Spring Madness and Updates

Riding in the bus past Hyde Park today I was struck by how smiley everyone was. I looked outside and some of the trees are bursting with life and tiny flowers are popping up everywhere. Spring has (hopefully) arrived and barring any random snow-storms flying in from Russia, hopefully the better weather is here to stay.

With that in mind and feeling all Eastercon and springy I decided to redesign the site's header / logo thinghie (very techinical term) and give you a glimpse what we have planned for the upcoming summer months.

Firstly, loads of give aways from some very kind publishers including Faber Kids, Penguin/Puffin and Transworld, amongst others. Secondly, interviews and guest blogs with authors like the debut novelist Sarwat Chadda and award winning Natasha Mostert. I also managed to get my hooks into Alexander Gordon Smith and will be giving some books and promo items away on the site to celebrate his exceedingly cool novel Furnace: Lockdown.

Bearing in mind that April and May are still officially Horror Blog Fest months here at MFB, there will be more crazy interviews with out-there authors, fans of the genre and fellow bloggers whom I've managed to hypnotise into taking part.

I mentioned Eastercon earlier - it is now only a few days away. Both Mark and I will be there and it is going to be tremendous fun - thankfully due to us being big fans of all our authors and then some, and as we've met many of those attending Eastercon, we're looking forward to it without having to feel worried about not knowing anyone. We'll make sure to take loads of photos and depending on wifi availability, may be able to do a few posts whilst we there, this coming weekend. Loads of official authors will be attending including the Gollancz boys and girls, some peeps from Orbit including Mike Carey (my hero!), the amazing Toby Frost, creator of Space Captain Smith published by Myrmidon Books and well, the list is huge - this is the link to Easteron's site - go check it out. Loads of other authors and fans will be there and it is bound to be a fantastic event. There is still time to decide if you want to go! (points finger firmly at Kaz Mahoney).

Then, to prove to the world what genuine geeks Mark and I are, we've registered to attend the London Book Fair in a few weeks' time. I am genuinely looking forward to this and have got all the talks and events diarised that I would like to attend.

Then, inbetween all of this, there will be Forbidden Planet events to attend and more authors to schmooze and general mayhem to be had. Oh, and reviews. In fact, a very pretty book has just come to land on my desk and I am eternally grateful to the people at Egmont for sending this along. The book in question: Gone by Michael Grant. One of the books of 2009 making considerable waves and I'm looking forward to reading it. Oh! speaking of which - remember my review I did for the incomparable Forest of Hands and Teeth? It is now being published in the UK by Orion and I will be getting a chance to interview the lovely Carrie Ryan - and hopefully there'll be copies to be had in a competition!