Time, finally, to talk about my new book. It’s called The Medici Murders and will be out on October the fourth in hardback in the UK, US and in e-book from Severn House, worldwide in audio in English from WF Howes on that same date – available through Audible and all the other usual audio outlets. And there’ll be a mass market paperback from Canongate in summer 2023.

This is what Graham Greene used to call an ‘entertainment’. A story with a lightness to it, a degree of humour and an engaging mystery at heart. Oh, and with an enormous sense of location too. In Venice again, a place I don’t just want to describe for you in The Medici Murders; I want to transport you there so you can hear the gulls and the church bells, smell the lagoon air, feel the chill of a carnival February, taste that pasta our protagonist’s eating in a little bar – a real one, there are lots of genuine locations here – as he embarks upon a uniquely Venetian adventure.

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A few years ago, when I was working on one of my earlier audio exclusives, someone in book publishing took me to one side and asked, ‘Why do you bother with this stuff? It’s so small.’

I don’t think anyone would ask that now. Storytelling in audio has exploded in recent years as people have discovered how powerful a medium it is, and how easy and convenient for audiences to access. But I loved audio long before its present fashionable status. This is narrative art in its purest form, a chance to put a real voice in the ear of a listener’s imagination. When it works there’s nothing quite like it.

And now I’m delighted to be able to announce my latest audio exclusive, Realer, a brand new standalone chiller set in a dystopian near future and narrated by that wonderful actor Gemma Whelan, whose many great roles include the fabulous Yara Greyjoy from Game of Thrones.

The project I was writing when I had that conversation, an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet with the amazing voice talent of Richard Armitage, went on to win an Audie, the audiobook equivalent of an Oscar. Realer is an idea I started working on in a buzz coming back from New York after we won that award, keen to keep on exploring the many exciting possibilities audio offers.

Note that word ‘performed’. The best audio storytelling is more than narration – someone simply reading the words in a book. It is a very. intimate kind of theatre, which is why actors with wide stage experience, like Gemma and Richard, excel at the task.

At the heart of Realer is Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Mackintosh, a solitary girl from an impoverished family in near future Yorkshire. I desperately wanted to write about the North, the region I come from, one I love, one whose future I fear for which is, in part, at the core of this tale.

Charlie witnesses the murder of her father through a virtual reality system and then realises she must use that same system – which she hates and fears – to find his killers. It’s a story about broken families, the control technology is coming to hold over our lives, and the cost of lockdown. When I began I saw it not as a book but more a one-woman play divided into short, accessible chapters, a first person narrative that might be told directly to an audience in a theatre. Or to a bunch of people on a broken down bus.

Charlie speaks to you personally, a funny, emotional and occasionally unreliable narrator telling the story of how she came face-to-face with tragedy and – no great spoilers here – found a way to survive and defeat the challenges of a post-pandemic world. Can you tell this tale in a conventional book? Yes, and one day Realer may be just that. For now though I wanted it to be delivered in the direct and personal way that only great performances in the studio can manage, which is how I first imagined it a couple of years ago on the way back from New York. I’m very grateful to WF Howes for the opportunity to produce this latest audio exclusive, and to Gemma Whelan for bringing her formidable talents to the task.

For those of you who use NetGalley I’m delighted to say the service now handles audio release too – so if you head to the Realer page you can apply to be one of the pre-release reviewers. Just go here on NetGalley.

And here’s the cover copy…

‘Life is real.. but this is Realer…’ Realer promises a new virtual reality, a safe and sanitised window into a virtual existence without the risks of the real, crumbling, post-pandemic society beyond the door.

Sixteen-year-old Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Mackintosh is a loner whose father works for the company. He gives her Realer for her birthday – only to be murdered as she watches through her high-tech hood at home.

Alone in a tense, post-lockdown world, Charlie has to turn to Realer to find his killers. She’s soon trapped in a murderous conspiracy behind a system that’s steadily beginning to take over people’s lives.

