Anyone interested in attending, please first become a member of the 007GB Club.
The event detail has now been disclosed.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C4OVpZQKSf4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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Considering the premise of this series, It would be amazing if we get serious movement on Bond 7 and Bond 26 by the time a third book gets released.
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From Kim’s Substack:
Girl Racer 
Gearing up for the launch of A SPY LIKE ME in ONE MONTH
KIM SHERWOOD
MAR 26
Dear Reader,
If you’re new to girl with the golden pen, welcome! I’m so happy to have you here.
Readers who have been on this adventure with me for a while will know that I can’t drive, something that produced a good deal of laughter as I was announced as the new writer of James Bond. This has become so well known that journalists actually open interviews with me by saying: ‘It’s a famous fact about you that you can’t drive.’ I tell them I don’t think it’s a famous fact… And now it’s not even a true one.
I don’t have a licence to kill. I don’t even have a licence to drive. But as we gear up for the launch of A SPY LIKE ME in exactly ONE MONTH, Thruxton Racing let me get behind the wheel of 003’s car…
It’s also just two weeks until the third novel in the Double O series is due to be delivered to the publishers. I’ve reached the stage where I’m dreaming about scenes and lucidly wondering if I ought to edit them differently. Isn’t writing fun?
There will be plenty of events around the country too, with a couple just announced at Bath Festival, one with our very own Charlie Higson. Take a look at my website for more details.
I like that the Bond authors are willing to support each other (minus some criticism directed at John Gardner, from Kingsley Amis and somewhat Raymond Benson). I hope we get more modern day Bond-centered adventures soon!
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Can anybody explain the difference between these two hardcover versions:
After a bit of looking around on the interweb, I’d say the first one is the UK edition, the second one is U.S.
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There are reviews out there. Take it with a grain of salt. Spoilers! She also has turned in the 3rd book.
WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS!! DO NOT CLICK IF YOU DON’T WANT A BIG SPOILER!!
We can officially call Kim Sherwood a Bond author as Bond himself appears in the book.
This has been confirmed by many reviews on Goodreads.
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Some information from Kim Sherwood on her Substack:
The Last Word
I just finished writing Book 3 in the Double O series
Dear Reader,
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s a relief because I spent all my words writing the third novel in the Double O series, meaning this photo probably sums up my feelings better than I can right now! I got down the final words alone late at night in Gladstone’s Library, and captured the moment on my phone.
I was first approached with a three book deal to write the Double O series by the Ian Fleming Estate in October 2019, and since then I’ve written in excess of 300,000 words in a little over four years. It feels like sprinting a marathon and my week at Gladstone’s Library was exhausting, emotional and exhilarating as it all came to an end. I don’t know what the future holds, but I have huge pride and love for these characters, and I’m so grateful for this dream come true.
It’s special and surreal to finish the third novel just before the second novel comes out. There are so many exciting events coming up and I hope to see you there.
From Kim, With Love x
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I might actually give the series a try. I’m somewhat intrigued.
Will probably wait until the 3rd has been published, and get them collected
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No “professional” critic reviews yet.
Any word on whether there will be special editions by Waterstones or Goldsboro?
I’m about half way through with A Spy Like Me, and so far I’m liking it more than Double or Nothing. It’s a much easier read.
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Let us know when you’re finished! I’m not seeing any reviews, apart from Goodreads. It seems to be more positive than negative for it, on there.
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I suppose it’s a learning curve in terms of genre conventions and personal craftsmanship. My impression was the first one could have profited from some rewriting and editing. Experience usually pays off with time.
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I just finished A Spy Like Me. Maybe it’s because I was already familiar with the world and set up, but I definitely got into this one much easier. The first one it took until my second reading to really just sit back and enjoy it. A Spy Like Me is an exciting ride all the way through. Kim Sherwood did a great job with all of the different characters, making them all distinct with different but intertwined motivations for why they want to find James Bond. There’s appearances from other characters from the Bond novels, but they never feel explicitly like fan service, and all make sense with the story. It’s definitely the Empire Strike Back of the trilogy. I’m eager to see where she goes from here.
