BLADE: This is my new thriller series. Book 1 is called Playing Dead and Book 2 is called Closing In. It's a series that will run over several books with two launched in the early part of each year, i.e. Blade 3: Breaking Free will come out in January 2009, Blade 4: Running Scared in April 2009, and so on, with further books appearing in the January and April of each year. The BLADE  books are shorter than my novels (each is about 25,000 words long) and the story concerns a feral boy of fourteen who since the age of eleven has been living in hiding beneath the police and social radar. He has reasons for keeping out of sight because he has a lot of enemies, some of whom are very nasty people indeed. But they're not the only ones who are dangerous. The boy is dangerous too - very. Find out more about him in the Blade sections of this site.

BLOODCHILD: My next novel is called Bloodchild. It's to be published in September so that means that with the first two BLADE books there will be three books out this year. The new novel is another long book with strong mystical overtones about a village with a terrible secret and a boy who sees too much.

AWARDS: I'm proud to say that Frozen Fire has now won five awards: the Stockport Schools Book Award, the Highland Book Award, the Hull Book Award, the Redbridge Book Award and the South Lanarkshire Book Award. It is also shortlisted for the Southern Schools Book Award (to be announced in January 2009). These awards are a huge honour to be shortlisted for (and even more of an honour to win) so I'm delighted that Frozen Fire has done so well.