eBook Version of "Hafan Deg" Available Now.

 So the "Hafan Deg"' eBook went live before the paperback, which could take another couple of weeks. You can read the first few chapters--"Look Inside". I'm not sure when other distributors will carry this, but probably also another couple of weeks. I'll let you know, of course.

And, for your interest, I'm back working on  my fifth novel, now renamed "A Kind of Winnowing." Had to take my mind off the stress of publishing "Hafan Deg".

Feeling a lot better this morning, thank you, all.

Update September 23 -- Paperback is ready now. Thought that some of you might prefer a real book in your hands. I know I do.

Final Edit of "Hafan Deg" Paperback Proof

It's done. I've approved it for publication. I'm quite exhausted. But after working on this book, on and off, for so many years, it's on its own. Like another kid off to college...

I found 56 errors---23 of them were mysteriously-vanished quotation marks, periods, etc. I proofread the MS so many times, it doesn't seem possible that I missed so many, but my excuse is that the writing sometimes drew my attention away from the immediate task at hand. I found myself reading sections that involved me too much, all over again, and forgot what I was there for: looking for errors! This tidy-up work, after all, is meant to be done by a superior and dispassionate professional---The Editor.  It's hard playing two roles.

I know there will be more weird things in the final paperback, insignificant enough that perhaps no one will notice.  I'll curse a bit, when I see them, but I'll let them go. I'll think of them as hand-crafters' flaws -- the little imperfections in original art that make them all the more unique. 

Will let you know when the book is available.

"Hafan Deg -- Safe Harbour" is at the Printers!

 

After constantly referring to it over the years, I finally finished my fourth and most demanding novel and it's at the printers now. I don't recall feeling so emotionally drained by my three earlier books. Hafan Deg was both a joy-ride and a slightly obsessive journey. But it's done. If you write, you'll guess what I've just been through. 

Once I'd PDFd the manuscript to the printers, I swore I would get straight back into that London crime novel I was working on -- remember Winnowing? Thought it would take my mind off things, didn't I? It didn't, and I had to put it aside for now. Until I've (corrected?) approved that printer's proof copy of Hafan Deg,  I can't think about anything else.

I'll let you know when the new book is released -- figure early October, unless there are some serious issues. 

Here's the brief back cover blurb, for your interest. It could change, of course. Not much room to get too eloquent there. 

Karen Miles is a successful London book editor, a single mother in her late fifties. She seems to have it all, good income, beautiful West London apartment, regular travel, two adult children she is proud of, and the occasional man. She appears in control, confident, yet she is deeply unhappy, unresolved issues from the past re-emerging. As her days become more deadening, she acknowledges that this is not life; this is merely existence. A derelict house, 'Hafan Deg', in North Wales, where she and the children vacationed many years earlier, becomes the catalyst for her transformation. A touching and sometimes irreverent study of an older woman's struggle for  reconnection and validation.

Talk again soon. 

Confession: Those comments I never received? Kept nagging you about it? My comments folder was full. I had never deleted one in the fourteen years I've been here. Today I deleted over 500 and the comments box works again. My sincere apologies for being such a twit.