Hello! My supernatural thriller novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks concerns an arrogant celebrity journalist who finds himself in trouble with unseen forces, after he laughs during an exorcism in Italy, organised by the Catholic church.
 
So to celebrate the current paperback release, I want to tell you about the day my former journo self got into trouble with seen forces in Rome. Namely, the Pope’s armed forces. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Yes.
 
Life sometimes throws up subtle signals that you’ve acted unwisely. Being surrounded by angry men with machine guns is arguably one such signal.
 
Time-whoosh! It’s 1998 and I’m a rock journalist. Photographer Paul Harries and I are in Rome, to cover the Devil’s own metal band Cradle Of Filth (see current line-up above) for Kerrang! magazine.

Aiming to drag some local colour into the piece, we head to Vatican City. Funnily enough, there’s been no prior discussion with the Pope’s press office regarding photo shoots and the like. So we are, of course, foolish to think we can simply waltz onto Vatican turf without getting people’s sacrificial goats up.
 
When we arrive at a square on the edge of Vatican City, it’s early evening and freezing cold. The dome of the nearby St Peter’s Basilica is obscured by scaffolding. “They heard we were coming,” smirks Filth drummer Nick, before leaving in a taxi like a big lightweight. Albeit a big lightweight who doesn’t get detained at gunpoint.
 
Cradle Of Filth have been here before. Like many unsuspecting tourists, they were thrown out for not wearing proper shirts. Tonight proves they have learned nothing. The band’s singer Dani is sporting one of their own T-shirts – the one with the clear slogan I LOVE SATAN. Keyboardist Les ‘Lecter’ Smith sports his trademark vicar’s collar. Spoiler alert: Les is not an actual vicar.
 
The square is deserted as we wander about.  While talking nonsense about fictitious past Popes (like “Lucius The Second, The Masturbating Pope,” according to guitarist Stuart), the Filth admit to being interested in Vatican architecture.  Guitarist Rob takes photos of his own.
 
“Rome is confused,” ponders Lecter.  “In the Colosseum, they used to throw Christians to the lions. And here’s this big monument to Christians.”
 
Dani and snapper Harries disappear to do some pictures.  The singer eventually returns at speed.  “You’ve got to see this,” he yells.  “The Vatican Police have taken Paul’s camera and passport away!  They told me to fetch ‘the preacher’!”
 
“Fuck,” groans Lecter, tugging his collar off as we follow Dani between some massive pillars.  “I’m sick of getting arrested wherever we go…”
 
All of a sudden, we’re surrounded by armed guards. Six or seven of them, levelling submachine guns right at us. Even worse, they’re seriously pissed off. Red in the face, they shout at Lecter until he hands over the collar, which is shaken aloft in a self-righteous fist.

Hello! Step into my study, would you? You'll find it cool enough in here, thanks to the enormous electrical fan whirring away. This costly device also makes for a wonderful white noise generator if you happen to have a spot of the ol' tinnitus.

Now, whether you realise it or not, we're heading towards the July 28 UK mass-market paperback release of my novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks. The March release was a mere soft launch, compared to this one. This new release is the big kahuna. The grande fromage, if you'll pardon my immaculate French. And one of the ways we're celebrating this release, is a blog tour. From August 1, the book will be featured on a whole array of blogs, thanks to the kindness of various blogsters. Here's the full list!

A big thanks to all these wonderful blog supremos! As I understand it, the coverage will mainly be reviews of the book, although there will be the odd Q&A. So, look out for these blogs, perhaps by using the #JackSparks Twitter hashtag, and consider checking out the book that Alan Moore himself has branded "a magnificent millennial nightmare"...

The new mass-market paperback at Amazon UK - note the pre-order price guarantee

The Kindle release at Amazon UK 

And here's a handy list of all the outlets I could gather together on one page, together with various other potentially intriguing Sparks-related links

​Should you need further cajoling, here are Eleven Reasons You Need Jack Sparks In Your Life!

Lastly (I swear), if you've read and enjoyed the book, please know that a review anywhere, even if it's just a single line, makes a world of difference.

Goodbye!

