INTO A NEW YEAR

I rarely get too personal when writing entries for Dr.Blood, but due to an absence for a couple of months here's a potted history:

2010 was a strange year, there were highs of course WHC 10 in Brighton and FantasyCon 10 in Nottingham, but there were quite a few knuckle dragging lows.

I lost my cousin in a house fire - she was 6 months older than me.

Close friends of mine lost the twins in a premature birth and my partner Helen lost a long standing family friend.

Here's the point where I insert an apology to publisher Lee 'Angry Robot' Harris and author Gary McMahon - I was reading an arc of Gary's novel Pretty Little Dead Things to review, but had to put it down.

Not because I thought it too be a bad novel, just that death was surrounding me in real life and as Gary's novel to me was pretty much a meditation about death and the pain of loss I just felt I could not continue reading it, especially for the purpose of a review.

I do recall thinking that Gary has found his 'voice' with the character of Thomas Usher and I know that more novels and short stories are on the way.

And more bad news was to arrive from the US, but this I will share in my next post later today all being well...