First thought – much sympathy to anyone in Houston, and in Texas in general. I hope you stay safe.

Rewinding a bit: Fantasy in the Court was excellent, and the Nine Worlds convention was also excellent. (And going home to visit my parents and crash for a week or so after that was really excellent.)

I’ve handed in the final proofs for both the UK and the US versions of The Lost Plot. Irene and co are ready to go.

The Masked City (A Cidade das Máscaras) is now out in Brazil, and I really hope that people are enjoying it. (Nervous author, yes . . .)

September approaches. Great Northern Quilt Show next week. (Will I go? Definitely. Will I spend too much? Probably.) Trip to Austria scheduled for the beginning of October – my autumn holiday, and yes, I have booked a ticket to the opera while I’m there. Now I just need to find a way to write it off as expenses for research. (Perhaps a future location for Irene and Kai to visit . . .)

(looks at the date)

Whoops. Er, sorry . . .

Life has been ridiculously busy lately. The day job has been more than usually hectic, plus first there were edits on book four, then copy-edits, then proof-pages, together with working on book five . . .

Anyhow, we are about to hit a few days pause, as I will be attending Fantasy in the Court on Thursday in London, and then Nine Worlds convention for the next few days after that, and then going to visit my parents for a few days of (what feels like) well-deserved collapse.

But just for the record – I aten’t dead (to quote Granny Weatherwax) yet, I’m just keeping my head down so much that I forget about things like blogging. For which apologies. My current reading matter includes Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw (very good), the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion (also very good), and Crewel Embroidery by Sue Hawkins (something which I have yet to attempt).

The Masked City (A Cidade das Máscaras) comes out in Brazil on the 11th August from my publisher there, Morro Branco – I hope readers enjoy it. And I’ll be returning the proof-pages for The Lost Plot to Pan Macmillan tomorrow, so that’s moving forward too . . .

Back from Budapest, and back (mostly) from the heavy workload that landed on me just as I returned.

Budapest was fantastic. Gorgeous city, beautiful weather, lovely food and drink – I came back with several bottles of palinka and tokaji. (And if you have just looked up these words and found out that they refer to fruit brandy and dessert wine, and resolved to try some later, then congratulations, Lord Silver is proud of you.)

The only problem I had was that the airline misplaced my luggage. Imagine, if you like, the entertainment value of arriving at about 11.30pm, then not having your luggage show up, and having to negotiate the whole “help, my luggage is not here” with the airport information desk at that hour of night. (Though to be fair, the information desk people were very helpful and gave me the relevant forms to fill in, and my luggage showed up in pristine condition the next day, late afternoon.) But at the time I was just a little distraught. Fortunately there was a easy-to-get minibus from the airport to local hotels, so I was able to get to my hotel without any more hassle, and they were apparently quite used to guests showing up with stories of “the airline has misplaced my luggage”. They took my forms and gave me a toothbrush.

No, seriously, I wanted that toothbrush. Given the current delightful state of air travel and what one can put in one’s hand luggage, I had no toiletries. By that point in the day, I really wanted a toothbrush.

But, well, other than that valuable learning experience (mental note: “the airline lost my luggage” must be an excellent excuse for Librarians explaining why they’re looking a bit unkempt or in inappropriate clothing), Budapest was absolutely brilliant. Strongly recommended.

Other than that, I’ve handed in my current set of edits on book four, and am working on book five. We progress slowly, but hopefully we do progress.

I’m off to Budapest tomorrow for a few days. Certainly to do a bit of research while I’m there (I’m sure Silver drinks Tokaji, and Irene and Kai would enjoy new locations, or at least I’d enjoy putting them through them), but also definitely to have a holiday. Book four is waiting on edits, and book five is in progress…

Incidentally, please can the people who have won a copy or copies of the audiobooks and who haven’t yet contacted me about it, kindly do so? Or you won’t get the books. And that would be a shame. The winners were:

All three audiobooks:
Gina Brown
Brandi
Eva

Just book three, The Burning Page:
Nick Watton – collected
Celtic (Gery)
Amy – collected

(Though, um, let’s be honest here – I probably won’t be emailing out any audiobook codes till I get back from holiday. But don’t let that stop you, if you’re one of the winners!)

Amazon/Audible are doing a special first-in-a-series promotion, and The Invisible Library‘s included – though so are plenty of other good books. Check it out here:

http://www.audible.com/mt/First-in-a-Series-17_Fan?page=2

(The Invisible Library is halfway down the page.)

The sale finishes on Monday 27th February, so don’t leave it too long…

On a side note, please can the people who won audiobooks from the Library series in my recent giveaway contact me. The winners were:

All three audiobooks:
Gina Brown
Brandi
Eva

Just book three, The Burning Page:
Nick Watton – collected
Celtic (Gery)
Amy – collected

Right, back to editing book four…

Thanks to everyone who put their names in for the audiobook giveaway, and apologies to those who didn’t win anything. (The number of people trying was very flattering!)

Winners are as follows.

All three audiobooks:
Gina Brown
Brandi
Eva

Just book three, The Burning Page:
Nick Watton
Celtic (Gery)
Amy

I’ve also added a reply to your comment on my blog entry, whether it was on my website here or on the Goodreads mirror, if you want to confirm whether or not you’ve won.

Please will the winners contact me via email at librarian@grcogman.com for the audiobook code/codes and instructions on how to use them.

And that’s it! Midnight. No more entries, please.

Winners will be announced shortly. Thank you to everyone who took an interest.

To celebrate (all right, a little belatedly) the release of The Burning Page, I’m going to do two different random audiobook giveaways here on this blog.

The first giveaway – for three lucky winners, an audiobook code from Audible for The Burning Page.

The second giveaway – for three lucky winners, audiobook codes for all three books! Yes, that’s The Invisible Library and The Masked City and The Burning Page!

Please leave an entry on this blog, as a comment to this post, if you want to take part in the random giveaway, and say whether you want to be in the giveaway for just book three, or the giveaway for all three books.

Closing point will be 24.00 (midnight) UK time on Friday 10th March. I will then draw the winners at random, and post on this blog with the names of the people who’ve won.

And in the meantime, I’ll get back to working on the edits for book four, The Lost Plot…

Edit note: I’ve just had it pointed out to me that the end date for this giveaway is stated as 24.00 (midnight) UK time on Friday 11th March. I meant it to be Friday 11th February. In the interests of fairness I’m going to reset the end time/date to 24.00 (midnight) UK time on Sunday 13th February, so that nobody who’s posted so far will lose out. (Apologies for my carelessness!)

I’ve been privileged to have a review done on the whole Invisible Library series so far by J.J on File770.com (always an excellent site). Here it is:

Checking out The Invisible Library from Genevieve Cogman

Also, The Burning Page is now out on audiobook, and I will be doing a giveaway shortly. Watch this blog/space!

I should probably write something witty or intelligent or deeply meaningful, but I’m too busy collapsing with a glass of Tokaji. (My excuse is that it’s something Silver would drink, and that this is therefore pure research. Excuses are wonderful things. Remind me to write Silver with a glass of it at some point in the future.)

Here is a link to the book on amazon.com.

And here’s the audio version.

Thank you, all my readers. I appreciate you taking the time to read my books, and I hope that you enjoy them.