I'd never done a book reading before, but this weekend's Derby Edgelit genre event has changed all that, oh yes. And no, despite the picture above, I was not on drugs. And neither was I eighty years old. HOW DARE YOU.

Book readings weren't necessarily something I've always been dying to do. Like many authors (I suspect, anyway), I'm happier for people to read the words I've written, vacuuming them into their own brains from the page. Depending on how you choose to approach the task of reading your work aloud, it can start to become a little too akin to acting for my liking. I mean, Christ - have you SEEN awesome Timebomb author Scott K Andrews do a book reading? It's like watching Macbeth at the fucking Globe!  He does all the accents and everything.  Wonderful to watch, but waaaaay out of my comfort zone as a 'performer'. 

I couldn't possibly have had a better experience for my first book read, that's for sure. It was wonderful to be invited by Super Relaxed Fantasy Club to read from my Orbit Books novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks (new mass-market paperback out July 28, fact fans!) SRFC was founded by authors Jen Williams and Den Patrick a few years back, as a pleasantly laidback space. It was an honour to appear at a special SRFC evening as part of Edgelit, along with the excellent Maria Lewis, whose novel Who's Afraid? is the first book of her moon-howlin' werewolf saga, out now through Orbit. Here we are, look, just before entering Super Relaxed Fantasy Club. I think it's fair to say Maria was more super-relaxed than me. Only to be expected, since she's a super-badass who sometimes starts a sentence with "Motherfucker", even when she's not pissed off with you.

In Den Patrick's absence, SRFC co-hosting duty fell to the dashing author Peter Newman, who did a splendid job (and was also very entertaining on panels earlier in the day). Maria went first, reading a pleasingly gory chapter from Who's Afraid?, before fielding questions from the other assembled and super-relaxed attendees. And then it was my turn. 

First thing you notice before reading in public, is how dry your mouth happens to be. You'd think that your brain, knowing that you're about to read, would alert the saliva glands and tell them to increase production, double quick-sharp. But no. It does the frickin' opposite. Still, that's what endless sips of water are for. 

I read a piece of the exorcism in Chapter One - a shorter version of the chunk you can read on the Jack Sparks site here. In this scene, arrogant celebrity journo Jack begins research for his supernatural-debunking non-fiction book, by attending the apparent exorcism of 13-year-old Maria Corvi, in a small, rural Italian church. As Father Primo Di Stefano commences the rite, Jack is endlessly sceptical about the increasingly convincing events that unfold before his eyes.

Halfway through my reading, the microphone I was using died. Just died. It became an ex-microphone. As I momentarily flailed, an attendee chuckled and said, 'Maybe it was Maria...'. Maybe it was, gentle readers! But anyway, I carried on and projected a bit more. Happily, the attendees weren't that far away from me.  And it all seemed to go down well. The penultimate line, which includes the words "cock-sucking", "post-Friedkin" and "fellatio", got the kind of laugh I was hoping for, so that was a relief. The Q&A was very nice too, with some fun questions. And so thank God, the reading was done and I could have a pint. 

As a sidenote to the spooky microphone business - as soon as Peter Newman tried it afterwards, it was working fine. An altogether chilling state of affairs, I'm sure you'll agree.

This was the fifth Edgelit, ably co-ordinated by the author and publisher Alex Davis. Having been chained to my desk for the last few months, toiling over Novel Two for Orbit, all the socialising came as something of a shock. But once you get over the surprise of de-hermiting yourself, it's brilliant to catch up with other writers and non-writers alike. 

My day started at 10am with a panel discussing the difference between the labels horror, thriller and chiller. Hosted by the lovely VH Leslie, the panel also featured the utterly tremendous trio of Sarah Pinborough, Marie O'Regan and Johnny Mains. 

Here's me talking shit on that panel, alongside La Pinborough (thanks for the pic, author/editor/properly lovely fella Paul Kane!)...

And here's me getting to know Johnny Mains later on. I'd never met him before and like him a lot - a very funny man with a real passion for horror and more than a hint of rock 'n' roll about him. Check out his Dead Funny anthologies that he co-edits with Robin Ince, gathering horror stories by comedians including Stewart Lee!

