WHICH NAME OF THE BLADE CHARACTER ARE YOU?

Happy Wednesday, Dear Readers! I've got something special to share today - a personality quiz that I wrote for the Tales of Yesterday blog, run by the lovely Michelle.

Nip over here and you can answer a series of questions to find out which of the characters from The Name of the Blade trilogy you most resemble.

The quiz was Chelle's idea, because we'd been hoping to collaborate on a post for a while but wanted to do something different. Frankly, I think she's a genius. I had such fun writing it and I think it's turned out quite shockingly accurate; I'd forgotten how much I loved those things back when I used to fill them out in girls magazines as a teenager.

This has inspired me to try to put together a much longer and more comprehensive quiz involving the main characters from all my books - I hope to be able to post it next week, and then I might make it a permanent addition to the blog and my website. Because it's supercool, let's be real.

If there are any favourite secondary characters you'd like me to try to include, let me know in the comments, kidlets.

Now for some News (yes, it deserves the capital letter) regarding Barefoot on the Wind - otherwise known as #BaBBook - the Beauty & the Beast retelling set in the Moonlit Lands, which is coming out this year.

When readers have asked about it, I've been saying that the book would be available in the Summer, in June or July - because that's when my books have been coming out every year for a while now, since Shadows on the Moon was published. But Wonder Editor has recently let me know that because of various factors they've decided it would be best to push the release date back a little bit - just to the beginning of September. The extra couple of months will hopefully give everyone time to really get behind the book, and also give the designer and illustrator more time to work on a truly sumptuous cover and design. There's also a lovely surprise which will be coming later in the year, but I don't have clearance to talk about that yet. Just know: it's exciting.

And more news! Things I'll Never Say: Stories about Our Secret Selves, the book which contains 'Storm Clouds Fleeing from the Wind', the Shadows on the Moon prequel story featuring a young Akira has been selected for the CCBC Choices List for 2016! I had no idea it was even on the longlist, so to get to the final selection alongside such luminaries as Erin Bow, Libba Bray, Patrick Ness and Rainbow Rowell is pretty phenomenal. Yay!

In Other Stuff, here's a quick progress update: a synopsis and sample chapters for the Mulan - codename DtH - story have been sent off to Walker Books and are with Wonder Editor. I'm crossing my fingers feverishly in the hope that now they can see what I'm trying to achieve and how it will work out, they will love it as much as Super Agent and I do. Your thoughts, prayers and sacrifices of chocolate chip muffins to the Writing Gods would all be extremely welcome.

To keep myself busy, I've been working on a synopsis for another book (a fairytale retelling which I'm really excited about, codenamed TSM - here's the Pinterest board) and fiddling with turning a book proposal for a YA book which Walker books aren't interested in, into an adult book. Yes, gasp, shock. I'm basically doing it as an experiment, and because I can't quite bear to give up on the story - we'll see what comes of it.

Read you later, my lovelies!