In the warmth of a hot summer’s day on the south Devon coast a community awakes, unaware of the mayhem about to descend from afar. Meanwhile in the eaves of a suburban house in distant Hertfordshire, a wasp stirs, unaware that his life is about to change forever.
This is not a conventional romance; The story builds from the beginnings of a young wasps’ life, where his ambitions for a longed-for mate quickly unravel, leading to a dramatic and shocking climax.
The novel’s setting is inspired by beauty of the rugged Devonshire coastline, in particular the uniqueness of the rounded pebbles that make up the beach of Budleigh Salterton, a small town set within the Jurassic Coast.
Get a preview of the scenery of where the action takes place. From the sparkling blue sea brushing softly against a spectacular pebble beach, to the well-kept lines of a nearby vineyard, the book’s setting is a stunning snapshot of England’s varied coastline. As you read each chapter imagine yourself enjoying the countryside, the shoreline or the high street.
The story remains as faithful as possible to how wasps really live. So, in the book, as in real life, they don’t speak with each other but communicate in different ways and they are given names only to allow humans to identify the characters. In the real world, as in the book, wasps are amazing creatures, helping to maintain the fragile eco-system of insect life, protecting crops from aphids and other pests and promoting seed germination.
Well wood masters really! Wasps start to build their nests in the spring, when the queens, emerging from their winter hibernation, chew wood into pulp, producing a thin papier mache type material. The result is beautiful, elaborate nests, increasing in size throughout the summer, eventually holding several thousand insects.
In the UK the most common wasps, the yellowjackets, are social wasps, usually living in colonies, but until late summer, the nests are ‘staffed’ exclusively by females. They spend their time working to look after and protect the colony. Some will be engineers building or repairing the nest or carers to look after the larvae. Others will be soldiers to defend the nest or foragers to gather food. It is only in the late summer that male drones are hatched to mate with, and impregnate, the fertile females who will become next years’ queens.
The life of a male wasp is quite different to that of a female. The males only appear in the late summer and spend their time hanging around waiting to seize any and every opportunity to mate. They do not have stings and once they have mated, their life’s ambition achieved, they succumb quickly to the falling temperatures and lack of food in autumn. Females are engaged throughout the summer, one generation following another, each surviving for up to four weeks, servicing the nests and their queens.
Adrian grew up in north west London and after developing a keen interest in motor sport he spent three years competing in Formula Ford and saloon car racing, alongside working in the motor industry. In 2002 his life changed direction when he turned his part-time service in the Royal Navy Reserve into a full-time occupation, serving in Sierra Leone, Somalia and Afghanistan. After moving to Devon in 2009, he worked at the Britannia Royal Naval College, instructing future Royal Navy officers, before completing his working life at the Commando Training Centre, retiring in 2024.
A keen sportsman, in addition to his motor sport exploits, Adrian competed in ocean yacht racing, and ski racing, alongside being an enthusiastic football fan, which continues to bring joy and misery in equal measure to this day. He notes the path to Summer-Nemesis’ as follows:
It was while watching the 2006 Italian Grand Prix at Monza that I found myself sitting on a patch of grass, my 11-year-old daughter beside me. Whilst relaxing under the shade of some tall trees, I noticed several wasps circling around a soft drink can and as we watched the insects buzzing around, I began to think about their lives and what they did and even what purpose they served. The idea of writing a book about wasps flashed into my head and in that moment ‘Summer- Nemesis’ was conceived.
So it was that a week after my retirement in 2024 I first put pen to paper (well fingers on a keyboard really). The plot had been developing in my head for 18 years, some ideas considered but soon discarded, others retained and further developed. Just over four months after writing the opening paragraph I had completed the first draft. Then the real work started.
Through a series of editorial reviews the manuscript shed over 15,000 words and the structure of the book went through several metamorphoses until the final version was finally ready, 15 months after the first draft had been completed. Nothing is ever perfect and I could have continued to make changes for years into the future, but the reworked project was sent for proof-reading and typesetting and the novel was ready.
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