The Night Sky In My Head Publication-Day Guest Post!

Today The Night Sky In My Head is released!  It's an amazing book, perfect for fans of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (so, therefore me!).   Make sure you check out all the teasers - they are amazing and very, very, well, teasing!!  Enjoy the post...


Do you think that places have memories? And, if so, can these memories be felt?

Sometimes, people say that they notice a certain tension in a room where a tragic event, perhaps an untimely death, has occurred. Others feel a strong sense of peace and healing in religious buildings, soaked in prayer. Rumour has it that birds would not land in Auschwitz for a long time after the atrocities were carried out there. Could they instinctively sense that something was wrong?

Mikey, the protagonist in The Night Sky in my Head, can sense the memories in certain places. In fact, he doesn’t just sense them – he can see them and hear them, replaying in front of him like a real-life film. He calls it watching the Backwards.

But the Backwards can be frightening.

Mikey can’t control it –  he can’t tell which bit of the Backwards he’s going to see. Sometimes he sees everyday things that happened in the past – perhaps the tramp taking a snooze in his garden shed, or his Mum pottering in the garden. However sometimes events from the past try to replay for Mikey, and he knows that they are very dark. Mikey doesn’t want to see what hides in the shadows.

Over the past four weeks, I have chosen extracts from The Night Sky that show readers different aspects of Mikey’s strange gift (clue: descriptions of the Backwards visions are in emboldened font):

Week 1 (7^th June: http://www.readaraptor.co.uk) - this extract hints at one of the dark things in the Backwards that Mikey doesn’t want to see (‘the murderer is behind me’).  See her extract: here.

Week 2 (14^th June: http://www.susankmann.co.uk) - Mikey tries to untangle his thoughts and work out the ‘rules’ of his strange psychic gift. How does ‘watching the Backwards’ work?  See her extract: here.

Week 3 (21^st June: http://www.serendipityreviews.co.uk) - the local farmer, Cackler, suggests that Mikey’s gift might help him to heal the past.

As time goes on, Mikey begins to think that the farmer may be right. As he sees things in the Backwards that seem to relate to his dad’s disappearance, Mikey realises that he has to uncover the truth behind these frightening secrets before the past starts to repeat itself.  See her extract: here.

Week 4 (28^th June: http://www.iwanttoreadthat.com) - for the final extract, I revealed a longer section from Chapter 1. Now that readers had a taster for the Backwards, I wanted them to start the story from the place it is meant to begin: when Mikey first shows us what the Backwards is showing him…  See her review: here.


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Synopsis From Goodreads:

Step backwards. Witness the murder. Find the truth

Mikey Baxter isn't like other fourteen year old boys. Not since the accident.

The world sees him as damaged. But Mikey has a remarkable gift: the ability to go backwards in time and witness things that hide in the shadows.

Now he must uncover the terrifying truth behind his dad's disappearance. Before the past starts to repeat itself . . .

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Thank you for the guest post Sarah and OUP!  Everyone, I don't know about you but I'm really excited for this one!  I can tell you from what I've read, it's amazing!  Let me know what you think!! :D