The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

For promis’d joy!
To a Mouse by Robert Burns

Or, for those who don’t speak “Burns” – sometimes good plans go tits up.

And so it is with my debut book series.

A few days ago, I posted on social media that the 4th Arthur Crazy book has been cancelled and I jokingly blamed Trump. The truth is that’s not entirely a lie, so I figured I’d take some time to explain.

In July 2020, I signed a deal with Parliament House Press for the Arthur Crazy series. The Book and the Blade was the debut, picked up by the wonderful Mike Feeney and it all sort of went from there. Before I knew it, I had a trilogy, and then a fourth, and the deal was for all of them. I was working with wonderful people, living the dream, and all was right with the world. The best laid schemes and all that…

About a week ago, I sent an email to the publisher asking for details about the upcoming fourth book… and was told there would not be an upcoming fourth book.

Gutted.

Now, to be clear, the email was lovely and polite and very honest… essentially, there are simply not enough resources to be putting out another book. It’s a general ‘state of the world’ scenario for a small, independent press based in the USA. So, I blame Trump, because he’s a dick.

Fun fact though, I went looking for the Publishers Marketplace statement for when the deal was struck and found that it only listed a three-book deal. I’d entirely forgotten about that mistake. The image below was sent to me years ago by the publisher with an explanation that it would be fixed up (because I did indeed sign a four-book deal) but I guess maybe it was written in the stars from the start?

So, what happens next?

The truth is, I have no idea. I am genuinely gutted and honestly struggling to find the motivation. The fourth Arthur book is ready – it has been for some time – and is very different from the first three in that it is written from Arthur’s point of view. I think it’s the best one yet (I would, though, wouldn’t I) Hell, it’s even got a little bit of nookie! But I just don’t know what to do with it. I could try and see if another publisher would be interested but that would cause all sorts of problems with the rights – because PHP have already published the others. I could have the rights of those three reverted back to me, but then I would have to republish them independently. Or I could self-publish the fourth, which I’ve done before, but it’s a shit-ton of work, and I’m bound to balls it up. Plus, I’m already working on something big (and orc-like) for later in the year. Oh, and I’m also supposed to be releasing my novella Egg in a few weeks, but I’ve hit a wall. Hell, even this website is due for renewal.

As you may have guessed, I’ve spiralled into a little bit of ‘doing sod-all’ self-pity.

So, as I often do when I find myself floundering like this – after drinking way too much and generally being a big old cranky-pants – I turn to Sir Terry Pratchett for inspiration.

“If you trust in yourself. . . and believe in your dreams. . . and follow your star. . . you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.”
The Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett

Sigh. He’s always right, isn’t he. Always. The git.

I guess I’ve got some work to do (although I still don’t know what).

Christmassy Book Sale!

For the last few years, I have released a novella at Christmas and for the next few days, they’re all FREE!

Over on Amazon, you can get access to the entire Reindeer Games trilogy and it won’t cost you a penny.

“But, Alex,” I hear you say, “I don’t have a kindle!”

No problem… the kindle app is free to download on any device and they have a handy web viewer if you want to read on a computer.

The only slight issue is the strange eccentricity of Amazon being unable to sell kindle books on the Amazon app itself… you have to go onto the actual Amazon website.

That’s a lot of Amazon.

And look, I know some people aren’t big fans (or even actively hate that platform) but for little indie plebs like me, there really aren’t many options.

So, the books!

It all started with…

Reindeer Games

A silly story about Santa’s reindeer being picked off one by one on the night before the night before Christmas.

It was only ever supposed to be that one book, and I did it for a laugh. But then along came the sequel, and I really eased into the parody angle.

Reindeer Games 2: Rein Harder. With a Vengeance.

Mrs. Claus is forced to rescue her husband who has been kidnapped by terrorists and held captive during the Christmas party at Knickerbocker Towers. High-brow stuff, and I bloody loved making the back cover…

And that was it. No more silly, violent, bad-taste, sweary Christmas books. But then people kept asking me, “So, what’s the next one about?” and the answer was obvious because, like an idiot, I’d left book 2 with a cliff-hanger ending… there’s a bomb on the sleigh! Which led to…

Sleigh: Reindeer Games 3

I had no choice, really. I had to write it!

So, there it is. Three silly and violent Christmas novellas, and this year, they’re all on sale. In fact, they’re all free.

click on the image and it’ll take you to the Amazon website in your country.

