Hello, Birmingham!

Birmingham Film and Comic Con event promo graphic

We’re in Birmingham (UK) this weekend! We’ll be at the NEC on Saturday and Sunday, signing books for Film and Comic Con. Come and say hi – you’ll find us in Artist Alley!

Don’t miss our exclusive special offer – Battle Ground will be only £5 to buy in paperback at the event! Plus the Kindle edition is only 99p to download, and you can read it FREE on Kindle Unlimited.

What are you waiting for? Happy Comic Con weekend from Taller Books!

Welcome to June!

It’s June, finally – and we’ve got new prices and a new author photo to celebrate!

The prices of our Kindle books are increasing from today. Battle Ground and False Flag have been 99p ($1.49) since we published them last year, and it’s time to move them to a fair market price. Darkest Hour, Fighting Back, Victory Day, and the Books 1-3 Box Set are also nudging up in price, in line with the rest of the books.

We’re refreshing our image across social media with a new author photo. Out with the green hair, and in with stars and planets!

Happy June – we’re hoping 2020 gets better from here.

Join Rachel for ‘Making Trouble’ at Today’s Virtual Book Fair!

Join Rachel TODAY at 4pm BST (11am EDT / 5pm CEST) on the Twitter Live Virtual Book Fair, when she will be reading sneak previews from the Battle Ground Series prequel Making Trouble, and running a LIVE Q&A!

To view the live broadcast, you must be signed into Twitter or Periscope. Visit Rachel’s Twitter profile (@Rachel_Churcher) or Periscope page to start viewing, or follow her on Twitter before the event and receive a notification at the top of your Home screen when she starts broadcasting.

We’re looking forward to sharing Making Trouble with readers all over the world! Please come and say hi, and bring your questions …

Huge thanks to Our Own Write for organising the Virtual Book Fair. Indie authors rely on book fairs and events to meet you, the audience, and this a great opportunity for us to get together virtually. Visit the Virtual Book Fair site for the full schedule, and information on all the authors taking part.

Dystopia, Step by Step

Rachel is taking over the blog today, to talk about the politics behind the Battle Ground series. Click through to the comments and let us know what you think!

Step by Step

Anyone who follows me here or on social media will be aware that I have spent the last two years writing novels. Don’t worry – this isn’t advertorial. There are links to the Battle Ground series at the end if you’re interested, but this isn’t about selling books.

This is about a story that I hoped would become a self-avoiding prophecy. A five-book adventure that I hoped would be irrelevant long before today.

A story that feels more real, and more possible, with every news story and Twitter rant and argument round the dinner table.

So what’s the point of this blog post?

I want to explain what the books are really about. Not the blurb on the back. Not the Action and Adventure that Amazon is promoting. Not even the teenage characters who have become my ambassadors to other people’s book shelves.

I want to write about the political landscape in my near-future, UK-based story, and I want to sound an alarm.

A Post-Brexit Dystopia

Brexit is the excuse for what happens in the books. I tell you that up front, on the cover. The Battle Ground series is set in a dystopian near-future UK, after Brexit and Scottish independence.

But Brexit is not the point. It’s not the end of the story – it happens years before the start of Book One. The point is what happens next, and what happened earlier to lay the foundations for my dystopia.

And it is a dystopia. My near-future UK is under Martial Law. The army is in charge. Racism is normal. Islamophobia is normal. Parliament has been suspended.

Sound familiar?

Lies and Cheats

When I started writing in November 2017, I was inspired by the Brexit Referendum. Campaigns on both sides dominated by lies, guesswork, illegal spending, and a lazy assumption that it was all a game. That there was no way the Leave Campaign would win. I could see the divisions in the country, and the sudden permission to make racist statements without apology or consequence. I could see the complexity of the process ahead of us – campaigning to remain, or untangling ourselves from the EU. I could see the gaping hole where calm, measured policies should be, on issues as diverse as the Irish border, visa-free travel, and the rights of EU citizens in the UK – and UK citizens in the EU.

I could see us lining up to throw years of peace, co-operation, and friendship onto a bonfire of empty promises: sovereignty, independence, blue passports. Control of our own borders.

I could hear the dog-whistle call to anyone who felt pushed out or inconvenienced by immigration. To anyone who needed a scapegoat for the lack of jobs, or perceived red tape, or the decline of the high street. Who believed the promise of more money for the NHS.

And it frightened me.

I saw the papers, tribal as always in the UK, digging in and promoting one side of the debate. Of course leaving the EU would be good for us. Who wants to be associated with those unelected bureaucrats and their rules about bendy bananas?

No mention of the MEPs we elect. No assessment of the longest period of peace between EU members for more than a millennium. No debunking of the bendy banana myth, or the lie on the side of the bus.

