June is here, which is not really an occasion for celebration in Phoenix, Arizona. We have not broken 110 degrees yet. 108 is as high as we’ve reached at this point. I’m sure I’ll have a different story to tell you next month, Dear Reader.
My big news is that the tenth Alafair Tucker Mystery, Forty Dead Men, has been submitted to the publisher, and I am awaiting final approval from my editor. I think there will be no difficulties (she said confidently). The usual state of affairs is that the editor sends me a list of corrections and I have two weeks to clean up the MS. Then the book gets in line with all the other novels whose publication is pending. I already have a general publication date of February 2018. As soon as I have a firm date and cover art, I will certainly let you know.
Forty Dead Men is set in early 1919, and Alafair’s son Gee Dub is home from World War I. No one else seems to notice, but Alafair fears that the Gee Dub who went to France is not the same young man who came home.
I have been working on a map to put in the front of this novel, since so many readers have requested one. It wasn’t hard to draw the map, but I have a brand new copier and I nearly lost my mind trying to figure out how to scan the image onto my computer. Fortunately the deed was done and I remain relatively sane.
In other news, I’m looking forward to having a few weeks to clean house, do some maintenance, and read before the beginning of what is shaping up to be a busy fall. It’s still in negotiations, but I may be actually making a trip back to Oklahoma in September. If it works out, this will be the first time I’ve been back to the motherland in years!
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