Doble o Nada

Plus Wild & True at Porty Books & Jim Fanning Friday!

¡Hola!

This newsletter is coming to you a few days late because I left my heart in Barcelona and had to run back and fetch it. My first trip abroad to promote a novel in translation exceeded all my expectations. Huge thanks to Roca Editorial and my translator, Enrique Alda!

The Roca team put together a very exciting week – not least putting me up in a heavenly hotel! It’s not hard to channel James Bond in an environment like this. Between you and me, I did just that and began writing Book Three in the Double O series on the sunny roof terrace…

Roca organised a beautiful brunch with book influencers, where I got to talk all things Bond and writing. It was fantastic to meet such engaged readers who communicate their passions with enthusiasm and economy – one told me she gets across what she loves about a book in fifteen seconds on TikTok! I can’t introduce myself in fifteen seconds. In fact, this newsletter is the most concise I’ve ever been, and each missive is at least a thousand words. My English teacher at school once told me I was verbose. After running home to look it up in a dictionary, I could only agree. As President Jed Bartlet says (or Aaron Sorkin, really): ‘In my house, anyone who uses one word when they could have used ten just isn't trying hard.’

To that end, I was incredibly grateful to my interpreter, Marta Armengol Royo, who deftly communicated my ramblings, even carrying out a simultaneous conversation on the radio! And many thanks to all the journalists who came to speak with me, and the photographers who made me feel like a celebrity.

Hilariously, the very kind hotel staff even asked me to sign their celebrity book. So it’s official now, I’ll be booking restaurants under a codename and hiring lookalikes to take decoy trains – and my people will have to get together with your people when it comes to the next Zoom Book Social (March 14th, synchronise your watches).

One question common to all the reporters in Barcelona was: why does James Bond go missing in Barcelona in Double or Nothing? (If this is a spoiler, sorry! But also – what are you doing reading this?? Read the book!) Here’s why. I wrote Double or Nothing through three UK lockdowns, and I was longing to get off this rainy island and sip cocktails in sunny European squares.

More than that, James Bond’s disappearance had to take place on a stage as monumental as him. I needed iconic architecture to make an icon vanish. Europe has plenty of that, but Barcelona stood out to me because it’s not somewhere with which Bond is synonymous (unlike, say, Venice) and it belongs to the same mid-century modernist moment as 007, no matter what Fleming thought of modernism! (Not a fan. Ask Ernő Goldfinger.)

With that in mind, I said hello to Gaudí and his rivals and compatriots, and visited the Design Museum, where I coveted ALL the chairs. I wouldn’t mind the motorbike, either.

I also walked in James Bond and Anna Petrov’s footsteps around Montjuic, which I chose for its sense of a grand but worn stage, host to different eras and styles, the Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich Pavilion beneath the palatial museum and Magic Fountain. It was, perhaps, what visiting a film set adaptation of one’s book might feel like. In other words, I was a little giddy.

After these japes and capers, it was time to hop on the high speed train to Madrid. I was only there briefly, but I can tell you the view was just fine.

It’s an exciting period, with a lot more coming up. My next online event is a creative writing workshop for Blue Pencil Agency on the 21st of March – sign up here! And I’ll be in-person at Toppings Edinburgh on the 29^th of March. Looking ahead, you can keep an eye on upcoming events on my website.

If you’re a paid subscriber, please do join for the next girl with the golden pen Zoom Book Social on the 14^th of March at 8pm UK time (link to come). I’m also pleased to say that James Bond has saved the Royal Mail from cyber hackers and we’re able to post internationally again. So founding members home and abroad will receive a signed copy of A Wild & True Relation plus badges and ‘Postcards to Dr Johnson’, a short story by me transformed into a limited edition artist book by my sister, Rosie.

Let me take this moment to be a VERY proud little sister, and trumpet that Rosie is a FINALIST for the 2023 Aesthetica Prize for her installation Seagrass Walk! You can read more about it over at Rosie’s newsletter, A Nomadic Rose.

Paid subscribers, please read on to hear about the Scottish launch of A Wild & True Relation plus celebrating Jim Fanning Friday with Licence to Queer!