Home from Thriller Tour

Finally got home Sunday night, late. It's been a busy two and a half weeks, starting with the book tour and ICRS in St. Louis, then going to Philadelphia and Baltimore, then home for a few days over the July 4th weekend (during which I hosted 30 people for the holiday), then back to the tour in New York City and New Jersey. The NYC part included attending Thrillerfest, the annual conference for suspense/thriller authors.

My fellow B&H authors on the Thrillerfest Tour were Tosca Lee, Robin Carroll and Jim Rubart.

I've posted quite a few pics from the tour. You can see them on my Facebook photos here.

B&H editor Karen Ball and marketing guru Julie Gwinn are doing amazing things to build their Pure Enjoyment Fiction line. This tour was one of their big projects. We had wonderful coverage at ICRS, including bus wraps on the hotel-to-conference shuttle buses, a front page ad on the ICRS Daily Show newspaper, and T shirts that we signed in the B&H booth. And ya gotta love the cartoon graphic one of the B&H artists did for the tour.

At Thrillerfest we were able to mingle with some of the biggest names in secular suspense writing. And at our signings in five states we met fans and booksellers. My readers drove from as far as two hours away to come. How terrific to meet such loyal readers!

Not to mention the humorous on-the-road stories. Let's see, there was the angel we saw on the subway our first full day in NYC. Male, long black hair in a sort of pompadour. He stood in the car and loudly proclaimed about the Holy Spirit calling all people. This angel said he'd been on earth for three and a half years to proclaim salvation. The space all around him was sanctified, he warned us, and nobody could get too close. Oh, and by the way--only females age 23 and under could be redeemed. Everyone else is going to hell.

Then there was Friday, July 9 at Thrillerfest. By then it had been two weeks since the tour began, and this introvert (who pretends extrovert very well but gets drained in the process) was quite fried. I walked up to a writer at the conference and looked at his nametag--Chuck Barrett. I meant to say, "Hi, Chuck, I'm Brandilyn." Instead I stuck out my hand and said, "Hi. I'm Chuck." Making it worse was the fact that I'd already met this man and his wife the night before at a reception, at which we'd chatted for some time.

Fortunately during all this travel I didn't have to write. I turned in my manuscript for Over the Edge (my suspense novel about Lyme Disease) shortly before the tour. Editor Karen Ball is looking it over, and I will receive her editorial letter around the end of July. That's just when my hostessing/travels end. No, I'm not done yet. Tomorrow the annual author's retreat at our Idaho home begins. The 10 gals (one can't come this year) will be here until next Monday morning. My mom will be among them. On Tuesday Mom and I will fly back to Kentucky for our annual family reunion. When I return the following week, my editorial letter will soon follow. After that--time to write another book.

Want to see a visual of peace? Flying out of this:

To this: