I'll try to give a few insights into the creative process behind this new episode of the Midgaard Cycle.

I always conceived the Midgaard Cycle as a trilogy, and that idea was only strengthened when volume 1, The Vanirim, won the grand prize in the Publishers Weekly BookLife awards, the most important result being that the prizemoney enabled me to blow my charity fundraising target for that year out of the water. (All sales of my books go to charity, this year it is Plan International, the #girlsrights organisation).

The three volumes will be The Vanirim, the Æsir and finally, the Jötunn, each featuring a new faction in the universe of Norse deities. The first volume was written in the first person voice of the main protagonist, Tully McIntyre, a man who has had his ability to feel emotion cauterised, and whose psyche is fighting back. It was a unique viewpoint to examine what is essentially a crime story through.

But as I got about a third of the way into volume 2, the Æsir, I realised the storyline would not work if I wrote it in same first person voice. So I changed it to third person and the story is mostly seen through the eyes of another protagonist, Regin Investigator Stella Valiente.

There are many precedents for creatively playing with the POV through a series, not least of which is Lee Childs Jack Reacher series which is sometimes written in first person, other times in third. What drives this decision is often the fact that the protagonist is hiding a secret and it wouldn't be credible for him to keep it from the reader. This wasn't a problem in The Vanirim because although McIntyre had secrets, they weren't even known to himself.

In the Æsir though, McIntyre has a very important hidden agenda and I didn't feel he could narrate the story and keep his secret hidden at the same time.

If that change of PoV disconcerts you as a reader, fear not! McIntyre will be back as first person narrator in Volume 3, The Jötunn!