The third young adult novel by Catherine Bruton is inspired by the 2011 London riots. It follows the story of three young teenagers living around Coronation Road and explores their involvement in gangs, the community and the ensuing riots.

The central trio are a fascinating ensemble: Maggie, daughter of an MP; Tokes, a former drug runner trying to escape his father and former gang; and Little Pea, an excitable youngster still enamoured by gang culture. The vastly different social groups of this trio make for lots of drama and interesting social commentary.

Bruton's experience as a teacher and volunteer in the local community is evident in her depiction of the characters. The dialogue is authentic and she shows a close understanding of children living in the deprived parts of London.

Bruton is equally accomplished at presenting adult characters and the fleeting appearances of the central trio's mothers confirms this. Maggie's MP mother could easily have been a two-dimensional villain but Bruton makes her every bit as sympathetic as Maggie in their mother-daughter spats.

The pace of the plot is swift, starting with a Western-style showdown in a playground then building towards the titular riots, described in vivid and brutal detail which will cause readers to recall the shocking TV footage of August 2011.

I Predict A Riot is an accomplished and relevant novel. It is perfect reading material for a young adult audience and just as enjoyable for older readers too. I predict this will be a huge hit.

I launched The Sheriff at the One Big Book Launch last week. However, the event was not only a book launch. It was also a book fair and, between the speeches, we authors could be found at our stands promoting and selling our books.

This was my first experience of a book fair and I learnt many valuable lessons. So here are my top five tops for standing out at a book fair.

1. Get There Early and Leave Late - I arrived very early for the One Big Book Launch and this allowed me to get to know some of the authors. Growing an author network is very important for a writer because there are lots of ways writers can help each other. Regrettably, I left fairly early because I had to catch the train back to Birmingham. I am sure I missed out on lots of tipsy literary chatter at the pub. Therefore, my advice is stay as late as you can to maximise your networking window.

2. Be Prepared - in the words of Scar from The Lion King, 'Be prepared!' The evening ended with all ten authors swapping books with each other and naturally signing them with a personal message too. This took up a great chunk of time when I could have been chatting with guests. Next time, I will be better prepared and arrive with nine books, already signed and dedicated to each author with a carefully thought-out message.

3. Freebies! - some of my fellow authors' stands look fantastic. Julia Johnston decorated her stand with colourful electric candles, whilst J Paul Henderson's stand was adorned with free chocolate. By comparison, my stand was simply covered in books and business cards. At future book fairs, I will put more effort into the stand itself. I could decorate it with clouds or pictures of the characters. I could give Sheriff-branded magnets and badges to people who buy a copy. I could even give out free cake!

4. A Sign-Up Sheet - I have a Simon Fairbanks mailing list set-up on Mail Chimp so I can send a newsletter to my fans. Sadly, only my wife and I have subscribed to this mailing list! In hindsight, I should have taken a sign-up sheet to the event, simply asking for name and email address. This way, I could have stayed in touch with people who were interested in The Sheriff but did not want to buy a copy on the night. Another lesson learnt.

5. Pour Wine! - networking can be a little daunting. It often feels a little intrusive to wander up to a group of strangers to talk about your book. However, topping up their glasses with free wine is a great conversation starter! Your arrival would be welcome, rather than an interruption, and it also shows courtesy. After all, these people have given up their time to hear about your book therefore it is a nice gesture to make sure their glasses are not empty.

So I learnt lots of important lessons at the One Big Book Launch! I'm very much looking forward to my next book fair.

I had a superb evening at the One Big Book Launch as one of the ten authors chosen to participate. It allowed me to officially launch The Sheriff to an engaged literary crowd and introduced me to lots of lovely authors.

Here is a selection of photos from the evening taken by my friends and professional photographer David Kwaw Mensah.

I created a series of posters to promote The Sheriff. You can see the full set below. Let me know what you think!

All ten authors were invited to make a short speech about their latest book at the wonderful One Big Book Launch last week. 

