https://www.instagram.com/p/DUxnFFEDL-C/?hl=en&img_index=1
I’m happy to report that some happiness is coming into her life!
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https://www.mensjournal.com/entertainment/james-bond-hurricane-room-excerpt
Hurricane Room First Chapter. It’s all about James Bond himself.
I think it may be time to change the title of this thread a bit.
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Going to hold off on giving that a look. We’re in the home stretch now! I just finished my Young Bond reread, so I have time to revisit A Spy Like Me to get back in the headspace for the finale.
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I got my copy of Hurricane Room today! It’ll be awhile until I read it, though.
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I’ll be waiting a bit for the signed edition to arrive, but I’m excited. Nice to know there’s a new adventure on the way!
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I’m about 40% or so into it. So far, so good. However, I should have read the first two as a refresher since this was delayed for so long.
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Mine came in today! 40 pages in and very strong. Glad I read A Spy Like Me beforehand. At any rate, so far so good!
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Kim’s (possible) last Bond letter.
Mission Accomplished
Hurricane Room publication week
Jun 01, 2026
Dear Reader,
We did it! I am now back in the building site home after a whirligig week releasing Hurricane Room into the world.
More thank yous than an Oscar speech
Thank you so much to all of you who pre-ordered from Portobello Books: walking into their subscriptions room to see an entire wall of books was such a brilliant start to proceedings it actually made me stop and exclaim, ‘Wow!’ Of course Pat was on hand to help me get through the signings. Thanks to all those Stateside and elsewhere who joined that evening for the online Thriller Mavens launch!
Watch the launch conversation here
Thank you to everyone who came out the next night for the Edinburgh book launch, especially those Bond super fans who travelled from afar, it was really special to see so many familiar faces. Chaired by fabulous Sara Sheridan, the launch was held at the Royal Scots’ Club, bedecked in Union Jacks and chandeliers, very Skyfall. And Bournemouth dropped points to Man City, meaning by the time I got off the stage Arsenal had won the league. EUPHORIA. Thanks Mikel!
The next morning I was dragged reluctantly from bed to board the train to London, which ground to a halt halfway down the country. Stress levels rising as the delay ticked to one hundred minutes, I began to think Charlie Higson was going to have to launch Hurricane Room without me at Waterstones Piccadilly. But we made it with five minutes to spare and thanks to my mum speedily steaming my dress, neither my zen nor my frock were noticeably disturbed. Thanks mum for all your mum superpowers, including reading drafts in twenty-four hours.
Waterstones Piccadilly is Europe’s biggest bookshop with eight miles of shelves and six floors. It’s Bookshop Mecca and I’ve never had an event there, so I was both excited and nervous – what if no one came? You can imagine my delight then when I followed Charlie on stage to discover we’d sold out – thank you to everyone who packed out the launch!
Over the past four years Charlie has become my favourite person with whom to share a stage. This was no exception. I am so grateful to Charlie for the care with which he read Hurricane Room, his thoughtful questions and the joy and laughter he brought to the launch. He made the evening truly special, as did all of you – we even sold out of books!
It was so wonderful to see more familiar faces in the signing queue, thank you for your kindness, the James Bond socks, the Fleming first editions!
Waterstones Piccadilly launch
We celebrated at Brasserie Zedel on Sherwood Street, naturally; thank you to friends and family from as far away as California for coming on this adventure with me!
Finally, publication day, and we marked it with a book signing at Goldsboro – thank you for pre-ordering signed editions from this gorgeous shop! Even if their signing chair is very tall and proved a challenge to climb at eight months pregnant…
Goldsboro Books signing
Thanks as well to those who ordered signed editions from the Flemings!
Thanks so much to the Fleming Estate, my agent and my publishers for making my dreams come true.
