Day of the Dead

Calaveras de dulce - sugar skulls on sale in Cancun's Market 23

Well, I'm back. I was going to post a very jolly thing about Day of the Dead and the party we had last night to celebrate the Mexican festival of Dia de los Muertos, but it seems rather crass given that for thousands of Mexicans in Tabasco state, yesterday was one major disaster - the awful floods.

Earlier this year, photos of Oxford flooded made it onto international news and resulted in my Mexican relatives sending me anxious emails. A bit of a turn-around - normally we're the ones calling about earthquakes or volcanic eruptions (part of my family comes from a small town near the active volcano Popocatepetl).

Anyway, from the looks of it Tabasco state has got it pretty bad indeed, but so far not many people dead, thank God. Either it's a miracle or Mexico isn't so third-world as the outside world likes to portray it.

It's been a busy, busy week and I started it by being ill with some virus. Had to go to London to do stuff with the publishers and only started to feel better yesterday. Then I set myself up as the cocktail mixer for the party, making margaritas and daiquiris, sampling all batches of course. Feeling a bit delicate again to be honest...

"Invisible City" has been selected by the trade magazine "Publishing News" as one of its February Picks with a very nice review that head of publicity at Scholastic passed on to me:

"Conspiracy and intrigue, complemented by non-stop action and excellent characterisation make this an exciting debut. Think Young Bond/CHERUB levels of potential. Plus the cover is really cool."

The publishers and I are all pretty chuffed by that...