BarryHutchison.com

As if I didn’t have enough to do, I took it upon myself to completely redo the Invisible Fiends website over the last few nights. The old version was a nightmare to update, and didn’t look great, so I’ve gone for something that can be updated easily, looks decent, and even displays the posts from this site, as well as my latest tweets on Twitter.

It’s still a work in progress, but most of it is live now. Head along to www.invisiblefiends.com if you want to check it out for yourself.

The last few weeks, it’s fair to say, have been quite hectic. As well as a house move that involved relocating all the way across the country, I appeared at two different book festivals on the same weekend.

Provided you count Friday as a weekend day. Which I do. So there.

On Friday 13th of August – yes, FRIDAY 13th – I appeared at Eden Court theatre as part of the Inverness Book Festival. This was my first ever festival appearance, and I was really pleased that it was at my ‘local’ festival up in the Highlands. As well as my usual trick of rambling on for an hour talking rubbish, I incorportated a new bit into my event. A poor, unwitting soul was selected from the audience, then dressed up as Caddie, the villain of my second Invisible Fiends book, Raggy Maggie. Then, after the ‘volunteer’ (and I use that term loosely) was revealed in all her full horrific horror, she helped me with the reading, by being the voice of Caddie in the story.

Here’s the Inverness Caddie – the lovely Rachel – in her costume and make-up, which was hastily applied by her mum:

On Saturday, I made the trip to Edinburgh, where I was taken out for dinner by the lovely people at HarperCollins Children’s Books. At the dinner I met Garth Nix, Darren Shan and his partner, Bas, and Louise Rennison, none of whom I’d met before. It was a great night, and the meal was flippin’ lovely, too.

The following day, I made my first appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It was all a bit nerve-wracking, but it went quite well (I think!). This time, I didn’t just get someone dressed up as Caddie. I went one better than that…

Here we have Maria as Mr Mumbles, and Henry as Caddie. Both of them were great sports, and their performances really made the audience laugh. Or maybe they were so terrified they were hysterical. Either way, they were making a lot of noise.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to lately. Now the festivals are over (until Fife next month, at least) I should have more time to blog here. I’ll also soon be offering you the chance to bag yourself a sticker like the one below. More details soooooon…

In the middle of a hectic couple of weeks, involving a house move, two book festivals, and an ostrich hunt*, so blog posts will be a bit thin on the ground.

Had to break the silence to show you this little beauty, though. It’s a rather fantastic review of Invisible Fiends: Raggy Maggie at The Book Zone. This sentence in particular made me wee myself just a little with excitement:

In my opinion Caddie is one of the greatest ever creations in children’s horror literature.

Want more? Click the link above and go check it out. In the meantime, I’ll be loading up a van and moving all my family’s belongings to the other side of the country, in preparation for the BIG MOVE on Saturday. More info, including photos, next week.

Oh, and don’t forget I’ll be at the Inverness Book Festival and the Edinburgh Book Festival on Friday 13th and Sunday 15th respectively. If you’re in the area, swing by and say hello.

*This is a lie. It’s an emu hunt.

Although the official publication date is August 5th, book 2 in my Invisible Fiends series, Raggy Maggie, is now available to buy on Amazon, and in-store in at least a few branches of Waterstone’s. That means it could well be in your local bookshop, too, if you’re lucky enough to have one.

I’m off to check my WH Smith. Will report back later if I find her lurking in there.

Every time I do an event and open the floor to questions one of the first questions I’m asked is “Will there be an Invisible Fiends movie?” and I always reply in the same way, with a firm, categorical “Search me.”

This evening, though, I was involved in a call which could mean a movie is at least a step closer. It’s all top secret, hush-hush stuff, and I can say nothing else about it right now, other than that the call went very well, and that I’m really rather excited about the whole thing.

The whole thing got me thinking – if there was a movie, who would play the characters? My son, Kyle, wants to play his namesake, the hero of the book. Fiona wants Johnny Depp to play Kyle’s dad (but I don’t think she was referring to the movie there, she meant in real life).

I’ve got no idea who’d make a good Mr Mumbles, though. Anyone think of any actors who might be able to play old stitchface?

It’s just over a week or so until Invisible Fiends: Raggy Maggie is published, which means it should start appearing in bookshops any day now.

For those of you who don’t know, Raggy Maggie is a creepy, porcelain-faced doll who belongs to an even creepier little girl called Caddie. Utterly unhinged and incredibly dangerous, Caddie is the villain of the book, torturing and maiming everyone she meets under the ever-watchful eye of her dolly.

Over the last few weeks I’ve spotted a few creepy-looking dolls on my travels. I’ve snapped some photographs of some of them on my phone, and thought I’d post them here for you to see. If you have any creepy dolls in your house, take a photo and send it to me at barry@barryhutchison.com and I’ll post the pictures here on the site.

Anyway, here are a few to get us started.

