Yay! My third novel will be published in Spring 2022

It’s official: my third novel will be published in Spring 2022 by CamCat Books. Here’s the announcement in my publisher’s newsletter:

Spring 2022. That’s only one year away. Not too long to wait considering it’s been 25 years since my second thriller landed in bookstores. And, no, that’s not how long it’s taken me to write Fool Her Once. I’ve done other things in between novels. But, Book#3 has taken a big chunk of the last seven years.

Over the next few months in this blog, I’ll be sharing some of the highlights — and low moments– on the road to publication as I’ve already done here from time to time (select Behind the Scenes/Book3 from the menu.) I’ll also, no doubt, share some of the coming highlights as I work with CamCat and its editorial and marketing teams towards the launch.

Waiting to be Published

For sure, the time will pass faster than the last year. 2020 was a very long year. I spent most of 2020 waiting. Waiting for the coronavirus to go away; waiting for Trump to go away, and waiting for a publisher to snap up my new novel, a psychological thriller, titled Fool Her Once.

Coronavirus is still with us, but the numbers for new cases and deaths are trending downwards. Trump finally left the White House — although he took his sweet time about accepting the election results.

Finding a Home at CamCat

And, then just around the first anniversary of Covid-19’s arrival in America, I got the news that CamCat Books — a new-ish imprint in genre fiction — wants to publish my new thriller.

This is how the announcement appeared in Publishers Marketplace, the industry bible — although my thriller’s placement in the Digital Fiction category is not quite accurate.

Fool Her Once will be published in hardcover in Spring 2022 with the e-book and audio versions available alongside. The paperback version is scheduled to be published a year after that.

How It Happened

Behind my relatively calm announcement above, the story leading up to CamCat’s offer has its own dramatic highlights. For one, the offer came just about two months after my literary agent and I parted company.

The reasons behind the split need not be delved into in this blog. Suffice it to say, I was over the moon when my un-agented submission to CamCat received a fairly swift response from publisher, Sue Arroyo. Just about two months after I submitted my manuscript, Sue emailed me saying she would “love to discuss my manuscript” with me.

Discuss my manuscript? What do you think that means, I asked my husband, Joe? It didn’t take much to convince me that when the actual publisher picks up the phone to talk to an author about her manuscript, it’s not to tell her the novel sucks!  We set a time and date.

And then, silence!

Well, sort of. On the appointed day, Sue emailed asking to reschedule the chat. It was a Friday. She asked if we could talk Monday? What!!!!!  Was I going to have to live through a whole weekend in suspense????

Not quite, as it turned out. Sue Arroyo wouldn’t be the publisher she is if she didn’t love books and totally understand the authors who write them. A few minutes after I emailed back agreeing that Monday would be just fine, Sue responded with a second email, titled “Yes.”

“Have Some Bubbly”

She added: “And, yes, we want your book; don’t want you sweating the whole weekend.” Just a few minutes after that, in setting a time for the rescheduled conversation, Sue emailed with a subject line that said: “Have Some Bubbly.”

As it turned out, we didn’t chat the following Monday. For various reasons, our chat was delayed a few more days.

But, within a couple of hours of finally “meeting” and chatting with Sue Arroyo, I had a book contract in my inbox. Twenty-four hours later I asked — and got — some changes in the contract. A few hours after that, I had a fully executed contract in my hands.

And, so, I opened the bubbly!

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