Charlie comes to understand that she can only hide from outside dangers for so long. In the end, the only way to defeat them is face-to-face, in the real world. A place she fears more than any.

A brand new audio exclusive for WF Howes, performed by Gemma Whelan (Game of Thrones). Available through Audible, Apple iTunes, Amazon and other audio outlets on October 29.

I’m delighted to be able to announce a new Audible original book-length project coming your way, released on December 12 worldwide.

This time round I’m switching between a remote island in Venice and upstate New York for a two-narrator thriller about a writer locked away in a crumbling mansion in the lagoon, suddenly finding he’s facing the most dangerous deadline of his life.

Welcome to Shooter in the Shadows, available for pre-order now. Here’s what to expect…

Tom Honeyman made his name cracking a horrific double murder in his hometown of Prosper, New York. He got an international best seller out of it, made a small fortune, and left his newspaper reporting days behind. 

But was it all based on a lie? 

Now, more than a decade after his one and only success, Honeyman’s life is in tatters. His wife committed suicide, his daughter hasn’t spoken to him in years, and his books don’t sell. He’s sequestered himself in his wreck of a retreat on an island in Venice, desperate to find the inspiration that will revive his career. 

But Tom Honeyman is not alone. 

An unseen stranger tells Honeyman he got it wrong all those years ago. And he has just four days to uncover the real murderer. 

Tom Honeyman is no longer writing for his livelihood. He’s writing for his life.

This is a fast-moving story that moves between the present in Venice and the past in New York as Honeyman tries to reconstruct a story that will keep him alive. It’s a taut, exciting listen, but one that’s about people too, about family, and about how difficult it can be to bury a lie, however much you want.

I’m lucky as ever with Audible to have some fantastic talent on board for the tale. In this case not one but two award-winning performers, both of whom have got Audies and lots more besides to their credit.

Jonathan Davis, right, is acclaimed narrator of over 5oo audiobooks, and an Audible Narrator Hall of Fame inductee. He’s got an amazing range of audio titles under his belt, including a whole line of Star Wars books.

Ramón de Ocampo is an Audie winner too, and a regular on TV with Notorious, Guidance, 12 Monkeys, The West Wing, Medium, Killer Instinct, Sons of Anarchy, and Major Crimes, as well as memorable GUEST STARRING roles, most recently on: HAWAII 5-0, NCIS: New Orleans, CSI: Cyber, the Player, Castle, Bones, CSI, NCIS, and Gang Related.

Jonathan takes the role of the harassed Tom, trying to unpick the secrets of the past against a fast-ticking clock, and some other characters too. Ramón is his mysterious nemesis, hiding out of sight but never out of mind.

It was a blast to write and I gather Jonathan and Ramón had quite a time recording in the Audible studios in Newark too. Roll on December…

Please note this post is very out of date now as is the template. It was written for an early version of Scrivener 2 on the Mac. How it functions with Scrivener 3 I don’t know. I imagine you can update it but it’s up to you to play around with that. I won’t be putting out a new version for Scrivener 3 because frankly the app is now so mature I suspect most people don’t really need it.

As part of a general tidy-up around here I’ve taken a look at the free Scrivener template associated with Writing A Novel with Scrivener. It needed a bit of a cleanup too. So feel free to download this one and play with  it — you don’t need the book to do that.

This is just a set of suggestions to play with. Scrivener is incredibly flexible so as always please cherry pick what you like and reject the rest.

To use unzip the compressed archive. If you’re on a Mac you will see a standard Scrivener file. If you’re on Windows you will see a folder (as is usual with Scrivener projects on Windows). Open it in the usual way (please see the Scrivener help file if any doubt). I always find it easiest to run Scrivener then locate the key file in the project folder rather than trying to double click anything (but I’m not a regular Windows Scrivener user so that may just be me).

This is a freebie. No tech support so please don’t ask.

Download David’s Scrivener template.

You can get the general idea from the screenshot below.