Why I brought Serenity Falls, The Mourning Ring and One for Sorrow together in a single collection, despite knowing exactly how much work it would take.

There is something rather peculiar about being an independent author.

You spend months writing a novel. You revise it, polish it, proofread it, wrestle with the cover and eventually release it into the world.

Then you do it again.

And again.

And just when you think you've finally learned how to make your life a little easier, you come up with an entirely new way of making it more complicated.

In my case, that meant collecting three perfectly respectable novels and turning them into one enormous book.

Again.

You see, I'd already been through this exercise with The Haunted Highlands Series — Volume One. Three novels, more than 200,000 words, and a publishing process that taught me considerably more about page counts, margins and print formatting than I'd ever wanted to know.

It was an education.

A rather expensive one in terms of time, patience and the occasional muttered obscenity.

And yet, when the dust settled, I looked at the next three novels in the McTavish Chronicles and thought:

Wouldn't it be lovely to have those together as well?

Apparently, some lessons are never learned.

The Trouble with Falling in Love with Your Own Characters

When I began writing the McTavish Chronicles, I wasn't thinking about collected editions.

I was thinking about stories.

About Coby McTavish, the mysteries he would encounter, the people who would become part of his life and the strange places his adventures would take him.

One story led to another, and gradually those individual novels became something larger.

A world of their own.

That's one of the unexpected pleasures of writing a series. Characters who once existed only in your imagination begin to feel wonderfully familiar. Their voices become easier to recognise. Their relationships develop. Their experiences accumulate.

And, if you're fortunate, readers begin to care about them too.

I certainly did.

By the time I'd written Serenity Falls, The Mourning Ring and One for Sorrow, I wasn't simply looking at three separate books.

I was looking at another substantial chapter in Coby's journey.

And I wanted to give those stories a home together.

Three Novels, Three Very Different Mysteries

Although the books belong to the same series, each has its own personality.

Serenity Falls was particularly important to me because it marked my first proper venture into a murder investigation.

I'd written supernatural mysteries before, of course, but this time I wanted to bring the investigative elements closer to the foreground.

I also experimented with Scottish dialogue, which turned out to be another interesting lesson in the delicate balance between authenticity and readability.

And then there was The Mourning Ring.

This novel allowed me to explore something I particularly enjoy: the relationship between the past and the present.

A mystery doesn't necessarily begin when someone discovers it. Sometimes its origins lie decades earlier, buried beneath ordinary lives and forgotten events.

I enjoyed bringing those different perspectives together, allowing an old secret to find its way into a new investigation.

Finally, there was One for Sorrow.

That book will always occupy a special place in my heart.

It was the first novel I wrote after leaving my position as a lead technical writer.

For years, my working life had revolved around deadlines, technical documentation and the demands of a corporate career. Writing fiction was something I loved, but it had to compete for whatever time and energy remained.

Then, suddenly, I had the opportunity to approach my writing differently.

One for Sorrow became more than another Gothic mystery.

In many ways, it represented a new beginning.

So, when I looked at these three books together, I realised the collection contained more than three fictional adventures.

It also contained a little history of my own.

Why Put Three Books into One?

It's a perfectly reasonable question.

After all, the individual novels already exist. Readers can buy them separately. Nothing prevents someone from enjoying them one at a time.

So why create an omnibus?

For me, the answer is surprisingly simple.

I like the idea of giving readers something substantial.

Something they can settle into for a long, uninterrupted journey.

There's a particular pleasure in finishing a novel, turning the page and knowing that the next adventure is already waiting.

No searching for the next title.

No wondering which book follows.

Just another mystery, another haunted place and another opportunity to spend time with familiar characters.

And, of course, a collected edition can offer better value than purchasing the individual books separately.

I rather like that.

I've never believed that enjoying a good story should be unnecessarily complicated.

If someone wants to spend their evenings exploring the Scottish Highlands with Coby McTavish, I'm delighted to make that journey as convenient as possible.

Although, given the size of some collected editions, perhaps convenient is a relative term.

They're certainly easier to carry than three separate hardcovers.

