The happiest of New Year’s to one and all! Though we are all one year older, hopefully it’s another year wiser as well, but your mileage may vary (I know mine does). Despite our best intentions, age seems to catch most of us off guard. It’s gradual at first, and then it becomes more and more noticeable as the years go by. And now, here we are, with another year under our collective belts. Though 2025 was a challenging year for many, myself included, it had just seemed to start, and then it was over. Of course, when you write daily as I do, one week can seem to vanish in the blink of an eye, and the months can blur together like one montage shot after another.
Speaking of time, I wish I could work faster and get more of my writing in front of your eyeballs sooner. But as many of you know, I am but one person. Like a small craft brewery that focuses on making the best beer it can, my singular focus is on writing, editing and publishing the best work I can, as quickly as I can, while still maintaining quality. I think this results in a story with a unique ‘taste and texture’ quite unlike anything else, a Katie Berry flavour, if you will.
My stories are not for just anyone. They are for people who still have a sense of wonder, enjoy a good unexplained mystery and yearn for exploration. People who like The X-Files, Stranger Things, The Night Stalker, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Twilight Zone, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and many, many more.
All of those works share one thing with my writing: a sense of humour. They know when not to take themselves too seriously and when to lean into things and ramp up the scares to eleven, something which I love in a story. And if you’re reading this, I know you enjoy that, too. We are of a similar mindset, or of the same tribe, if you will (something I’ve spoken of before). I enjoy bringing my ideas, however bizarre and twisted, to life for our collective enjoyment. As I have mentioned, if I am not entertaining myself as I write (and rewrite) things, then I am not doing my job.
Well, enough deep thoughts with Katie. Time to tell you of the progress on my upcoming novel, BESIEGED. I think things are shaping up quite nicely, and it has arrived at the Frankenstein’s monster stage of creation. Creative lightning has been applied to the story’s electrodes, and it has recently gasped its first breath of fetid air. It can now shamble along, hunched over and dragging one leg behind as it says, “Me am story!” But it is only a pale reflection of the final, thrilling, scary and sometimes funny ride it will be—Lively Deadmarsh’s next, or first, adventure, chronologically speaking. As you can see, this month’s parody movie poster is a tribute to the Frankenstein films of the thirties and forties, as well as my own particular process. I hope you enjoy the Berry Boys in their latest outing–I’ve always thought Nibbler had a lot of Colin Clive’s intensity.
BESIEGED takes place just before ABANDONED, as I believe I mentioned previously. Those of you who have just reread the tale in the new Obsidian Boxed Set will recognise some of these precursor events right away. What were merely world-building references in Book 1 of ABANDONED are now becoming their own story. This is similar to how some of my characters sometimes become much more later on, such as Willy Wilson Junior and Roxanne Rooney in the CLAW series.
In BESIEGED, Lively has been pulled off a relaxing cruise at the last minute, the reason unexplained. He ends up in the centre of a maelstrom of suspicion, betrayal and unrelenting horror in the remote Northwest Passage. At the same time, Minerva has her own psychic hands full at the Slaughtered Sheep Inn just outside Dublin, Ireland. There, she encounters darkness unlike any she has ever seen before, including a mystery with a puzzling link to a town where a close friend lives, Lawless, BC.
I can’t say much more about things at this point except that it’s getting quite exciting already, and I’m only on chapter three. BESIEGED will be a novel that I think you will find as ‘unputdownable’ as my other tales.
Suffice it to say, it is going to be a lot of work as well. One challenge I need to stay on top of is making sure I don’t trip over my own feet with a detail that either of the twins couldn’t—or shouldn’t–know before the ABANDONED series takes place. Fortunately, I have kept many, many notes, which help things immensely.
Another thing which helps me is storyboard art. The poster here is the sort of thing I make for myself as I write a novel to inspire me, and I thought you might enjoy seeing it. Next month, you’ll get one for the Slaughtered Sheep Inn where Minerva is staying, so you’ll have to wait a little bit for that one. But don’t worry, the Slaughtered Sheep is six centuries old—it isn’t going anywhere, and neither is what dwells inside…
Enough of writing, on to the draws! Two more lucky winners of an audio book of their choice each this month! The December 31st winners are, in no particular order, kc83lane@XXXXXX.com and steph0517@XXXXXX.com. Congratulations to you both, and I hope you enjoy listening to Alex Knox breathe life into my characters.
Well, that’s it for this month. May your new year be happy, healthy and prosperous. And here’s hoping the only horrors this year are located between the pages of my novels.
Good health and great reads,
-Katie B