Out now! The Special Edition, including a new story featuring the witch, Dragwena.
AWARDS
I’m amazed to tell you SAVANNAH GREY didn’t win the North East Teenage Award – though I did meet some great and slightly loopy fans (my favourite types) at the ceremony.
The award was won by the fine novel WHEN I WAS JOE by Keren David.
EVENTS
Nothing Planned right now. I never seem to have any planned or, more often, I forget to tell you about them. I know I’m going to the Edinborough Festival this year – late summer – but don’t have a date yet.
I’ll try to remember to tell you ... just did two days with Surrey Libraries on ghost stories that were great and forgot to tell you about that. You could have come along! I’m just rubbish ... will try to do better, promise ...
SAVANNAH GREY
... comes out in the U.S. in April this year, but it has had some attention already. Go to the Lerner website (lernerbooks.com) for critical responses as they come up if you want those, but the ‘good reads’ website, which a helluva lotta people seem to be recording their wise and crazy thoughts on these days, gives a pretty honest reflection across the board of what people are thinking about it, bad and good. Here it is ... I still groove that U.S. cover.
THE HUNTING GROUND
My new YA ghost novel THE HUNTING GROUND (‘NOT FOR YOUNGER READERS’, it says so right on the cover), is due out in MAY 2011 in the U.K.
It’s a cold slice of unadulterated terror this one, any rays of sunshine wintry feeble ones scattered far and wide by the attenuated bodies of the main protagonists, but that’s what a ghosts story’s supposed to be like isn’t it, and there are quite enough not-very-scary-scooby-doo-type ghosts in young fiction for a lifetime’s dull reading.
Amazingly, in 2006, when I wrote BREATHE, there were hardly any ghost novels being written of any substance or quality. Now suddenly ghost stories are appearing everywhere ... I think I must have started this great trend. I can’t think of any other explanation for it ...
NEXT NOVEL
I’m deep into the first draft of my new large-scale fantasy adventure ARAMANTH (bad title I know, I’ll have to come up with something more ringing).
I’m not sure if it’s any good yet, but there’s no shortage of action, that’s for sure. I’ve even included dragons. They’re so ubiquitous in children’s (and adults, actually) fantasy that I decided ages ago never to use them, but it’s funny – as soon as I decided to make them hard-nosed and uncompromising as hell they kinda came to life.
The whole Medusa legend has always obsessed me, and that has come in here too. Let’s reincarnate the gorgon, that’s what I say – and make her mobile. Create hundreds of them, get them flying. That should be fun.
Ciao ..... and be good to each other.
