Thorn in the Flesh launch day

Well, it's finally here - the launch day for Thorn in the Flesh which you can buy, if you'd like to, from Goldenford (which is better for us!) or even from Amazon UK - though naturally they haven't changed the status from "Pre-order" yet. Sigh. Don't wait up then ...

Here is the blurb, to whet your feminist, criminal appetites:

Kate Harris, a lecturer in her late thirties, is attacked in her Surrey home and left for dead. Continuing threats hinder her recovery, and these life changing events force her to journey into her past to search for the child she gave away. Can she overcome the demons of her own personal history before time runs out?

“a novel about the elusive nature of memory, and about truth” (Marsha Rowe, Co-founder of Spare Rib)


Naturally, at (at the moment of typing) 1.5 hours from the time I have to be at the launch venue, I'm as nervous and jittery as a mayfly on speed. Though - one hopes - with rather more than a few remaining hours to live. I'm also rather pleased that, once again, a moment of personal celebration has coincided with an event of national significance: I held my first ever housewarming party for my first ever house the day after the great 1987 October hurricane; now I hold my launch the day after the great British earthquake. Honour is satisfied, I think ...

And, much to my astonishment, I've actually managed to do some other stuff in my day beyond just hyperventilating and wrapping myself in my cloak of panicky event self-obsession. Well, almost. I've done some more to The Gifting and have now got Simon through the first of his battles, hurrah. Will he survive the next three? Ach, it's anyone's guess.

I've also finished reading Alex Beecroft's Captain's Surrender - which is a male romance on the high seas. I'm not usually a fan of naval novels, but Beecroft does write extremely well. In fact, I was totally gripped by the sea routines and battles - very "Hornblower" - and I fell passionately in love with Peter (though I was less taken with Josh). I would have liked to see more adventure stuff and with a lot more in Peter's view - a very interesting character indeed!

And I've finished Keith Please's poetry collection, Firestrikes. An arresting combination of passion and intellect, with a marvellous focus on the relationship of nature and man. I particularly enjoyed "The Coldest Day", about a friend's funeral, "Some Days", which points out with great wryness that some days simply don't count and "The Bee House, Steep", about Edward Thomas. Certainly much there to mull over. Well worth a read.

Tonight - well, I'll be attempting to look like an author (whatever the bloody hell that is!), trying to read slowly and make some kind of sense and hoping that people are kind. Wish me luck, eh!...

Today's nice things:

1. Having another book out
2. Writing
3. Reading some good stuff.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website
Goldenford Publishers