Reach for your ear-plugs, folks. I’m going to blow my own trumpet. It’s time for a bit of what among writer is known as BSP – Blatant Self-Promotion – because I’ve a book coming out soon.
SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT, my first Aurelia Marcella mystery, will be published in the UK next month. Here’s its new cover. Don’t forget its name is new too – it was originally released in the USA as GET OUT OR DIE. It’s still listed under the old name for the next few weeks on my website, www.janefinnis.com, and there you can see the reviews it collected when it first came out, including some rather nice ones. (Well, I did warn you there’d be some BSP today.)
The change of title in no way means a change in the text, and being the first of Aurelia’s adventures, this book is where we meet not only Aurelia herself and her brother and sister, but other characters who become regulars in later books: Quintus of course, and Titch, and several native Britons too. We find out how Roman settlers coped with living in the turbulent frontier province of Britannia, and I try hard to picture the conflicts and tensions there would have been, just fifty years after the Roman invasion. Fifty years is no time at all…oh dear, doesn’t that make me sound old? Quick, a change of tack.
The new cover design is based on a real Roman mosaic, found at Pompeii and now in the Naples Museum. It reminds me of our fabulous visit to Pompeii, which I remember clearly even though, unbelievably, it was more than twenty years ago. It’s high time we went again…
Meanwhile, to York, which is where the British publishers Head of Zeus are holding a launch party for the book. All the Aurelia mysteries are set not far from Eburacum, as York was called then. The party is on Thursday November 22nd, and all mystery lovers are welcome. Time: 7 p.m. Place: Waterstones in High Ousegate, after the shop has closed to the public. So if you come, you can buy signed copies of the book, hear me waffling on about it, (not for long, I promise,) enjoy wine and chat with fellow mystery enthusiasts, AND do some serious pre-Christmas book shopping without the usual pre-Christmas crowds.
I’m excited to have the book – and eventually all the Aurelia mysteries – published in Britain. They’ve been published in the USA, and available there, and on-line, and still will be, which is great. But readers needed a little persistence to get them over here. However from November it will be much easier to find at least the first one on the shelves of bookshops and libraries.
OK, my trumpet solo is over for now. But I’ll be bringing you more details about the party and the book nearer the launch time, so keep the ear-plugs handy.
Congratulations, Jane – well worth a note or two on your trumpet, I’d say. Good luck with the Book Launch – I hope you have a super day, and lots of sales.
Thanks, Margaret. I only wish you weren’t so far away, then you could come and join in the party.
Very best of luck, Jane.
Thanks for your good wishes, Lynn, and yours too, Ruth – I’ve never had a pingback before!