In case you missed it on the night, here is my speech. Feel free to applaud at the end!


I love telling people that I am a writer. It is something interesting to say to people at dinner parties and I've been doing it for years. But, until last November, I had only ever written short stories and so I always felt like I was cheating.

Writing short stories is like running on a treadmill. It keeps you in shape but if you want to win a medal then you have to run a marathon.

Well, The Sheriff is my marathon. And, best of all, now I am more than a writer. Now, I can tell people I am a novelist and that sounds way cooler.

I wrote The Sheriff as part of NaNoWriMo, which is like Movember, only instead of growing a moustache during the month of November, you write  50,000-word novel instead. It was an intense way to write but helped me keep my foot on the pedal and The Sheriff is the result.

The Sheriff is a fantasy novella around 54,000 words. It would appeal to all fantasy readers and is suitable for young readers too because I left out the swearwords. One of my reviews has compared me to Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint which was very flattering but I would also recommend The Sheriff to anyone who enjoyed His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, which are my favourite books of all time and influence all of the writing I have ever done.

So, what is The Sheriff about? As with any fantasy novel, you firstly have to establish the world. I will therefore read the prologue so you can understand the backdrop for the story...

                                                                                                                  * * *

In the Beginning, there was the Clown and He was sad.

The world had moved on. The human race had multiplied, expanded, conquered and taken ownership over the world. They were a non-magical race but they had the numbers, the determination and the fear to purge the world of magic. Witches were burned and Dragons were slain. The world moved on and magic was left behind.

The Clown said NO MORE and summoned those with magic to hear Him.

The Twelve Magical Races heeded the call: the Dragons, the Witches, the Sorcerers, the Fairies, the Featherfolk, the Nightmares, the Nymphs, the Skinchangers, the Ghosts, the Mome Raths, the Elementals and those few humans born with the Gift.

The Clown promised them a new world above the Clouds. They were all welcome but there were Two Rules.

ONE: they were never allowed to go back to the world they knew. Not for vengeance, not for nostalgia, not for anything.

TWO: they must put their differences aside and live in everlasting peace above the Clouds.

Two Rules. That was all.

The Twelve Magical Races accepted these terms so the Clown rolled up His sleeves and clapped His hands. The Clouds opened and their new world beckoned.

Walking together, side by side, the Twelve Magical Races – so unlike one another but united by their magic – followed the Clown into the sky.

The magic moved on and the world was left behind.

                                                                                                                    * * *

...so that is the setting. A world on top of the clouds called Nephos. The Sheriff is set 300 years later. The world of magical races is still on top of the clouds and the races are policed by figures called Sheriffs who roam the clouds and make sure everyone is placing nicely with each other.

This novel focusses on one Sheriff, Denebola, who is a walking armoured lion. I imagine him having the head of Aslan, the body of Jaime Lannister and the voice of Laurence Fishburne. He is asked by a brave young boy called Toby to help rid his village of a winged demon. The demon has tormented the people of Angel's Keep every night for the past week so Denebola vows to capture the creature. However, Denebola discovers that the demon is not the only shadow cast over Toby's village.

I enjoy twists and The Sheriff has plenty of surprises throughout. I also try and make my novels as enjoyable as possible so there is humour and action scenes and a little bit of heartbreak as well.

The Sheriff is one tiny part of the world which I am creating. It focuses on one Sheriff, one cloud and takes place within 48 hours. It allowed me to dip my toe into the fantasy world before fully exploring Nephos in future novels. This is certainly part of a planned series, which is why I have optimistically put a number 1 on the spine, and I already have another five adventures mapped out, focussing on different Sheriffs and other parts of Nephos and its magical population.

Thank you for listening and I look forward to talking to you later.

I launched The Sheriff at the fantastic One Big Book Launch last week. 

