Yikes! The floor is covered in books. Farlkris is published!

You can order the book  from the publisher here, or from Amazon, or at any bookshop. And we’re looking forward to seeing many of you at Borders in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, here is Hannah’s map:

And if you’d like a small picture with both book covers on it, you can download it in your browser by clicking on the image and then saving the file to your desktop – where you can print it out and leave it around for people to take the hint that you’d like a copy of Farlkris in your Christmas stocking!

That’s all for now. See you soon!

14 Nov Borders Kinnaird Park Edinburgh
21 Nov Borders Team Valley Gateshead
28 Nov Borders Silverlink Newcastle
12 Dec Borders Kinnaird Park Edinburgh
19 Dec Borders Team Valley Gateshead
tbc Dec Borders Silverlink Newcastle

The latest post is below – this is a sticky!

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We now have dates for in-store signings of our new book Farlkris in Gateshead and Newcastle.

These are:

Borders, Team Valley, Gateshead at 12 noon:
Saturday 21st November
Saturday 19th December

Borders, Silverlink, Newcastle at 12 noon
Saturday 28th November
(another date will be added for Silverlink in the two weeks before Christmas, on a weekday)

We look forward to seeing all our NorthEast readers at one of these events or in Edinburgh (see last post). Anyone else can buy signed copies from Amazon when it’s published or order copies in advance from Matador.

The story ends in the run-up to Christmas so it’s a brilliant time to read the book. We’re dying to know what you think of our ending. Be sure to let us know!

We are signing copies of the new Lothian Dragons book 2: Farlkris in Borders bookshop at Kinnaird Retail Park outside Edinburgh on two dates before Christmas. The book will be published around 2nd November if you can’t wait till the signings.

Kelsey Drake at Borders:
Kinnaird Retail Park, Edinburgh

Saturday 14 November 11am – 3pm
Saturday 12 December 11am – 3pm

Front cover of Farlkris: Lothian Dragons Book 2

These dates are just in time for Christmas stockings, presents for your friends and family, and for yourself.

So we’re looking forward to seeing you at the book signings – we’re always happy to talk dragons with our readers, and to hear what else you’ve been reading.

We’ve put loads of Musselburgh stuff in the new book – try finding the school Hannah and Kris go to, or the supermarket near the entrance to Farkris’s dragon layr. Or even the house where Hannah lives. There’s a map to help, as usual. I expect you’ll be able to tell us a thing or two about Musselburgh, too, if you live there.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I need to print some more bookmarks for you.

Now isn’t that brilliant? I won’t spoil the fun by explaining what the cover pic means. You’ll have to buy the book to find out. But you won’t be disappointed. Keep an eye on the main website for exact publication day!

Front cover of Farlkris: Lothian Dragons book 2

An interview with us is now on Conversations with POD (which stands for Printing on Demand). It talks about why and how we decided to publish Scordril with Matador. (You can find the previous interview here, if you missed the one on the The Crafty Writer blog.)

We are still proofreading Farlkris. We want it to be perfect. And we are still haggling a little bit about the exact colours on the cover. If you’ve been in library and school sessions with us, you will have seen a manky example of how the first cover of Scordril didn’t come out quite right and we asked for it to be changed to the one you know.

The problem is the designer has done a brilliant set of colours, but Farlkris needs to be the same as Scordril but different – or no one will know they are in the same series. I mean, that’s how we find the next book we want in bookshops, isn’t it? So we’ve asked for some slight changes. We’ll put a cover up here when we have the final version.

I wonder if JK Rowling had this bother?

Just 6 weeks to go until we see Farlkris in the flesh – well not quite, unless you visit Musselburgh and get an invite into the dragonlayr under the town. But the book’s the next best thing. So to help you wait, here is a taster of the beginning of Lothian Dragons Book 2 Farlkris:

Summons

Dragonclaws! Scordril cursed the loud rustling of his chocolate-veined wings as he stooped and entered the curved room. He’d disturbed Threah.

