Rachael will be appearing at the Ladies’ Litera-Tea alongside Stephanie Johnson and Alexa Johnston on February 20, 2010. For tickets and more information go here.

Magpie Hall has been released and you can read about the launch here. Also, you can watch Rachael talking about the book on Good Morning, and listen to an interview with Lynn Freeman on the Arts on Sunday programme on Radio New Zealand National. This interview also features Rachael’s brother Jonathan King talking about his new film Under the Mountain.

Come and hear Rachael talk about her new novel in Christchurch:

An evening with Rachael King talking about her new novel, Magpie Hall, at Our City O-Tautahi, Oxford Terrace, Christchurch.

Tuesday, November 10 at 7.30pm. Tickets $12 on the door or in advance from Morrin on 03 329 9789. Bubbles will be served on arrival and books will be available for purchase and signing. See you there!

My new novel is finished! It’s called Magpie Hall, and will be released by Vintage (Random House) in November in New Zealand. International editions TBC.

Here is the back cover blurb:

“There were two rumours surrounding my great-great-grandfather Henry Summers: one, that his cabinet of curiosities drove him mad; and two, that he murdered his first wife.”

Rosemary Summers is an amateur taxidermist and a passionate collector of tattoos. To her, both activities honour the deceased and keep their memory alive. After the death of her beloved grandfather, and while struggling to finish her thesis on gothic Victorian novels, she returns alone to Magpie Hall to claim her inheritance: Read more…

I noticed this morning that my blog and website have had a sudden influx of visitors from Portugal, which alerted me to the fact that A Música das Borboletas, the Portuguese translation of The Sound of Butterflies, must be out!

It’s a lovely cover, I think. I’m intrigued to see what will happen to the translation in the places where, in the English language version, I wrote some dialogue in Portuguese. I guess some copies will inevitably find their way to Brazil, and I wonder what the reaction to the book will be there (I did give it to a couple of genuine Brazilians to read before it was published).