Summer seems to have come and gone with alarming speed, as always. I’ve just come back from a mini-tour of France, and another of Spain, both to promote Peaches. Last week I was in Quebec, promoting Peaches in French; next week I’m off to Gibraltar, then after that – who knows? After a while you just lose track of all the places you’re meant to be.  I’m also still working on the sequel to Gentlemen and Players – working title; Different Class. I like to have a working title; it helps me feel grounded in the work, but I can get superstitious if a publisher asks me to change it once I’ve become attached to it. so I’m rather hoping they like this one.

My garden has gone crazy; a combination of heat and rain has created a kind of jungle, so that the Shed is almost buried under blackberry tangles and overburdened fruit trees. I have somehow managed to inherit a cat from an elderly neighbour who died – not a cute little moggy, but a swaggering buccaneer called Vlad, who hunts with chilling efficiency, sleeps in the greenhouse, eats cheese and has so far bitten everyone but me.

I’m also working on a couple of other things, which are frustratingly under wraps at the moment. Watch this space for more details as they emerge. The website is about to change its look, although the content will stay more or less the same – I’m just trying to make it look simpler and less cluttered, and to tie in some of my online stuff so that it’s all more easily accessible.

Plus: The Gospel of Loki is now all shiny and polished and edited and ready to roll, with a terrific new jacket design (and that all-important middle initial). And if that wasn’t enough, I have a new short story out, along with Garth Nix, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell and Tanith Lee, in the anthology Fearie Tales (Find it on Amazon) – no, not a typo, but a play on the gruesome side of fantasy.

My story is called The Girl Who Loved the Silken Folk, and followers of my Twitter #storytime may recognize some familiar characters. I’ll be talking about Loki and Fearie Tales at the Brighton FantasyCon in October. I hope I’ll see some of you there.