Rights and Freedoms

And then I thought about the Patriot Act in the USA. Legislation brought in after the 9/11 attacks to make it easier for the government to intercept and prevent terrorist activity.

Legislation that traded long-held freedoms for a promise of safety. That enabled the government to more easily monitor the phones and emails of private citizens. That allowed the indefinite detention of immigrants. That handed power to unaccountable government agencies.

How easy would it be to slide into totalitarianism, step by tiny step?

Slow Progress

That’s the backdrop. That’s the theme and the message of the Battle Ground series.

Step by step, without noticing, how easy would it be to walk into dystopia with the best of intentions?

And to underline this theme, there’s the parallel journey of my protagonist and antagonist. Two strong young women, navigating a world without mobile phones or civilian internet. A world where news is controlled by the military government, and terrorists are executed live on TV. A world where civil unrest and terrorism pushes the army to conscript sixteen-year-olds to patrol the streets, to make people feel safe again. A world where racist attacks force British citizens to leave, and seek asylum elsewhere.

For both characters, their stories develop step by step – one acting for the government, and one supporting the resistance. In the later books, they find themselves committing acts they would never have considered at the start of the series. They both develop their bravery and strength, step by tiny step. And they both lose themselves, step by tiny step.

Loss

They lose their identities – to conscription, to rebellion, to abuse and to corruption. They lose friends and classmates to the quiet war between the government and the people fighting back. They lose control over their lives and their decisions. By the end of the series, they’ve both done things they can’t justify in the name of the causes they’ve been fighting for.

They don’t transform all at once in some blinding moment of revelation. They get there step by tiny step, one action at a time. One goal at a time. One choice at a time.

It’s easy to walk off a cliff if you get used to heading in that direction. If every step you take can be justified and supported. One step, then the next – and before long you’re falling.

Warning

It will be easy to walk into dystopia. Ask any EU citizen living in the UK, and you’ll find that we’re half way there already. We’ve rejected our close relationship with our national neighbours, because we think it will make us stronger. We’re rejecting our neighbours – the people who keep our NHS and social care services running – because we don’t like to be reminded that we’re not the imperial power we used to be. We don’t like to hear other languages spoken on our streets. We don’t like Germany telling us what to do.

(Is that right? Is that what we’re leaving for? Argue with me. Tell me it’s not like this.)

So, step by tiny step, we’re walking towards irrelevance. We’re walking towards a health service run for the profit of American insurance companies. We’re walking towards increased immigration from around the world, and the extreme racism that will provoke. Towards a shrinking economy. Towards having to meet EU standards for exported goods without having a place at the table to influence how those standards are agreed.

Towards isolation.

Resist

So that’s what my books are about. Blindly walking away from peace, security, and established trade partnerships towards – what? I hope we’re not heading for the world of the Battle Ground series. I hope we’re not heading for totalitarianism and isolationism and acceptable racism and civil war.

But step by step, that’s where we could end up.

I want my books to be a self-avoiding prophecy. I want my readers to see what I’m pointing out, and help to change the direction we’re walking in.

Since I finished writing the series, France has announced the reinstatement of National Service for teenagers. Sudan cut off internet and mobile phone access for civilians, to control anti-government protestors. Iran and Saudi Arabia already stage public executions. Nothing in the books feels far-fetched any more.

This is what I’m asking my readers to resist. Electing a pro-Brexit Conservative government with a landslide majority might be a single step in the process. Leaving the EU might be the next. Small steps, but every one takes us closer to isolation. To selling off our NHS. To the break-up of the United Kingdom. To economic hardship. To an end to the peace and prosperity of the European Project.

We can turn back from the cliff at any time. It gets harder and harder as we approach the edge, but we can change where we’re heading.

It’s up to us, and our votes and decisions.

Step by tiny step.

The Battle Ground Series

Books One to Four of the Battle Ground series are available from Amazon. You’ll find them on my Amazon Author Page. The final book in the series will be published on January 9th, and there’s a free prequel novella at freebook.tallerbooks.com.

Please consider the Battle Ground series as gifts for readers aged 13-103, or for discussion at your Book Club. Contact admin@tallerbooks.com for more information, or to arrange an author visit for your Book Club or school.

These are the steps I’m taking. What about you?

Meet the Author!

The Bury St Edmunds Christmas Fayre, one of the largest Christmas markets in the UK, takes place this weekend – and Rachel will be signing and selling the first three books in the Battle Ground Series on the Suffolk Authors stall!

Find the Suffolk Authors at the Guildhall, on Guildhall Street. Five authors, with books ranging from YA and SF to fantasy, contemporary fiction, and crime. Meet the authors, and buy original gifts for the readers on your Christmas list.

Plus the Guildhall has toilets and a café, which is pretty much the Holy Grail at the Fayre. 😁

See you there!