Was my first thought when I got a big ol' box of The Scarab Path from Tor UK this week. Yes, I did write it, but I had no idea it would be so enormous in print. Anyone who felt they were missing some pages from Blood of the Mantis will find them in Scarab Path (1).

And I owe a huge debt to Steve's Fantasy Book Reviews who are running a series of Shadows of the Apt themed articles in the run up to Scarab's release, including an extremely pleasant review of Salute the Dark, together with a cover review and some new Q&A which touches on future releases.

Yeah, about that cover review… well, thunder stolen somewhat — I hadn't realised it was cleared to go, but if you do pop on over there you'll get your first sneak peak at the astonishingly scary cover that Jon Sullivan's done for Book 6, The Sea Watch. New kinden? Oh hell yes. Jon's request to me, in fact, was for something a little more monstrous than before, and thankfully the book does deliver the ideal material (2).

Signings: 14th August at the Leeds Travelling Man as I think I mentioned, southern signings still being haggled over, hopefully news soon on those.

Trivia: at my local Waterstones a growing stain of "Dark Romance" (3) has bloated out from the teen shelves and entirely displaced the fantasy/SF section, which now lives in a ghetto on the first floor, where it clusters around the trashcans and tries to keep warm. Still, one unexpected result is that my books, from being at ankle level, are now on the top shelf, so at least the average height of my readership should climb a bit. You know what they say, if you can crack the tall market, you're made.

(1) Not literally, of course. That would be unnecessarily confusing.

(2) No that's not Stenwold. I know we were talking about it being Stenwold but, seriously, he doesn't look like that.

(3) Teen vampire fetishistry.