So, that’s it, right? Not quite. The second novel of my Arthur Crazy series is set at Christmas as well, and the lovely folks at Parliament House Press have joined in the Christmas sale and popped the ebook online for a dollar.

That’s four Christmas stories for a dollar if you think about it! Surely, that’s enough?

Nope!

Introducing the latest… The Frost Identity!

I promise I’ll stop eventually. But it is not this day!

Happy Reading and Merry Christmas, ya Filthy Animals!

The ghost of Sarah Brocklebank

The tale of Sarah Brocklebank is a relatively well-known “ghost story” in York. There are many people who will be familiar with her but perhaps even more who know aspects of the story… but not the name. She’s…

The ghost on Micklegate Bar

The girl who lost the keys

Just a kid… it was her birthday

An old woman… she died of a heart attack

Stuck on the walls

Roams the city

That’s the problem with these sorts of tales… they get told and retold so many times (and often in pubs after a few drinks) that they become so embellished and overstuffed as to be almost unrecognisable from the “truth”. That’s not a complaint by the way, I mean, it’s literally what I do as a writer (and a husband, if you ask my wife!) and Mark Twain did famously say,

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

Sarah Brocklebank is the first ghost Arthur speaks to in The Book and the Blade and when I started writing her character I only had a few “facts”

Sarah was the daughter of Thomas Brocklebank.
Thomas was the “keeper of the keys” of Micklegate Bar
The keys went missing (supposedly, Sarah’s fault)
Thomas lost his job
The family were kicked out of their home and impoverished
Thomas never forgave Sarah and disowned her

There were other bits and bobs and snippets of information floating around in various dusty books, old newspapers, and shiny (albeit darkly aesthetic) blogs; mainly regarding Sarah’s age and the places she haunts.

For my part, I placed Sarah in her mid-20s, I kept the loss of the keys, the family ruin, and Thomas blaming her, but I had Sarah’s ghost suspended in a moment of time before the family were made destitute. In The Book and the Blade, Sarah is frantically searching for the keys all over the city, starting at Micklegate Bar, heading into Holy Trinity church, then the heart of the city and St Helen’s Square. Each night, Sarah is fated to hunt for the keys and return them to her father “before it is too late.” The instant she finds them, however, the night restarts and Sarah appears back on the walls at Micklegate. This has been her existence for over 200 years and has driven her quite mad, which is understandable… especially when you learn that it was her little sister who lost the keys and Sarah took the blame (this little addition appeared in the first draft of the novel and was cut out at some point, but there are still hints. It is also entirely made up).

Like many ghost stories, Sarah’s is one of unfulfilled longing and unrealised destiny. She is the quintessential “hungry ghost” — never quite able to achieve satisfaction, and doomed to spend eternity trapped in a cycle of misery… until the night she meets Arthur Crazy.

Sarah shivered. She was tired. Deep down tired within the very core of her being. But she couldn’t give up. Those keys meant everything, and she had to find them. Tonight was her last chance. Without the keys, her father—her family—lost everything.

It is also worth mentioning that Micklegate Bar used to be a museum of sorts and apparently contained a statue of a young girl dressed in old clothing. In one hand she held a basket but the other was empty. So the staff there gave her a set of keys to complete the look. Perhaps Sarah’s whole story is a bit “chicken and egg” but I think it’s more fun to follow the advice of Mr Twain.

Cheers,

Alex

The Arthur Crazy Trilogy:

The Book and the Blade

The Sword and the Hounds

The Saint and the Shadowman

The Black Cats of York

The Book and the Blade started out as a stray thought in the back of a drunk kid’s head. Me. I was that drunk kid. I was 18 years old and trying to make my way back through the city of York to my student accommodation. I’d only been at uni for a few weeks but I was already in love with the city. Cobbled streets, historic buildings, a rumoured 365 pubs within the walls, and more ghost stories and folklore than you could shake a bunch of sage at. Imagine if you got so drunk you could talk to ghosts, I thought. But you wouldn’t know it, because you were so drunk. Well, that’s how it started… and about twenty years later I wrote it down.

One of my favourite things about The Book and the Blade – and the subsequent Arthur Crazy novels – has been researching the myths and legends of the city and figuring out ways to weave them into the narrative. In the third book, The Saint and the Shadowman (released last month), it is revealed that Arthur himself has a list.

