What I Read on my Summer Vacation

Okay, I'm back from three weeks of sailing, a vacation for the most part taken up with research on the Island Mystery Series Book #3, editing of the upcoming Reese's Leap, and lots of reading. We sailed hundreds of miles and had far too much fun--well, except for the part where I broke my nose (whole other story).

This time out I read mostly mysteries as that's what I'm writing just now, though I also picked up Mark Wisniewski's Show up, Look Good--the story of a twenty-something girl from the Midwest who relocates to Manhattan on a whim after breaking up with a fiance who prefers sex with power tools. Chapter One begins "I know of a secret murder and I've loved a speechless man...," and if that doesn't get your attention, I don't know what will.

Next on the list was Broken Harbor by Tana French, an excellent writer with a terrific series based in Dublin whose protagonist, Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, is the brash, love'm/hate'm cop from her bestselling Faithful Place.

And right now I'm about halfway through the British author Elizabeth George's Believing the Lie--the latest in her Detective Inspector Lynley mystery series. I love this author and these characters, never mind this is #17 in the series. Very much worth a try if you're not familiar with her.

Next up will be Jen Blood's Sins of the Father, the 2nd in her Erin Soloman series, and look for a review on this blog soon. I loved the first book, All the Blue-Eyed Angels, so am really looking forward to this!

The deal with Amazon...

Well, for those of you waiting for Hunter Huntress to turn up on Amazon.com (US), the wait continues. And will continue into the foreseeable future. Maybe longer. The book is very happily up and selling on www.Amazon.com/uk, but it seems that in order for books published in Britain to be listed on the American site, one of the big US book wholesalers (like Ingrams), has to decide to carry it. And so far that hasn't happened. It's a bit more complicated, but that's basically the deal. Soooo, for a current list of places where you can buy the book, as well as the appropriate links, please see my website: http://www.darcyscott.net/.

On a more positive note, the shifting around of some of the plot elements in Reese's Leap that I mentioned in my last post has gone really well and far more quickly than I thought, which made me realize while I was cutting here, pasting there, throwing out paragraph after paragraph altogether, and dragging lots of other stuff to the last part of the ms, how this change will make for a much better book. Ups the emotional ante, so to speak. I love it when that happens. I once tried to do this on another ms with disastrous results. I hadn't really thought the whole thing through, was the problem, and when I was done realized I'd completely buggered the plot. That was NOT a good day.

Minimal actual writing the next few days; have to get everything pulled together for the sailing trip we head off on starting this weekend. This photo is of one of our gung-ho crew, 10-year-old granddaughter Lacey, who's on board for the first leg and loves going up the mast for her Grampa. Stay tuned for uploads of the highlights and you'll be on a virtual vacation in a matter of days!