Today's the day. Passport, schedule, reading copy of Sepulchre - filled with scribbled pencil marks and all those words deleted that are impossible to say out loud in public.

In a matter of hours, I'll be at Heathrow waiting to fly to New York, for US publication day tomorrow for Sepulchre. It already looks pretty jam packed full of interviews and commitments - which is a tribute to the incredible hard work of my US publishers. Radio interviews from the hotel, in person interviews with the press, then a chance to celebrate with all the people at Putnam US who have worked on the book. Some of them are old friends, others are people I know only through their email personae!

It's my first big trip for this novel, so I'm full of energy (at the moment, anyway). Wednesday, will be the first chance to meet readers - Boston - and that will be when I really feel the book is out there, in the big old wide world.

Must double check again - passport, reading copy, clothes!

See you tomorrow on the other side of the water!

Kate

An author's relationship with his or her book changes every time a new edition comes out. The first publication is usually in the home market -- for me, the UK -- followed by (if you're lucky) a bewildering pot-pourri of translations and English language editions in different countries.

Sepulchre was published on Halloween in the UK -- an appropriate publication date for a creepily fin-de-siècle novel about ghosts and hauntings and mysterious tombs buried deep within the woods of southwest France. It went straight into the top ten bestseller lists -- in the company of such established bestsellers as Patricia Cornwall, Ian McEwan and Ken Follett -- and had fabulous and generous review coverage.

But, I didn't enjoy it! I was just too tired, having been writing full-on for many months. All I wanted was to curl up with a cup of cocoa not drink champagne to celebrate!

This is why I'm so excited about coming to the US for publication of the Putnam edition of Sepulchre which looks, although I probably shouldn't say this, even more magnificent, even more beautifully designed, than the original. Enough distance has passed from me writing the book. I'm rested, really ready to go, and so, in some ways, the US publication -- on April 1st -- feels like the real deal!

This excitement about having the chance to hear what readers in America think of Sepulchre is also because I wrote quite a lot of it when I was on tour in the US with Labyrinth, last year. I enjoyed the experienced so much that I used many of the places I visited as inspirations for the novel. I also have, in the contemporary sections of Sepulchre, an American 'heroine', Meredith Martin, who has more of me in her than any other fictional character I've written.

That's why I'm so delighted to be coming to launch Sepulchre in the US. It's kind of like coming home, for this particular novel. The countdown has begun....