Off to get ready for the event in question - anyone in the immediate vicinity who might be reading this please DO drop in, a friendly face in the audience is always appreciated - everyone else, the voice is teetering a little, balancing on the edge of being OK but still prone to attacks of the coughies if I take a breath wrong. I'll take a bag full of cough drops with me, and hopefully they will last at least until the reading part of the evening is over. Think good thoughts.

UPDATE
Back.

Had some 14 - 16 people there, including mareklamo and a lovely older couple who bought copies of both books for their grand-daughter's birthday and a smattering of teenagers with parental or other guardianship-type adult units in tow, all of whom meandered up to get books signed which is all to the good because this is my word of mouth machinery gearing up. One young lady who came up to tell me that she read book 1 in the library and very very much wanted to buy book 2 actually ran off to where someone holding purse strings was, in a restaurant across the street, and came back to snaffle up a copy of "Spellspam". All very cool.

The voice held out - just. The Village Books people are awesome, they took one look at their genteelly coughing guest speaker and a large mug of steaming peppermint tea sweetened with honey was waiting for me at the podium when I started the reading. These are good people, I'm lucky to have a really good indie bookshop like this in my back yard.

Anyway. I suppose I can't talk at all tomorrow, trying to preserve the voice for Idaho on Friday and Saturday. But so far, so good. I can do this.