Happy New Year!
I hope you've had a good Christmas and are looking forward to 2012.
I am.
I have had a good year in 2011. This is a my favourite picture of 2011 that doesn't involve my family.
It is a small cairn I built on top of a mountain in the Arctic, when I was researching my book, Squad: White Fear in September. I built it for a friend of mine who had just lost his mum.
I have big plans for 2012.
They include author tours based around Fair Trade Fortnight (February/March), the launch of my new series (May), Euro 2012 (June) and the Olympic Football (August).
Also writing books about night running, spies, a haunted stadium, mermaids and... er... football.
I have dreams for Leeds United too, but after today's 4-1 reverse at Barnsley, I think I've got a better chance of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I've just got to say something about this book. Again.
Dark Matter by Michelle Paver is an ourstanding book. The perfect novel to borrow or buy at Halloween. Or to complement the BBC's current Frozen Planet series.
It is the story of a group of young men who travel to Svalbard in the upper Arctic to carry out a survey. Into the Polar Night of twenty-four hours darkness. 1937.
If you want to know what the light - and darkness - is like in the upper Arctic, this is the book for you.
The characters, setting, historical period and plot blend together to create a superb read.
Dark Matter is also a ghost story. A chilling unnerving beautiful ghost story.
I've just read it for the second time - and, really, feel like reading it again right now.
(By the way: the paperback - just out - is white, not like this cover for the hardback.)
