Rising from the Ashes

With some news.

Well, that took longer than expected.

I can only apologise for my protracted absence from your inboxes. Suffice to say it’s been a long, arduous few months of, predominantly… waiting. Waiting for edits, waiting for proofs, waiting to collate all the things I want to share with you guys.

The waiting, for me at least, is finally over. My book, The Usual Channels, is definitely, 100 per cent, take it to the bank, coming out on Thursday, 25th September.

And this is the cover:

The cover is especially poignant for me. My good friend and illustrator extraordinaire, Jeremy Hughes, is responsible for what you see, including the wonderful illustration of Parliament. Our flat in Seville is dotted with his works, many of which he’s drawn without my knowing, only to surprise me at birthdays or other such celebrations (a particular favourite is a colour illustration of the building I lived in with my sister for ten years; I will always have it on display). The Pareja de Hecho is also credited on the inside sleeve for my author portrait.

You can pre-order the book here.

It would have been just over two years since I began this project when I get my hands on the book for the first time next month. I would be lying if I said it had all gone seamlessly - plenty of unforeseen and unrelated events have made the process longer than it otherwise would have been. But I suspect this will make it all the sweeter when it finally lands on bookshelves.

I think that’s what I’m looking forward to most. Thanks to the pandemic, I was denied the pleasure of seeing my Bercow bio in bookstores five years ago. To this day I’ve never seen it in the wild, other than on some of your shelves at home. Provided there's no laboratory accident or apocalyptic event, we should be okay this time round.

I have plenty more to share over the coming weeks: endorsements, announcements, maybe even the launch of a new Substack all about the whips...

For now, I’ll leave you with my best wishes. Hope you’re all having a lovely summer.

Seb x

P.S. I’m keeping payments frozen, as I’ve not exactly been meeting expectations with content! As and when this changes, I’ll let you all know so you can make up your minds as to how to proceed. For those of you who pay annually, I’ll keep hold of some author copies and sling them your way!