Hello! This is the first blog I have ever posted, so please forgive me if it either looks a little strange or bits vanish. I hope that you won't hesitate to e.mail me with suggestions or ideas it might be fun to discuss.

I'm just back from a splendid 12 day book tour in the US, where I was bowled over by the friendliness of the people and the plumbing. American showers! In Austin, Texas, I had not only a showerhead and jets (pulsating or sweeping, as you chose - there was an instruction book) but a WATERFALL. I almost never emerged.

The tour itself was a whirlwind and the high moments were very many: just arriving in New York, for one, then meeting my wonderful US publishers at Walker and seeing Blood Red Horse and Green Jasper in Books of Wonder, and in B & N on 5th Avenue. For a British author that is a very particular thrill. I also did some shopping ... Why are there no J Crew shops in Britain?

Then to Texas, where the welcomes are legendary, to do a Lone Star Magic in the Middle panel with Anthony Horowitz, Garth Nix, Steven Layne, Sherry Shahan and Rick Riordan. That was a moment for me and I tried not to look too star struck. Then to Milwaukee, to another wonderful welcome in the brilliant Harry Schwartz book stores - the kind of stores that make you want to be a writer, just to appear on their shelves, and then to Chicago, which I had never visited before and will certainly do again. More on all these later, including the library where the stars come out, the evening we lost our dinner, my turning from a historical novelist into one who write 'epic adventures set in the past which may or may not be true' and how to travel with wigs.

Now I'm off to Aberdeen with my Uncle Frank's head. If you want to know more about him, try reading How The Hangman Lost His Heart, published by Puffin on 4th May but don't read chapter 1 directly after breakfast.

Onwards and upwards,
Katie