Remember what it felt like as a child to sit at the top of a very tall slide and anticipate the rush of air and loss of control about to come in the moment of bodily launching down the shiny metal curve to the distant ground below? Well that's sort of how I feel now as I pause at the brink of publication. I'm already anticipating the acceleration and the adrenaline about to hit me as I get out there in the bookshops and the libraries, clutching at podiums, trying to breathe between sentences, knees knocking together. The Summer Before The War is out on March 22 and though book tour is the greatest fun, in this quiet pause before, it seems a bit overwhelming. One, two, three...launch!