Discovery

When you don't have time to keep up with your own news, search the Internet.

A few days ago I ended up on my author page at amazon.com--now I can't even remember why. Lo and behold I saw an unrecognized book cover with my name on it. What the heck?

Answer: my Hidden Faces series had sold to Thorndike Press for large print editions.

I'd known about the sale. Sort of. On account of the fact I'd received a copy of two of the books in the mail upon their publishing. Very recently I received Web of Lies. But that's book four in the series. Some time ago I opened a package and found Stain of Guilt, book two. The infamous novel for which one disgruntled reader charged me with "malfeasance" and a "miscarriage of writting." (Sic) Apparently Thorndike didn't agree. The book's now in hard cover with large print. Priced at a mere $27.95.

Receiving books two and four, you think I would have asked about one and three--Brink of Death and Dead of Night. But I didn't. I've been distracted this year with this thing called multiple contracts. I've been keeping my head down big time, just trying to stay above water. (Hey, a mixed metaphor. A quite illogical one at that.) You'd think I would at least have noticed the subrights sales on my royalty statements. (Zondervan sold the rights.) I do read those statements very carefully. Somehow for books one and three--I didn't see them. Or maybe I did but no longer remember. Which could be for myriad reasons. (1) Too busy making aforementioned deadlines. (2) Anesthesia fog due to three surgeries this year. (3) I'm 51 and losing it.

I vote for all three.

It was Dead of Night I found on amazon. Books two and four are there too. For some reason, amazon doesn't list Brink of Death. But finding DON, which I didn't know existed, I got the clever idea to search for BOD. Found it on the Thorndike Press site.

My mother and her buds will be thrilled. At her retirement village the non BHCCers eagerly wait for my next book to arrive at their library. Once my latest release didn't even make it to the shelves. I put a copy on the librarian's desk and it disappeared--never to be found.

Ya just can't trust those retirees.

Now with an easier-to-read version, the books may disappear all the faster.

Next time I can spare a few minutes, I plan to google myself. Maybe I'll discover a house I didn't know I owned. Or a long lost brother or sister. Better yet, a rich and generous uncle.

Best of all--I book I didn't know I'd written. I could turn it in for my next deadline.