Tag Archives: Suspense

Remembrance

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Years before the events of Earth Day, Remembrance is a dark journey of discovery. And, as the Irish proverb says, may you never forget what is worth remembering, or remember what is best forgotten.

Fear the forgotten

“After many years, two former school friends meet by chance. Or do they? Deborah — a high-flying corporate lawyer, now living in New York — remembers a sequence of events one way, while Ben — a travel writer and campaigning journalist — remembers them another. But why?

Unable to shake loose the feeling that something’s wrong, Deborah and Ben return to the rural idyll of their home village in England, to make sense of what really happened during that apparently lost week in their young lives.

What they uncover is more disturbing than anything they could have ever imagined, striking at the very heart of their adolescence, affecting not just their own lives, but the lives, the careers and the reputations of people past and present: an event so unbelievable, only the unimaginable could bring it to an end.”

Remembrance is available NOW on Amazon Kindle

A Darkening of Fortune

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A Darkening of Fortune is the first major novel by Wayne Smallman, author of psychological thriller Lucidity and post-apocalyptic thriller Earth Day.

Justice with extreme prejudice.

“A riot-torn London struggles under a rising tide of racially motivated violence that gradually sweeps up through Birmingham to the great northern cities of Leeds and finally Manchester.

Detective Constable Pooja Chopra — a feisty and gifted second generation British-born Indian — and Detective Sergeant Matthew Bray — a motivated, brash and cocky local lad with a chequered past — of the Criminal Investigation Department in Southwark in London, soon realise the violence might not be everything it appears to be.

Joe — Yusef Iqbal, of Arab-Jewish extraction, and a former competitive martial arts combatant — is on the verge of sealing a lucrative government defence contract that could change his life and the life of his girlfriend, Sarah, forever. But when his presentation to the military is overrun by rioters, Joe inadvertently finds himself in possession of an advanced military prototype, and the temptation to try it out is unimaginable.

Joe is no super hero, and he quickly realises he’s definitely not Ironman, Superman or Batman, when things don’t quite work out the way they do in the movies. As his exploits become more elaborate, Joe becomes the target of a determined Colonel Rooney — head of the prototype research program — who doggedly pursues him and the prototype across the fiery cityscape of a London deep in the grip of turmoil.

Are these riots really an outpouring of a disaffected, racially divided nation on the brink of socioeconomic collapse? Or is there something more sinister and deadly lurking behind the scenes?

In a frantic quest to make good of this one truly unique opportunity, spurred on by memories of his dead father — a vocal campaigner for peace in the Middle East — Joe forges on. He is determined to bring an end to the unrest, rising to a climactic conclusion in his native Manchester, amidst a backdrop of raging street battles and, in doing so, resurrects dark demons from his youth.

But what price must Joe and the nation pay for victory, justice and peace?”

A Darkening of Fortune is available NOW on Amazon

A Darkening of Fortune is available to buy right now for Amazon Kindle and Apple’s iBookstore.

Project Status — A Darkening of Fortune

So far, I’ve been working on A Darkening of Fortune (Wraith being its former and provisional name) almost the whole of 2012, and it has been the most difficult novel to date.

As some may remember, I’ve already written a large novel, which came very easily. However, that really isn’t the same here.

Presently, I have a written plan of how the end of the novel must be re-written, and it’s a substantial task.

I’m hoping to have a final draft ready for my editor by the end of the week. But I won’t allow myself to be rushed with this, not with so much depending on this first novel.

Earth Day

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Earth Day is the debut science fiction thriller novella by Wayne Smallman. The story, told like a future fable, follows the challenging and changing fortunes of a young woman attempting to unravel the mystery surrounding a sudden and unstoppable alien invasion of Earth.

In the beginning, we broke our word, and then came the lights

“How might our quarrelsome and wasteful ways be seen through the gaze of more distant, different and dispassionate eyes? And how might a promise once made by the leaders of the world be re-paid having been broken by their successors?

30 years later, on a night whose dark skies were filled with a magical light show the world over, countless towns and cities, entire transport networks as well as billions of people begin to vanish without a trace. But out in the remote rural areas of the world, life goes on unaffected by the invasion, or the enigmatic “lights” that continue to appear out of nowhere, surveying the mundane routines of the survivors.

In the aftermath of this unstoppable invasion by an invincible alien force, one survivor wants more than mere survival; Leonora “Lenny” Dixon wants answers. Why are the invaders here, and what do they want of us?

In search of answers, Lenny and her boyfriend Jay leave the relative safety of Cumbria, a mountainous and rugged region of north-west England, and begin a journey south, through the ruined and abandoned urban sprawl of the great northern city of Manchester. On their way they discover the true and terrifying purpose of the invaders, finally revealing the horrifying truth behind the disappearing industry and civilization of man, and of mankind itself.”

Earth Day is available NOW on Amazon

Earth Day is available to buy right now for Amazon Kindle, as well as other formats on Lulu.