Lost Souls .....

Today’s guest blog post is by author Seth Patrick.  He is the author of the Reviver trilogy, the first of which was published June 2013. 

When it came to writing the sequel to my debut novel Reviver (Lost Souls, out now!) plenty of people who’d read it were open with their suggestions. Reviver is a blend of crime and horror. Inevitably, some crime fans wanted the sequel to be more crime, while some horror fans wanted it to be more horror.

I had a long, hard think about what I wanted Lost Souls to be.

After all, ‘genre’ can be a troublesome thing. Any kind of pigeonholing tempts us to adopt in-group thinking, and there will always be those who enjoy the mischief of stirring up trouble between groups – or, worse, who genuinely believe that their idea of ‘best’ is the only one with currency.

That long, hard think bore fruit. Odd as it may sound, it had never occurred to me before that the subject matter of the novels I love is far less important than the reading experience itself. I’ve read plenty of horror and science fiction that was devoid of excitement, trust me. When I profess a love for those genres, the practical outcome is simply that I cut them more slack.

Now, I’ve started to think of genre in a different way. The books I love are, almost without exception, exciting. They’re suspenseful. They’re pacy.

They’re thrillers.

Horror thrillers, Crime thrillers, SF thrillers. Yet why limit it? ‘Thriller’ is usually treated as a sub-genre, but I think it deserves a promotion.

So, back to the question about Lost Souls. Should it be more crime, or more horror?

I realised there was only one thing that mattered.

More thriller.

Lost Souls by Seth Patrick, Pan Macmillan, £7.99

JONAH MILLER, REVIVER. Able to wake the recently dead for testimony that is accepted in courts worldwide, the use of revivers has long been a routine part of police investigation. But now those who consider it blasphemy are in resurgence - well-funded and gaining ground, they threaten the work of Jonah and his colleagues in the Forensic Revival Service. Jonah is still recovering from the injuries received after unearthing the existence of a creature bent on terrible destruction, a creature defeated at the cost of many lives. Then the discovery of a bizarrely mutilated corpse makes Jonah suspect that the victory was not as complete as it seemed, and that not all the evil was destroyed. For in the darkness, shadows are waiting. And they are hungry ...

You can find out more about Seth Patrick and his work on his blog.  You can also follow him on Twitter @SethPatrickUK