The list was actually two A4 pieces of lined paper folded together with neat writing on both sides. Arthur had wanted a Moleskine diary, but they were so bloody expensive, so he just nicked some paper from the office and got to work. It was a list of names and places and other notes. Some had been crossed out. Some had been added to. Some were detailed and some were vague.
The Saint and the Shadowman

Well, the list exists and I thought it might be fun to share it with everyone. And because I’m a much bigger nerd than Arthur (and I also don’t have a Moleskine diary… anymore) I decided to create some ‘playing card’ style graphics to go along with it.

Those with an eagle-eye for certain aspects of nerdery might recognise a nod or two to the classic Hero Quest tabletop game.

The first card off the deck is, The Black Cats.

Black cats are often regarded as being harbingers of ill fortune and bad luck and are treated with suspicion and distrust. I am guilty of this throughout the three Arthur Crazy books (well, Arthur is) but I shouldn’t be. As Arthur’s mum rightly says in The Sword and the Hounds,

“You’re in Yorkshire now, Father. Nothing unlucky about a black cat crossing your path here. Quite the opposite in fact.”
The Sword and the Hounds

Black cats are a sign of good luck in York and the surrounding country, so much so that the city has pretty much adopted them as an unofficial mascot. Statues of cats have appeared on the walls and rooftops for over two hundred years. In fact, ‘The Cat Trail’ makes for a pretty good walking tour if you fancy something different from a packed Coney Street.

The story goes that the original statues were intended to act as ‘scarecrows’ to scare off the disease-infected rats and mice, but of course this is Yorkshire we’re talking about, so there’s also the added bonus of warding off evil spirits. Arthur’s first realisation that something might be amiss comes when he sees a black cat do a fairly passable David Bowie impression (a la Labyrinth) and defy physics to run up a vertical wall. Mind you, now that I think about it, we used to have a cat that could pretty much do the same thing (she used to perch on the top of the door) so maybe it was all in Arthur’s head?

The cats in The Book and the Blade aren’t just comedy asides and unsubtle foreshadowing, however, in fact two specific felines take centre-stage about midway through. These are the cats of one Lord Acaster… the ghost of a Royalist officer cursed to spend eternity tending to his wounded soldiers in what is now Ye Olde Starre Inne pub on Stonegate (but we’ll get to that) and Arthur wouldn’t have got very far without them.

SEMI-SPOILERS AHEAD:

There perhaps should have been a trigger warning in The Book and the Blade because not all of our furry little friends make it through the night. Although I can reliably inform you that one particular unfortunate feline does in fact have 6 lives left. I know this because a) I wrote it, and b) I have a little black cat with a number 6 tattooed on my upper arm thanks to my tattoo-gun-wielding friend Amy… because I’m from Yorkshire, remember. Where black cats are lucky.

Thanks for reading,

Cheers!

Future ‘Arthur Crazy’s List’ entries will include Sarah Brocklebank, The Grey Lady, Headless Percy, Mansion House, and the Fetch.

Arthur Crazy #3 – The Saint and the Shadowman – and some other stuff.

On July 22nd, 2025 – if Cyclone Alfred doesn’t wipe us out in the meantime – the third Arthur Crazy book will be hitting the shelves!

The Saint and the Shadowman picks up a few months after the events of book 2 and takes place back in the beautiful, haunted city of York. But it’s the height of summer… there can’t be that many ghosts kicking around when the sun sets at 1030pm, right? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I’ve been spectacularly slack with my blog updates since Rock Zombie and Sleigh: Reindeer Games 3 came out but I think it’s about time I remedied that. You might notice – if you fancy a rummage in the undercarriage – that this little website has had a bit of a spring clean. I got rid of some faffery and streamlined the whole deal to try and make it seem a bit more… professional? I’m not sure if that is the right word for me. And I will endeavour to post more frequent updates and perhaps take this whole thing a bit more seriously. Well, it can’t be any worse than arguing with strangers on Threads can it!

The truth is, I sat down today – a bizarre and random day off work because we live in the path of Tropical Cyclone Alfred – and I decided to roll the dice one last time for a few of my books.

It was… exhausting.

I LOVE having a publisher, and the work Parliament House Press have done on the Arthur Crazy books is bloody brilliant, but it’s a hard slog trying to find another publisher to take on my other books. And with Rock Zombie – and the Reindeer novellas – I had a lot of fun doing it by myself. Oh sure, I sold feck all but it was fun!

