Sequel, Schmequel...

I don't know if I've mentioned it (LOLZ, only a bajillion times) but I've got a book coming out. Assembling the Wingpeople will be published on 7th October and you can pre-order a copy here. 

In preparation for its arrival, I've been sending out copies to reviewers. Lovely people who have agreed to give up their time and read the thing, resulting in a bunch of reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Over the past week, those reviewers have received their books and been posting online, telling the world how excited they are to read it. 

If you follow me on Instagram (@bondiela) you'll know this only too well. Look, blame my siblings. My sister and brother took me aside on the Bond family caravan holiday in May and taught me all about Stories. It was an absolute game changer to my Insta efforts. I've been reposting and sharing all the comment, vids, and pictures I've seen, willy nilly. Brace yourselves followers, we've a long way to go before we're back to my badly-snapped food photos.

Deborah Kerr, reading my 
lines there.

So first off, let me say a big THANK YOU to everyone who expressed an interest, agreed to take part, and will be reading it over the next few weeks. I'm really grateful and I hope you enjoy it. Secondly, I had a bit of a panic after I'd sent the books out. It was my dad's fault. He happened to ask how I thought everyone would handle a sequel when they won't have read the first book. (Carry the Beautiful. Available from all good online bookshops, here.) And I've got to say, I hadn't given it a second thought. I think I'd forgotten all about the first book. (Carry the Beautiful. Available from all good online bookshops, here.) I've been all about Assembling the Wingpeople for so long.

Me and my panic.

I knew I didn't want to write a sequel. I didn't want to pick up where the last page of CTB left off. I needed a gap so some time could pass. Back in the day, my intention was to aim more for a serial vibe*. Like Dickens or Armistead Maupin. I liked the idea of dropping sporadically into a familiar world (contemporary North West England** in my case, Victorian London for Dickens, and late 20th century San Francisco for Maupin) and tell the stories of different characters at different times. So, for example, in Carry the Beautiful, Bea Charleston is Tilda's mate from the office. We don't know much about her, other than she likes the banter and is always up for a laugh. She's there to prop up Tilda's story. But in Assembling the Wingpeople, she takes her place as a main character. She's got an inner world, motivations, and lots of drama. Next time, I can focus on someone else - someone that may have only been a name in passing so far.  

So that was the plan. But then I checked out the definition of a sequel. The OED says it's...

1. A book, film, play etc that continues the story of an earlier one.

2. Something that happens after an earlier event.

 

I am 100% confident, no 
one will ask this. OK, 98%.

So there you go. I've written a sequel. It wasn't my intention but it's hard to argue with the facts. Assembling the Wingpeople continues the story a couple of years later, and most of the plot points wouldn't happen without the events of Carry the Beautiful. Damn. Have I really screwed the reviewers over? Will they even have a clue what's going on?

Yeah, course they will. They're not stupid. And I must have given this some thought when I wrote it, because I do provide a bit of backstory now and then. I don't rehash the entirety of the previous book, but there's the odd reference and flashback to make clear what went before. Both books work as stand alone stories. At least, I think they do. It might give the reader a much deeper understanding of the characters if they've read both in order, but it shouldn't really matter. I hope it doesn't anyway. 

But it's all OK. Because then I remembered something else that reassured me.

Ah Lisbeth. Your adventures were cracking.

In 2009, whilst at the Borders' till, I bought a discounted book on a whim. (Oh Borders. GBNF. Sob.) A few months later when I was looking for something to read, I gave it a go and I loved it. At first, I hadn't got a clue what was going on, but it didn't matter. The characters hooked me in and the plot made sense eventually. Every so often, someone would refer to something from the past, and I'd assume it was just backstory. When I finished, I felt satisfied that I'd read a really good book, Obvs you'll have twigged I'd read a sequel instead of the first part. But the thing was, I'd read The Girl Who Played With Fire. That was the second book in the Stieg Larsson trilogy. If you know the first - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, you'll know how the ending of that, utterly impacts the opening of the second novel. Lisbeth Salander is on the run in Grenada, far away from Sweden and the people looking for her because of the events of Book One. And yet, I had no clue. It mattered not a jot. Of course, once I learned there was a prior book, I read that and also loved it. And, yeah, there were a couple of times when something I hadn't understood now made complete sense, but ultimately it didn't matter.

Everyone loves a
bit of mystery, right?

I reckon Assembling the Wingpeople is well easier to pick up and read fresh, than the weighty, translated tome that was The Girl Who Played With Fire. I'm not worried in the slightest. And don't they say you should always write a book as if you're starting from Chapter 3? A bit of mystery, and a few things left unexplained isn't a bad thing. So I'll stop worrying. It'll all be fine. Now I just have to wait for the reviews.

Have a lovely week, folks.

*I now know a true serial would be published in instalments, with each smaller section complete in its own right. In hindsight, I was miles off.

**And yet ironically, the North West is barely mentioned in Assembling. We're all about the mid-Wales coast this time.