20 June 2023!

After more delays than anyone would like, this is finally happening! 20 June 2023, four weeks from today, will see the North American release of Unnatural Ends. What this means for you, if you’ve pre-ordered any physical copies, is that you should CHECK and UPDATE YOUR MAILING ADDRESS. It has been a while, after all, and if you’ve moved in the meantime (as I have) you don’t want the thing you’ve paid good money for to be sent off to the wrong place.

You may have noticed that I specified North American release up there. This is because we’re also getting a UK release a month later, in July. (I think this means that those of you in the UK will have the satisfaction of getting your ordered copies in before Waterstones.) Inkshares is breaking into the UK market, and guess what they’re using as a battering ram?

That’s right. That’s me on the cover of the issue of The Bookseller distributed on the second day of the London Book Fair last month. The other guy is Fulton Ross, author of The Unforgiven Dead, which you should definitely check out because it’s a darn good read.

We’re just counting down the days now!

There was some discussion a while back, when production delays began to be an issue, about pushing the release back to September 2022. I believe the January 2023 date was finally settled upon as being a more conservative  estimate, with very little risk of having to be pushed back yet again. So yes, January 2023 is basically correct ... though I do live in hope of it turning out to be earlier!

It’s Christmas Eve!

So here’s wishing everyone a happy Christmas and all the best for the holidays. And, of course, a good book to curl up with when the weather outside gets dreadful == whether we’re talking northern blizzards, southern heatwaves, or equatorial monsoons. Stay happy, stay healthy, and keep reading.

- Christopher Huang

News! Good news, and not-so-good news.

Let’s get the not-so-good news out of the way. I’ve received word that the release of Unnatural Ends might be delayed another two or three months, though nothing is confirmed yet. This is, apparently, down to some marketing strategy: Inkshares wants to put some extra effort into getting this book into the public eye, and there might be something to aiming for a release in the spring as opposed to the middle of winter. They’re weighing the pros and cons now, and I’m trusting them to do what’s best.

In much better news, we now have a cover!

Credit goes to Tim Barber of Dissect Designs, who’s done some amazing work on a number of other Inkshares titles. For Unnatural Ends, he’s taken the fractured family situation at the core of the story and expressed it as a jumble of mismatched pieces forced together. Brilliance, I think.

Now we just have to wait for Inkshares to work their marketing magic (consider telling your local library) and for the book to make its way to the bookstore shelves.

Hey, Christopher, awesome title. Congrats!

We have progress, ladies and gentlemen! Cat’s Paw has always been only a working title, one I’ve wanted to change for well over a year now. And we’ve come to a decision: the book formerly known as Cat’s Paw will be published as Unnatural Ends ... a far better title, mainly because it does not conjure up pictures of cute kittens when you run it through Google.

Which also means these updates will need a new header:

If you head over to Amazon, you’ll find we also have a cover, though my understanding is that this is not final. The cover artist is still working on something much better. Still, having even a placeholder cover brings home the idea that this is really happening after all. I’m sure that, given the time this has taken some of you must have begun to give up, or cease to believe ... I know there was a sense of unreality about the whole process for me as well, towards the end.

Meanwhile, the proofs have come and gone. I heard mention of printing at the beginning of the next month, though I’m assuming that’s about the Advanced Reader copies for reviews and the like before the actual release. As I said: we have progress.

Dear readers,

I hope you have not forgotten me. It has been quite a while, and I admit that things have progressed far slower than I’d hoped. I feel that much of that is my own fault, and that has made me reluctant to post any updates. However, it looks like we’re finally over the slump, and have something real to report.

The book went into copy edits just last month, and should be moving on to the next step within the next week or so. Apparently we have a publication date set for February 2022, so here’s hoping things go according to schedule.

As I’m writing this, the International Agatha Christie Festival is just entering its last day. I was invited to say a little something about Christie’s post-WW1 world, though the ongoing plague means my contribution has had to be online only. Rather a shame not to be there in person, but being "online only" means the video is now available on YouTube. Check it out here: Agatha Christie: Clues to the Post-War World. While you’re there, why not check out some of the other online talks and events for the festival?

Cheers to everyone; stay healthy, and happy reading.

Hi Kelly. Things are moving a little more slowly than I like, but they are moving. There’s a backlog of books ahead of me, and recent events have made progress a little sticky on multiple fronts. I had expected this book to be ready by the end of the year, but right now that’s not looking too likely ... perhaps the middle of next year might be more realistic.