It's been a stellar week for Hawke's Bay award-winning author Gareth Ward.
Not only is he about to release the first book in his new series, The Rise of the Remarkables Brasswitch and Bot, but he has just won the Sir Julius Vogel Awards Best Youth Novel award for his children's book, The Clockill and the Thief (published in 2019).
The Clockill and the Thief follows on from his first novel The Traitor and the Thief.
Ward says although he hasn't finished with the first series he is very excited about his latest book.
"In my mind there is one more book in the first series and probably three in the new series with the second one at the publishers already," Ward said.
"I'm really excited about this new series - the characters are really fun. The main character is Wrench, a brasswitch. And then there's Bot, a maverick mechanoid who acts first and asks questions later.