Well, this has been an interesting seven days.
A week ago, Death of an Angel was released.
It’s a book I’m incredibly proud of. My best so far, I think.
And not, it turns out, just me. Even before publication, writers like Neil Broadfoot had commented that the book was “Derek’s best book yet. Dark, devious, but humour, character and heart resonate throughout. Do yourself a favour,” he’d added, “and get caught up with Danny Bird now, you can thank me later.”
This one really came out of the same dark place that “Death of a Devil” did, and I’m so pleased (and not just a little proud) that the stew of darkness and sadness made a book that still manages to be funny (more of that later) and bright but also to celebrate life, family (born and made) and the fact that London – even at it’s most venal and corrupt – can hold moments of pure joy.
On publication day, I was chased by readers who noted that, bu midday, Amazon had not yet displayed the Kindle version for sale.
This was swiftly corrected, but I have to say that the correction had nothing to do with me. I write the books but I don’t run stocks at Amazon. That I leave to Jeff Bezos and his world famous penis.
But once the book was up, the pictures of peoples kindles loaded with the beautiful cover (the designers at Fahrenheit did a fabulous job on this one, and – again – more on that soon) and screenshots of orders for the beautiful paperback.
More authors, like the lovely Jo Perry had popped onto my feed to let me know that she thought Angel was “the most powerful, beautiful, joyous and heartbreaking yet. Magnificent mysteries, these,” which, I have to admit, made me cry a little.
Then, as I was off to bed, the internets lit up with an interview with my publisher on itsanindiebookblog.com where he said lovely things about me.
In the intervening few days I’ve had lovely compliments from Rebecca Bradley, and the ultimate accolade of catching my husband reading the book on his commute and laughing out loud. He’s not one prone to hyperbole, but even he has judged it my best yet, and that makes me very very happy.
What else? Oh yes, I had a blog post published on dosomedamage.com about how to deal with the negative voices we all have as creatives, announced that I’ll be reading at Noir at The Bar in Newcastle, then appearing on a panel at Newcastle Noir this May, and also – later in the year – will be reading at a special Polari event at Morecambe & Vice, plus there are some secret plans I can’t talk about yet, but keep tuned for lots of excitings, as they say.
And as I write this, I’m wending my way towards Suffolk where I’m about to lock myself up for a week with only a glossy black dog, a bottle of gin and a typewriter and start work on Danny5 which currently has the catchy title of “Untitled Danny Bird Book 5”. Not sure if it’s the sort of title that Marketing can do much with, but I’m sure something will pop up before too long.
It usually does.
So, before a degree of radio silence descends, I wanted to thank you – every single one of you – for buying reading reviewing talking sharing and loving Danny & The Gang and “Angel” in particular. You’re all fabulous, and I’m one very lucky author.
Df
