No, I didn’t hurriedly churn out a fourth book (as if I could), but I did come up with a few extra pages to the saga. Partly as a writing exercise, partly as an answer to a challenge, I composed a short story involving characters from the Dallas Green novels. (You know the titles: Maximilian and Carlotta Are Dead, Lautaro’s Spear, Searching for Cunégonde.)
No, Dallas himself isn’t in it, and no, he isn’t the narrator, but we do learn a few new things of which it turns out my errant protagonist was ignorant.
Once I wrote this thing (it’s called “Rendezvous”), which is the equivalent of about a dozen print pages, the question was what to do with it. I could hold on to it and perhaps develop into something book-length, but that isn’t something that would be happening very soon—if ever. On the other hand, I may write more stories at some point, and this one could become part of a collection, but who knows?
In the meantime, though, I figured, why not share it with readers of the three novels? Think of it as an extra bonus, like a coda or epilogue to the trilogy.
My intention thus is to make it available for free. As it happens, though, that’s trickier than it might at first seem—especially if I want it to be available through my usual sellers. At first I thought I could just release it through my own Aer.io bookstore (Afranor Books), but it turns out that has a minimum book price of $2.99, so you won’t find it there. On the other hand, Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, Rakuten Kobo, Google Play Books and Apple Books all did allow me to set the price to zero. So it is available at all those online stores to acquire for free. Just click on one of the links above.
I have also made it available through Amazon’s Kindle store. That’s where most readers get my books, but the lowest price I could set for it there was 99 cents. So, if you have a Kindle device or app for reading your books and you would like to use it to peruse this new short story, it is up to you whether you want to fork out a bit more than a dollar (with sales tax) or if you want to go to the bother of using a (free) Kobo, Nook, Google Play or Apple Books app on your computer or mobile device to acquire the story and read it at no cost.
So what exactly is this story about anyway? Sorry, if you’re curious, you’ll just have to read it yourself.
As for me, I’m back to doing my best to purge Dallas from my mind and imagination and get back to the sequel to The Curse of Septimus Bridge.
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