Today is the 14th of April and you can go and read the whole first act of Harrow the Ninth! 

I finished Harrow long before Gideon ever went to publication and it is extremely weird having it now be in the pipeline to be read. I’ll have also finished Alecto before Harrow is out, which will be weird in the same way. Alecto is a very different book to Harrow and Harrow is a very different book to Gideon. Gideon was about two girls crammed into a bloodstained get-along shirt; Harrow is about, as stolen from A.K. Larkwood, two girls who are not enjoying this Duke of Ed residential very much; Alecto will be about girls being annoyed that it is legal for their exes to talk to each other. The tomb is open. The get-along shirt is empty.

Naturally I had a hell of a lot of fun writing Harrow and it is very personal to me. It is about a girl staggering over the finish line with all her limbs ground down to stumps only to discover that that was the start of the marathon. It is about another girl who owns thirty thousand stupid outfits, and wears them. It is the hideousness of being a grown-up and discovering the protagonist of your sequel is some emo kid with Disney hair who hangs around Goofy and Donald. It is about meals.  

Really it is a book that, at its heart, is the bit in the Homestar Runner music video for TMBG’s Experimental Film where Strong Sad falls hard out of the sky and the spectator stand announces that it is a lion. 

I hope you enjoy. Take care out there.