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My signed edition of A Spy Like Me just came in (with a neat drink coaster and a business card with a QR code to the Double 0 series website tucked into the front cover). I didn’t finish Double or Nothing the first go round and I wanted to give it another try with the new book coming out. I was definitely too harsh on it. I’m a little annoyed with myself for not giving it a fair shake. I’m really enjoying the story and the characters. There are a few instances when the writing gets a bit tricky (one section in particular I struggled with the vantage point of the narrative a bit), but I’m on board with this universe. It’s obvious that Kim Sherwood is a huge fan. I have about 130 pages left and then it’s on to the new one. For anyone who didn’t give this a look the first time give it a try. Kim very much gets it, and I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate that the first time.
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Strongly agree. Ms Sherwood has a good grasp of the “Fleming Sweep”, and left us with a nice cliffhanger.
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Just finished A Spy Like Me, and I’ll just echo Double-0-Slevin’s review. Well done!!!
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I recieved it today, but I still have to read the first one and all the other books I ordered the past half year. I just can’t get around to it.
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Kim Sherwood’s recent newsletter.
Dear Reader,
Welcome to new subscribers of girl with the golden pen! It’s great to have you here.
What a whirlwind month! I’ve signed nearly 1,000 copies of the book in five cities for amazing audiences and I couldn’t be more grateful. If you’d like a personalised signed copy, the next person to upgrade to paying subscriber will nab the last giveaway! And if you’d like a signed copy + signed merch, join as a founding member!
Think of this newsletter as the special features section on a DVD, delving into the making of A Spy Like Me in locations Venice, Paris and London – plus all the scoop on signings, the book launch & more in this month’s Grand (Book) Tour!
When the Flemings first commissioned me to expand the world of James Bond with a trilogy, I thought about the nature of a middle book as a bridge or tunnel between one and three. That notion connected in my imagination with the smuggling pipelines Fleming uses as structural devices in Diamonds are Forever (1956) and Goldfinger (1958). This link helped me create the villains for A Spy Like Me. As I have an ensemble cast of Double Os, a network of criminal pipelines smuggling everything from diamonds to art to people would set up an exciting multi-strand plot with distinct yet connected adventures for each agent.
This was back in the first lockdown, and as I had plenty of time on my hands, I took a university course in art and antiquities crime (naturally) from the University of Glasgow to learn more about how looting and smuggling from conflict zones funds terror. If Double or Nothing introduced readers to private military company/terrorists-for-hire Rattenfänger, A Spy Like Me follows the money, as MI6 attempts to smash The Grey Group, a smuggling ring funding terror.
Venice
With my villains in place, I next looked for locations, and realised that Venice was home to a very James Bond cocktail: art, culture, glamour and geopolitics. Venice is an iconic location in the Bond world, beginning with short story ‘Risico’ and developed in films From Russia With Love (1963), Moonraker (1979) and Casino Royale (2006). ‘Risico’ became a key influence on A Spy Like Me, and you’ll find a minor character from Fleming’s story taking on a more significant role in the novel.
I decided to set a key sequence during the preview of the Venice Biennale, the world’s biggest art show, which transforms the whole island into a gallery. My sister Rosie and I first attended the preview of the Biennale in 2022 to research the novel, mixing with royalty, heads of state, artists, journalists and curators as I imagined Joseph Dryden (004) and Conrad Harthrop-Vane (000) tracking down an antiquities smuggler in a game of cat and mouse across the city. It became the first ever newsletter from a girl with the golden pen.
Now, I traced those steps again, invited by The Biennale to celebrate the publication of the book. A week before A Spy Like Me came out, I arrived into Venice by train, just like Bond in ‘Risico’, where Fleming perfectly captures the drama of entering a floating city:
But at last there was Mestre and the dead straight finger of rail across the eighteenth-century aquatint into Venice. Then came the unfailing shock of the beauty that never betrays and the soft swaying progress down the Grand Canal into a blood-red sunset… That evening, scattering thousand-lira notes like leaves in Vallombrosa, James Bond sought, at Harry’s Bar, at Florian’s, and finally upstairs in the admirable Quadri, to establish to anyone who might be interested that he was what he had wished to appear to the girl – a prosperous writer who lived high and well.
