Listen...

Just like this was the fastest story I've ever written, the music choices were just as easy. Everything fit with Anna and Rocco. From the first word to the last, every song has meaning to each word I wrote. Yes, lots of them are boo hoo I've lost my soul songs. Alright, maybe I've shed a tear during most of them. All of them. You can cry while listening to Run by Gnarls Barkley. I know this now. Gosh, I'm a cry baby. Anyways, this is the soundtrack to The Claim. Enjoy!

1. Florence and the Machine: Shake It Out 
2. Adele: Rolling In The Deep
3. TI: Slide Show
4. Maxwell: Pretty Wings
5. Madonna: She's Not Me
6. Justin Timberlake: What Comes Around
7. Birdy: Shelter
8. One Republic: Apologise
9. Mumford & Sons: I Gave You All
10. Damian Rice: I Remember
11. Gnarls Barkley: Run
12. Gnarls Barkley: Crazy
13. Faithless: Don't Leave
14. Massive Attack: Paradise Circus
15. Arcade Fire: Ocean Of Noise
16. Rihanna ft Drake: What's My Name
17. Kanye West & Jay-Z: Otis
18. Kanye West ft Bon Iver: Lost In The Woods
19. Interpol: The Lighthouse
20. Zero Seven: Ghost Soul
21. The Rapture: How Deep Is Your Love
22. Tom Rosenthal: Take Care

Mr Mamione will see you now...

Italian Knight number 3 is out and it's Rocco Mamione's story aka the fastest and smoothest story I've ever written. Hank and I battered this out like the Mayans gave us our own deadline and the world was going to end this month. I didn't even skip to the sexy parts and fill in the rest - it just flowed, beginning to end. As fast as it was it was also cathartic. I got a quite a few things off my chest about what it means to be a woman, a friend, a daughter. There's also plenty in there that came straight from Lady London - must give her props for the Epilogue especially. I've got words in there that I have heard so many times from other women. The women I meet in my day job, that I work with, that I'm friends with and definitely women I now avoid like the freakin' plague. Ultimately, whatever interpretation people want to put on this back, it's called The Claim for a reason. I don't normally preach, because I'm a live and let live sort of woman, but whatever decisions you do make - man, woman or child - own them. Stand by them. Defend them if need be. Then you'll get the respect you are looking for. Ah, well. When you read it, you'll get it. You know what? Compared to Italian Knight number 4? This is starting to look kinda tame. Hank's been on some special ish, I can't even tell you. Onwards!

The Claim ebook

A Rose Is Still A Rose

I think I'm terrible at coming up with titles. Although Put Out The Zombie will forever be a moment of genius that will make me laugh every time I remember the eureka moment! If you ask me how I came up with @Last, that's straight forward. Internet, waiting a long time, girl who can sing - Ella Fitzgerald At Last. Took me ages though.

Windows was more complicated. Only because it started in the mind of an eleven year old Billy looking to win a writing competition. Swear down, without the sex, Windows was created twenty years ago. And now you all know how old I am. Boooooo. So eleven year old me comes up with this idea of a girl who is being harassed by loan sharks and her best friend who's desperately in love with her saves her from it all. I like to think the reason I didn't win the competition was the fact that I made my apparent hero a bad guy. This is the original ending for the story. Nick set it up so Gina would have to come to him for help. Isn't that messed up? For eleven? No, I haven't had therapy, but I spent a lot of time reading rather dodgy material.

So I thought, about things that break, things that are transparent, things that show freedom but an absence can mark entrapment. Things that are a gateway to hope and show altogether a world outside that can hold everything hurtful. Where everyone can see inside and judge and you can look out and send that judgement right back two fold. Windows. Plus if you think about it, all the good/crazy stuff happens right in view of windows. Honest. Oh come on, I was young!

And The Winner Is...

...Jordonna Pearson

Congratulations! Your copy of Italian Knight No 3 will be winging its way to you come release day. Speaking of which, we are on track. Zshushing this shizzle into tight shape and then it is alllllllll yours! Thank you to everyone who took the time to enter. I'll say it again - it is the best, best, best part of this job - to hear from readers and being told which bits they enjoyed. Makes me all tingly inside. Not in a sexual way. Honest.

Pioneer To The Falls

Yesterday, I said goodbye to my godfather. He was in every sense of the word epic. Not only was he a military man, but he dedicated his career to public service. He was a wonderful husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and an extraordinary friend. Most tellingly, he was a man of deep faith and a shining guide of honesty, respect, calm, temperament and humour to me. 

People often ask me who my heroes are based on. Regardless of the random, dodgy and illegal things they do, at their core, they are gentlemen. It's because that's who my godfather was - an absolute gentleman. Incredible really, given he was raised in South London. 

I've put a dedication to him in my next book. It may be inappropriate, but my godfather was a man who had an infinite capacity for love. A unique human being whom I will sorely miss. In that respect, it is completely the right book to dedicate to him. Actually, I may do it for two. 

No 1 In Threesome

Italian Knight number 3 is finished and has been submitted for editing! It's got weight to it people. Almost 44,000 words. As usual, there were parts that were difficult to write. It meant dredging up old feelings of betrayal and hurt and humiliation and... damn, did I enjoy any of this? That's a lie, yes. I got to play around with some fantastic characters, from crazy to more crazy and psychotic in between. If any of them seem excessive to you, I'm now convinced I'm surrounded by mental patients. Actually, between my job, the writing, my family and my friends, I'm rather surprised I haven't been committed myself. Meh, there's still time. It is also my fastest ever writing. From the trickle of the prologue to the BL that comes at the end of my manuscript, took me a total of 36 days. Considering I don't plot a story, it usually just tells itself and for once, I wrote from beginning to end, I am genuinely quite shocked. Hank has obviously forgiven me for calling him a lazy whore!

How Deep Is Your Love?

Happy Anniversary to Nick and Gina! One year ago today, Windows was published. I'll admit when I saw the email from Jayha, asking me how I felt, I looked at my book all shiny and packaged and ready to be opened and I had a little cry. Even now, looking at that cover, it's sort of unreal and surreal. Did I really share them with the rest of the world? Crazy. Seriously, where has this year gone?

Anyway, as a thank you for embracing those two nut jobs, I am giving away a copy of Italian Knight 3 or 4. Depending which one gets finished first, they're both at the final hurdle. I've got two going at the same time, so who's next is going to be a surprise, more for me than anyone else. Yes give away! Why not, I haven't done one of these myself, get on board.

To enter my anniversary competition, just email me and tell me what was your favourite scene in either Windows or On Caristo's Watch and tell me why. Show me the love, where you really felt it, or laughed or sighed or thought 'is she serious?' or remembered that you're in public and if the dude reading over your shoulder gets to that paragraph you're both going to be really embarrassed. Talk to me, surprise me, remind me how much of the story I've forgotten all about.

The competition will close on 17 March 2012 and a winner will be adulated and exalted on high. Well, I'll announce it and someone will get the new Italian Knight into their inbox from Beautiful Trouble Publishing. Email me at billylondonluv@gmail.com and let the Italian Games begin! Salute!