In February, I was delighted that the IRISH INDEPENDENT re-issued SLAMMERKIN as the last in its series of 20 classic novels by Irish women, including Edna O’Brien, Anne Enright, Nuala O’Faolain, Clare Boylan and Jennifer Johnston. Right now I’m sitting here gazing fondly at my new baby, so smooth and beautiful on the outside, tense and meaty on the inside… of course I’m talking not about either of my human progeny but the latest paper one, THE SEALED LETTER.  The novel has just been published by HarperCollins Canada and is meeting with much kindness from its fairy godmothers (meaning book reviewers, who as we know can bring evil spells as easily as gifts). My first but definitely not last encounter with the nineteenth century, THE SEALED LETTER is based on a sordid London divorce of the 1860s, the Codrington Case, and the GLOBE AND MAIL calls it ‘a thoroughly riveting courtroom drama’. I see this book as the third in a sort of loose trilogy of investigations of the British class system: the appalling poor in SLAMMERKIN, the absurdly rich in LIFE MASK, and now in THE SEALED LETTER, the desperately respectable middle classes. If you’d like to be kept posted about my readings in Canada, sign up with AuthorTracker at http://www.harpercollins.ca/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=1554680360. Dates include Hamilton Pride (9 June), Toronto Pride (28 June), the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront in Toronto (22 October – 1 November) and several Maritimes appearances as part of the Lorenzo Reading Series in late November. In the US, THE SEALED LETTER will appear from Harcourt in September; for details of my ten-city tour, watch this space. Right now I’m immersed in the research and planning for my next historical novel, CHARIVARI, a literary thriller set in Cobourg, Ontario during the Prince of Wales’s visit of 1860.