As we hurtle inexorably into 2023, I need I ought to point out to any hardy souls who happen upon this page by accident that both of my hilarious comedy spy thrillers, A Very Important Teapot and Bored to Death in the Baltics are still available for anybody who (a) enjoys reading, (b) enjoys laughing and (c) does not enjoy books containing hundreds of pages of dull descriptive text. There are various links dotted around here which usually work. Or you can contact me direct on steve@stevesheppardauthor.com, in which case I’ll be so excited to get an email from this source that I’ll certainly do you a discount.
In further news, and after two years of graft and indecision, in early December I typed The End on the first draft of Dawson&Lucy#3, which currently has the title Poor Table Manners. I am shortly about to ensure the story makes sense and remove at least two characters and 20,000 words. Spoiler alert: most of the action takes place in and around Cape Town. The reason why it’s taken me two months and counting to start the editing process (apart from the dread of doing so) is that I’ve been busy scribbling away on a further book, one which does not include Dawson (or indeed Lucy). It’s called Three Years Ago and may become the first in a new series with a new main protagonist, Mel Marshall. What happened three years ago? You will have to wait and see.
The title of Bored to Death in the Baltics will tell you that, unlike A Very Important Teapot, the story does not unfold in Australia. Most of the action takes place in various parts of Estonia (with parts of Surrey thrown in), four months on from Teapot. Apart from Dawson and Lucy, a couple of other major characters from the first book make a welcome (or unwelcome) reappearance (Elaine, Underwood, Prokofiev) but there are of course several new faces to add to the fun and mayhem. Including two sets of twins.
When a bomb explodes in front of Dawson on a sunny June morning, he is lucky to escape. Certainly luckier than the man he is following.
But finding himself a few hours later in the bilges of a ship is less fortunate as that is not how he’d planned to spend his weekend.
- Who is the man assassinated by the bomb?
- Where is Dawson being taken, and by whom?
- Will Lucy Smith track him down in time?
- What is happening underground in rural Estonia and leafy Surrey?
- Who is the double agent within MI6?
- What have the tantalising Sesks twins got to do with it all?
- Can Dawson and Lucy distinguish Wright from Rong?
- And can Dawson avoid being bored to death?
Available on Amazon Now
Meanwhile, sales of A Very Important Teapot continue to trickle out, and not just in the UK, which I still find extraordinary. If you are reading this and have not yet caught up with it, by all means purchase it from Mr Amazon if that rocks your boat, but I am more than happy to supply signed (or unsigned) copies direct if you contact me via this website or on stevesheps22@gmail.com. Whilst you can enjoy Bored to Death as a standalone story if you haven’t read Teapot, I’m sure you would agree that it’s better for all of us if you have
To recap, A Very Important Teapot is a comedy thriller set largely in Australia. The main protagonist, Dawson, gets caught up in events way outside his comfort zone when he is offered an unspecified job by his best friend. All sorts of mayhem ensue, involving gangsters and diamonds. Then the espionage agencies of three different countries, the local police and folk music.
Available to purchase on Amazon and through any bookshop. To find out more look here.
As for me, I was born and brought up in Guildford in a house with a river at the bottom of the garden. This makes me sound quite posh, but it wasn’t a very big house, and it wasn’t a very big river. Nine years at boarding school failed to teach me anything about how to be an adult and actually becoming an adult also failed in this respect. Several years later, having acquired a family and pets, I ended up in West Oxfordshire, largely by accident, and now after a quarter of a century, sans both family and pets, I have moved back closer to my roots (to avoid the paparazzi) and am now living in Petersfield. If Man has seven stages of life, I’m just about starting on Stage 6.
