Greetings, Noble Readers!
It’s been several months since we last talked — all right, six — and for that I apologize. There’s been a lot going on behind the doors at Peschel Press, plus a personal distraction over the past year as I worked with my son as he transitions from high school senior to college freshman. That alone is worth a book (and it will be!), but it did take time away from my main job of delivering great books to you.
In addition to the great college hunt, I’ve been busy writing and editing “Ride of My Life” (still unfinished, but a lot closer) and editing and polishing Teresa’s first book, “Suburban Stockade: Strengthening Your Life Against An Uncertain Future.” Website visitors have been bombarded weekly with chapters from the book. Those posts are gone, but the book is OUT!
The trade paperback has been on sale since May 1st, and by the time you read this, the Kindle version will be up as well.
To celebrate and to reward you for your patience, the Press has cut the price of the ebook to 99 cents! Only you and the loyal readers who still come round the website will know about this sale. After Friday, May 26, the price will rise to $4.99.
(To those of you who asked, yes, “Stockade” will be available on Kindle Unlimited as well. And if you buy the book at Amazon, they’ll give you the ebook for free as part of their Match program.)
This version of “Suburban Stockade” is very different from the version Teresa has been publishing on the website (you may note that those posts, except two, have been taken down). For one thing, it has been overhauled. Several times. Cut down from 167,000 words to 132,000. Some sections were expanded and some chapters completely dropped. Sections were reorganized and the prose smoothed out and made easier to read.
In other news, Peschel Press pitched a tent in downtown Hershey on May 13th for the Art on Chocolate show. Every year, the festival was interrupted by rain in the afternoon, but this year was different.
We got rain in the morning AND the afternoon. Drizzle, mist, fine mist, steady taps: I’m racking my head to describe how it was. There were even moments when nothing came down, but the humidity was so high it didn’t matter; your glasses still fogged.
As for the show, we managed to set two personal bests: the most sales at any show, and the longest illness suffered by the Publisher afterwards.
Yes, the day after standing in the rain and 55 degree weather and feeling the dampness rise in my shoes, I came down with the worst cold / fever blast in years. Two days mostly in bed, fitful sleep at night, followed by wandering the house in search of a thought, and starting a post about the show before falling back into bed calling “what’s the use”?
The only bright side was that my caring wife let me crash on the couch and watch half a season of “Broadchurch” and the BBC’s “Edwardian Farm” documentary. Both highly recommended.
I’ve gone through a lot of reading as well, but I only want to mention this time “The Essex Serpent,” coming out later this month. It’s a highly regarded book over the pond — it’s picked up a number of awards, including the Waterstones Book of the Year — and thanks to a connection still tenuously maintained from my reviewing days managed to snag a copy.
It’s …. well, I’m not sure how to phrase it. It’s a literary novel, in that it’s well-written, about the possible presence of an antediluvian sea creature haunting the coastal mud flats and tidal estuaries of a rural county, and its effect on the locals, including an intelligent parson and his family, as well as a group of London characters, including a brilliant, forward-thinking doctor, and the woman he’s in love with who is recently, happily bereaved and throwing herself into scientific studies. There’s also a group of children swimming through this queer world trying to make the best of it, sort of like the children in an Edward Gorey book (but NOT “The Gashlycrumb Tinies.” At least I hope.)
There’s science, faith, rustic locals with their ancient superstitions, talk of London’s poor and their need for housing, the woman and her mostly mute and definitely peculiar son, all of them barging around London or the countryside, striking sparks off each other and overshadowed by the serpent.
I’m halfway through the book and I’m still not sure what’s going to happen, but I’m still reading. That should tell you something. I love a book where the author treats the words seriously, but there should also be something underneath them. The well-turned phrase that doesn’t say much tastes like weak tea. Anyway, check it out.
I’ll be back soon with more news. If you want to talk to me, shoot me an email at [email protected] .
And thanks,
Bill