"Defending Walls" release

At last, the second novel in the Herrick Quartet, "Defending Walls", has been released and is available on-line at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Waterstones (among others).

The cover design is by Grazyna Nowottka and is absolutely brilliant; Carcassonne in all its glory and darkness. I can not give her enough thanks and gratitude for her fine work. She has really made this release something to be proud of.

Also, much thanks go to Joe, of New Generation Publishing, whose e-mails and hand-holding did much to ease the long wait.

And, of course, thanks to Richard, the dearest and most frustrating editor alive, for his demands and prodding and more demands. He is the cause of much torn hair and rewrites, and the reason for many things that were, honestly, improvements.

Waiting...

...truly, it is the most soul-destroying of times.

Although the manuscript is safely proof-read and in the hands of the publishers, it is not yet printed, and this means a daily checking of mail and a developing tic.

In other news, research is finished for the third book of the Herrick Quartet, and well under way for the fourth, which is a source of some surprise given the number of other projects that have been undertaken in the past three months - it is essential to while away those tedious hours of longing with something constructive, and a new modern-day idea seemed the solution.

Not so much a solution, it turned out, as a new addiction, and a desperate need for the thirty-six hour day so that writing might be done continuously with no need to find the hours for sleep and food.

The characters which inhabit the Herrick Quartet have of course taken this opportunity to refuel their persistent and almost admirable ability to find themselves in scalding hot water emotionally and physically, and drive on the story with most unloving whips and accusations of neglect (wholly unfounded!)

And now, back to checking the mail....

Oh proof readers

You wonderful, wonderful people.

I cannot say more in praise for them than this (which was written to a friend, but -)

TO M[R]. T. W.

by John Donne


PREGNANT again with th' old twins, Hope and Fear,
Oft have I asked for thee, both how and where
Thou wert ; and what my hopes of letters were ;

As in our streets sly beggars narrowly
Watch motions of the giver's hand or eye,
And evermore conceive some hope thereby.

And now thy alms is given, thy letter's read,
The body risen again, the which was dead,
And thy poor starveling bountifully fed.

After this banquet my soul doth say grace,
And praise thee for 't, and zealously embrace
Thy love, though I think thy love in this case
To be as gluttons, which say 'midst their meat,
They love that best of which they most do eat.