I followed in Bond’s footsteps, squeezing onto a vaporetto and then losing the crowds to follow narrow streets and cross pink bridges over turquoise canals. I made sure to visit Harry’s and Florian’s, just to keep my cover as a writer living high and well intact.
The Biennale is split across the Gardens and the Arsenale, the secretive shipyard that once powered an empire. As you might know, my sister Rosie is an artist, and she’s written a beautiful newsletter on this year’s show, ‘Foreigners Everywhere’, which spotlights indigenous and marginalised artists from around the world.
If you enjoy tracking down Bond sites, I’ve written about the specific Venice locations in A Spy Like Me for Trip Fiction, so keep an eye out for that.
There were so many special moments shared with Rosie in Venice: late night ice cream walking around the squares; falling in love with new artists (my favourite discoveries were Louis Fratino and Salmon Toor), camouflaging with the newly multicoloured Central Pavilion; a city-wide photoshoot; attending cocktails with the President of the Biennale and gifting my book to the Director before enjoying the best view of the city; and ducking into a vintage shop in a rainstorm and finding a 1940s dress I wore to the launch.
Paris
Paris is Johanna Harwood’s childhood city, and in A Spy Like Me a clue in the search for James Bond takes 003 home. Inspired by joining the James Bond France Fan Club’s cruise on the Seine with the iconic women of Bond in 2022, I decided to take Harwood on a floating gambling cruise before she has a run-in with her mother. Read about that day with Carole Ashby and the whole gang here!
Paris is another key location in the Bond world, beginning with Ian Fleming’s short story ‘A View to a Kill’, where Bond sticks to his rule of staying in a railway hotel. Arriving by train in the early hours of the morning, I questioned my decision to take Fleming’s advice and book a hotel squeezed by the railway tracks, but I was glad in the morning as we woke up in the centre of the City of Light.
Venice to London via Paris may seem a circuitous route, but the chance to retrace 003’s footsteps was provided thanks to an invitation from my favourite bookshop, Shakespeare & Co, to sign A Spy Like Me. My husband Nick first took me to Shakespeare & Co when I was twenty. To meet the Literary Director there, author Adam Biles, and see a stack of my books waiting on the famous typewriter table simply blew my mind.
Then we headed over to Smith & Sons, the most beautiful WH Smith you’ve ever seen, now independent. Smith & Sons championed Double or Nothing with a window display and it was lovely to say thank you and sign another stack of A Spy Like Me.
What do you do with a day in Paris? You eat, of course. We said hello to the Seine, the Louvre, and Rosie took one for the team and devoured bagels, cakes, eclairs, biscuits and crepes. Then it was time to hop on the Eurostar home.
London
In most stories, London is where Bond receives his mission from M, takes leave from Moneypenny and goes on a quest to face the monster. In short story ‘Property of a Lady’, Bond’s mission stays in London, as he exposes a Communist plot making use of Sotheby’s to pay off an agent, the seed for film Octopussy (1983), and Licence to Queer’s brilliant Jim Fanning Friday charity fundraisers.
As A Spy Like Me sees MI6 confronts high end smuggling, I had an opportunity to use the Sotheby’s connection. Researching the novel in 2022, I was given a tour by the head of Clocks and Watches.
Seeing the Sotheby’s Rolex collection, I was:
a) terrified I would drop something
b) inspired to consider our fascination with time in the world of Bond, which became a key theme for A Spy Like Me, linking to the question of how to make the time spent bridging books one and three matter.
So I was excited on publication day to return to Sotheby’s for celebratory cake and a photoshoot with Rosie. Check it out here. That night, I celebrated publication at a charity fundraiser for Hay Festivals outreach programmes hosted by Stonehage Fleming, where the rooms have some familiar names… One dreads to think what happens in the Blofeld office. Then it was time for the launch itself, a collaboration between 007GB Fan Club, IFPL and Harper Collins. Sign up as a paying subscriber for a behind-the-scenes look below!
From Kim, With Love x
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Has anyone finished ASLM yet? I’ve read a few reviews, and it seems like it’s an improvement over DON. It has a few surprise character appearances. I haven’t read it yet.
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