The second panel I quacked on, moderated wonderfully by Marie O'Regan this time, was all about what it's really like to be a professional writer. Definitely one of those panels where you find yourself trying to listen to the other panelists rather than talk: especially when those other panelists are of the calibre of M John Harrison, Nina Allan and Ali Shaw. I find it endless fascinating to hear other writers' experience of doing this job. At one point, I may have said that writing fiction is a ridiculous and stupid thing to do for a living. Actually, I totally said that and stand by it. Thankfully, the wonderful parts of writing fiction (the 30-second commute, having a great team around you, occasionally getting told you did an all right job, those all-too-rare times when you write with confidence and authority, feeling nigh on un-fuckin'-stoppable) make it absolutely worthwhile. 

It's always lovely to see such genre titans as Paul Cornell and Mark Morris, albeit far too fleetingly amid the maze of panels and workshops. I also met some great people who I'd previously only known via email and/or the gift of social media. Gollancz author Edward Cox, for one! What a lovely man - you must check out his Relic Guild fantasy series, if you haven't already had the pleasure. I also finally met my Orbit press officer Nazia Khatun, who is brilliant at press and also brilliant in person; the mighty writer and podcast supremo Alasdair Stuart, who proved to be a really, really nice man in person (no surprise, frankly); and the author Gemma Todd, whose 2017 debut Defender certainly looks to be one to watch out for.

I also met some people who I hadn't known via any medium, like Kit Power. Very much a kindred spirit (horror, metal, Doctor Who, sayyyy no more) Kit has a novel brilliantly entitled GodBomb! and having met this fine fellow, I plan to add it to the reading pile. I also enjoyed meeting the author Russell Smith, who seemed to be doubling as a photographer for the day, multi-talented gent and British Fantasy Society chair Phil Lunt, the enigmatic-sounding-but-lovely author A K Benedict and one of the event's guests of honour, Emma Newman.

This post has now fundamentally become a list of people, which is all very well and good, but I must now stop listing people (if I inevitably missed anyone out, it's PURELY because I'm afraid of the depth of my FEELINGS FOR YOU) and keel over. Thank you Derby Edgelit - that was great. You rock, goodbye.

Hey, look at these brand new Jack Sparks bookmarks! I will definitely bring some of these to Edge-Lit 2016, the Derby genre event at which I'm appearing this Saturday alongside a whole constellation of star writers like Sarah Pinborough, Paul Cornell, Edward Cox, Alistair Reynolds, Emma Newman, Conrad Williams, Johnny Mains and many more. If you're at the event, stride up to me and pledge allegiance to Satan (or just say hello) and I'll hand one of these bookmarks right over. If you want one, that is, obviously.

At Edge-Lit, I'll be doing my first ever public book reading, from The Last Days Of Jack Sparks. I'm very happy to be doing this as part of Super Relaxed Fantasy Club, the monthly event founded by authors Jen Williams and Den Patrick - and am very grateful indeed to Jen and Den for the invite, especially given the fast uptake of SRFC's author slots these days.

I'm also on a couple of Edge-Lit panels as follows (full schedule here):

10am-11am Horror, Thriller, Chiller... What's The Difference Really? Jason Arnopp, VH Leslie (chair), Johnny Mains, Marie O'Regan, Sarah Pinborough. Sponsored by Crowded Quarantine Publications

4pm-5pm The Truth About Writing: What's It Really Like To Be a Professional Writer? Nina Allan, Jason Arnopp, M John Harrison, Marie O'Regan (chair), Ali Shaw Sponsored by Fox Spirit Books

Looking forward to all that. See you there?

And while I have you: the paperback release of The Last Days Of Jack Sparks is out on July 28 in the UK, with cover quotes from M.R.Carey and Alan Moore! The Kindle version is also still half price at £2.99, at the time of writing.

In the States and Canada, there's a hardback edition set for September 13! I've seen the dust jacket design and it looks tremendous. And if you're in those parts of the world and simply can't wait, stop hyperventilating: I have you covered right now with the Kindle edition. Because that's simply the kinda guy I am. Goodbye.