It was special to be in London for a few days, revisit my childhood neighbourhood, chant ‘ARSENAL!’ with taxi drivers, celebrate with Nick and my mum. Then we hopped a(nother delayed) train to Bath with our American friend Kate, where we all once lived, and visited old pals at Mr B’s Bookshop, where I signed a few more books! That’s possibly why I now seem to have developed carpal tunnel syndrome as my third trimester weird pregnancy side-effect…
Then it was time to travel to Hay Festival, otherwise known as heaven on earth, which draws over 100,000 people every year to this tiny book town on the border of Wales and England. Thanks to Ann Hill, the first female Master of the Vinters, and her husband Keith, we were staying at Clifford Castle, poised over the River Wye straddling the two nations.
That’s when the heatwave struck and I spent much of the festival elevating my legs and trying not to go into labour. Thanks to all the festival staff and volunteers who provided ice water, cushions and fans. I was reassured to learn a midwife works in the bookshop, so that’s all good then…
Thanks so much to the organisers for the fabulous food, artist party, serendipitous green room reunions and all the cake! So. Much. Cake.
I was delighted to start the week by chairing Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita about their book Convent Wisdom, a fascinating account of the radical lives of sixteenth century nuns. You know when you meet people you’d be best friends with if only you lived in Madrid and studied nuns?
It was a treat to interview Ardal O’Hanlan (Father Dougal/My Hero himself, who was so lovely, humble and funny) and Liz Nugent (sharp, wicked and generous) about their new crime books. It turned out both had sheep smuggling in their pasts.
Thank you to David and Antony Lowbridge-Ellis for joining us despite David having to peel himself off Hadrian’s Wall after a brutal charity trek. The best thing about this Bond journey is the friends made on the way and it was so special to share this time together. We recorded a spoiler-alert podcast in the sweltering media centre –if you’ve finished Hurricane Room, check it out here! Thank you both for all your kindness and time.
Make Hay While the Sun Shines
Then it was time for my last Hurricane Room event (pre-baby, anyway). I’m so grateful to Ava Glass for chairing me and Vas Khan so beautifully, it was a glorious way to cap off the week, and so grateful to all of you for making it! The signing queue went all the way out the tent, amazing.
Hay Roses
What made it even more special was receiving a Hay Rose made by my sister Rosie on stage – thank you Rosie for always being there to cheer me on and for being my constant creative companion!
I felt full of emotion on stage, saying goodbye to this trilogy, thinking about everything that’s happened in our lives since I was commissioned: we got married, moved city and country, bought a house, adopted Pat, we lost my mother-in-law, my grandmother and my father, we lost a baby, and now I’m a few weeks away from giving birth. I came off stage and put my arms around Nick – thank you for being with me every step of the way, up and down. I couldn’t do it without you, and wouldn’t want to.
James Bond, Johanna Harwood, Joseph Dryden and Moneypenny have been with me every step too. It’s sad to say goodbye but also elating, a sense of completion and victory. As we collapsed into deck chairs and ate ice cream while the sun set, I crowed with happiness.
The next morning, Nick, David, Antony and I all jumped in the River Wye and swam to Wales in the early morning sun. As book launches go, it doesn’t get more magical than that. Thank you.
The reviews are in…
… and I’m relieved to say they’re good: Hurricane Room was chosen as a top thriller of the month by The Times and The Financial Times!
Sherwood rounds off her trilogy in assured fashion with a finale that’s dominated by its mix of love story and mole hunt, but is also stuffed with fight scenes, psychological case studies and geopolitical manoeuvrings.
– The Times
Sherwood once again writes with confidence. The taut story moves at warp speed as Bond and his colleague Johanna Harwood, 003, flee across Russia.
– Financial Times
Hurricane Room is… an absolute stunner…. A number of writers have worked in the Bond universe, but readers should rank Sherwood near (or perhaps at) the top of the list: her novels feature superb writing, brilliantly conceived stories, and a Bond unlike any Bond we’ve seen before. A magnificent conclusion to a wonderful trilogy.
– Booklist
The last word
Charlie and I talked about the many different interpretations of Bond on page and screen and he asked which one was right – I answered, ‘Mine, obviously.’ I was grateful to Crime Reads for the opportunity to write about how I constructed my version of Bond – you can read the essay here.
girl with the golden pen is a reader-supported publication. It was amazing to meet some of you in the signing queues! Paying subscribers can read on for a pre-baby update. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
From Kim, With Love x
I will miss her cheerful personality when it comes to Bond. We are lucky to have her.
