Official Publication day for The Birth Machine and Amazon reviews for Too Many Magpies

Well, I've already had one launch and still have another to come (Charing Cross Road Blackwell's, 6.30 pm, Wednesday 10th November), so I'd sort of lost sight of the official publication date, and there I was about an hour ago typing it in an email: 'Publication date November 1st', and it hit me: that's today! Well, it so happens that I'm meeting someone for dinner tonight in Aladdin's in Withington, where you take your own drink, so I might just take along a wee bottle of fizz, even though, actually, I had decided to give up drinking for now...

And while The Birth Machine is now officially out, reviews of Too Many Magpies are still coming in: last week, to my great delight two more five-star Amazon reviews popped up. One of the reviewers, DotSeven says this:

I finished Too Many Magpies in three bedtime reads (something I rarely do!). Mesmerised from start to finish. As a reader I identified with it to a (sometimes) uncomfortable degree - loved the prose and the way the elements and characters were mirrored/entwined. A unique experience, seldom read anything by a UK writer that has had so marked an effect!

Honestly, what better reaction that that? Yup, fizz tonight defo...