Back in 2012, I published my first novel,A Time For Silence. It was a stand-alone novel and I didn’t intend it to be the first of a series. There were to be no sequels. But the story never quite left me alone. I knew where all the characters, past and present, were heading, but where had they come from? What fertile soil had made John Owen the man he was?

I wanted to explore that question and I did, initially, in a short story,A Time To Cast Away. But having written that, it still wouldn’t let me alone. It kept growing in my mind. The stark, spare focus of a short story wanted to put on weight, light candles to bring in the surrounding stage, and I finished up writing a full-blown prequel,The Covenant, which will be published this Thursday, August 20th.

For once…