MORE LOVELY UPDATES

Hello, hello, hello, Dear Readers! It's a crisp yet bright spring morning here on the east coast of England. Some of the apple and cherry trees in my neighbourhood have started to bloom, there are magpies hopping around on the field in front of my house, and there's still frost on the ground under a cloudless blue sky. I'm very much looking forward to taking Finn for a nice long walk once I've finished typing this up.

Thanks so much to everyone for your kindness and good wishes over last week's news. It's *still* hasn't quite sunk in. It'll probably be another couple of weeks before the first installment of the money comes through, so maybe it will seem real then. I'm going to start work on my Beauty and the Beast retelling in April, and since I'm - wonder of wonder! - up to date with everything else and basically waiting for Super Agent and Wonder Editor to get back to me on various things, I've decided to take this week off. Properly off. Not like that last time I took a week off and spent the entire time thinking about, planning and working on New Secret Project before getting back to work on Book #3 of the trilogy (fun though that was). I mean off-off. As in, I've got a whole heap of DVDs that I bought over the past year and which I got got for Christmas that I haven't even opened yet, and a small mountain of books to read, some of which have been waiting for more like two years, and dagnabbit, I'm going to get to them all. Or at least, as many of them as I can without my head exploding.

How long I'll be able to stick to this decision without my workaholic self going into a tailspin is unknown, but right now it's giving me a delicious sense of freedom. I'll be heading out to the shops later to buy lovely ingredients for various recipes I intend to try out this week, but other than that my schedule is completely clear - and it's blissful.

Now for updates! First, I've heard the lovely news from Candlewick Press, my U.S. publisher, that there will be an audiobook of the first volume of The Name of the Blade when it it released over there. It'll be made by Brilliance Audio, the same people who did such an first class job of producing Shadows on the Moon in audio format. I'm really happy and excited about this. Remember, the official release date for the book (and now audiobook) is November of this year, and it's coming out as The Name of the Blade rather than The Night Itself. When there's a cover or any other news rest assured I will share it.

Secondly, here is the full-wrap cover art for the UK paperback reissue of The Night Itself:

And Darkness Hidden:

When I showed my mum these, she read the cover copy on DH and said: 'Oh no!' Which is pretty much the reaction I was going for, so I'm happy. But mostly I'm spellbound by the utter gorgeousness of these covers. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Larry Rostant for the amazing photography and to Maria Soler Canton for being a genius of a designer and artistic director. These will be out in early June of this year. As soon as I can get my hands on a finished copy, I will take pics and share, promise.

That's it for this morning, Tweeps. If anyone would like to ask any writing, reading or publishing related questions in the comments for me to answer in a future post, I am open for business :)