I’m back from holiday and back at work again. Not that I want to be pessimistic, but it’s difficult to be wildly enthusiastic when you get back to work after the Christmas holidays in a cold grey January…

But! The Burning Page is out in America in five days, as both physical/ebook and audiobook, on the 10th January. And it’s been picked by Amazon as one of the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of the Month for January. It’s also on Barnes & Noble’s Bookseller’s Picks: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of January 2017. This is absolutely fantastic!

… I do hope people like it. (Yes, I know. Authors. Shy little paranoid flowers.)

And I seem to have made Omni’s list of Best Emerging Fantasy Authors of 2016, which is really, really fantastic. (And in such good company!)

I’m about to head down to visit my family for Christmas. Happy holidays to everyone, however you celebrate them, and may we all have a happy new year.

Upcoming items of interest: The Burning Page will be out in America shortly, and also will be out in audiobook format. In both cases it comes out on the 10th of January…

The Burning Page has now been turned loose on the world. This eldritch tome contains the inner world-shattering mind-fragmenting secrets of gods and demons… no, wait, that’s the Book of Ebon Bindings, which is an entirely different setting and cosmology.

(I do have a different non-Irene setting in mind which involves hermetic magic, demons, and cats, but that’s an entirely different book, and I need another 24 hours in every day if I’m to write it. Maybe once the Library series comes to a pause…)

Thank you to everyone who has bought it, who will buy it, who is thinking of buying it – you get the idea. And if you read it and like it, then a review would be a very nice Christmas present for this author.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. May your libraries prosper, may your bookshelves always flourish, and may your daydreams be enjoyable.

It’s difficult to know where to look in the run-up to a book release. Part of me wants to keep on googling the book title or my name, or checking Goodreads for any new reviews, or otherwise fretting and twitching. The other part of me wants to follow the ostrich strategy, by burying my head in the sand and hoping that Thursday 15th December arrives without me noticing the gap between here and now.

Either way, it’s nerve-wracking.

(Yes, yes, Genevieve, I can hear you saying it now. These are all very petty issues compared with the fact that you are about to have a book come out. And believe me when I say that I can see your point…)

(I’m just twitching with nerves.)

However, I will be extremely delighted about the fact that The Invisible Library is one of Library Journal’s best SF/Fantasy books of 2016. This is the sort of thing that has me thrilled beyond belief, and mostly beyond words. I mean, what can I say? That it’s incredibly cool? That I’m so grateful? That I’m delighted that people have enjoyed it that much, and I hope they enjoy the sequels too?

Well, besides all that. You get the idea.

I’ve also been honoured to be featured in the Barnes & Noble YA Open Mic for December. As the title puts it: “11 Authors Discuss Quitting Smoking, Online Harassment, and More.” (I come under the “more”.)

Anyhow. Three days to go. Be nice to authors, we’re nervous little flowers.

It seems even the Library can’t stay out of all the current sales…

The Masked City is currently at just £1.19 for the ebook on amazon.co.uk (apologies to American readers). It’s only just over a fortnight till The Burning Page comes out – here’s a chance to remind yourself of what happened last time.

And happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it.

I’m absolutely over the moon. In the yearly Der Leserpreis awards on lovelybooks.de, The Invisible Library (or in the German translation, Die unsichtbare Bibliothek) has won the silver.

Thank you very, very much, anyone who voted.

I’m absolutely delighted to find out that The Invisible Library is on Amazon.com’s list of Best science fiction and fantasy of 2016. Seriously. It’s at number 5 in selling order. I’m still trying to convince myself it’s real. This is the sort of thing that people have daydreams about…

But on the “what’s coming up next” front, here’s a Goodreads giveaway for a chance to win a copy of The Burning Page. (UK only, sorry…) Entry period begins on Nov 15, 2016 and ends on Dec 15, 2016.

The Burning Page – enter the giveaway here

And here’s a Publishers Weekly review of The Burning Page:

Cogman’s third Invisible Library novel (after The Masked City), which centers on the enormous interdimensional Library that connects various alternate versions of our world and the doughty Librarians who hunt down rare and magical books, opens with the series protagonists, Irene, a Librarian turned spy, and Kai, her dragon apprentice, placed on probation by the ruling forces of the Library after some unfortunate events involving the dragons and the Fae. Then Irene’s arch nemesis, rogue Librarian Alberich, returns with the intent to disrupt the many worlds he has control over, as well as the Library itself. Irene must intervene, though she fears there may be a double agent in her circle who’s conspiring against her…

Lucienne Diver’s new book Faultlines is out today. She’s my agent, and she’s also an excellent author, and the book is strongly recommended.

Six months ago Vanessa Raines lost her best friend.
Lisa had changed, pushing away everyone close to her, even Vanessa. She had quit soccer. Started wearing dark and dismal clothes. She refused every offer to talk and suffered whatever she was going through in silence. Now she’s really gone. Suicide they claim, but Vanessa knows that isn’t right. It can’t be.
Vanessa blames herself for letting Lisa chase her off. She wants answers, so that she can put to rest the rumors surrounding Lisa’s death and so that she can move on, heal. But Lisa left no note and the journal she was always scribbling in—which might tell all—is mysteriously missing.
As Vanessa struggles to come to terms with the loss of her friend and to reconstruct the last months of Lisa’s life, someone calling themselves “Poetic Justice” begins taking revenge against those he or she thinks drove Lisa to suicide. Everyone at school believes Vanessa is this mysterious “Poetic Justice”. It’s easy to blame the former best friend, and Vanessa makes an obvious target.
Struggling with her own guilt, Vanessa is determined to ignore the threats and allegations aimed her way. But as Poetic Justice’s vengeance takes a darker turn, retaliation against Vanessa begins to escalate, from cyber bullying to violence, putting both her and the little sister she adores in the line of fire. To protect them both, she has to find out who’s behind the attacks before things turn deadly. And hope she can survive the truth…

On my own front, I’ve just found out that The Invisible Library (in its German translation, Die unsichtbare Bibliothek) has been shortlisted for DER LESERPREIS on the largest German book community website, LovelyBooks.de. This is a great honour and absolutely fantastic news, and, um, if anyone felt like casting a vote for me, that would be extremely kind of you.

Voting is at https://www.lovelybooks.de/leserpreis/2016/abstimmungen/fantasy-und-science-fiction/ and will be possible up to the 22nd November. And if anyone reading this is among the people who nominated me for the award, then thank you very much indeed.

Ladies and gentlemen, dragons, Fae, and Librarians…

The title and cover of Library book four are up! And even a few details of the plot!

http://www.torbooks.co.uk/blog/2016/11/3/cover-reveal-the-lost-plot

(With many thanks to the cover designers for fantastic work…)

The Invisible Library is currently a Kindle Daily Deal on Amazon (US only, sorry) at $1.99. Check it out at:

https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Library-Novel-ebook/dp/B016JPTLJK/

(Apologies for the rather basic formatting of this post. I’m on vacation and on my iPad, but I thought people might like to know…)