Twisted Wing out in France on 22 Jan 2009

And next on the whistlestop tour of lovely European countries is France, where Twisted Wing is called Les Visages du Mal ("The Faces of Evil"). Love that cover, what a clever idea to have the gargoyle high above the Cambridge skyline. I'm looking forward to getting my free copies of the Polish and French translations so they can go on my dedicated bookshelf of gloatiness.

The Christmas FrightFest went as planned - "The Mist" was my Mum's favourite, but boy was it bleak. "Death Line" was a load of pants, don't bother. Also don't bother with "The Breed", a Michelle Rodriguez film about very intelligent but violent dogs - I nearly wet myself during one particularly silly scary scene involving a seaplane. If the director had been playing it for laughs it would've been edited in exactly the same way. There were lots of shots throughout of dogs gathering on the horizon which were obviously meant to be very ominous, but just made you go: "aw, look at that cute little doggie, look how fluffy he is!" And the dogs practically wagged their tails during the attack scenes they were having so much fun. (Note: this mocking tone would not have applied had the film makers decided to go with spider baddies rather than canine baddies. Although can spiders chew through your mooring rope so your only method of escape begins to float away then wait for you casually on the wings of said seaplane, looking for all the world like they're chillaxing till their wrangler waves a doggie biscuit behind the camera? No.)

All The Old Familiar Places (working title for book no.2) is nearly done - took a red pen at it over the weekend and rewrote a couple of key scenes. Having said that, a very honest mate who's currently reading it told me a couple of days ago: "that doesn't work, that should be in the third person, that bit is too smug". So when he's finished and has given me all his feedback I'll need to a) do another draft, b) find some way of dismembering and disposing of his bloody corpse so no one will ever find it again...