FORTY!

Paul Klee cheers me up - not that I need it especially, following my Very Quiet Birthday yesterday. Klee did a painting called 'Bird Wandering Off' that I really love - that J has in a big Klee book somewhere. I remember him showing me this painting in about 1997, during our first week together and how it just seemed really funny. I wish I could find it on the internet - at least a pic large enough to see. I don't want to go digging through the cellar for the actual book.

Okay - forty. I spent the day deliberately trying not to work. Which is hard when I've new projects to start.

There were some nice things on the internet, to do with 'Hell's Belles' being published yesterday. Book Chick City did an interview with me, which was fun, and got some good feedback - lots of people from the States wanting to know how to get their hands on Brenda and Effie books...

Here's what I said about publication in the states:

"Paul: I hope so! Though sometimes I hear from publishing people that the US wouldn’t ‘get’ a series of books that mixes Buffy with Alan Bennett, and Miss Marple with the Rocky Horror Picture Show. People fret that the US and the rest of the world wouldn’t ‘get’ North Yorkshire and Whitby.

"But I think people who read paranormal romance and dark fantasy and cosy mysteries really would get these things. They all know about Dracula and Frankenstein, don’t they? They all know Yorkshire from the Brontes! By definition I think readers of Gothic romances and mysteries are extremely well-read.

"My Brenda and Effie Mysteries are simply about the wives and girlfriends of the monsters from the old Universal horror movies, and they all live in the spooky harbour town where Dracula first came ashore. That’s all there is to it! I’m sure readers can get that.

"I don’t think the age of my heroines would stand in the way either, would it? I mean, lots of books in this genre have young women at the centre. In my books they’re just older sexy women! What’s not to love, America?

"So… we’ll see..!"

The thing I love about sites like Book Chick City are the recommendations - for books and series I'd never heard of. There are LOADS of comic, sexy paranormal romance series out there - and of course I was straight on to Amazon, buying loads of stuff. I especially want to read Marta Acosta's 'Casa Dracula' series and Linda Wisdom's 'Hex' series. Without these blogs I'd never know about these things. They're just not in shops here in the UK. It's like when I first became aware of Cosy Mysteries a couple of years ago - I felt like: Where have these things been hiding?!

Another lovely review - NextRead has just covered 'Conjugal Rites'... And I really like what he says about the way I don't press the 'reset' button with each book. My characters have to live in the wake of decisions made... to me it's a properly ongoing story, with repercussions and consequences.

"I have the feeling that Magrs doesn’t want to give Brenda and Effie an easy life nor does he seem to condone resetting events after a mystery is solved (I’ll have to ask him about that though).

"Events in this spooky mystery pick up from the very ominous ending of Something Borrowed...

"It’s not only Mr Danby, quite a few more of the supporting cast make a welcome, and in some cases an unwelcome, return. This is what I meant by not resetting events. The consequences of their previous choice and actions are continued. And those threads are cleverly tugged and pulled about, sometimes like heart strings, by Magrs."

Thanks to NextRead and Book Chick City! I love getting this coverage from blogs. In the old days you'd sit around hoping to get a mention or a column or even a quarter page in one of the tabloid review sections. Now those pages are getting smaller and (I think) even less interesting. I like the generosity of spirit of these bloggers - plus their generosity with their time. And the fact that they're properly enthusiastic about what they read. I've always liked people who are real readers, who want to find more things to read... who draw up huge long lists they know they'll never complete.

PS Moorcock to write a Doctor who novel? Maybe. Believe it when I see it. Are the Who books likely to re-embrace the weird and wonderful, the polymorphously perverse, the improvisational and nonsensical, the experimental, the twee and the daft? Are the Doctor Who books going to become quirky again?

I'm going to reclaim 'quirky' and 'whimy', I think. Too long I've flinched at these terms, thinking them a bit patronising.

What about the New Quirky? The New Whimsy?