A few of my older fans have been asking recently if I had any more Darren Dash novels in the pipeline -- that's the pseudonym I use when I release books for adults. While I certainly plan to release plenty more Darren Dash books going forward, sadly I don't have a new one lined up in the immediate future, and I figured this would be good time to explain the reason why things have been quiet on that front since I released Molls Like It Hot a year and a half ago.

In short, it's all Archibald Lox's fault! I started a new Darren Shan series last year, but like my Darren Dash novels, it's self-published, which means I have to spend far longer on the process than I normally would. With a traditional publisher, I write the books, edit them, tour with them, and that's pretty much it from my end. As a self-publisher I have to do everything, from typesetting to organising covers to uploading them across the various sales platforms to promoting and publicising to...

Basically, it's a lot more work, and that's meant I haven't really been able to focus on anything except Archie for the last couple of years. Under normal circumstances there would have been another Darren Dash book in 2021 (I'd been averaging a new one every 18 months or so), but instead we're going to have to "settle" for three new Archibald Lox books, which are being released over the course of the summer.

The good news is that there's only one more volume of Archie to go after this one -- I expect to release the last three books in the series next spring or summer -- and as I work well ahead of my publication schedules, it means I should be able to start looking at other projects a little later this year. If all goes well, I'll release a new Dash book for adults at some point in 2022, though I can't guarantee that. What I can say is that I'm as eager to get another one out there as soon as I can, so I'll do my best. Fingers crossed!!!

For more info about those Archibald Lox books, check out the June issue of my Shanville Monthly newsletter, which can be found here: https://darrenshan.com/news/shanville-monthly