printed book, then I’ve got you covered there too. I use Blurb’s self-publishing service for my print books, and try to price them as reasonably as possible – as any other self-published authors will know, profits aren’t exactly high when you want to keep the price down because you have to factor in the printing cost (which likely includes the self-publishing service’s cut) and the distribution percentage (the bit of money which goes to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) before even thinking about your own little bit of profit. However, I do try to keep them as low as I can. The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane is going to be one of my longer books, at between 300 and 400 pages, so the price is going to be a little higher than, for example, each book in The Cats Collection or some of my poetry collections like Intricacies Inked In Ice.

Now, I should probably spend some time actually talking about what’s in the book rather than just everything around it. The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane has been a project I’ve been working on for several years. I wrote the initial draft during Camp NaNoWriMo one year (feel free to friend me on the website if you also participate – my username is ‘oskarleonard’!) when I doubled my 20,000 wordcount goal to 40,000, and the novel then grew to 80,000 which I’m very happy with. It’s a fantasy of manners novel, which I personally like to describe as ‘fantasy where words solve problems rather than swords’. The entire premise is based around a Demon’s office, where Mr. Ambrose – the Demon – works in his species’ usual role of sorting out the soul accounts of the Souled. You can just think of those as the normal ‘humans’ of this world.

In this novel, your soul is a form of currency, and it can be divided into very small percentages for important purchases. For example, a percentage could be the deposit for a house, or a soul could be divided in a will between different family members. Imagine if your bank account was intricately connected to your being, and becoming ‘bankrupt’ left you as a shell of a person, not completely zombie-like but more prone to issues like depression and alcoholism, and estranged from a prejudiced, fiercely hierarchal society. The tech level is a blend of Victorian and early 1900s – there’s early telephones but letters are very much the main form of communication, and no one’s so much as heard of a computer yet, haha.

Our protagonist, Chance Poe, is a Souled secretary to Mr. Ambrose whose life has been pretty quiet so far. Standard school, standard first job, standard little house with a cat and a Soulless friend living outside. However, one of the main rules of this soul-based currency is that one person cannot own more than four souls at one time, making owners of four souls quite prominent and respected, especially to their Demon offices. A new four-souled account has appeared on the books at Mr. Ambrose’s Demon office, and neither he nor Chance has any recollection of the owner: Freya Hill. This strange occurrence leads them into an investigation which puts them both in physical danger, uncovers corruption in the soul system and, quite unexpectedly for both of them, leads to a little bit of a blossoming romance between the two, rather taboo for their conservative society.

Now, I won’t lie – if you’re looking for a steamy, erotic M/M romance, this is not your book. This is about as slow-burn as it gets, and I’m perfectly happy with that. If you like watching a tentative ‘we shouldn’t but these feelings are getting stronger and it’s hard to deny them’ narrative play out, then this is absolutely your book. I intentionally made the mystery the forefront of this novel, but the steadily growing romance is definitely a factor of the novel – like an additional layer for you to enjoy.

Oh, and there’s Reapers. So, just to recap, we have Souled (normal humans) and Demons (very large, very muscled humanoids with horns on their heads), and Demons are in charge of the Souled’s souls, in very official office settings. I imagine them as being akin to lawyers’ or attorneys’ offices, but that might just be me haha. However, we also have Reapers. Reapers are humanoid, but their ‘skin’ is reptilian scales and they have wings that are reminiscent of bat wings, and they’re pitch-black in colour. In this society, the Reapers are at the top – they’re the judges, the lawmakers, the ones in charge of the cities, etc. This is from how life in this setting evolved – there’s always been these three species, and in ancient times the Reapers and the Demons would trick and prey on the Souled. Now, they just have them trapped in this hierarchy that is part societal and part biological – although, there are, of course, exceptions to this rule, which may be explored in later content.

So, if any of that sounds at all interesting, I’d recommend swinging by the website in the first week of July to catch the release of The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane. Because of how my publishing platforms work, the eBook will be out a lot sooner than the print book, so you can always take the story for a trial run with the free version before committing to buying a physical copy, if you like. If you’re curious about the cover, then head over to Upcoming Releases to have a look!

I do think that this will probably be some of my best fiction work so far. It’s been through beta-reading courtesy of The Young Writers’ Initiative (also, I offer beta-reading through Fiverr if you’re interested in that!) and many, many proofreading and editing runs by myself, and it’s a universe that I’ve genuinely fallen in love with. If you like fantasy that’s regulated by laws and procedures rather than weapons and violence, punctuated with a little bit of hesitant gay romance and a wonderful friendship, as well as a ginger cat called Marmalade (yes, I’m very inventive, haha) then I can nearly guarantee that you’ll love this book. And, even if you don’t, if you’re just trying out the free eBook then you’re completely free to put it down and never return to it again, having wasted no money at all!

That being said, if you would like to support me, then there are ways to do so. I’m a young (I can’t say teenage anymore, having graduated to a full twenty years of age) student author studying a full-time English Literature with Creative Writing degree at Edge Hill University, alongside freelance beta-reading and writing work to pay the bills and feed myself. I’m also a trans man (transitioned female to male) and proud bisexual, and it is Pride Month so I feel like that’s relevant haha, but I also try to do a lot of positive work around LGBT+ topics, like the gay slow-burn romance in The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane and my LGBT+ short story/advice collection Everything Under The Rainbow, which contains links and organisations for LGBT+ teens in the UK to access alongside short stories specifically focused on LGBT+ issues (think coming out to your parents, dealing with homophobic bullying, struggling with gender dysphoria, etc.). I’ve also performed at Wigan Pride and used to be part of Wigan Council’s LGBT+ youth voice group, BYOU, where we did a lot of positive campaigning for the local LGBT+ community.

So if you’ve read all of this and you like what I do, consider leaving a tip on my Ko-Fi so I can keep creating literature which entertains, helps and maybe educates a little – even if it’s just teaching you about Demons, Reapers and Souled. I’ve got an example of one of my costs as a goal for my account – it costs £10 for me to get a copy of my own books when they come out, which I love having in a little section on my bookshelf, so you could be the very generous person who helps me towards being able to get my own printed copy of The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane. If not, no worries! I’d be over the moon if you took a little time out of your day to check out my eBooks on Smashwords, read one that tickles your fancy and leave a review, or share it with some of your friends. Or heck, just send me an email letting me know what you thought. Sometimes it feels crazy that actual people are reading the words that I put out there – it’s an awesome feeling, but definitely a bit surreal too.

If you’d like to get an email as soon as I publish The Demon Of Darkenhall Lane, then head over to my home page and subscribe to my newsletter! You’ll get a link straight to your inbox once I publish the novel, and probably a little paragraph about how much I appreciate you, haha. But seriously, if you’re still reading this, then thank you. It means a lot that some people out there are interested in what I do, and it feels magical that I can communicate with you like this.