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Proud of her for making it through it all to deliver a trilogy that‘s incredibly ambitious and of a scope unprecedented in the franchise.
In addition to being deeply researched and lovingly appreciative of Bond history, she’s tackled an approach that many have felt concern about, but succeeded in demonstrating its viability if handled with due care: namely, the ability to craft a recognizable 00 universe where Bond is largely absent. She achieved this by ensuring that while he may not be physically present until book three, he’s always on the minds of the characters and his absence is driving much of the action. It works, but nearing the end I can’t imagine too many other creatives succeeding the way she has. It’s a neat trick, and only brought to life as capably as we see due to her hard work, which is evident in the detail and flashes of deep empathy that spark off the page. The way she sends her readers to the furthest reaches of the globe, in some case in a matter of a few dozen letters, while keeping you rooted to the emotional experience of the story’s characters in each of these books is admirable. I have about hundred or so pages left of Hurricane Room (trying to savor it) but I’ve bookmarked her essay to read when I’m done. Her representation of Bond is interesting, and I’d love to know more about how she fleshed him out.
Congrats Kim, you smoked it.
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I am warming to the idea of reading these.
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Same here, I will pick up the first one - from the shelf, I bought them as they were released - and hope to get through till Hurricane Room is finally delivered*.
*Hi Amazon, you do realise this is effectively your own property you are selling here? Might as well make it a priority, no?
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Finished.
Hurricane Room and the Double-0 trilogy as a whole is a story less about survival than about survivors. For the finale, Sherwood puts everyone through the wringer, but especially the women we’ve come to know, who are brutalized, humiliated and violated throughout. It’s tough stuff, but Kim has faith in the reader to carry on in spite of it, and the talent to keep it from ever wandering close to exploitation. These are women who are sacrificing their bodies, their minds and their futures for something that seems wholly uninterested in ever paying them back. It’s cutting and astute commentary, but it never takes away from the grip of the adventure at hand, which is, in a word, sweeping.
I still don’t know how she does it, but Kim takes the reader to the furthest corners of the globe, across multiple date lines, into every environment the imagination can conjure, sometimes within the span of a few sentences. The book feels absolutely massive in scope, and it’s managed with some of the most economical writing I’ve ever seen. Some may bristle at her willingness to move as quickly as she does at times, but the mental imagery she creates is so crystal clear that she gets away with it. I could try to be more sophisticated about it, but simply put, it’s really, really cool.
Bond himself is an interesting character. He arrives in fits and starts, a self-possessed ladies man with an extreme comfort for violence that masks a curious sensitivity to those in his orbit. He’s vulnerable throughout the novel’s pages but never weak, and prone to grand entrances that either hint at a part of him that desperately wants to believe in his own myth as a reason to keep going or an ego the size of the Amazon rainforest, or both. Thankfully, his presence is balanced well with the remainder of the supporting characters we’ve come to know from books one and two. No one is shortchanged, and everyone takes a beating. This is tough stuff, but it’s laced with so much wisdom, sensitivity and scale that it’s hard to put down.
I’m truly grateful for Kim Sherwood’s trilogy. I admit I found it challenging at first, and because I was threatened by its intelligence I struggled to see its merits. Thankfully, I got a bit older, read a lot more and was able to revisit these books as if they were new, leading to an appreciation I wish I had felt out of the gate. They’ve pushed me to become a better reader, to learn style and get comfortable with language that’s unfamiliar to me (once I settled into it I really did enjoy A Spy Like Me being written in the present tense, something I found terribly awkward at first).
As for a favorite Double-0, that’s a tough one. Johanna Harwood is an excellent character that I wish I could have spent more time with. I’d take a whole trilogy of books covering Joseph Dryden, as well. That said, given the extraordinary intelligence, resiliency and psychological fortitude required to earn the rank, and given everything she went through to give us this wonderful trilogy, it’s hard to deny that Ms. Sherwood would make for an excellent Double-0 herself.
Thanks for writing, Kim. I certainly enjoyed reading.
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