I've got a first copy of my new book!

On Monday I met with my charming publicist, and wouldn't you know, copies of Book Two - entitled In Great Waters - have just come off the press. I'm very excited; it's glossy and handsome, and looks great.

Of course, at this stage I can't bear to read it. After writing it, rewriting it, copy editing it and proof reading it, I've had absolutely enough of its contents for the time being; right now, I'm scared to look inside it in case I spot disastrous sentences and end up wailing 'Why? Why? Why didn't I change that while I still had the chance?' However, this is just the oversensitivity that comes from a) being the author and b) reading it too many times; no doubt I'll like it better when I've had a rest from it. All things considered, I'm pretty pleased with how it's come out.

I'm particularly impressed with the cover image. The subject of the book was a horribly difficult one to find a picture for. I say this with feeling; I've compiled illustrated books in my time, and when it comes to matching words and pictures, reality tends to be stubborn: the right poem or the right photograph very often only exists in your mind, and artists throughout history, the pigs, have failed to provide you with what you need. This book in particular involved two completely different subjects, underwater life and court politics, and if you can think of an image that suits both of those, you're a cleverer person than I am.

Fortunately for us, Lily Richards, the picture researcher at Random House, is a cleverer person than I am. The image she tracked down is by the fine arts photographer Narelle Autio, and its underwater beauty combined with a suggestion of violence and struggle, as well as an air of thrown-in-at-the-deep-end which perfectly suits my characters' dilemmas, all are far better than I could have hoped. So while the inside of the book is currently a snakepit as far as I'm concerned, the outside of it is wonderful, and I keep grinning at my copy.

To give you a fuller virtual experience, here's the jacket blurb:

In a tense, divided court, a young princess watches her mother struggle to hold the throne. On a secluded coastal estate, a scholar finds a child washed up on the shore.

Anne. Henry. A Christian princess of the royal blood. A pagan bastard, groomed all his hidden, lonely life to make a grab for the crown.

In this work of stunning imagination, Kit Whitfield has written a fictional history at once familiar and alien. Since the ninth century, when the deepsmen invaded Venice, an uneasy alliance has held between the people of the land and the sea. That alliance was brokered by the warrior queen, Angelica, half landsman, half deepsman, the mother of the royal houses of Europe. Now, centuries later, no navy can cross the seas without allies in the ocean - and without deepsmen guarding its shores, no nation can withstand invasion. The hybrid kings keep the treaty between both sides, protecting their people from the threat of war.

The royal blood is the key to peace, and ferociously protected. The penalties for any landsman who tries to breed with a deepsman are severe; the fate of any 'bastard' child, born of such an illegitimate union, is terrible. But the royal house of England is staggering, collapsing under the weight of centuries of inbreeding.

Anne prays for guidance, a way into the future without hatred or bloodshed. Henry holds with fierce certainty that only the strong survive. But if either of them is to outlive the coming conflict, they may need more than faith alone...

Anyone want to play a game? Who can come up with a first sentence for that book? Both comedy and serious suggestions will be welcome. Accurate guesses will be met with tremendous kudos and suspicious glances. Come on, have a go...


LATER: my delightful publicist has told me that we can send a free copy of In Great Waters to the lucky winner of this first-lines competition that seems to be building up! So, let's say for the sake of convenience that the competition closes at midnight on Saturday, Greenwich Mean Time. Let's hear from you lovely people, and a shiny book could be yours.