A series of nuclear strikes has left huge swathes of the country uninhabitable. It’s a level playing field now: both Hater and Unchanged alike have to fight to stay alive. Both have retreated to their camps to regroup, less than twenty miles away from each other.
It’s here that the last major battle of the final war will inevitably be fought, but neither side has any idea what’s waiting for them just around the corner.
Both armies are ready to fight to the death, each of their leaders hell-bent on victory. Their tactics are uniformly simple: strike first, get the enemy in a chokehold, then strangle the life out of them.
It’s very bleak, very bloody, and I hope you enjoy it!
The release of CHOKEHOLD is just two months away. I have a few spare advance copies of the book that I’d like to do something useful with, so I thought a quick giveaway would be in order. The rules of entry are simple: make some noise online about the new book or the earlier novels in the series (ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING and ALL ROADS END HERE) and I’ll put your name in the hat for an advance copy of CHOKEHOLD. You can post a review, tweet something, post to Facebook or Instagram – anything that helps me get the word out.
Let me know what you’ve done by filling in the form below.
I need to get something off my chest. Right, here goes… I once took literary inspiration from E L James, author of the unfeasibly popular Fifty Shades series. I don’t mean to offend fans of Fifty Shades with that comment, but you have to admit, those books are unfeasibly popular. Something like 150 million copies sold? That’s incredible.
So, on one hand, it’s hats off to Ms James, because she’s found a formula people clearly like and she’s sticking to it. You could argue that I’ve done exactly the same (though I do at least try to experiment – the book I’m currently writing is nothing like anything I’ve released previously). On the other hand, though, from what I understand of the books in the second Fifty Shades series, they’re pretty much a scene for scene rehashes of the first, just with the internal thoughts of an impressionable young student replaced with those of a complete fucking pervert.
And I’m claiming I was inspired by this series? Let me explain…
I’ve said before that the second HATER trilogy came as a result of discussions I’d had with Ed Barratt, producer of the upcoming HATER movie, about a potential TV adaptation. The original books were told exclusively from Danny McCoyne’s perspective, and whilst that worked well on paper, it would have been hard going on screen. A TV series would need to dive deeper and fill in the blanks, following different characters and situations to ramp up the drama and keep the viewers’ interest. And for a while I was struggling to work out how I would do that.
A lot of people have asked how the six books in the two HATER series tie together. Here’s my answer.
The HATER series is available now in print, ebook and audiobook (US and Canada only). The final book in the series – CHOKEHOLD – is out on 19 November from Thomas Dunne Books.
Well that was interesting! A few weeks ago I asked an obvious question on my website, Facebook and Twitter. I wanted to know which side you’d choose: HATER or UNCHANGED. The results are in.
I thought it would be interesting to just ask the one question with no follow-ups. I could have asked whereabouts in the world you live or any number of other questions to see if what factors affected your allegiance, but I didn’t. In the HATER books, the Hate ignores all our existing differences, so it made sense for this very unscientific poll to do the same.
369 people voted across this website, Facebook and Twitter, with 59% of people picking Haters over Unchanged. Interestingly, this varied between platform. On my website the split was 49% Hater, 51% Unchanged, on Facebook it was 62% Hater, 38% Unchanged, and on Twitter it was 58% Hater and 42% Unchanged. Does that mean people feel more Hate on social media sites than here on my warm and welcoming website? I don’t know, maybe they do. Interestingly, Haters were far more vocal, with around 60% of comments being from Haters and only 40% Unchanged.
So there you have it. Totally unscientific and little more than a ‘finger in the wind’ exercise. Still, if you’re in the UK like me, I hope this has taken your mind off the other votes we’re currently having to contend with for a couple of blissful minutes!
One last thing. I was interested to read a comment on this poll where the commenter said their allegiance had switched now they’re reading the second HATER trilogy because it tells the story from the Unchanged perspective. If I’m honest, the same thing happened to me while I was writing the books. As I worked my way through HATER, DOG BLOOD and THEM OR US I was Hater all the way. But having spent the last few years writing ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING, ALL ROADS END HERE and CHOKEHOLD, my loyalties seemed to switch. I wonder if, by the time you’ve read CHOKEHOLD, you’ll have come to the same conclusions about the state of the human race as I did…
I’ve been running polls on Facebook and Twitter recently to ask this most basic of questions that I’ve never asked before, but because it’s increasingly difficult to keep something visible on social media without paying through the nose, I’ve decided to ask the same question again here. I’ll keep this poll open for at least a week, then I’ll report back with the final summarised results.
ALL ROADS END HERE hits the shelves today. This is where the first and second HATER trilogies begin to collide. See how many returning characters you can spot…
The shit’s about to hit the fan, and this time Matthew Dunne is right at the epicentre.
Two weeks now until the release of ALL ROADS END HERE, the book which fellow author CRAIG DILOUIE said “reminds us why we love HATER, adding a fresh perspective and story to his classic series.”
As is customary, signed copies are available. Visit www.infectedbooks.co.uk to order one. And if you haven’t yet read ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING, use voucher code ‘FinalWar’ and get £5 off when you buy both books.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this one. It dives right back into the heart of the first HATER trilogy, whilst telling a completely new story. There’s lots of cross-over with the original books, and it sets up the HUGE confrontation which you’ll read about in CHOKEHOLD, the absolute final HATER novel, which I hope will be out later in 2019.
Time flies. It’s a year now since ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING – HATER book #4 (or The Final War book #1, depending on your perspective) – was released. I always harboured a sneaking suspicion that the book wouldn’t go down well with everyone and, well, I was right. Sales haven’t been as good as I’d hoped, and it’s my worst reviewed book on Goodreads. But lots of folks really like it. And I really like it. And it serves an important purpose.
When I decided to write a second HATER trilogy, I always knew I’d have to go right back to the beginning and introduce new characters. I also knew the book would need to be very different to HATER to emphasise the shift in perspective between the two trilogies. More than being a (very) self-contained survival horror story, though, ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING laid the groundwork for the next two books in the series – ALL ROADS END HERE and CHOKEHOLD (both of which will be published in 2019). And you know what? I think you’re going to have a blast with the direction the rest of the story is going to take.
ALL ROADS END HERE is a sequel to bothONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING and HATER, and promotion will be kicking off in the new year. I’ll tell you lots more about the new book after Christmas, but if you’re nice and relaxed over the holiday period and you feel like a little hate-fuelled angst to go with your turkey and trimmings, why not re-read DOG BLOOD. Not wanting to give too much away, but you’re going to be meeting several familiar faces from the first HATER trilogy when ALL ROADS END HERE hits the shelves in February!
