Hello mah beauties,

Today is July 26th, which means it’s the day that Amazon ships book four, Eye of the Tempest! It’s already been out all over the place in bookstores, and it’s not quite out in e-reader (that will be August 1, the “official” release date). But if you pre-ordered a hard copy, it should be winging its way to you as of now.

So yay! Release Part 1 is in full effect. Sorry those of you with e-readers have to wait till August 1, but it’ll come shortly, I promise. 😉

As for me, I’ve had the loveliest week! On Wednesday of last week, I had an absolutely hilarious dinner with UK writers Karen Mahoney and Suzanne McLeod, and with American expat writer Stacia Kane. Here are some photos of the evening. First up are Suzanne and Karen, looking gorgeous:

And next we have Stacia and me, looking like fierce (if giggling) creatures:

As for the giggling, Stacia might have been grabbing my boob. Again. 😉

Thursday night I had dinner and watched a movie with Dr. Ruth. We watched Black Swan, which was very creepy. It made me frightened of ballet and also made me want to eat cake.

Friday I headed north to meet my friend and travel up to Whitby on the Northeast coast of England. I’d been pretty sure I wanted to set the final battle of the fifth book in Whitby, and was convinced it was perfect pretty much as soon as I saw the place. Whitby is absolutely gorgeous, with a seaside charm all of its own. In fact, it reminded me much more of Eastport, ME, than it did other British seaside cities, such as Brighton. This makes sense, as it’s really a working fishing village with a side in tourism, rather than having an economy based on tourism. But it was an entirely stunning place, made even funnier by the Dracula connection (Bram Stoker has quite a few scenes set in or based on Whitby) which brings loads of goths to the area. So one minute you’d be walking past a knot of bearded old fishermen smoking pipes, then there’d be a chubby goth couple in full regalia eating fish and chips.

But the book’s ending is really coming together in my mind. I kept playing through different scenes as we were in Whitby, and the place was so powerful an inspiration I couldn’t shut off my brain, even when we were in Scarborough for a day trip. Luckily I didn’t need much mental power, however, as I was being well taken care of.  It was my ideal trip, really, as I was with someone who was originally from that area, and he was the perfect tour guide. All I had to do was wander along behind him and ooh and aah at the sights, a role I rarely get to indulge in, but which I love.

As usual, I took almost no photos, but here are a few that were too weird or funny not to take, plus I did remember to take a few photos for use in the writing. So they’ll be your obscure Fury spoilers for the day!

This picture was from the Whitby museum, full of all sorts of insane shit, like sea bishops. It also has an actual HAND OF GLORY, probably the creepiest thing I’ve ever clapped eyes upon. It was also great timing, as I’d just read Juliet Blackwell’s fabulous Hexes and Hemlines, which utlilizes a Hand of Glory. Here’s a very bad picture of the hand, in all its horrific splendor:

It really was repulsive. Equally cool, if slightly less repulsive, was a weird Victorian Steampunky device made to foretell weather. It looked cool, yes, but it did involve tons of leeches, which lent the device its own slightly repulsive nature. Anyway, its name gave me inspiration for book six, just in case I’m not allowed to use Tempestt Bledsoe:

TEMPEST PROGNOSTICATOR! It’ll be a steampunk Jane, naturally.

Finally, here are some pictures of the abbey, as a bit of cryptic Fury spoiler. Enjoy and see you soon. Londoners, don’t forget my Forbidden Planet signing this Saturday!

Your moment of cryptic Fury spoiler begins now: