CHRISTOPHER BYFORD was born in 1980 in Wellingborough, England. He learnt to walk whilst holding on to a golden retriever and fondly remembers the days of BMX bikes and conker matches. He left college to suffer as an IT Manager for a small multinational before, in his words, escaping to Gloucester. After working for some large tech companies he seized the opportunity to become a full-time author. It was the best thing he’s ever done.
The Gambler’s Den Series
Den of Shadows
Den of Stars
Den of Smoke
Den of Shadows Collection
Luck and Other Deadly Things
Christopher Byford
ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Christopher Byford 2019
Christopher Byford asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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E-book Edition © January 2019 ISBN: 9780008335939
To those who were there at the start
and are here at the end
Contents
Den of Shadows – Additional Material
Den of Stars – Additional Material
Den of Smoke – Additional Material
As any author will tell you, the process of editing a manuscript can be testing. There is a wonderful phrase tossed around that puts the difficulty in context: ‘murder your darlings’.
Nobody wants to murder their darlings. They’re called darlings for a reason. The very thought of putting the axe to months, even years of work is nauseating. Chapters get removed for pacing reasons. Characters are deemed redundant, their lines and scenes absorbed into a more palatable fixture.
I’m comfortable with the editing process. I understand that for the sake of clarity, consistency and market, things may need modifying, tightening up, compacting, and other such terms that attempt to lessen the impact of its severity. Yet for all the hurt it causes the end result is much better for it.
This book is a collection of all of the moments when the axe was swung for whatever reason and the darlings in question were sacrificed. In here are entire missing chapters and extended scenes of those that were included for publication. It’s the book equivalent of the deleted scenes section you find on the front menu when you put a movie in, with bad sound and ropey green-screen effects. Like it, the inclusions are in various states so expect things to be a little rougher than you would normally find.
When the Den series was published, I was fortunate to have a great team at HQ Digital behind me. They steered me through what editing entailed, explaining
