A fan called Malachi (aka Hazy ML) read my Zom-B book and got such a kick out of it that he wrote a song in its honour. It's a really catchy little number, and has the good sense to know when to quit (not like some songs, that go on and on and ON...). Have a listen, and if you enjoy it, please leave some positive feedback for Malachi/Hazy ML on his Soundcloud page -- zombies love those who rock on righteously!!! CLICK HERE.

Lee Hays once said about his band The Weavers taking a long hiatus, "We went on a Sabbatical that turned into a Mondical and a Tuesdical." It's one of my favourite quotes, and the reason I'm bringing it up is that I've have my own Mondical and Tuesdical on the writing front over the last year or so, but I got back in the saddle last month and did a complete edit of what will be my next Darren Dash release for adult readers. We're realistically looking at a first half of 2020 on-sale date (I'll have to edit it a few more times myself, then send it to my copywriter who will have to make room in her own schedule to work on it... sort out the cover and typesetting and listing it... send it out to reviewers ahead of its release in the hope of getting some good word of mouth on the go... and so on), but who knows, maybe I'll manage to squeeze it out into the world before the end of this year. I'll keep y'all updated as things progress. For the moment, know only this -- it's a darkly tongue-in-cheek London-set noir thriller, whose title heavily (and theme a bit more cheekily) references one of my favourite Billy Wilder films, Some like it hot... That's all for now -- keep watching for more info -- and in the meantime, if anyone wants to have a stab at guessing the title, go ahead and I'll let you know if you're hot or cold!

 A FAN PITCH

A vlogger called Randomfish recently recorded himself pitching ideas for a Demonata TV show. If you'd like to see what he had to say about it, and whether or not you agree with his thoughts, CLICK HERE

I'm always open to my work being adapted for TV, film, the stage or any other medium, and my agent has been pegging away at this for years, trying to get deals off the ground. At the moment we're in talks with different parties on three different projects, each of which is at a different stage of pre-development, though nothing has yet been greenlit or is even especially close to that stage. (So I won't be saying much more about them for the time being, unless and until they move further forward.) But The Demonata isn't one of those projects -- I hope it will get adapted one day, but it seems that the gore and tricky structure are big obstacles for the TV and film folk. If any of you have a spare few million sitting in the bank, and you feel the world needs to be shown Lord Loss and co in action on the big or small screen, this could be the time to drop me a line...   

Italian fan Frankie has been reading all the books in my Saga Of Darren Shan / Cirque Du Freak series, and writing a good-sized review for each. Frankie's latest was for book 9, Killers Of The Dawn, which I think is a wrench for just about every fan of the Saga. Were there tears? Of course there were! And Frankie's account acts as a subtle little warning to those of you who have yet to brave book 9 -- it might be best read at home in the safe confines of your own living room or bedroom, rather than on a train carriage...

CLICK HERE for the review -- as usual, it is in Italian, Frankie's first language, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology you can copy the text, paste it into a service like Google Translate, and come away with a fairly accurate translation into your own language.

MIDSUMMER'S REVIEW

Here's a little riddle for you, which isn't that hard to work out, especially for anyone in the publishing game -- when is a "new" review NOT a new review?!? Answer -- when it's an old review that's been copied across to another site!

I don't, as a general rule, go in for cross-pollinating reviews. Usually, when I submit one of my books for review, it's to a specific site, and the review only appears on that site, which is how I think things should be. I'm sure there are "review sites" that offer to paste the same review across a variety of sub-sites, allowing authors who avail of their services to use several quotes and attribute them to different sites, making people think the book has been favourably reviewed by a number of different reviewers. (Yes, things DO get that sneaky in the publicity hot house!) But I prefer to keep things nice and simple -- and honest.

That being said, an old review for my latest Darren Dash novel for adults, Midsummer's Bottom, was shared to another site recently. It originally appeared on the Self-Publishing Review site, on which it is still archived, but has now also appeared on the Independent Review Of Books site. I haven't added any quotes from the "new" review to my site or Amazon pages, and won't be doing so, but thought I'd flag up the review here for anyone who missed it first time round, as it's a very nice review indeed and one that I hope will tempt a few more of you to give the book a try if you haven't already done so. If interested, CLICK HERE

WALLPAPER

A fan called Ianto created this stylish Cirque Du Freak wallpaper last month and said everyone is free to use it, so if you want to freakify your computer or phone or tablet screen, knock yourself out -- just don't forget to say a virtual Thank You to Ianto as you do!! I have added it to my own iPhone and I'm enjoying it very much, though my 4 year old son did frown and complain about the darkness -- heh heh -- with me for his father, he's going to have to get used to the dark pretty damn quickly!!! :-)

DESTINY?!?

