Overhearing my first review!

I was quite shocked to find myself listening to the first public comment on Serpentine, from James Lavery on BBC Radio Scotland's Book Cafe today.
"I have to say it's fantastic..." did he really say that? Well, for seven days after broadcast, you can check on the website.

I was quite overwhelmed to hear this because, although family members whose opinions I trust implicitly have been enthusiastic about the book (and indeed, I'd never have sent it off to a publisher if my eldest son hadn't approved the first draft), its arrival as a finished, bound publication in Friday quite freaked me out. I could hardly bear to open it, and the idea of reading it again filled me with despair.

Serpentine is published by Mainstream on 4 June. You can order it in advance from Amazon or Random House.

Now, well, one comment on the radio doesn't mean its going to fly off the shelves, but it's a start!

James's full comments are as follows:

"I've been reading Serpentine, and I have to say it's fantastic - I really, really like it. Now, there's one or two bones I have to pick with Tom Morton - there are some names in here are wholly inappropraite for his characters from Northern Ireland. But other than that - that's really trivial - as a thriller, this goes really well. It's epistolary - you get two or three different viewpoints. It's really, really good. I really like it."

Cheers James! And funnily enough, my wife picked up on the names thing as well. Mind you, she thinks it's a comedy...