I’m back from holidays. Had a wonderful time and got a ton of writing done on book 3. Plus tons of research for the fabled Brittany book which I will get around to writing one day. And some reading to boot.
And best of all a box full of copies of A Hollow in the Hills arrived today.
Roll on the release day on the 7th September and the booklaunch in the Gutter Bookshop at 6.30pm on the 9th September. All welcome. Come and celebrate.
I’m very excited to be part of Irish Fiction Fortnight on the BleachHouseLibrary website. This year I wrote about a book that had a huge influence on what I write today. It’s called The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea and you can read all about it here.
There’s also a giveaway for a signed copy of A Crack in Everything.
Another exciting bit of news is that Kate Johnson has very kindly agreed to launch A Hollow in the Hills in the Gutter Bookshop, Dublin on the 9th September at 6.30pm. Come one, come all. Kate is a fantastic writer and I’m particularly addicted to her books The Untied Kingdom and Impossible Things. Or maybe its her heroes… 😉 Especially the next one, from the Ghost Book which doesn’t have a name yet but is AWESOME! And is partly set in Dublin.
So another reason, as if you needed one, to come to the book launch.
Lastly, I’m going to be going dark in the next couple of days as I’m working on book 3 and doing some travelling, and hopefully some research as well!
Sorry for the lack of blogging. I have been busy busy busy. (Warning: this post brought to you today by the words “wonderful” and “fantastic”!)
The trip to London for the RNA Conference was absolutely wonderful.
I missed the Tube strike and all my transport went very smoothly (I didn’t actually need the vast amount of alternate routes I planned at all). The Conference itself was, as always, wonderful. In fact you can get a flavour of it at the Romaniacs website where they have a lovely videos and will be posting interviews with various authors (including yours truly which I’ll link to when it goes up).
My talk “Finding the Fantastic in Your Fiction” seemed to go down very well although I was desperately nervous beforehand. But people came (at least 35 of them because all my handouts went), and asked questions (Yay!) and even came up to me afterwards to say how much they enjoyed it. Even people I didn’t know!
My highlight was probably Julie Cohen’s excellent (as ever) Re-writing workshop. With All the Post It notes in the universe. Including giant ones and a stack for everyone in the audience. And the panel discussion on Saturday – “The Vision for Writers of Passion and Drama” – Katie Fforde, Eileen Ramsay, Jane Johnstone and Daniel Hahn talked about the challenges facing authors today. It was wildly entertaining and very interesting.
Was that a future Game of Thrones spoiler from Jane? We’ll never know…
Chilling by the canal was also wonderful, a way to escape the heat and Kate Johnson and I discussed Buffy for rather a long time…
And the Gala dinner was just fab! All very glam. It was held in the beautiful Octogon Library which was a bit of a highlight for librarian-me who came over all fangirl. For a building. Yes…
I always end up having a little bit of a downer when I have to leave. I meet so many good friends at the conferences and its a place for writers to be writers. I miss that. But roll on next year in Lancaster (8-10th July). Can’t wait.
Back in the real world, final edits went back in for A Hollow in the Hills, the sequel to A Crack in Everything, which comes out on the 7th September.
SO BOOK LAUNCH NEWS!!!!
We will be having a book launch in the Gutter Bookshop at 6.30pm on Wednesday the 9th September. All welcome. Bring your friends. Bring ALL OF THEM! I will be sourcing cake.
Yesterday was mostly spent working on Book 3 The Darkness at the End, because I had a massive surge of post-conference creativity which saw me write 16 pages in longhand and type up 6000 words. Still more to catch up on. I love it when writing does that.
Last night I went to the Pavilion Theatre to see Judy Blume in conversation with Sinead Gleeson. It was a wonderful evening and the warmth and love of the audience was only matched by the warmth and love which radiated from the woman herself. Many of my YA writing friends were there as a gang, our bookclub being just a little hyper beforehand. And during the Q & A. And after… But she has been such an inspiration to so many people and it really showed. It was fantastic to find out she is as lovely as we always wanted her to be.
So, first up, something I have been dying to share for AGES! A Crack in Everything has been translated in to German and will be on sale in October this year. It’s called Der Chroniken der Fae – Auf Papier und Asche. More details here on the RandomHouse.de website. And have I mentioned the AWESOME cover?
So so beautiful and lovely to see Izzy at last. Blessed by the cover fairies again!
But that’s not all! (as they say on T.V.)
A Hollow in the Hills, the sequel to A Crack in Everything, is up on Amazon for pre-order and on Waterstones as well (and presumably in other places too!)
Something is stirring beneath Dubh Linn.
When an ancient and forbidden power is unleashed, Izzy, who is still coming to terms with her newfound powers, must prevent a war from engulfing Dublin and the fae realm of Dubh Linn. But by refusing to sacrifice Jinx – fae warrior and her ‘not-really-ex’ – Izzy sets in motion a chain of events which will see them hunted across the city and into the hills where she’ll face the greatest challenge of all.
In the deepest and darkest Hollow, an angel of death is waiting … and the price he asks for his help might be too high …