Future Books by Derrick McCartney

The Impossible Friendship

Friendship is a beautiful thing; but sometimes it is not enough. For Ryan and Ti, an awkward meet cute that leads to a meeting of the minds ignites feelings that cannot be denied. Fate pulls them apart and forces a decision, either to live with the memory of what could have been or risk everything for love.

Ryan Conroy is a hustler. He lives from job to job, a gun for hire. He is a gifted writer who spins celebrated prose. Whether it is reworking a movie script, ghost writing a thriller, or pushing boundaries in his own fiction, Ryan is in high demand. He lives with his niece, whom he became the guardian of after the death of his sister and her husband. On the surface, life is good, but Ryan is focused on building a wall, partly to protect his new life in California and partly to forget a secret he left behind in Tennessee.

Tiyasa Dey is an up-and-coming Internet influencer and financial analyst. A NOCAL girl now living in Los Angeles, she moves in the fast lane, a fiercely independent, modern Gen Z woman who takes no prisoners. But she knows this persona is a façade. Her life is falling apart. Her alpha male boyfriend has left her and her domineering Bengali mother is applying the pressure to marry “a good South Asian boy.” Ti just wants to be left alone to grow her online following and bolster her bona fides as a wizard of the LA financial scene. That is until she meets a thoughtful man with a way with words.

Can these two people who come from very different worlds and are on very different trajectories in life come together or are they destined to be tangled in an impossible friendship? Expected publication date is 2025.

Writer’s Block

What if you were the last person on Earth? This is the challenge facing Jack Potter, a twenty-four-year-old aspiring author. Following an anomalous event, everyone in Manhattan has disappeared, except for Jack, who is being held in the city by some mysterious force. Writer’s Block is reminiscent of The Martian where the protagonist must deal with loneliness and live by his wits, even though it is in a well-stocked, undamaged city instead of on a barren planet. The novel is written in the first person to allow the reader to accompany Jack on his journey of discovery, which involves understanding how and why Quantum and Classical physics now interact more visibly in the world he inhabits all by himself. This is a SCI-FI mystery with a paranormal twist. Expected publication date is 2026. 

Come Together

In the final book of the trilogy, Ray Baker is back to where he started at the end of McMinnville, but the world has changed. The skills he used to navigate the inconceivable are of no use to him. Besides, he has no memory of where he’s been and the life he has lived for the last thirty years. All the while, the clock is ticking down to the Great Reveal. Like the first two books of the trilogy, this is a SCI-FI mystery with a paranormal twist. Expected publication date is 2027.

Neighbors

Floating across the country in his car and across the universe in his mind, a middle-aged SCI-FI novelist learns that love in the City of Angels like quantum mechanics can lead to the most inescapable entanglement. Mark Cooper has been a widower for two years when he decides to pack up and drive cross country from Virginia to California to start his life over. Two bestselling, award winning SCI-FI novels allow him to quit his job as an analyst in a defense think tank and become a full-time writer. When he arrives in Los Angeles, he quickly finds that he has entered a different world, a culture that is nothing like the east coast grind he was used to. At the center of this world is his very beautiful, intelligent, and in-your-face neighbor, Kylie Lee, who is looking for a sidekick: someone with time on their hands, easily accessible, and mentally stable. Tag, Mark is it whether he wants to be or not. Can they find their way out of the “friend zone” without destroying each other in the process? This is a love story that hides two dark secrets. Expected publication date is 2028.