I bought this one in a toy shop today after my 11 month old daughter, Mia, took a shine to it. The photo doesn’t actually do it justice – in real life its expression is bordering on the demonic, but every time I tried to take a picture I failed to capture its true evil nature.

The label on the box just said “Bath Doll”, presumably because any right-minded person would instinctively want to drown the thing at the first possible opportunity.

Right, now on to the really creepy ones. Apologies for the quality of these pictures. My hands were shaking too much to get good ones.

This picture was taken at the Callander Toy Museum, just outside Stirling in Scotland. They’re all pretty creepy, but its these two who really went out of their way to scare the living crap out of me:

Action Man used to have moveable eyes that allowed him to look left and right. The big fella at the back there can see into your very soul! I mean… Jesus Christ, look at him! You can’t say you’d be surprised if he started moving, can you? Horrified, yes, but not in the least bit surprised.

And I can’t help but think that the girl on the left looks like a young Margaret Thatcher. If that doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, nothing will.

At the same museum, I took this photo. It’s a bit blurry because I couldn’t even bring myself to look at this lot while snapping the picture.

Brace yourself.

I mean, where do you start with this crowd? The big lass in the middle is an obvious contender for Creepiest Thing in the Room, but the taller one with the red dress and the face like a bulldog chewing a wasp looks like she hates every living creature on Earth.

And what about the sailor, with that cheeky little smirk? I can imagine him whispering “I been a vewy naughty boy” as he repeatedly plunged a knife into your neck. In fact, every doll in the picture looks capable of cold-blooded murder. It’s not a glass case they should be in, it’s a lead box. Buried deep underground. And doused in Holy Water.

So there you have it, a few of the creepy dolls I’ve come across lately. None of them are anywhere near as disturbing as Raggy Maggie, but you’ll have to read the book when it comes out to find out why.

Remember, if you have any creepy dolls in your house, take a photo and email it to me and you could see it up in a gallery on this very site, along with your name. The scariest doll might even win a prize.

Maybe.

But no promises.

The second in my Invisible Fiends series, Raggy Maggie, is published in just over a week, and it has already started getting some very positive feedback. In fact, the first review has been published – and it’s a stonker! Go check it out over at The Cat’s Rrar.

Now, if that’s got you salivating at the thought of some good clean horrific fun, you might want to download and read this free sample chapter from the beginning of the book. Don’t say I’m not good to you.

First up, here’s a review of Mr Mumbles from Weirdmage’s Reviews. It’s a good ‘un. I particularly liked:

I have to end this with a little note. As you may have noticed this book was published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, and on the back cover there is a label that says 9+. This should in my opinion be treated like video-game labels, not fit for children under nine, but with no upper limit of how old you should be to enjoy it. My + is 27, and I see no problem in recommending this to anyone who likes a good scare regardless of age.

I couldn’t agree more with that, and judging by the amount of positive feedback I’ve had from adult readers, it’s not just children enjoying the series.

Now, Raggy Maggie is published on 5th of August, and press copies are only just being sent out. So, I have no ‘proper’ reviews to tell you about, but I think the following is more revealing that any review could be…

Yesterday, I started reading Raggy Maggie to my son, Kyle. The first few chapters have one or two unsettling moments, but in general aren’t too bad. We made it to about chapter six before calling it a night, despite his protests that he wanted more.

Tonight he got more. We read up to chapter eight and I put the book down. Chapter eight, however, ends on a BIG cliffhanger, and he begged me – literally – to read the next chapter. Eventually, I gave in, and we read chapter nine. That was two hours ago.

He’s still awake. And still terrified.

I’ve tried everything to get him to go to sleep, but he’s too scared to close his eyes. While I was through comforting him, his baby sister started crying in the next room. He grabbed onto me, shaking with fear, telling me not to go in case it was a trap.

I told him that if the book was scaring him that much, we should stop reading it. But no, he wanted to continue, he wanted the next chapter right then. And the next one. And the one after that. He’s more scared than he has ever been in his life, but he doesn’t want it to stop!

I call that a result.

And possibly a serial killer in the making.

I’m massively excited to report that my author copies of INVISIBLE FIENDS: RAGGY MAGGIE turned up today, and they look utterly, bowel-shatteringly brilliant! As with book 1, the artwork is by the fantastic Jonny Duddle (see Author & Illustrator links on the right of this page), and this cover looks even better than the one for Mr Mumbles.

Look, see for yourself in this hastily-snapped-on-my-mobile photograph:

I’m going to be running a competition to give some signed copies away very soon, so check back shortly, or keep an eye out for the #raggymaggie hashtag on Twitter, if you’re a Tweeter.

Oooh, I’m so excited!

Not as painful or unpleasant as it sounds, thankfully. You can browse (or read, even) big chunks of book 1 in my Invisible Fiends series, thanks to some fancy gizmo from the bods at HarperCollins.

Apparently all I have to do is post a snippet of code here and it should work perfectly. Fingers crossed.

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Did it work, then?