My debut novel was chosen by CompletelyNovel and Literally PR as one of the ten novels to be launched at the London-based event. It was a huge privilege to be grouped alongside such talented writers and marked my first experience of promoting The Sheriff to a literary audience.

The whole evening was fun, eye-opening and gave me a taste of the professional writing world. It was also the first time I felt like a real writer and has motivated me to keep moving forward with my second book.

There were so many highlights from the evening but, in no particular order, here are my top ten moments:

1. Meeting Kobo - it was brilliant talking to Diego Marano from Kobo Writing Life. I have been a Kobo user for two years, a fantastic e-reading device often overshadowed by Kindle. Diego spoke to me about all of Kobo's innovations in recent years and it made me very proud to be a Kobo kid.

2. Coffee with Tracy - I arrived a bit too early but luckily so did Tracy Elner, author of Blue Eye, and Julia Johnston, author of If Everyone Knew Every Plant and Tree. We spent a good hour chatting away over coffee about writing, self-publishing and getting our names known in the Twittersphere. It appears all self-published authors face the same challenges.

3. Sabrina's Performance - I enjoyed all nine speeches from my fellow novelists but Sabrina Mahfouz was a particular highlight. It was less a speech and more of a performance, as Sabrina got into character as a waitress in a strip club, the narrator of her novel The Clean Collection. She was hilarious, poetic and brought the rhythm of her writing to life.

4. Catherine's Speech - I also enjoyed the speech by Catherine Bruton which was lively, rapid and full of enthusiasm. The descriptions of her novels were funny and memorable and something I would like to adopt in future. She described her novel Pop! as "Billy Elliot meets The X-Factor via Shameless!"

5. Discovering the Free Word Centre - the Free Word Centre was the perfect venue for this event. The Centre is the London hub for Free Word, a charity which develops local, national and international collaborations that explore the transformative power of words. A very worthy cause and a funky building. I hope to return soon.

6. Meeting Sarah and Helen - it was great to finally meet Sarah Juckes from CompletelyNovel and Helen Lewis from Literally PR after weeks of receiving their helpful emails. It turns out they are every bit as passionate about books and authors as their line of work would suggest. I hope we stay in touch.

7. Selling and Signing Books - I have sold copies of The Sheriff on Amazon, mostly to friends and family, but I felt particularly proud to actually sell a physical copy of the novel to a stranger! I couldn't believe they were giving me money for something that had come from my imagination! Writing really is the best job ever.

8. Getting my Freebies - CompletelyNovel and Literally PR had a few surprises for us, including business cards, stickers of our front covers, funny name badges to use as conversation starters and a scrolling big screen showcasing all ten authors and their books. Seeing The Sheriff projected on a large wall was a surreal and fantastic feeling. The front cover didn't even exist two months ago!

9. Taking the Stage - I was very nervous about taking the stage despite doing a lot of public speaking in my day-job but I ended up having a great time in front of the microphone. I finally had a captive audience who wanted to hear about The Sheriff. It was a unique opportunity and I would have stayed on stage all night if Sarah hadn't cut me off with their ingenious (but scary) party poppers! You can click here to read my speech about The Sheriff.

10. Swap Shop - all ten writers swapped books with each other towards the end of the evening, which involved lots of rapid signing and scribbling personal messages! It feels good to know The Sheriff is now sat on nine talented writers' coffee tables. Even better, I have nine first-class books on my coffee table! I have started reading Catherine's I Predict A Riot and a review will be coming soon.

Thank you to Sarah and Helen for organising the One Big Book Launch. Thank you to the other nine writers - Tracy, Julia, Catherine, Sabrina, Angie, David, Atulya, Judy and J. Paul - for their camaraderie and support on the evening. Thank you to David Kwaw Mensah for his fabulous photos. And thank you to Laura, Sam, Kate, Liz and Sean for helping me staff my stall and clapping loudly after my speech.

Collaborative book launches are the future. Not only did I launch The Sheriff but I felt like I was launching my writing career too. Time to crack on with that second book!