Maybe I’m just tired? Or maybe I should just suck it up and crack on.

To self-publish or not to self-publish… that is the question.

Actually, what was this post about? Oh yeah… The Saint and the Shadowman… which IS being published!

Yep… “professional”

Arthur Crazy is hungover, but the dead don’t care about headaches.

The city of York is teetering on the edge of disaster. During a rare eclipse, the Shadowman casts a spell atop the Minster, trapping the city between the realm of the living and the dead. Ghosts flood the streets, and Arthur, with his best friend Steve, is the only one who can stop the chaos.

But Arthur’s not exactly in hero shape. Haunted by his past and drowning his sorrows in the nearest pint, he’s barely keeping it together. That is, until he meets Nae—a beautiful stranger who might just hold the key to helping him feel normal again.

Now, with the Shadowman’s spell tearing the veil between worlds, the city’s only hope rests on a washed-up hero, a saint from the Shambles, and a dog who won’t stop talking.
York needs a miracle. Arthur needs another drink.

Or maybe a Panadol and a panini.

PRE-ORDER HERE!

“There’s a bomb on the sleigh!”

Sleigh: Reindeer Games 3 is out now so get ready for the Christmas rush!

The third and final instalment in my series of utterly bizarre Christmas comedy/horror novellas is available on Amazon – books2read.com/reindeergames3 – and as usual, it’s cheaper than a pint! (or two pints if you’re going for the paperback).

I also stole an idea from my last novel, Rock Zombie, by having the chapters named after famous songs. This time it’s Christmas bangers!

Wonderfully, the exceptionally cool Dave Musson of ‘Dave Reads King’ on YouTube and Instagram put together this amazing review of all three Reindeer Games stories. Have a looksie and give the man some love…

Finally, here’s the blurb for Reindeer Games 3…

Christmas is safe! Mrs. Claus brought down an entire terrorist cell and rescued her husband from the towering inferno of Knickerbocker Plaza. Now it’s the time for Santa to do what he does best: deliver the goods! But as jolly old Saint Nick takes to the skies, the North Pole gets a chilling call:

There’s a bomb on the sleigh! Ho. Ho. Ho.

Enter Jack Frost, the nymph-loving Prince of Winter, with his own entries in both sections of the Naughty and Nice List.

Partnered with Sandra, a fiercely determined rookie reindeer with dreams of pulling the sleigh, Jack hurtles into a chaotic quest through time warps, wormholes, and a nightmare-inducing sack of horrors.

Can this unlikely duo save Santa and Mrs. Claus, defuse the bomb, and rescue Christmas? Or will the holiday season go up in flames—along with everyone on the sleigh?

Packed with bad-taste jokes, twisted thrills, and more profanity than a drunk elf on Boxing Day, Sleigh: Reindeer Games 3 is a no-holds-barred comedy horror thrill ride that will leave you laughing, cringing, and questioning the sanity of anyone who recommends it.

Tis the season to sleigh!

Thanks for reading everyone.

Merry Christmas!

Rock Zombie is published!

Finally, after months of me annoying people with semi-cryptic posts, snippets of random nonsense, and bizarre TikTok videos, my silly, gross, over-the-top, comedy horror – Rock Zombie – has shuffled off the mortal coil and invaded your shelves/Kindles.

But as with all things Finlayson, it hasn’t been a smooth journey. You may notice – to start with – that it is not yet Halloween. In fact, we are still a few days out from the publication date. The reason for this is a combination of impostor syndrome and impatience (and an idea from Dan). I got worried that if I published a horror novel ON Halloween it would be too late for anyone to give a stuff about. Silly, I know, but I likened it to releasing a Christmas novel on Christmas Day… who is going to read it?!

So, I brought the release date forward and instantly made a mess of things… the book vanished from all servers for a few days and I had a mini melt-down thinking I’d lost everything. But it really just boiled down to me being an idiot.

And then it was here!

Sort of!

For some reason known only to the Amazon overlords, my silly little, supposed-to-be-cheap, stuff-it-in-your-back-pocket-and-dog-ear-it, pulp-fiction of a novel was listed for $42 here in Australia! That’s insane! I set the price at $18.99! I wanted it to be less than $20 and Amazon bloody doubled it! I have reached out, I have tried to change it, but there is nothing I can do. From what I can gather from other frustrated indie authors on social media, it boils down to Amazon just not playing nice with other people. Simply put, they do it because they can.

