It turns out that I’ve never really done a post about this book aside from the announcements that it was coming, a cover reveal, and that it was released. (At least not one that turns up on a search of the blog for the title.) So here’s the first.

THE NEVER ENDING NIGHT was inspired by something I read by Richard Laymon – not so much the story, but a title. Laymon wrote something called ENDLESS NIGHT. Maybe you’ve read it? It’s about a girl who is sleeping over at a friend’s house when killers break in and slaughter the entire family. She kills one of them and then is on the run from the remaining killer, who is hunting her in order to not leave any witnesses. It’s been a long tiime since I read it, but I remember when I picked up the title that I had a completely different expectation of the content. I thought it was going to be about a supernatural event where the night doesn’t end.

It wasn’t, so I wrote that book, instead. What I came up with was this tale of a neighborhood block where many of the men leave for work early, so when the sun doesn’t rise, they are on the road and most can’t get back home. For reasons.

I started writing in an epistolary style (I think I’m using the term correctly); the first draft was written as diary entries from a teenaged girl. She’s describing the neighborhood, the neighbors, her friends and her family, and generally wishing that her dad was home and working out possible reasons for the nighttime to continue. But, as I found that style device to be too limiting to tell the story of this block through the eyes of only one character, I shifted to other points of view and added a bunch of material between the diary/journal entries.

So many people seem to have fantasies about what would happen if the world ended or collapsed, and I used my story to explore some of them. No one is ever the “bad guy” in their own story, you know? They might know that what they are doing is wrong, but they have their reasons. And in their mind, their reasons are compelling enough to justify their actions.

Or maybe some people ARE just evil. Typical sociopaths or psychopaths. And we don’t know who they are, until they show their faces.

They may even be your neighbors.

That’s where I went with THE NEVER ENDING NIGHT. It’s not my favorite of my stories. But whenever I reread it (not often recently), I always have the thought that it’s better than I remembered it being.

Here is author Steven M. Moore’s review of the 96 page novella:

“I don’t know what caused it, but the title says what happened…for weeks. NIce little twist to have Beth, the main character, writing in her journal most of the time, although this might not be appropriate for young adults. Reminded me a bit of King’s Cell (or something like that), because cellphone service goes out in this one too. A bit of King’s flavor too. Consider it instead an allegorical tale about how the worst of humanity can rise up and cause mayhem and murder in desperate situations. We scratch the thin veneer of civilization and are surprised at what we find beneath!”

THE NEVER ENDING NIGHT, available only on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited in ebook form.