Mrs Shan and I had to take our son Dante to hospital last month to have some of his teeth crowned and one extracted. We noticed quite a while back that he was having problems with his teeth, despite the fact that we got him into brushing regularly from a very early age. We took him to our dentist, who informed us that the enamel on some of his teeth hadn't formed correctly (a common condition among young uns, apparently). We maintained them without any surgery for as long as we could, but eventually we were recommended to take action, as a few of the teeth were close to full deterioration. Dante was a brave little soul and went along with it all as manfully as any 4 year old can. He was feeling a bit sorry for himself in the hour or so immediately after the operation, until we mentioned that he now had a couple of silver teeth -- at which he grew VERY excited, and was back in top form in no time!

Following Dante's operation, we stayed in Cork (where the hospital was) overnight, then headed back home around lunchtime the next day. We stopped in a town called Mallow to get something to eat. We pulled into the car park, and were in the middle of getting the kids out, when the driver in the car next to us also got out and said something along the lines of, "Fancy bumping into you freaks here!" It was Liam, an old childhood friend of mine, who is also the designer for my web site. Yep, by chance (or Des Tiny?) we'd parked next to him, even though we hadn't been in touch in ages, and went and had a very nice lunch with him and his family.

I sometimes worry about including too many strange coincidences in my books. It's something you have to do as an author, arrange things so that the paths of various characters collide, and on occasion it can feel forced and unbelievable. Charles Dickens included some real whoppers in his work, and yes, I suppose I've included some whale-size whoppers in my stories too. But then something like this happens and I'm reminded that we live in a world where eyebrow-raising coincidences DO really happen, and things that you wouldn't believe in a book are accepted at face value every day in the real world because... well, because they're real. Or to put it another way... Fiction ain't got nothing on fact, Jack, and Des Tiny fills in all the cracks!

10 YEARS LATER...

COMPETITION

To celebrate my birthday and the Shanville Monthly's birthday and the ten year anniversary of finishing work on The Demonata, I'm running a competition and offering up fifteen signed, dated and inscribed Demonata posters as prizes. My American publishers produced these as giveaways while they were making and releasing the paperback editions of the books, and sent some to me for my files. They've been sitting on ice ever since, until I rooted them out and decided to send them back out into the world this month. They're not all in mint condition -- some are slightly torn, and most have little marks on them -- but overall they're in pretty good shape. Regardless of the nicks and tears, I have signed each poster and dated it (28/6/19) and also added a little message, 10 YEARS LATER... I doubt if you'd be able to easily find one of these if you were to set out to track one down -- and you certainly couldn't get one of the fifteen 10 year anniversary samples, unless you're one of the fifteen winners of this month's competition. So, if you'd like to be in with a chance of winning, read on...

1) Answer this question: "How many years has it been since I finished work on The Demonata?"

2 Send your entry to: [email protected]

3) Put your NAME in the SUBJECT BOX when you send your e-mail. Make sure you INCLUDE YOUR FULL POSTAL ADDRESS in the body of the e-mail, as well as the answer, so that I can easily send your prize to you if you win

(4) Closing date is 11.59pm UK time, Sunday, July 14th, 2019.

(5) This competition is open to fans everywhere in the world, unless you work for one of my publishers or are one of my relations.

(6) You can only enter the competition ONCE. If you try to enter more than once, ALL of your entries will be disqualified.

(7) Only one entry per household -- if you send in more than one entry, ALL of your entries will be rejected. If more than one person in a house wants to enter, you'll need to make a joint entry.

(8) The draw for the winners will be made on or after Monday, July 15th, 2019. It will be a completely random draw, made by Darren Shan personally (I use an online number generator to pick the winners). I will try to notify the winners by e-mail, and will post their names in the Shanville Monthly, and on Facebook and my blog too.

(9) Information submitted by entrants WILL NOT be shared by me with any other individual or company.

(10) My decision will be final.

IT'S A WRAP!