Last blog post until Frostfire’s November 1st release! Time flies, and hopefully the books will too. Unless of course you prefer the eBook version, which is now available to pre-order here.

Of course, I get to be a proper author even sooner than that – in a matter of weeks I’ll be doing my first school event at my old primary, which ought to be somewhere between strange and fun. There should be plenty more events to come, and maybe one or two interesting surprises I can share soon, if plans work out.

Before I get deep into the publicity process though, I thought I’d write a little about how Frostfire came to be, all the way from when it was Frostsliver to its current polished form.

I had the idea for Frostsliver a good year or so before I began writing it. The concept of an living icy companion was suggested to me by my partner during a brainstorming session for books in the Infinite Sea universe where all my fantasy stories so far are set. From there I developed the sentient glacier that gave the ice its power, the bonding system and the culture that my protagonist, Sabira came from – but only after I was told of the Chicken House Competition by my Mum.

Previously I’d come runner up with Scaled in a competition for Bloomsbury, so I jumped at the chance to try again. In the six months had before the entry date I went through three draft versions (eventually to become more like ten after a proper editor got hold of it).

Though I was pipped at the post by Nicki Thornton’s Last Chance Hotel – out now and already doing well – Chicken House chose to take a chance on me as well. There was a lot of work to be done, trimming nearly half the words out and adding plenty more, but with essential assistance from my editor, Kesia, as well as other Chicken House team members, we’ve got to the final printed version. No more changes allowed!

(Hope there’s no embarrassing spelling mistakes left after all that)

Only a month left until you all can find out whether you like the finished result as much as I do!