Aidan Blackwood

I started writing Echoes of Vengeance in pieces back in 2012. At the time, I didn’t know what it would become. I just knew I needed to get something out. I grew up in the west of Scotland, where violence was common and bullying was part of the background noise. Like Jamie, I saw too much, too young. Writing was a way to process it. A way to hold up a mirror to that world, not to glorify it, but to survive it.

Then in 2021, I lost my mum. Grief doesn’t give you answers. It gives you weight. And for a while, writing was the only way I could carry it. That’s when the book really came into focus. It wasn’t just a story about a boy who had enough. It became a place to bury everything I couldn’t say out loud: the rage, the grief, the loneliness.

Jamie isn’t me, but I understand him. I understand the refusal to be broken, the instinct to push back when the world tries to tell you what you’re worth. He’s more violent than I’ve ever been, but the defiance he holds onto, that’s something I’ve always felt.

Echoes of Vengeance is about standing up, even when it hurts. It’s for anyone who’s ever felt cornered, forgotten, or dismissed and chose to keep going. Not always with fists, but with fire. With will.

This book helped me survive some of the darkest years of my life. I hope it gives someone else permission to do the same.

A. Blackwood