My thanks to the lovely people at Our Book Reviews for reviewing The Long Second.
It’s a short review, and quite honest in that they admit that the book isn’t perfect – which is fair enough as I’m happy to admit that myself (with the benefit of hindsight, at least!).
I do, though, have to quote my favourite part of the review:
“A very clever idea … and possibly one of the best endings to a novel that I’ve read”
I’ll admit I’m pretty happy about that.
The review is here
After much consideration I have decided to, possibly on a temporary basis, remove Adam’s Game from Amazon and Smashwords.
Adam’s Game has consistently failed to receive the level of interest, sales and – most importantly – positive feedback that the other two books have received. It’s not that I think it’s a bad book, but I have begun to wonder if it is a less “complete” book than either The Long Second or Broken.
At some point I may sit down and conduct a massive edit/rewrite, but I don’t expect that to be any time soon. Other projects need to be completed first: namely the third in the TLS series, and at least one new YA (Young Adult) book – which will hopefully be submitted to publishers, assuming my agent likes it enough.
TLS3 is currently on-hold while I concentrate on the new YA. I am using National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) to kick-start this project – though I’m not holding myself to either the daily word-count (1667 per day) nor the total size (50000 words) nor to the deadline of completion by the end of November. I would like to have the first draft finished before the end of the year, if possible – as a YA novel it is likely to be around 60000 words so that should be achievable so long as the story remains strong and focussed in my mind. It’s an idea that’s been kicking around for a while, is currently codenamed WIW8, and will hopefully be a lot of fun.
Once WIW8 is completed, I intend to turn back to another unfinished YA, codenamed DD. Both YA novels will be submitted under a new pseudonym to avoid confusion with Marshall Buckley books, which will always be more focussed on an adult audience.
Only once WIW8 and DD are complete will I return to TLS3. That most likely means Spring 2012 at the earliest – so, apologies to the small but dedicated group of followers who are desperate to find out what happens to the Cole family. I hope the wait will be worthwhile.
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