Daynote - Mon 1 Jun 2026

It's finally here! Release week for SOLITARY AGENTS!

I was out and about this weekend and spotted the book in the wild for the first time, at Waterstones Fort Kinnaird here in Edinburgh:

Three copies on the shelf, face out! A very good sign indeed. I vandalised them with pen and stamp, so if you want an early signed copy, there's at least three out there now.

This morning I'm also on the Quick Book Reviews podcast!

I had such a great time chatting to Philippa about spies, science fiction and all things bookish. Click the link above or search in your podcast client to give it a listen (and consider subscribing if you're not already, QBR is a brilliant podcast).

ON DECK: A bit of editing this morning, with two chapters of Project DRIFT edited and a grand total of -29 words cut. I'm still enjoying this consolidation edit, to reacquaint myself with the story. At some point I will need to start writing new words again, though, and my outline for this book is somewhat... patchy. So there may be a few days of planning required first.

LISTENING: I really enjoyed this interview with Chris McDonald on Confessions Of A Book Collector - Chris is the force behind Stockport Noir along with Serenity Booksellers and this is a really interesting insight into his writing career.

WATCHING: A bit more of BAD MISTAKES on Netflix yesterday, which is doing a lot of escalating in a very short amount of time. Very, very funny.

READING: Striding towards the end of THE LAST CONTRACT OF ISAKO by Fonda Lee (Bookshop, Waterstones, Amazon) and starting to think about the questions I'm going to ask Fonda, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Claire North at our Cymera panel on Saturday. I told you it was a busy week!

LINK: An excellent post from Kate McKean here, on what to do if you're scared of promoting your book. Very much a good thing to read on Monday of release week, let me tell you.

UP NEXT: Trying to do ALL the things this week. I'm going to try and keep up my running and working out, though also not be too hard on myself if I don't. I'm going to enjoy my 19th wedding anniversary with a nice meal out with Valerie. And I'm going to try and keep on top of a lot of emails, as well as finishing a fairly large science fiction novel and writing questions for an hour-long panel.

The latter half of the week is when it gets hectic - I'm promoting the hell out of my new book and the launch on Thursday, getting ready for the Bloody Scotland programme launch on Thursday morning, then my own launch that evening, then three glorious days of Cymera to top things off. On Sunday evening I will probably be mostly horizontal.

Onwards!