Out, damned book!

By Catriona

I'm supposed to be talking about cost-effective promotional efforts today. But, you know what?  My 20th book comes out today (in the UK) - Dandy's Shakespearean adventure; set around a production of Macbeth in a Scottish castle in 1934 - and I'm going rogue.

Apart from anything else, totting up the cost of the airfare to Edinburgh every year for the launch party (plus the hire-car (with its ruinous insurance)) would make me weep.

But of course, I'm never just in Scotland for promotion. I see my family, my in-laws and a slew of old pals. I meet editors for London lunches and go to stay with my beloved agent. And most of all I do research.

The research for this book - as well as watching films of "the Scottish play" and reading memoirs of notable 1930s luvvies (that John Gielgud was a bit of a one in his younger years) - consisted of slogging round castles, palaces and other stately piles, looking at stuff. Poor me.

The palaces - full of marble, tapestries, priceless oil paintings and bits of Chippendale - inspired the fictional Mespring House which appears in several scenes and where fantastically grand marquises and marchionesses live in splendour.

But the story is  mostly set at the much more humble (fictional) Castle Bewer, based on the ruined Caerlaverock Castle in Dumfriesshire. The day I went there was so wet and cold I was dressed like Vera Stanhope, in my dad's waterproofs -

- because, after seven years in California, I'd forgotten it might rain in August and went over without a coat, (Or socks).  It wasn't ideal. The thing about a ruined castle is there's no roof. And the thing about my research method is it's really low-tech. After twenty minutes all my notes were beginning to run and the notepad was disintegrating. So I sought out the only place at Caerlaverock that's out of the rain - a bread oven.

There weren't many other tourists there that day, but it only takes one to go to the ticket kiosk and report that there's a madwoman crouched in a bread oven, writing furiously and muttering a bit.

The guide was very kind and I think she believed I was a writer. She didn't chuck me out anyway. I managed to imagine Caerlaverock back into the family home (with a roof) it once was and even got the inspiration for a clue I'd never have dreamed up on my own.

If you'd like to read what Dandy, Alec, Grant, a company of players, four cultured American ladies and a handful of impoverished toffs get up to trying to put on Macbeth . . . there are a couple of options. UK pals, the book is out today! And the launch party is (a bit late) on the 2nd of August.
US pals, I'm giving away a signed copy to someone who comments below.