The listing is fine in other countries and territories, but here in Australia, where I live and am likely to sell most books, it costs a fortune!

I’m gutted.

I have reached out to book shops – particularly Books@Stones in Brisbane – and hope they will stock it.

In the process of writing this I have just seen that The Nile have it on for the expected price! Happy days!

Update: For some reason, I cannot add The Nile link to my Books2Read profile. Ah, well. It’s never simple is it.

So, it’s out there. My silly little book that I’m super proud of… and I’m having a book launch on Saturday 9th November at the very cool Nosferatu Distillery, Bar and Cafe in Bowen Hills, Brisbane (and I won’t chicken out of this one).

I really hope you enjoy Rock Zombie for what it is… a silly, fun, gory little romp through ’90s nostalgia. If you do, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads or (shudder) Amazon. It really does make a difference to little plebs like me.

I am beyond grateful to everyone who reads my books. I love ya!

Cheers,

ARC Readers… a heads-up!

Hi folks, I’ll be putting a call out this Sunday for anyone interested in being an ARC Reader for Rock Zombie.

ARC stands for Advance Reader Copy and is an initiative to get early copies of books into the hands of reviewers in order to generate a bit of buzz before the official release date. True, these are usually organised by professional companies and people who know what they are doing. I… am neither. I’m winging it, and pretty much making this all up as I go along (not unlike my stories). However, inspired by Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking, I figured where is the harm in doing just that… asking.

So, if you’re a book reviewer, podcaster, YouTuber, BookTokker, Bookstagrammer (or any other word that I’ve only really just learned about), or you just like reading grungy comedy/horrors and would like to have a shufy at the advance copy before publication (usually in exchange for kind words and/or reviews… or complete silence if you think it’s shit) then please keep an eye on my social on Sunday.

If you have any questions, folks, just reach out.

Cheers!

What it’s all about…

A little bit more info about Rock Zombie. To start with, here’s every author’s worst nightmare… the blurb… Hey, you painstakingly wrote, edited, polished, cried, and bled over 60k words… now summarise it in 50!

“Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be… Kurt Cobain!”

Robbie Neville’s big break on Stars in Their Eyes was supposed to launch him into rock stardom.

Instead, it launched him into the afterlife.

Rob is dead. But his body didn’t get the memo.

Now he’s spending Saturday night trying to stop his reanimated corpse from kickstarting a zombie apocalypse… which is really hard to do when you’re a ghost.

With enough 90s nostalgia to make you dig out your old mixtapes, follow Rob (both of them) as he faces down hungry zombies, scared scallies, horny barmaids, and the ultimate question:

Can you still become a rock star when you’re dead?

Rock Zombie is a bad-taste, grungy, comedy/horror, set in the ’90s about a wannabe rock star who dies and comes back as a ghost while his body reanimates as a zombie. That’s not a spoiler, not really, it can’t be when the main character dies in the first few pages!

This book is a love-letter to ’90s culture; the music, the films, the TV shows, books, games, and comics… the whole scene… everything that influenced me when I was a teen.

The story is short and fast, and follows the ghost of Rob as he tries to stop his body from kick-starting a zombie apocalypse in his home town. Each chapter is named after a well-known song of the time, which you may have noticed if you’ve been following my social media… I’ve cheekily been posting a chapter title every day since the start of the month. Don’t worry, it won’t give the game away.

Well, not much anyway.

I hope you enjoy it.

Come as you are

Cover Reveal – Tomorrow

Hi folks,

Tomorrow is Friday 13th, and the day I’ll finally be showing the full cover of Rock Zombie. The art was designed by the exceptional Laura of @Hello_Moon_Creative. She’s a tattoo artist based in Redcar and an absolute legend. More about her tomorrow. The rest of it was put together by me and about a thousand YouTube Photoshop tutorial videos.

So, I’ll be revealing the cover and the blurb of Rock Zombie, along with the release date.

I’d love it if as many people as possible could be involved please. If you’re a bookstagrammer, a TikToker, a podcaster, reviewer, blogger, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy… or anything to do with the book world really (or you just want to play) please use the form link below to sign up (I don’t think it’s too late… I’ll just check the lists for any newbies and send you the details). Thanks so much.

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Please share with anyone you think might be interested… Rock Zombie is a bad-taste, comedy/horror about ghosts, zombies, sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

Cheers!