As we launch into 2015, I’m delighted to be able to announce that the book formerly known as Set in Stone is done and dusted. After the usual last-minute doubts and shenanigans, I’ve somehow managed to let go and send it out into the world and off to the printer.

Sentences uttered by me during the seemingly endless rounds of last-minute proofreading include, but are not limited to:

I don’t think I’m wedded to this comma 

I will fight to the death for this semi-colon

I need a three-beat word that means “tenacious” and has a falling cadence. Oh, wait … 

Who cares about widows and orphans anyway?

In the course of said shenanigans, the book has a new title and will shortly be winging its way into catalogues, bookstores and review pages (we can only hope) all over the country, as …  

A Single Stone

It’s a perfect fit for the book and I’m quietly thrilled with it.

It also has a blurb, being this:

Every girl dreams of being part of the line – the chosen seven who tunnel deep into the mountain to find the harvest. No work is more important. 

Jena is the leader of the line – strong, respected, reliable. And – as all girls must be – she is small; years of training have seen to that. It is not always easy but it is the way of things. And so a girl must wrap her limbs, lie still, deny herself a second bowl of stew. Or a first. 

But what happens when one tiny discovery makes Jena question everything she has ever known? What happens when moving a single stone changes everything?

And, after many incarnations, it has a cover, which I’m noisily thrilled with:

A Single Stone is aimed at ages 9-14-ish and will be out with Walker Books in May. I have no idea how this happened but I now seem to be working on a sequel.