My new book, The Sleeper, is out on July 4th. This is the kind of sentence you have to write often in the run up to a book’s publication. If you want anyone to buy your book, you have to tell them it exists. 

I have worked many night shifts on The Sleeper. I have written it on the train and in cafés and in my house. I have worked before sunrise and in moonlight. I would be out for a run and would suddenly smile inanely because a plot hole had resolved itself in my head. For a long time no one knew anything about it beyond the ‘it’s about a woman having an affair on the night train’ I would say when I absolutely had to say something, with all the finality I could muster. 

And now it is on its way out into the world. It doesn’t belong to me any more. People will read it, and they will decide whether or not they think it’s any good, and all of that will be utterly out of my hands. My eldest child is going to secondary school in September, and sending a book out into the world feels freakishly like sending an 11-year-old into a building full of teenagers. 

I am nervous, but they will both be all right, I am sure. I am extremely proud of the pair of them. 

Anyway. Did I mention I have a new book coming out? If you live in the Falmouth area, please come to the launch party on July 4th. Here is the invitation. And if you read it, I hope you enjoy it.