Peter Reed

I am a retired civil servant who lives in Essex, UK. I've been writing on and off, mostly off, for forty years for my own amusement. Early retirement allowed me more time to devote to writing and produce my first novel, The Prophet Factory. My son, who is also my editor, critic and cover designer for the book, remarked that it was worth trying to get it published. The idea of spending years getting rejection slips from agents did not appeal as I considered myself an amateur writer. I wasn't vain enough for vanity publishing but then self publishing on Kindle was suggested.

The Prophet Factory was meant to be a one-off. The one novel which apparently everyone has in them. However, after reading it my step-daughter wanted to know more about some of the characters and what became of them. A sequel was written, The Lost Children, but sadly it was not finished in time as my step daughter passed away in 2012.

The third book in the series has now been published. As the books have achieved what I call 'Cult Status' in the UK , for that read 'good reviews and poor sales'. In the UK The Prophet Factory achieved 4.6 stars, The Lost Children 5 stars and Fallen Angels 5 stars.

All three books can be read as stand alone stories although there is a background story line running through them. It appears to have worked as at least one person read book one and book two around the wrong way and still thought book one was the best. Obviously prior knowledge of some of the events did not spoil it for them.

Never say never. The Coronavirus lockdown set me writing again. I dug out an old story, which had never been finished, polished it up and released Burke & Hare - The Case of the Bakewell Tart. Set in the 1970's, when I must have first started writing it, this is a complete change in style from my first three books. This is a comedy/drama but with a quirky twist to it. I resisted the temptation to update it to be politically correct so it contains language and attitudes prevalent at the time.