Sometimes a story begins with a familiar character, an unexpected letter and an idea that refuses to remain within the boundaries you originally imagined.

When I first began thinking about The Highlands University of Ghostology, I had no intention of starting another series.

Quite the opposite.

I was planning the seventh instalment of The McTavish Chronicles.

Coby McTavish had already experienced more than his fair share of supernatural adventures, and I thought it might be rather entertaining to throw another complication into his increasingly unpredictable life.

I had an idea involving a kidnapping, a substantial gambling debt and someone close to Coby whose past decisions were about to create an almighty problem.

And, naturally, Gracie wasn't going to be particularly pleased about any of it.

At the time, I thought I knew exactly where the story was heading.

How wrong I was.

It All Began with a Kidnapping

I have always enjoyed writing characters who are far from perfect.

People make mistakes. They have weaknesses, peculiar habits and a remarkable ability to make unfortunate decisions at precisely the wrong moment.

And sometimes those decisions have consequences.

My original idea involved someone close to Coby who had retired but managed to accumulate a rather substantial gambling debt.

Unfortunately, debt has an unpleasant habit of attracting attention.

And in this case, the attention would be decidedly unwelcome.

When that person is kidnapped, Coby suddenly finds himself facing a situation that is both serious and deeply personal.

Gracie, understandably, is furious.

Now, I'm not going to reveal who gets kidnapped, because where would the fun be in that?

But I will say that the predicament provided exactly the sort of opening I wanted.

A little family drama.

A considerable amount of trouble.

And Coby McTavish standing somewhere in the middle, wondering how everything had gone so spectacularly wrong.

Then a letter arrived.

An Invitation Coby Probably Should Have Read More Carefully

The letter came from an institution with a rather extraordinary name.

The Highlands University of Ghostology.

An entire university devoted to the supernatural.

Now, given Coby's history as a writer and amateur sleuth, you might reasonably expect him to approach such an invitation with caution.

After all, this is a man who has encountered enough ghosts and unexplained phenomena to know that the supernatural world seldom behaves as expected.

But Coby has never been particularly famous for making sensible decisions.

He signs without giving the matter nearly enough thought.

And suddenly, he's stepping into a world unlike anything he has experienced before.

A world that is strangely unfamiliar, yet connected to subjects he knows all too well.

Ghosts.

Mysteries.

Secrets.

And, as he will discover, a rather unusual approach to academic life.

I began to realise that this university was going to be much more than another setting for a McTavish adventure.

It was becoming a world of its own.

My First Proper Venture into British Humour

There was another challenge I had set myself.

Humour.

Not simply the occasional amusing exchange between characters, but something more deliberate.

I wanted to explore dark humour, particularly that wonderfully dry and sometimes outrageous style of British comedy.

The sort of humour that finds absurdity in serious situations.

That allows eccentric characters to behave with absolute conviction, even when everything around them is falling apart.

That occasionally makes you wonder whether you should be laughing at all.

I had written supernatural mysteries before, of course, and humour had occasionally found its way into them.

But this time, I wanted it to become part of the novel's identity.

I wanted readers to laugh.

Not at the expense of the mystery, but alongside it.

Because I believe suspense and humour can make rather excellent companions.

A genuinely unsettling moment becomes even more effective when it follows something unexpectedly ridiculous.

And a comical scene can make the darker developments feel all the more surprising.

The challenge was finding the balance.

Too much humour, and the mystery might lose its edge.

Too much darkness, and the comedy would struggle to breathe.

I hoped I had found the right combination.

As it turns out, some of my advance readers seem to think I did.

A Little Tudor History, with a Supernatural Twist

Of course, I couldn't resist taking the story somewhere else entirely.

The Tudor era.

British history has always offered a remarkable collection of personalities, political intrigues, extraordinary ambitions and royal behaviour that occasionally makes modern scandals seem rather tame.

And the Tudors?

Good heavens.

There's enough drama there to keep a novelist occupied for several lifetimes.

I wanted readers to have the opportunity to experience something of that world firsthand, through the unusual possibilities offered by a supernatural mystery.

To encounter the atmosphere of another age.

To appreciate the historical personalities.

And perhaps to discover that some members of royalty are rather easier to admire from a distance.

