GREETINGS!

Welcome to the April issue of the Shanville Monthly! This month the Monthly celebrates its 21st birthday -- hard to believe almost two years have passed since I sat down to pen the very first newsletter! Lots has happened with the books and my web site since then, but let's not dwell on the past! Let's look to the present and future instead and find out what's been happening more recently ...

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NEW RELEASES IN U.S.A. AND JAPAN

Book 3 of The Saga Of Darren Shan, Tunnels Of Blood, is released in the U.S.A. this month, and Book 4, Vampire Mountain, is released in Japan. Both books should be on sale in their relative countries NOW!!! (And remember, if you don't see any of my books in your local bookshop -- ASK!!!!!!) Two American reviews of Tunnels Of Blood have already been brought to my attention -- it's been reviewed on the Kidsturncentral site at http://www.kidsturncentral.com/topics/books/cirque3.htm and the Bookloons site at http://www.bookloons.com/Database/Teens_Review_of_Tunnels_of_Blood_by_Shan.html In the Bookloons reviewer's opinion -- which has also been the opinion of most readers in the UK and Ireland -- book 3 is the best of the first three books! I hope the rest of my American readers think so too ... :-) Bookloons are also running a competition, where you can win all 3 of my American books!!! Click here for details: http://www.bookloons.com/HandHTML/contest_bookloons2.html
You can buy Tunnels Of Blood by going to the Shanville USA SHOP and clicking on the link for Amazon or Barnes&Noble, and you can check out the Japanese version of Vampire Mountain by going to my Japanese Site.

NEW-LOOK SHANVILLE

As many of you will have already noticed, the new version of Shanville went on-line last month. When you go to the Darren Shan home page at http://www.darrenshan.com the old site opens up -- and than the new site opens on a new page. The new site IS NOT FINISHED yet, so if you want to browse the site, my advice is to close down the new site and browse through the old site. Hopefully we'll have all the material transferred to the new site by the end of April, which is when we'll close down the old site and replace it entirely with the new-look Shanville ...

U.S.A COMPETITION WINNERS

The winners of last month's American competition were Ryan Walsh of Arizona, and Kathy Lathen of Nebraska. Each won a signed proof copy of Tunnels Of Blood. More competitions -- for readers everywhere -- to follow later in the year ...


TOURING

I did lots of events around World Book Day, including events in the London Eye and the Tate Modern Gallery on World Book Day itself! I also did my biggest event yet in Bromley, where I performed for 800 local school children in a theatre!!! I had loads of fun (both at this event and all the others I did), met lots of dedicated Shansters, and hopefully made a few new converts!!
I'm only doing 2 events in April, at the Children's Bookshop in Pinner, Middlesex on Wednesday April 17th, and the Bookworm Bookshop in (I think!!!) Retford on Tuesday April 23rd. At the Pinner bookshop, I'm doing an evening event which is open to the public. It starts at 7.30 p.m. at the Grimsdike School, Sylvia Road, in Pinner. The event is FREE, but you WILL need a ticket -- tickets are available from the shop. For more details, contact the store in person, or by phoning 0208 8669116, or by sending an e-mail to [email protected] Tickets are being snapped up quickly, so you're advised to act PROMPTLY if you want to come!!! Oh, and children need to be accompanied by at least 1 adult!


SIGNED COPIES!!

In Dublin, I recently signed LOADS of copies of all six of my books in Eason's bookshop on O'Connell Street -- so if any of my Dublin-based Shansters fancy getting their hands on a signed Darren Shan book, they know where to look!! I also signed copies of all six of my books in the City of London School bookshop, and these are available to buy over the internet, to readers EVERYWHERE!!!! If you live in the UK or Ireland, you can e-mail your order, by writing to Tim at this e-mail address:
[email protected] If you live anywhere else in the world, you can use the shop's web-site, by clicking on this link: http://carpenter.seekbooks.co.uk/ Supplies are limited, so if you want a copy, my advice is to ACT QUICKLY before they sell out ....


NO "CIRQUE DU FREAK" TRILOGY

Contrary to previous reports, there will now be NO collected edition of my first 3 books released in the UK this year. We had planned to issue a big single volume in June, collecting Cirque Du Freak, The Vampire's Assistant, and Tunnels Of Blood. But upon reconsideration -- and taking into account the fact that there will be 3 new Darren Shan books released in the UK in 2002 -- we've decided to postpone it. There almost certainly WILL be a collected edition further down the line (perhaps in hardback!!), but we're going to save it for a "quiet day", perhaps between the release of book 9 and book 10 ...

NEW COVERS

I added the Finnish cover for The Vampire's Assistant to the site this month, and hope to add more covers (including the BRAND NEW UK cover for books 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5!!!!) to the site later in the month, hopefully by the middle of April. The web page link is: http://www.darrenshan.com/shan7.htm Don't forget to check back in mid-April for the new covers!!!


IT'S A WRAP

And that's it for this month! If you're living in the U.S.A or Japan, do drop me a line to let me know what you think of the new books. (USA address: [email protected] If you live in Japan or anywhere else in the world: [email protected]) And don't forget, you can post your views and talk with other Shansters on the Shanville Message Board. I'll be back at the start of May with all the latest news. Until then, all the bloody best, Darren Shan x x x