Charley Mayne

A voice worth finding.

Charley Mayne is an Irish indie author and creator of the Chainmark Series, a dark dystopian series exploring survival, identity, complicity, and the choices people make when freedom is taken away. Her stories are character-driven, unapologetically dark, and centered on the people living within the system rather than the system itself.

I have always been an avid reader. I used to drive my Nonna mad asking her to take me to the local library three times a week. I read fast then. I still do. I won a couple of short story competitions when I was a teenager and was once told by an English teacher that “happy endings aren't a bad thing.”

I was a brat. Still am.

Back then, school just wasn't interesting to me. Books that weren't fiction held no appeal, and adults who tried to enforce rules or control me were generally just hurdles to be avoided.

All except my Nonna.

She raised me. Loved me despite my many faults and instilled values in me that I still try to live up to. Years later, when I started writing Ryan's story, I lent him my Nonna. She helps him survive.

After school, I bounced around for a while. I used to leave jobs when I ran out of holiday days. Eventually, I was sitting on a beach on holiday, staring at the ocean and thinking about survival and control when a story hit me. I wrote the first three chapters of my first book in a tiny fucking notebook right there on the beach.

I thought it would be one book.

Then I actually started writing it.

I realized the story was bigger. Much bigger. It wasn't just about Ryan, or even the system that controlled him. It was about all the people around him. The ones who hurt him. The ones who helped him. The ones who looked away. The ones who tried to do the right thing inside a system where doing the right thing isn't always simple.

I still have no clue what I'm doing most of the time. People comment on my writing style and I'm usually like, “Huh?” I write the story the way I hear it in my head. And yeah, sometimes it's pretty fucking brutal.

What has blown me away is the way readers have reacted to Ryan.

I thought I was writing about a fictional character. Readers see their son, nephew, cousin, or someone they want to hang out with, protect and love. There's even a #RyansArmy. The love for Ryan, and the sheer unadulterated hatred for Wilkins, is something I never anticipated.

If I'm honest, I didn't anticipate any of this.

I wrote a story because it was making my head way too loud. Then I published it while drunk one night with absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Nearly eighteen months later?

Six books. Readers. Reviews. A whole community of people emotionally invested in a fictional sixteen-year-old boy I first scribbled into a tiny notebook on a beach.

Who knew?

Certainly not me.