Progress on The Sorcerer is being made - and yes, the 5th novel in the series now has a title. The title is breathtakingly simple, true, but when you finally get to read it you'll probably understand its choice. It's a story about facing changes, the need to adapt to change, and about taking control. This is as big a hint as I'll be giving. The book already has a cover, in the style of the recently revealed new covers for the previous four books, but I won't share that until nearer the publication date. Anyway, it feels good to have reached the 69,000 word-count length, even though there is a lot of work to be done yet. This book has been slow-going; in fact it's easily been the most challenging of the series to write. I stopped writing it for quite some time, then re-read it and threw away around 25,000 words as I just wasn't happy with the direction it was going in. Was that 25,000 reduction hard to make? Well, yes and no. While it seemed like a huge chunk o...

  New covers for the four published Artisan-Sorcerer novels can now be shared.  A new cover for Intimations is planned, too, which is a collection of short stories from the series. I'm thinking of expanding this ebook and releasing it as in paperback form, too. There's also a cover for the fifth novel in the series, already designed to ensure that all five covers will look cohesive as a set. I'm going to wait to share this one, though, until nearer its publication time, which is planned to be in 2026. Let me know what you think of the four new covers.

  STATE/BANQUET by Carol Ann Duffy How it glitters and shines, The Grand Service, among the rocks and the rubble, laid out on a breezeblock horseshoe table, six crystal glasses per setting. It took eight servants three weeks to polish - silver coated in a thin layer of gold - even the concrete dust in the air seems glamourised and the ruins are decked in the uplifting flags of democracy. To start, fillet of Dover sole filled with salmon mousse, served on a bed of leeks with white wine sauce. Poached Sandringham venison with truffles to follow, then Key Lime Pie, and among the wines, Chateau Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, 1990. Yum-yum. Let the trumpets sound on the bombsite as the great and the good pick their way through, and a famished child peers through a bullet-hole in a wall. Carol Ann Duffy  was the UK’s poet laureate between 2009 and 2019. The  US president, Donald Trump, and his wife, Melania, arrived in Windsor today to be met by the Prince and Princess...