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Okay. I can no longer keep it hidden: my new book, entitled ESCAPE, published by Picador India, is due out in the first week of November. I don't know at what resolution this image will appear (I have yet to go back and dig up a larger scan of Alice Albinia's book, featured in the post just before this one -- her cover was transformed into a miniature by the time it uploaded), but if it's normal, then it should be possible to read the back-cover blurb.
My editor has forbidden me to say anything even faintly negative about the book/its cover/myself -- which means I pretty much have to cork down right away. Well I suppose I am allowed to say positive things -- in which case I will confess to being really and truly relieved that I wasn't asked to produce a cover because now I ... ummm ... I suppose if I continue in this vein I will say something negative about myself. Okay, I've just GOT to finish that statement (yes, Shruti? Do you grant me that?) -- I realize that with most of my previous books, either I produced a cover that was utterly self-effacing or I refused to get involved in the totally awful covers that the publishers produced -- I will NOT, in this context refer to the title of the book whose cover was created by Picador UK, because it STILL gives me nightmares ...
I am glad to say that I find the current cover practically perfect (like Mary Poppins). Of course there IS something, one tiny thing, that I dis... uhhhhh ... okay! I'll stop right here. *sound of whip being cracked in the distance*
And ...
I'd like to draw attention to the blog newly added to my list on the left -- 30-in-2005 -- lively, feisty, frequently updated. I should've done it some time ago, following my own desire to showcase any site I return to regularly but laziness usually wins out over any other impulse in my world.