Demon Road Opening Line

The Demon Road proofs have been sent out to critics and reviewers and bloggers and booksellers and all kinds of wonderful, wonderful people ahead of the release on August 27. I can't WAIT for this book to get onto shelves. I want to know what you think. I want to see how you react. I've been warned by my publishers not to expect the second series to be as big as the first — at least not initially — and let's be honest, Skulduggery is a hard act to follow. But this whole thing has become a giant experiment for me, and it's going to be fascinating to watch unfold.

This weekend in London I'll be at YALC on both Friday and Sunday. On Friday, I'll be talking about Demon Road. On Sunday, I'll be on a panel discussing how the late Terry Pratchett has influenced my writing — basically it's just an excuse for me to yap about how funny he was. There will be signings both days, and I'll sign whatever you bring along.

There's gonna be some cool bits and pieces available too —"merch" or "swag" or "stuff" or "free things" like Demon Road badges and wristbands and maps and little pamphlets containing the first four chapters. That's kind of the point of this blog post, actually, because once those sample chapters are released, a plot detail that I haven't REALLY spoken about is going to be confirmed. So I'm going to discuss it here first, by providing to you the opening line of the book:

"Twelve hours before Amber Lamont's parents tried to kill her, she was sitting between them in the principal's office, her hands in her lap, stifling all the things she wanted to say."

I've talked about how this is a story about a girl being chased across America by a pack of demons. What I haven't said is that those demons are Amber's own parents. 

I had this idea years ago, of a teenager being hunted by her mother and father. It resonated with me because this is so obviously WRONG, it is against the natural order of things for parents to want to harm their children. I'm lucky — I come from a good home, and I have loving parents, but I am well aware that not everyone is in the same position. This inversion of values is why the idea stuck with me, and so the whole trilogy has become an examination of family, and what it means to be loved and accepted for who and what you are. 

I'm not going to say anything more about it right now, and all those wonderful people who are reading the proofs won't really be saying anything about it until the official release, but I genuinely cannot wait for you to get your hands on this book.