Whether readers come away loving the royals or loathing them deeply is entirely up to them.

I suspect opinions may differ.

Rather considerably.

But that was part of the pleasure of writing this story.

The Highlands University of Ghostology gave me an opportunity to bring together Scottish Gothic fiction, British history, supernatural intrigue and a healthy helping of absurdity.

It was becoming a combination I hadn't quite anticipated when I first sat down to plan Book Seven.

When a Novel Demands Its Own Series

Somewhere during the writing process, I came to an important realisation.

This wasn't simply another instalment of The McTavish Chronicles.

The university had developed its own identity.

Its own possibilities.

Its own collection of mysteries waiting to be explored.

And I began to see that the premise could support more than a single novel.

So I made a decision.

Rather than publish the story as the seventh book in the original series, I would give it a new beginning.

The Highlands University of Ghostology would become Book One of a series bearing the same name.

Coby McTavish would remain part of the adventure, of course.

I wasn't quite ready to let him disappear into retirement.

But the world around him was changing.

And for me, that was exciting.

A familiar character entering unfamiliar territory.

A new setting with room to grow.

And a fresh opportunity to explore the supernatural from a rather different perspective.

Then the Advance Reviews Began Arriving

As any author will tell you, writing a book is one thing.

Allowing other people to read it is quite another.

You spend months creating characters, shaping scenes, rearranging chapters and convincing yourself that a particular joke is absolutely hilarious.

Then you send the manuscript into the world.

And wait.

With The Highlands University of Ghostology, I was especially curious about the response.

Would readers enjoy the shift towards dark comedy?

Would the university premise appeal to them?

Would the humour work alongside the supernatural mystery?

The early reviews have been wonderfully encouraging.

Before publication, the novel had already received five Goodreads reviews and held an average rating of 4.80 out of five.

But the numbers weren't what pleased me most.

It was what readers were saying.

One advance reader, Anna, described Coby McTavish as "wonderfully chaotic" and praised the combination of ghosts, family life, secret organisations and British absurdity.

Another reader, Mary, highlighted the novel's dry, dark humour, Gothic atmosphere and family drama.

Martha Sequeira described a story filled with colourful characters, difficult choices, action and emotional moments.

What delighted me was that these readers were responding to the very elements I had hoped to bring together.

The humour.

The mystery.

The imperfect characters.

And the emotional heart beneath the supernatural adventure.

There are no guarantees in publishing, particularly when you try something a little different.

But those early reactions gave me reason to believe that this unusual university might have found its audience.

A New Chapter for Coby McTavish

When I think back to that original idea for a seventh McTavish adventure, I can't help smiling.

A kidnapping.

An angry Gracie.

A letter from a mysterious university.

And Coby signing something he probably should have examined more carefully.

It seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to begin another ghost story.

Instead, it became the foundation of an entirely new series.

And perhaps that's one of the things I love most about writing fiction.

You can plan a story as carefully as you like.

You can outline every chapter, decide where the characters are going and convince yourself that you know exactly how everything will unfold.

But sometimes the story has other ideas.

Sometimes a supporting character demands more attention.

Sometimes a setting becomes too interesting to leave behind.

And sometimes Book Seven looks you straight in the eye and announces that it would much rather be Book One.

I'm rather glad I listened.

Because The Highlands University of Ghostology has given me a new fictional world to explore, a different style of storytelling to enjoy, and the opportunity to take Coby McTavish on adventures I might never otherwise have imagined.

And if the early readers are any indication, the ghosts, the humour and the mysteries may have a rather interesting future ahead of them.

Welcome to The Highlands University of Ghostology.

Where the past refuses to stay buried, the supernatural is an academic pursuit, and even the most experienced ghost hunter might discover that he still has a great deal to learn.

Discover The Highlands University of Ghostology

Explore the novel and find your preferred retailer:

https://iwanross.com/books/the-highlands-university-of-ghostology

Explore the series:

https://iwanross.com/series/the-highlands-university-of-ghostology

Read the accompanying spoiler-free feature about Scottish ghost mysteries, haunted universities and British humour:

https://iwanross.com/blog/love-ghost-stories-with-british-humour-welcome-to-the-highlands-university