Six Weeks from Fated, Six Weeks to Cursed

Well, Fated has been out there on the shelves for six weeks now.  I’m really grateful for the amount of exposure it’s received – for a new author, it’s gotten a LOT more attention than I was expecting, thanks both to the publicity departments of my publishers and also to the number of reviewers who’ve been willing to take a chance on trying someone new.  Thanks to everyone who’s helped, whether by reviewing it, mentioning it, or taking the time to write to me – it’s very much appreciated!

And it’s also only six weeks until Cursed is released in the US!  (UK readers will have to wait an extra week – sorry!)  To mark the occasion I’ve updated the US and UK pages, and I’ve also posted the first chapter of Cursed in the Extracts section.  For those of you who’ve got the US edition of Fated, this is the full first chapter, not the shortened version  in the back of Fated‘s US copy.

Cursed is coming out only three months after Fated, but it was written much earlier – two years earlier, in fact.  When I started Fated I had absolutely no idea of what the story was going to turn into, and wasn’t particularly expecting Alex Verus to turn into a series.  Actually, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t all that hopeful that it was even going to get published.  I’d just come off a long string of rejections and my hopes were low.

By the time I sat down to start work on Cursed, things were very different.  I had the contract with Orbit and Fated had benefited from all the work that the Orbit editors had done on it.  The setting and world were much more clearly developed, and the book felt quite different to write than Fated had.  I’m curious to see whether you guys find it different to read – but I’ll have to wait a while to find out!