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Going back to the town you grew up in makes you feel like Gulliver in Lilliput. Everything seems so much smaller! Suddenly I could see over the church wall that loomed over my head as a child; the beach where I first swam lengths seemed tiny, and everything was so much closer at hand than I remember it being, when a walk to St Catherine's Point seemed a trek to the end of the world. But some things were very familar: there was my old house on the Esplanade, looking just the same as ever, but a whole lot more expensive. Jaw-droppingly so, in fact.

Fowey Library, now down at Caffa Mill, was certainly not there in my day: it was a great honour to be invited as a guest of the Reading Group there to celebrate its 8th birthday. The last story I wrote in Fowey was also an epiC, entitled THUNDERBOLT: THE ADVENTURES OF A DARTMOOR PONY. It stretched to over 30 pages of biro-scribbled handwriting and illustrations in a feint-lined notebook, and earned me a gold star from form teacher Miss Hunkin. I came away from my two-hour session with the reading group, who seem to have genuinely loved CROSSED BONES, with the same warm glow of achievement. So thank you to Helen and Deborah, Pam and Rick and Dave for inviting me and making my day so memorable: it was tremendous fun (and very grown-up).

All different -- all beautiful in their own way.
From left to right: Page & Turner's German edition, Luitingh's Dutch edition and Presse de la Cite's French edition

It's been a convoluted and strange process, this whole title thing. Readers naively think that a writer picks a title and that's the title that's used on the book wherever it's published, with foreign publishers simply translating the title into their on language. If only it were that simple...

I had about 300 titles for the book when I started writing. I took a long time to settle on CROSSED BONES, which I liked not just for the pirate references but also because of the sense of crossed fates, and death and antiquity. However, the American publisher reported that Barnes & Noble felt the title was too close to a thriller published in the US and weren't keen on the Pirates of the Caribbean connotations. After a great deal of back and forth, my editor Allison came up with the idea of using the lovely Berber verse from the Moroccan strand of the novel to generate the title. I'll show that verse it in full here, because I get a lot of emails from readers asking why I chose THE TENTH GIFT as the title:

God divided beauty and gave it to the ten:
Henna, soap, and silk -- those are the first three.
The plough, the livestock and the hives of bees--
That makes six.
The sun when it rises over the mountains--
That makes seven.
The crescent moon, as thin as a Christian's blade--
That makes eight.
With horses and books we come to ten

In the novel, Julia's soon-to-be-ex gives her a book, and that's what starts the entire story off: hence THE TENTH GIFT. But THE TENTH GIFT didn't work with the original UK cover, with its bodice-ripping heroine and pirate ship. Publishers often change the package for the paperback edition (which will be released in March 09): but CROSSED BONES didn't work with the new artwork, which is beautiful and very un-piratey. So we decided to adopt the US title for the UK as well, and thus CROSSED BONES becomes THE TENTH GIFT throughout the English-speaking world. Confused yet? You will be.

Best laid plans... So, I was supposed to be in Amsterdam this weekend to promote the launch of the Dutch edition of the book -- DE LEGENDE VAN DE KAPERS -- but have been struck down by a vile bug which has left me deaf as a post and in danger of bursting my eardrums if I fly. I am immensely disappointed not to be there: my Dutch publishers are lovely and their reinvention of the book, with a smart classical painting on the jacket, is intriguing. I was looking forward to seeing the book in situ, as I did in France and doing my bit to support their enthusiastic launch. It is always a great buzz seeing copies of your book in foreign book shops and supermarkets (I unexpectedly stumbled on LE RAPT DE PENZANCE, the French edition, in a Carrefour in the NE suburbs while shopping for dinner with Abdel and his brother Sadik and wife Ouarda): it really brings it home that your work has gone out into the world and is living its own life, going out and chatting up readers, even taking them home without your knowledge or permission. It's pouring down with rain here in Cornwall and my smart author-promoting-her-book clothes are sitting sullenly in the wardrobe with nowhere to go: I am reduced to watching NCIS on TV with the volume turned up to deaf-pensioner loud. Ah, it's a glamorous life being an author...