Ready, Steady, Dig

When you have spent the last sixteen hundred years faithfully guarding a precious hoard of gold and silver buried in the foundations of a Roman villa, the arrival of a bunch of TV archaeologists is seriously bad news.    

But the little household gods of Villa Corvo have ways of deterring intruders that the makers of the popular programme Ready, Steady, Dig! could never have dreamed of...

Second Edition, September 2009

Most of the changes are very minor - typos and the like, and a couple of spelling mistakes.  I've also corrected the Latin (I blush), and I have excised the Mysterious Molly.  Several people noticed this character, who suddenly pops up without explanation on page 134 of the First Edition, and vanishes immediately, never to be seen or heard of again.  The explanation is that originally the Corvo Family also had Camillus as a family name, and Vera was called Camilla, or Milly for short.  When I changed Milly to Vera, I did it using Find and Replace, which worked just fine, except, of course, where I had mistyped Molly for Milly.  Put not your faith in Find and Replace, say I.  Remember the writer who decided that she didn't want to call her hero David after all, and ended up with an embarrassing reference to Michelangelo's Geoff?

I have changed the name of the Crowborough pub from The Pig and Whistle, following advice in the Professional Critique of "Gnome or Mr Nice Guy" which I won from YouWriteOn.  Quite rightly, the reviewer thought "The Pig and Whistle" was both pedestrian and clichéd, and advised me to think of something else.  I asked for suggestions on the YWO Message Boards, and ended up with "The Stoned Crow."

Holly's suggestion of "The Crow Bar" also appealed to me hugely.  Thanks, Holly, and you will find it in "Gnome or Mr Nice Guy", where it's the name of the coffee bar at the Rooks Ridge Visitors Centre.

The most important change is one that I bet nobody will even notice.  It doesn't become significant until the last book in the series, by which time I'm sure everyone will have forgotten what it said in the original Book 1.  It concerns Mr Horton, and if anyone spots it they win a free copy of "Gnome or Mr Nice Guy" or "The Curse of the Corvos" if I ever finish writing it (it's completely stalled at the moment).  (Now there's an incentive to buy the Second Edition of "Ready, Steady, Dig!" when you've already got a copy of the First Edition). 

Available now for £6.99 direct from Amazon where you can search for it, or go straight to their sales page for the book if this link still works.