I always sweat a bit about reviews, and when Crossroad Press said they'd be sending a review copy of Fool's Run to Publisher's Weekly, I perspired a bit more. It's a natural move, but you never know what's going to be said.
A friend who's also a publisher told me not to worry. Bad reviews can still mean sales and discovery by new readers. What a critic didn't like might be what a reader of the review is looking for.
Brutal opening in a horror tale? Sign me up!
I guess all the sweating made the positive review all the more meaningful.
Writing a novel is a bit like putting a puzzle together, and it's also about decisions and judgment.
Once upon a time, I didn't think I had anything new to offer the detective novel. I wrote three trunk private eye novels starting in college and just after I started as a reporter.
They primed me for writing the first novel that sold, Azarius, but I didn't feel I had anything new to offer the private eye tale. I put my Benjamin Ross stories away and moved on.
I returned to the form while teaching a mystery writing class and studying and codifying the mystery in its various forms for students.
Si Reardon, hero of Fool's Run, took shape as a flawed former police officer on a dark mission. I didn't want him to simply go from one interview to another and piece a puzzle together. I hoped to juggle the tropes of the mystery form a bit and swirl something a little different.
The reviewer from Publisher's Weekly seemed to get that. Someone will come along who doesn't love it, but so it goes.
