My father died three times before I turned twelve.

At least, that's what my mother told me — three different deaths, three different lies, each one chosen to keep me from ever looking for him.

That's the first line of my new book, and it's the truest thing I've ever published. Today I'm thrilled — and more than a little nervous — to share that Growing Slowly Nowhere is now available in every format: ebook, paperback, and hardcover.

For years you've known me for The McTavish Chronicles — the gothic mysteries, the haunted manors, the restless spirits of Serenity Falls. This book is different. This one is true. It's the story underneath all those haunted houses: a childhood spent growing up in apartheid-era South Africa, in a home that was never built to be safe, and the long, slow, stubborn work of surviving it.

It's a memoir about a vanished father and a narcissistic mother. About a brother's cruelty and a boy who learned to disappear. About the South African Air Force, the minefields of the Mozambican border, a fire that nearly killed me, and a coma that nearly finished the job. It's about psychiatric clinics and hard-won recovery, and about the people — and one extraordinary woman — who finally taught me what home could mean.

It is not a story of easy triumph. It's an honest, unflinching, and (I promise) sometimes darkly funny account of carrying the lessons of survival — the harmful ones and the necessary ones — into a life that finally became worth living.

And it ends with something I never saw coming when I first set out to write it: I went looking for my father, and I found something else entirely.

★★★★★ "A riveting and unforgettable true story, told with urgency, honesty, and quiet determination."★★★★★ "Brutally honest, deeply moving, and impossible to put down."

If you've ever loved a memoir like Educated, The Glass Castle, or A Boy Called It — or if you've simply ever wondered what shapes a person who writes about hauntings for a living — I wrote this one for you.

👉 Get Growing Slowly Nowhere here — available now in ebook, paperback, and hardcover.

Thank you for being here, and for reading. It means more than you know to share this one with you.

— Iwan

P.S. If the book moves you, the single kindest thing you can do for an independent author is leave a short review. A line or two on Amazon or Goodreads helps other readers find their way to it — and I read every one.