Somewhere between the
successful release of my best-selling debut, Monsoon Season, and the lackluster
release of my second novel, A Long Thaw, I began to feel like the publisher I
was working with just wasn’t the right fit for me.
Getting out of the
contract without an agent was a bit tricky, but I did it and I re-released A Long Thaw on my own. The process has been exciting, giving me
complete control over how the book is promoted and getting immediate feedback
regarding sales.
Since A Long Thaw was previously
traditionally published, it's already been professionally edited and vetted by
a standard gatekeeper, which hopefully will help give it that little extra bit
of credibility in the sea of self-published books. All I had to do is
find the cover, which I love.
I’ve always imagined
A Long Thaw as a modern interpretation of the old prince and the pauper story.
Abby and Juliet are cousins who, until the age of ten, live the same
privileged, sheltered lives in a big Irish Catholic family. When Juliet’s
parents divorce, her mother moves across the country so that she no longer has
that safety net. The cousins reconnect in their twenties and the book deals
with the ways we are changed by our experiences as well as the ways we are
unchangable.
As a writer (and human being), I am endlessly fascinated by
issues of identity and family dynamics, by the nature vs. nurture debate. These
are things that inevitably find their way into my fiction.
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