New book!

I’m happy to announce the release of Devon Layne’s newest book, Adams’ Apples. I guess I should say that I am also Devon Layne.

I don’t usually make a big deal out of books by my alter ego because most people who read this blog are not interested in erotica. But Adams’ Apples in no way resembles erotic writing. So why release it as a Devon Layne book? Because it’s about an inherently sexual situation, regardless of its lack of explicit sexual acts. And many people can’t tell the difference.

Now, here’s the whole story… or as much of it as I think you can handle.

Back in roughly 1972, when I was first contemplating becoming a playwright, my first father-in-law gave me a book and suggested I turn it into a stage play or, better yet, a musical. I read the book and agreed it was a fine satire after the definition of Greek satires. I’d recently seen a rock musical version of The Birds by Aristophanes. I agreed the book would make a good musical. And I set to work on it. To no avail. Life changed meanings and instead of school, I now had a job, a wife, and a dog. My writing was relegated to a back burner.

But I’d always felt the story—though as a post-World War II narrative, it was vastly out of date—was a great concept. In it, a new nuclear power plant in Mississippi exploded with a force much higher than a nuclear bomb. Mississippi was obliterated, which seemed not to make much difference to anyone. And all the men on earth were sterilized by a new wavelength of radiation. That is something people cared about.

All men except one who happened to have been trapped a mile deep in a lead mine at the time. He emerges as the new Adam with a world full of wannabe Eves.

I started a search back in 2014 for the book and was unsuccessful. In January this year, when I announced to my patrons that I would start writing the story at last, a reader was able to point me to the original book: Mr. Adam by Pat Franks, published in 1946. By that time, I was nearly ten chapters into the new book, drawing on some of my memories of the original. The result was Adams’ Apples.

World War III was fought in outer space. It was over in an hour and no one won. Except Jack Adams, who was the only male of the species not caught in the viral fallout of the war that sterilized all the men on earth. Jack was the orbiting satellite repairman who inadvertently triggered the war. Now it seems every woman in the world wants one of Jack Adams’ Apples.

This new and original story is based on the 1946 book, Mr. Adam, by Pat Frank. While the theme is the same and some characters have similar names, the story is updated from 1946 to a mythical time fifteen or twenty years from now. It is far more a lampoon of our own times than a repeat of 1946.

I tried to think of every major phenomenon of our society and lampoon it. News reporters, preachers, bartenders, police, Homeland Security, the military, ICE, the president, protesters, militant 2^nd amendment people, doctors, the media, women, police, men, racists, hospitals, prostitution, terrorists, fertility clinics, the space program, bureaucracy, congress, committees in general, editors, parenthood, vitamins, MIB, the CDC, WHO, lawyers, Wall Street… I know I’ve missed some, but I tried to get as many ridiculous barbs in at each of them as I could. All the time, I kept thinking “This is way over the top. No one will ever believe this.”

Then we got hit by COVID-19.

Suddenly, I couldn’t write things fast enough to have them down before they were on national news. No one was going to believe I wrote this before the current waves of hysteria. Now, my ridiculous lampoon of our society reads more like a book on current affairs. If only I could have made it more ridiculous!

But there you have it. My book is now released. Get it at

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DF9YPRS (Kindle)

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/adams-apples-devon-layne/1137379179?ean=2940162928683 (ePUB)

Bookapy: https://bookapy.com/s/176/adams-apples (either Kindle or ePUB)

Or read it online for free at http://www.devonlayne.com/releases/adamsapples/

Or get the eBook for free when you join my patrons at the $5 per month tier at https://www.patreon.com/NathanEverett

Is that all?

No, of course not. I’ve been busy cleaning old projects off my desktop. This week, I’ve also finished and sent to editors:

My rewrite of American Royalty 1: Coming of Age, currently going under the name Rise and Awaken, but subject to change.

My long-delayed sequel to Ritual Reality, The Props Master 2: A Touch of Magic.

And I’m currently working on the draft of For Mayhem or Madness, my third Dag Hamar book which fits nicely between the two already released.

It’s going to be fun keeping up in the next few weeks!

Enjoy the reading.