Money Run is out in the UK!

Some of my favourite books are Ice Station, which was enthusiastically recommended to me by my Dad, Snakehead, which was left in my Christmas stocking by my Mum, Artemis Fowl, which was given to me as a birthday present by a brilliant clarinetist named Jono, and Misery, which was loaned to me by a woman named Venetia who is now my fiancée (that’s not the only reason I proposed, but I won’t say it wasn’t a factor).

These books are some of the reasons I’m a writer, and why I write the way I do. So I’m grateful to those four people, and to the dozens of others who’ve recommended books that I picked up and devoured and let haunt me in the years since.

I love my job. There are more reasons for this than I can name, but there are two on my mind right now:

1. The work you do keeps rewarding you years after you’ve done it.
2. You can take a year’s worth of effort and hold the result in your hand.

This arrived in the post today:

It’s the new edition of Money Run, which was released today in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This story, once just daydreams and musings in my fickle brain, is now printed and bound and sitting in the local bookstores of 62 million readers.

However, it’s entirely possible that none of those readers will notice it. The cover is awesome, but so are lots of covers. The only name on it is mine, and to the people of the UK, that’s the name of a total stranger. There’s no sticker on the front saying that it’s Oprah’s favourite book. There’s no rumour about Kristen Stewart starring in an upcoming film adaptation (yet. Where’s the best place to start a rumour like that, hypothetically?) It could easily disappear into obscurity.

So, if you liked Money Run (and readers often tell me that it’s “so much better than your newer books”) and you have friends in the UK, then please tell them about it. Not just because you’ll be doing me a favour (although you will). Not just because you’ll seem cool for knowing about it years before everyone else (although you will). Do it because if you like the novel, there’s a good chance they will too. And they’ll be as grateful to you as I am to Dad, Mum, Jono, Venetia, and everyone else who helped me discover a good book.