After I finished writing Grunch Road last year, I wanted to keep the story going. I saw in Nick Eismann a character with a lot of potential, so I created four more adventures, the University of the Damned series. I’m addicted to writing this stuff! I guess there are worse things I could be hooked on.
All four books in the series have been written, and I had been planning on publishing one every three months and ending the saga with the final book of the University of the Damned series. But like an addict, I just can’t give up my habit.
So I’ve written another book. I’m billing it as the Final Chapter in the Iceman saga, though it probably won’t be. So far, the Iceman’s adventures have been set in the 1970s, his high school and college days. For this story, Come Hell and High Water, I turn the clock forward to 2005. Nick still lives in New Orleans, where he is the publisher and editor of a local alternative newspaper. He is still married to Donna and they have three children. Nick is fifty-one now, so I could relate to him a little more since that’s how old I am right now. I have a little fun with that, because he has a sometimes endearing (though more often annoying) habit of picking up phrases and buzzwords from “kids these days.” His most recent acquisition is “Awesome sauce!”
Nick has staffed his newspaper with many of his comrades from his college days, and the team is still together covering the news of the New Orleans scene with a decidedly liberal bent. His firstborn son has a big surprise in store for his father’s birthday, but I won’t spoil that here. But the gods have an even bigger surprise, waiting just over the horizon.
Its name is Katrina.
I did a lot of research to get ready for writing this book, including getting stories of family and friends down there. But the biggest help of all came from closer to home: two Minnesota storm chasers marched into the heart of Katrina and captured some jaw-dropping video that let me see for myself the fury that raged through New Orleans and Biloxi on what has come to be known as “Black Monday.”
I’m so excited about this book that I am accelerating the publication schedule on the others. I had planned to release Book 3 of the University series in June, but I’m moving that up to May 1. The final book, scheduled for September, is now going to be released on June 1. The reason I am doing this is because I have a special release date planned for Come Hell and High Water. Look for it on August 29, 2012, the seventh anniversary of Katrina.
I’m really pleased with how it turned out. It’s awesome sauce!
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