What’s your one line pitch or teaser for the book? Grab a reader’s attention with one line.
A twenty-something New Yorker named Dan Hardacre goes from a quiet post-world war 3 city life to the edges of time and space in order to aid his family in their personal war against a cosmic God known only as The Valkyrie.
Tell readers a little about your main character or characters?
The main characters of Road to Juneau are the members of the Hardacre family, more specifically Dan Hardacre. Since the novel is set in the very near future, it’s written from the perspective of what will be known as a “geriatric Gen-Z”. He is a wannabe theatre actor who works in the centre of New York City as a social network executive (he basically runs the socials of a landmark that is being erected on the edge of a Time’s Square.
The world Dan lives in is a new one and this is reflective in Dan as a character. He feels out of place, both lucky and unlucky, a paradox of a person. This is because society has become so mercurial in its effort to move on from the world war that a deep passive-aggression has buried itself beneath a thin film of anxiety and shame. The point of the novel is to examine power of the past and its influence on the future. There is also a lot of action and real scientific factoids and laughs and scares (apparently) and a bunch of other things to take up your time.
Where do you like to write? Do you have an office or writing nook?
I like to write wherever I can. I use laptops and the two I wrote Juneau on ended up breaking one after the other due to their old conditions so I was very lucky I was, not only able to use more than one computer but for the fact that I crossed the finish line of the first main draft just before the second collapsed. So I just scoot around my house like a gremlin, writing, eating and growling from closed cupboards.
What is one of your best marketing tips for other authors?
I would advise people to look at their story as a suggestion, not as a brag. A lot of people miss out on major marketing opportunities because they feel like they will look like they’re bragging for nominating their book to be looked at. But they aren’t they’re making a suggestion, “You’re looking for a book? I have a book. Is this what you’re looking for?” If it isn’t then your story is different from the one they’re looking for, not bad but different.
What websites or tools have you found that offer the best results?
All major social networks, Facebook, Twitter, VERO, Goodreads, Instagram, etc. I also set aside some money I was lucky to be able to save for obvious expenses that come with getting a book made and published in the indie circuit. If you can, try to squirrel some money away for cover design, the main thing which has gotten my book some attention right off the bat. Shop around with hashtags. There is also the marketing expense of sending copies to authors and reviewers, in some cases that is paid at cost so that’s something to keep in mind.
Any advice for aspiring writers?
I do. If you get writers block, introduce another character, be they big or small, something to divert you somewhere else and get you back to writing. Also, the writing community is a big thing online so put yourself out there, talk to authors about their work, everyone likes to be complimented so don’t be afraid of telling a writer that you enjoyed their work (make sure you actually did and aren’t lying because that will probably become farcical very quickly).
Liam Quane
Genre: Sci-fi, Fantasy
Publisher: Beaten Track Publishing
Date of Publication: 18 May 2021
ISBN Hardcover: 978-1-78645-473-7
ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78645-452-2
ISBN eBook: 978-1-78645-453-9
ASIN: B08V51WV9M
Number of pages: 330
Word Count: 109,038
Cover Artist: Holly Dunn
Tagline: How was God supposed to defend Earth from the Monster, when the Monster knew Earth better than God ever could?
Book Description:
New York: two years after the Third World War. Humanity is rebuilding its cities brick by brick; the damage done to the people, however, is a lot harder to repair.
Dan Hardacre is one of those people. An aspiring stage actor and experienced draft-dodger, Dan struggles to find his place within the Utopic rebuild of New York City. When he’s not caught up with the duties of work, Dan lives a quiet life in mourning for his mother, Dyani, who went missing when he was a teenager.
One night, Dan experiences a vivid, terrifying nightmare that puts him right on the front lines of the war for which he dodged the draft; it ends with him facing Death itself in the form of a metallic, faceless humanoid creature that calls itself the Valkyrie. To investigate the reason behind his haunting experience, Dan seeks out a meeting with his estranged father, who reveals the startling truth about Dan’s dream: it wasn’t a dream.
