My 6 days in Auckland were jam-packed with visits, meetings and events. I visited 6 schools, delivered 8 talks, lunched with booksellers, attended the New Zealand Book Industry Awards and had a lovely catch up with some author friends.

I am sooooo overdue to post news. Sorry, team. I can’t think back over all the details I’ve missed this year but here are the recent highlights: Stray is a finalist in the Children’s Choice category of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

How could I fail to feel welcome arriving at Richmond Public Library this afternoon when Rachel Lord, the wonderful Librarian for Young Adult Literature had festooned the library with posters galore advertising this week’s Mystery Ink Teen Book Club session?

Oh boy I’ve been so slack updating my news page lately, mostly because I am in the thick of rewriting Shield, book 3 of the Spark trilogy. But I’m here now and it’s been a busy time with a Teen Book Club visit, NZ Book Week AND NZ Bookshop Day shenanigans! All three of these events involved my favourite local indie bookstore Page & Blackmore.

Tuesday, September 8th, one week after the Christchurch book launch we celebrated the release of Stray at my favourite bookshop, Page & Blackmore. I fell in love with P&B the first time I visited the store soon after moving to Nelson and have been a regular ever since. Stella and the team are the best kind of independent booksellers, friendly, knowledgeable and mad keen on books!

A truly delightful evening of friends, whanau and Spark-enthusiasts, sipping wine, nibbling cake and goodies, celebrating the launch of Stray, book 2 in the Spark trilogy.

I am so excited for this blog tour and deeply grateful for the support of these brilliant bloggers! Each day you can look forward to insightful reviews of Stray, Q & A’s, and guest posts from me about all kinds of wonders and GIFs, GIFs, GIFs! Please join us for a week of wordly fun times!

STOP. THE. BUS. people! The most amazing thing has happened. Yesterday the shortlist for the Gold and Silver Inky Awards were announced at the Melbourne Writers Festival and by some miraculous turn of events my wee Spark has made the cut! And you can vote here!

EEP! It’s come around fast, BOOK LAUNCH time! I am doing 2 events, one in Christchurch on release day September 1st and one in Nelson a week later September 8th. I am really looking forward to going down to Christchurch and seeing our family and friends. If you are in Christchurch please come and join me for a fun evening, I’d love to see you there!

It was an exciting 24 hours in Wellington for the 2015 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults at Government House where I had a wonderful time meeting great kiwi authors and catching up with my amazing publisher and editor.