I was tickled pink to see Cirque Du Freak listed as March's Recommended read over on the JD Hardie Youth Zone Facebook page. Never heard of the JD Hardie Youth Zone? I've got to admit, I hadn't either, which is hardly surprising, since it's a youth precinct in the town of Port Hedland in Western Australia -- which is a LONG way removed from where I live in Ireland!

I'm always amazed by how widely around the world my books have permeated. When I wrote the first draft of Cirque Du Freak back in 1997, I was living with my parents outside a tiny village in Limerick (I still live just outside it). I had no internet access -- indeed, I'm not sure at that point if I'd ever even been online! I was hoping to sell the book in the British and Irish markets, and maybe a few countries around Europe if I was really lucky, but the thought that it might find its way all across the Americas to the west of me, and all the way east to the likes of Japan and South Korea and Taiwan, and indeed to the complete other side of the world to where I lived, to Port Hedland in Australia...

All I can say is that it would have sounded like fiction if anyone had told me that was going to happen. I would have nodded, smirked, and muttered, "Yeah, pull the other one, that one's got bells on!!!"

https://www.facebook.com/JDhardieyouthzone/posts/1308745552646672