Children of the Seven Sands. Who's a little smartie?

So this is the cover of Children of the Seven Sands and I think (I could perhaps be accused of being ever so slightly biased) it's a little beauty.

So here's a big thank you to the elves and dwarves at Motivate Mansions, who sweated over making the book all really rather jolly.

The book's edited to death, although something horrible's sure to have slipped by. You've got 140,000 words to get right. The picture captions are done. It's all ready to rock and roll, basically. The cover's the last element to be settled.

And now it's just a waiting game as the NMC does its thing. Time to ponder how the hell I ended up writing a history of the Emirates in the first place, how I decided to plunge into non-fiction having had a perfectly pleasant time of it writing novels. I try not to remember the research, the tottering piles of academic papers and esoteric volumes. The cross-checking facts and all that stuff.

The acid test is around the corner now - Joe Public. Will it be enough of a narrative to be readable? Will it deliver on its promise of making the UAE's often bloody but never less than fascinating history come alive? Or will it trudge and heave, limping its way to being bookshelved halfway through?

I could care less right now. I'm sitting gazing at the cover and rolling the title around in my mouth like warm brandy.

Yessss....