It has been a while since I’ve written anything here. Quite a while, actually. But in the months since my last update, I haven’t exactly been sitting still.

Behind the scenes, I’ve been revisiting the book that started all of this: Bradley’s Gambit.

When I first published Gambit, I was doing what a lot of independent authors do. I had written a book. I believed in the story. I wanted people to read it. And then I discovered that writing the thing was only one part of becoming an author.

Publishing is an entirely different creature. Since then, I’ve learned a lot. About editing. Formatting. Distribution. ISBNs. Cover specifications. Print production. And, occasionally, about how many different ways a perfectly innocent PDF can ruin your afternoon.

Now, after revisions, corrections, more corrections, and an adventure through the machinery of independent publishing, Bradley’s Gambit has reached an important milestone.

It is officially entering wider distribution through IngramSpark.

For me, this feels less like simply putting an old book back on the shelf and more like giving it the release I wanted it to have in the first place.

Going Back to Montrose

 Returning to Gambit after writing the books that followed it was a strange experience.

I already knew where Bradley Ghast would eventually go.

The Bradley on those first pages didn't.

There is something fascinating about meeting a character again when you know his future. Little conversations suddenly carry more weight. Supporting characters who seemed incidental become much more interesting. Decisions made almost instinctively while writing the first book turn out to have consequences I couldn't possibly have understood yet.

And some characters apparently knew they were important long before I did.

I'm looking at you, Teagan.

That is one of the things I want to explore here over the coming weeks.

Not simply buy my book posts, because there are only so many creative ways I can yell BOOK! at the internet before someone calls animal control.

Instead, I want to open the workshop door a little.

I want to talk about how these characters developed, where ideas came from, what changed along the way, and how a story about one man trying to disappear into the Colorado mountains gradually became something much larger.

The Book That Started It

At its heart, Bradley’s Gambit begins with Bradley Ghast trying to build a quiet life.

He has history he would rather leave alone. He has scars he has learned to live around. And Colorado offers something enormously attractive to a man who has spent enough time surrounded by noise:

space.

Of course, this is a thriller.

Peace and quiet were never going to last very long.

What follows became the foundation for everything I would eventually build around Bradley. His relationships. His failures. His stubbornness. His humor. His instinct to protect people even while convincing himself he wants nothing to do with them.

Most importantly, it began a journey I didn't yet realize I was writing.

When I wrote those early chapters, there was no grand trilogy pinned neatly to a wall. There wasn't an elaborate master plan charting Bradley's destiny across three novels.

Anyone who knows me should find the idea that I had an elaborate organizational system deeply suspicious.

I found the story by following Bradley.

And eventually, Bradley led me somewhere I hadn't expected.

A Series Begins Again

So this rerelease feels appropriate.

Bradley’s Gambit gets another beginning at almost exactly the same time I'm preparing for the culmination of the journey it accidentally started.

Bradley’s Reckoning followed.

And now Bradley’s Legacy is coming.

Three books that, looking backward, form a much more intricate tapestry than I could see while writing those first scenes in Montrose.

Over the next several weeks, I'll be using this blog to pull at some of those threads without spoiling the stories themselves.

We'll talk about Bradley.

We'll talk about Montrose.

We'll talk about the characters who walked onto the page intending to stay for five minutes and apparently signed leases while I wasn't paying attention.

We'll talk about how Gambit became Reckoning.

And eventually, we'll arrive at Legacy.

But for now, it seems right to begin where Bradley did.

Back in Colorado.

Back in Montrose.

Back at the beginning.

Welcome back to Bradley’s Gambit.