In the glow of the brushwood torch, he watched her blue-grey form shift a little as it lay curled round the hatchling egg they were protecting as it matured. He reached towards her with his mind.

»Not so long now,» he said, sending his feelings of pride and joy down the link to his mate. »Are you comfortable?»

»With our son ready for his own layring, it will be good to have a smallone around again,» Threah answered.

They remained still for a long moment, aware of how precious it was to share every dragonscale of time before Scordril must go, and everything would change.

Suddenly, the strong mindspeech of the dragonmaster Ygdrann broke the spell.

»The council is to meet urgently, Scordril. The menace is spreading and the danger now grave. We must send the youngone to live overground to find out the cause of this threat to our layr. Only then can the mages hope to find a solution.»

Scordril rose heavily to his feet. »I must go, Threah,» he said. »This is the first time anything has endangered the Musselburgh layr in all the sun-rounds since the Great Split from Traprain Law. Maybe it was a bad idea to live so near the overgrounders, but be they dragonfriend or dragonfoe, we are all now at risk… The mages must not fail.»

You can pre-order Farlkris from here and Scordril from here. But if you’d like us to sign your copy and can get to the north of England, hang on and we’ll be happy to do it for you. You can get signed copies of Scordril already from Amazon, of course.

The blurb for Farlkris – the sequel to Scordril – has now been put on the publisher’s website. You can find it here.

For those who can’t be bothered to pop over, here is what it says:

Hannah is named ‘buddy’ to Kris when he first arrives in school. But he is really Farlkris, a young dragon on a mission. His success or failure will seal the fate of both Musselburgh and the dragon layr below the old industrial park.

Hannah and Kris join forces to find and eliminate the source of this terrible threat to both overgrounder and dragon. Their search takes them into conflict with school friends and authorities, the dragonmage Scordril, and Mason Blackwood, a clever but ruthless man whose only aim is to live for ever.

How will the dragons keep their existence secret? And what part is played by Morris, a wise old man who knows all about animals and nature?

Against a background of waning magic powers, dying animals and ferocious storms, Hannah and Kris’s courage – despite unbearable grief – leads to a dramatic and unexpected conclusion.

We’re both agog for the early November publishing date and we’ll be round at the local shops signing copies as soon as it’s available.

Only one of us was able to get to East Linton on Wednesday. But it was great to meet you all. I hope you’ve started reading Scordril and are enjoying it. Do use the contact form on the main website to tell us what you like most.

Someone asked the question: how do dragons change into human form? In other words, how does Scordril become an overgrounder when he’s walking up Traprain Law to investigate the dragongrid?

Well, as you know, the dragons all get their magic power from the mages. Scordril is one of them. So he just uses his own power. But what you have to do with that magic power is take it into every cell of your dragon body and tell each cell what it has to become – that might be trousers, legs, hair or whatever. It’s a bit like a computer program that tells each pixel on your screen what colour it should be so that the whole web page looks right.

Sometimes, the dragons find it hard to look exactly like a real overgrounder – in book 2, Farlkris, Kris has to make himself look like a typical schoolboy every day! That means he has to notice what clothes they wear when out of uniform too, so he can copy.

When a dragon takes on another shape, we call it “morphing”. Morphing and mindspeech are the two things I would most like to have that the dragons have. It would make life so much fun!

We’ll be at East Linton library to talk about Scordril on Wednesday next week – 29th July. This is part of the Quest activities lined up in many libraries this summer.

If you’re in the area and want to register, you may be lucky and find there are a few spaces left. Give Carol Hastie a ring on 01620 860015 and ask her.

If you’re interested to know how Farlkris is going, we’re really happy to say that the designers are working on it now. Should be out well before Christmas. This one is set in the present time in Musselburgh. We’ll keep you informed of progress. We can’t wait to get our hands on it ourselves – we just love books!

See you there!