With this newfound knowledge and the powers it brings, Dan makes it his mission to return to the scene of his nightmare. However, he soon comes to know that confronting the Valkyrie not only endangers him but the war-withstanding world he leaves behind.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
8:08 a.m. That’s what my clock says as I burst out of my covers. I must
have fallen out of bed again. I know this because I’m staring at it from the
other side of my room. There was luck to this particular tumble, however: I’m
only sixteen minutes behind! I wheeze as I lift myself up, kicking the sheets
from my ankles like a half-swaddled baby. The same old tapping returns,
persistent and loud, and I walk over to my ground-floor window, lifting it
dramatically in an effort to shoo the seagull pecking at the pane. The blunt-billed
bird squawks as it flaps away. I slam the window closed, keeping the cold
morning air off my skin for a few more minutes.
My shower was lukewarm and my breakfast fictional. This is the best I
can hope for on Tribute day at my place of work: Montage Tower. The building
may be taller than most, but the work is still lowly. I lock my bedroom door
out of an irrational precaution; my roommate is still upstairs. It’s his third
day off this week, and it’s silent, but I know he’s awake because his door is slightly
ajar. If anything were to disappear from my room, he would be blamed for it
regardless, as either a successful thief or a failing watchdog. I collect my
earbuds, phone, and wallet combo and silently make for the exit. As my door
card reaches the scanner, a magazine bricks the window, launched from the top
of the stairs where Sam now stands.
“Almost hit you, Dan!” he shouts down to me in his usual
excitable manner.
“What is it this time? I’m already late.” I almost don’t reply.
“Page twelve—the blue chaise longue!” He points at the once airborne
catalog, which now sits crumpled in my hands.
“I’m not dragging a chaise longue home for you!”
“It’s not for me, it’s for Shanty,” he says, partitioning himself
from the blame.
I spin the catalog around and read the cover. “Scratchwork
Furrrnishings.”
“It’s only small—twenty-five by sixteen.” He holds his hands out
like a puppeteer.
“Can’t your hamster just sleep in your bed with you?”
“No. He has an erratic sleeping pattern.”
A silence lingers.
“Fffffine,” I reluctantly sputter, throwing the catalog onto the
floor in a sulk.
Sam giggles and retreats back into his lair of aspen shavings and
lavender. I finally scan my door card, which sounds a cheery beep of
freedom.
Do you remember the colors of your life? How it used to feel before you
became responsible and independent? Everyone does, I guess. Three shades
usually cocoon themselves around the memories: the Blue Stage, the Purple
Stage, and the Gray Stage. I am at Gray and dreading what comes after. The Blue
Stage is the oldest. It consists of the memories of when you were a child. An
only child. Not specifically you, but me. I forget how to separate myself from
the situation sometimes, Sorry. Anyway, my childhood could only be described as
glowing.
Mom and Dad were always here for me, breakfast table mornings and
dinner table evenings. They both worked interesting jobs, each excelling in a
separate creative field. My mother was a software programmer; a good one too.
The start-up she worked at grew from a hole in 5 the wall to an admired
business. Similarly, my father was successful in his career as an architect,
not of towering superstructures but of small, respectable buildings in which families
could live happy lives.
Those homes are gone now. I was around thirteen years old when I
realized I’d never heard my parents fight. In fact, I hadn’t seen any anger
from them at all. Not toward each other.
Not about work, or money—something which we were never
without. Eventually, as my teenhood set in, I attributed their constant state
of bliss to a secret drug habit, hoping to one day join the gang. But I was
wrong. I found this out soon after Purple reared its ugly head. My life as a
teenager was a lot slower than when I was a kid, and that aforementioned
blissful family atmosphere quickly started to crack. Dad’s work hours increased. Taxes were the
same, but he wasn’t, not with the stress he carried to keep the family
“secure.” The same could be said for Mom. The company she originally worked for
was poached and absorbed into a much larger company named Hourglass
Industries—the place that now owns the building I work in. I think I repressed
the name of the original, probably for the best.
Liam Quane is a British filmmaker and author from the working-class town of Skelmersdale, Lancashire. After gaining experience making short films, writing screenplays and editing music videos, Liam turned onto a different storytelling venture in the form of novels. And, after reading six of them, he wrote his own in a hectic hail of key presses and dicey guesses. This bullheaded effort morphed into what would later be called Road to Juneau. It may be his first book, but he has more ideas for further bookcentric ventures.
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nice cover
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