A discreet little meltdown

The Cold Minds is out, in bookstores and online; it's even a Kindle book on Amazon. And I'm thrilled! Or so my friends keep reminding me.

And actually I am. A second novel published—that always seemed like an even more distant dream than the first. And to make it even better, book 3 of the Hidden Worlds series, The Dark Reaches, is well underway.

But . . . it's happening again. Something I never expected, and nobody warned me about.

A few days after The Hidden Worlds was published, I went over to the Oregon coast for a week of vacation with my family, my parents, and my brother and his girlfriend. And just about all of them were reading The Hidden Worlds for the first time. I found that even on a sunny balcony with a breathtaking view of the ocean, it was completely impossible to relax while everyone else out there was reading my book.

In fact, it was a little hard to breathe properly at times. (Not to mention the razzing I got over page 138. Hoo boy.)

I worked for years to write a saleable novel, worked for months with my editor's help to revise and polish it after it was sold, enjoyed the whole production process, exulted the first time I saw the book on the "New in Paperback" rack at Borders. But I never realized what it would mean until that moment on the balcony. People who knew me in contexts very far removed from SF adventure fiction. Relatives, friends, my husband's co-workers, my children's friends and their parents—people were reading my book. And I knew that when they finished, they'd tell me what they thought.

And . . . that was a very naked feeling.

But, to be honest—I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Denying the rumors

The Cold Minds arrives in bookstores on June 24th. My first advance copy arrived yesterday. And I was immensely cool about it.

I so did not rip the envelope open and wave the book in front of my kids. Nor did I do any dancing around, nor did I riffle through the pages and sniff the fresh paper-and-ink new-book smell.

And it is completely untrue that I then bolted upstairs to my office and lined it up on my bookshelf spine out next to The Hidden Worlds. Nor did I grin at seeing two different novels with my name on the spine, side by side.

You see, I'm a professional.

A quick update

Coming briefly up for air, I'll take this chance to post that there will indeed be a sequel to The Cold Minds in 2009. I've signed the contract (a happy moment) and am writing hard.

The working title is The Dark Reaches. It takes Iain and Linnea far beyond where they've ever been before. Working on it is completely engrossing—and enormous fun. I can't wait to see how it comes out!