The Fenian was written strictly as a standalone and just to make sure, the fates of all the characters were brought up to date in a comprehensive epilogue. But Mike was blindsided by the positive feedback he received, the reviews, the social media posts and the messages of support. Readers were telling him he’d written the story of their lives. He started to wonder if there was scope for a follow-up but with the lives of The Fenian’s cast all wrapped, where to go with it? Then, on a daily exercise walk during the second covid lockdown, he had a lightbulb moment. He recalled a scene in The Fenian where two of the main characters return to the shelter where they used to hang out only to find it taken over by younger kids – brothers and sisters of the original gang among them. That scene was written to signal the changing of the guard but suddenly it provided a solution – the cast of a sequel. Familiar setting and era but different characters and a new story with scope for The Fenian’s main players to pop up now and again. Stopping To Rain tells of a group of pals experiencing teenage adventures and angst in a 1970s Scottish new town. They make friendships they think will last forever and two of them, Fred and Trish, fall in love. But the couple and two of the others get caught up in a drunken prank that ends in tragedy and tears them apart. More than 20 years later, the dark secrets of their youth come back to haunt them. Stopping To Rain shares some of the hallmarks of The Fenian – the humour, the craziness, the outrageous characters – but it’s more dramatic and a little darker in places than its predecessor. Above all, it’s a book that is full of heart. Incidentally, the title comes from a grammatical anomaly the author stumbled across decades ago which has stuck in his head ever since. He’d taken his stepson and his cousin fishing one summer’s evening and they sheltered under trees from a sudden downpour. After about five minutes the cousin, then seven or eight, poked his head out and said: “I think it’s stopping to rain.” Mike admits he struggled to explain what was wrong with the expression – and 40 years on, he still hasn’t quite figured it out.