It’s official, the Guardians of Time Book Four will be released in 2017. The month is yet to be determined, but it will be this year. The wait is shortening. Within six-eight months The Guardians of Time Book Four will be released.

It looks like 2017 is going to be the year of the follow ups. Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere was originally published 21 years ago, and now he tells us he’s writing a follow up called The Seven Sisters. So what has inspired Neil Gaiman to write the follow up after such a long time? This is what he said last week in The Guardian:

“When Lenny Henry and I came up with the original idea for Neverwhere almost 25 years ago, what attracted us was the idea that we could talk about the homeless, talk about the dispossessed, talk about the people who fall through the cracks, and do it in a way that was exciting and fun and interesting and also relevant and might change people’s heads.

“Neverwhere for me was this glorious vehicle where I could talk about huge serious things and have a ridiculous amount of fun on the way. The giant wheel has turned over the last few years and looking around the work I have been doing for UNHCR for refugees, the kind of shape … London is in now, the kind of ways [it] is different to how it was 20 years ago, meant that I decided that it actually was time to do something.

“Now I had things I was angry about. I cared about things I wanted to put in and I’m now a solid three chapters in to a book called The Seven Sisters.”

And then there’s Philip Pullman. He’s following up His Dark Materials, remember The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass? Who could forget those amazing books. They sold multi millions in 40 languages between 1995 and 2000, and there was even the movie with Nicole Kidman. Philip Pulman’s follow up starts with a book called The Book of Dust and is set to be another trilogy.

From Philip Pulman’s website, this is what he says about why he wrote The Book of Dust:

“I know from their letters and tweets that my readers have been waiting patiently (mostly) for The Book of Dust for a long time. I’ve been writing it for several years, and I’ve been very parsimonious with information about it. It gives me great pleasure and some excitement at last to satisfy their curiosity (and mine) about this book.   

 

“What can I tell you about it? The first thing to say is that Lyra is at the centre of the story. Events involving her open the first chapter, and will close the last. I’ve always wanted to tell the story of how Lyra came to be living at Jordan College and, in thinking about it, I discovered a long story that began when she was a baby and will end when she’s grown up. This volume and the next will cover two parts of Lyra’s life: starting at the beginning of her story and returning to her 20 years later.”

 

 

So what inspired me to write the follow up to The Named, The Dark and The Key? Like Philip Pulman, my readers have been requesting a sequel since The Key was published in 2005, twelve years ago. Where it’s different for me, I was planning a fourth book even before The Key’s release. I have notes I’d written from that time, an outline for Book Four, but my life turned upside down that year when I was diagnosed with Myelofibrosis (bone marrow cancer) after seeing my doctor because I was feeling very tired. I don’t think anyone knew it would be 8 years before I would be published again with The Avena Series – Hidden, Broken and Fearless.

Then there’s the matter of timing. The timing just feels right now. All going well, Book Four won’t be just the conclusion, but also the beginning of a new journey.