As I write this, I’m sitting in a hotel room near St Louis airport, about to get on a plane to Philadelphia. Later this week I’ll be taking a train from Philly to New York, and then flying to Portland, Maine. Then I get to hire a car and drive (with the lovely Katie from Penguin, who is organizing all publicity for the book) to Boston. So, planes, trains, and automobiles. In the Northeast. In January. What could possibly go wrong?

This trip is part business, part pleasure. In Portland and Boston I’m going to be having dinner with booksellers to talk about SETTING FREE THE KITES, which I am looking forward to hugely, although it’s still apparently not quite sunk in that, after all this time, publication is fast approaching.

I’ve just got back from a very relaxing few days in Southern California with my kids. We stayed near Joshua Tree National Park, which was astonishingly beautiful. I woke up (as usual) at five every morning and wrote for several hours while my children, who are champion teenagers (even though only one of them is actually a teenager) slept until late morning. Somehow, I am getting perilously close to finishing a first draft of the new novel. It’s set in Paris on one day in 1927, and I am already somewhat in mourning at the prospect of being done with it. I love waking up each day and spending a few hours in Paris. Anyway, here are a few photos from the trip.