Provided you don't drop one on your foot.

The Collector's Edition Dream

There's another reason I enjoy creating these collections.

I love physical books.

Not merely as containers for words, but as objects.

A substantial hardcover sitting on a bookshelf has a character of its own. So does a well-loved paperback with a slightly creased spine and pages that have been turned more than once.

There's something comforting about them.

And while ebooks are wonderfully practical, I still appreciate the idea that someone might want to keep a favourite story on a shelf.

Perhaps they'll return to it one day.

Perhaps they'll lend it to a friend.

Perhaps they'll simply enjoy knowing it's there.

That's what I had in mind when I began thinking of the Haunted Highlands collections as little collector's editions.

Not rare or extravagant objects, but substantial books that bring several adventures together in one place.

A small library within a single cover.

And, I hope, something readers might enjoy keeping.

Knowing What I Was Getting Myself Into

Of course, there was one minor complication.

I knew exactly how difficult producing an omnibus could be.

Volume One had already taught me that combining three manuscripts isn't quite as straightforward as copying them into one enormous document and pressing a magical button labelled Publish.

If only.

There are formatting considerations, print dimensions, page limits, chapter structures, covers and all the little details that can consume astonishing amounts of time.

And when you're an independent author working without a large publishing team, those responsibilities tend to land on the same desk.

Mine.

Volume Two required its own share of work, effort and patience.

But this time I had something I hadn't possessed when creating the first collection.

Experience.

I knew that the difficulties were part of the process, and that there would eventually be a finished book at the other end.

I also knew why I wanted to do it.

That made the work worthwhile.

Not Every Book Finds Its Readers Immediately

One of the realities of independent publishing is that books don't always follow the same path.

Some attract attention quickly.

Others take their time.

A title you expect to do particularly well might sit quietly for a while, while another surprises you completely.

I've learned not to take that personally.

Elm Brook Manor, the novel that began Coby's adventures, has been especially fortunate in finding readers. And perhaps that makes sense. It's the beginning of the journey, the first door into the world of the McTavish Chronicles.

Volume Two stands further along that road.

It's waiting for readers who want to continue.

I don't know when each book will find its audience, and I've long since given up pretending I can predict these things.

What I can do is keep telling the stories I love, present them as well as I can and make them available to anyone who might enjoy them.

Sometimes that requires a little patience.

Fortunately, writing novels has given me plenty of practice.

A Little Something for the Readers

When I think about The Haunted Highlands Series — Volume Two, I don't think first about its size or the work involved in producing it.

I think about the readers.

The people who have followed Coby from one strange encounter to another.

The people who enjoy a haunted manor, a forgotten secret or a mystery that refuses to behave itself.

The people who become attached to fictional characters and occasionally worry about them as though they were real.

I understand that feeling rather well.

These characters have kept me company for years.

And if bringing three more of their adventures together makes the reading experience a little easier, a little more affordable or simply a little more enjoyable, then the effort was worth it.

I suppose that's the real reason I created Volume Two.

Not because the world desperately needed another enormous book.

But because I wanted to offer readers another way to enjoy the stories.

And perhaps, somewhere, someone will place that substantial volume on a bookshelf beside Volume One.

Two collections.

Six novels.

A considerable amount of imagination, determination and occasional frustration.

And a journey through the haunted Scottish Highlands that began with one rather unlikely protagonist.

Coby McTavish.

Who would have thought?

The Journey Continues

The Haunted Highlands Series — Volume Two brings together Serenity Falls, The Mourning Ring and One for Sorrow, the fourth, fifth and sixth novels of the McTavish Chronicles.

Each has its own mystery.

Each has its own memories attached to its creation.

And together, they represent another chapter in a writing journey that has given me more pleasure than I could ever have anticipated.

Would I go through the trouble of creating another enormous collection?

Well...

I've learned that it's probably best not to answer questions like that too confidently.

After all, I said I'd learned my lesson the first time.

And look what happened.

Discover The Haunted Highlands Series — Volume Two:

https://iwanross.com/books/the-haunted-highlands-series-volume-two